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bokettochild · 3 years ago

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Request: Fairy Hyrule, Minish Four and Bunny Legend cuddlefic? Mostly because I love the idea of hugging a bunny ten times your size. THINK OF THE (literal) FLUFF AND SOFTNESS

So... I got a bit caught up in the WHY of them all being Small, and... this happened.

It all got deleted halfway through and I had to rewrite it from memory, but it turned out okay (although I don't like the flow as much this time through), bt it's... a bit long. This baby was ten pages, and it took forever to get to the cuddling bit- sorry about that.

Anyways, Anon, here is your (long overdue) Tiny fic (it ain't tiny).

The others are laughing and it’s making him mad. Usually, he’s just smack them over the head (a much good as it would do, curse his weak arms) but usually he can reach that high.

Right now, he can’t.

Because right now, he’s a freaking rabbit

He’s a little pink rabbit sitting in the middle of a circle of heroes who are all laughing at him, and more than anything he wants to hop his freaking furry tail over to Warrior’s horrid choice of footwear and bite the shit out of the captain’s ankles; he deserves it (the rancher does to).

“How did this happen?” Hyrule wheezes out, and even though he wants to be, Legend finds that he can’t be mad at the healer, not when the kid’s face is flushed with laughter, his smile bright and carefree, golden gaze watery under the force of his bell-like laughter as it pricks at Legend’s sensitive ears.

“I don’t know!” Twilight wheezes from where he’s leaning against Time, hearty chuckles exploring from him unabashedly as he looks down at Legend. “We were scouting around the camp and when I turned around,” He gestures weakly to the veteran, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. “Rabbit!”

Legend scowls. He doesn’t even know what happened. One minute he was walking and the next he was tumbling head over paws on the pathway. He’d refused to let Twilight carry him back to camp (if only to try and maintain whatever dignity he had left) and had waited hopefully for Twilight to retrieve the Master Sword for him, only for Warriors to stumble upon him with the darkest expression he’s ever seen on the captain’s face.

Warriors’ expression at seeing a rabbit might very well haunt Legend’s dreams for ages to come, and had prompted a squeak of fear from him that had sent Sky darting up from his seat. “Legend!” The Chosen Hero had shouted, concern in his sky-blue eyes as he had skidded to his knees at Legend’s side, cautious hands scooping him up and inspecting him for injuries in the brief moment where he was too shocked to protest. Of course, he wouldn’t stand it for long, and after pawing at Sky’s fingers with angry huffs and squeaks that he was going to hope the others would forget about, he had been released back onto the ground.

Which landed them where they were now, surrounded by cackling heroes as they stared down at the fluffy pink ball of fur that was their salty veteran.

“Wow vet, I’d’ve never guessed, a rabbit?” Warriors wheezes, eyes full of mirth. “No wonder we don’t get along!”

He rolls his eyes and growls as best as he can as a rabbit (not like he can growl anyway, but he tries none-the-less). “Just hand over the Master Sword so we can get this shit over with.” He squeaks, ignoring how his growls sound more like honks and chitters than anything threatening.

Sky looks at him oddly, as do several of the others, none of them (save Twi and Sky) apparently expecting him to be able to speak in this form, but the Chosen Hero obliges regardless, reaching back for the Master Sword and carefully settling it within Legend’s reach.

The cool cross-guard is comfortable under his paws, even if it is too big, and he sighs in relief as the power of the blade flows over him. In a moment, his form will disappear into the light and reappear, whole and Hylian, and fully capable of kicking some rancher ass.

Just a moment....

A second more...

He blinks his eyes open, violet flitting across the blade in mounting concern as he takes in the fluffy pink paws that are where his hands should be. Why isn’t it working? Why is he still a helpless rabbit?

“That’s weird.” Twilight and Sky both murmur, exchanging a worried glance as the Skyloftian retrieves the blade. He lunges after it though, not giving Sky a chance to inspect the blade and instead startling him with the weight of a rabbit in his lap as pink paws reach up to grasp the sword hilt again.

“Fi, explain.”

The sword spirit’s voice rings clear and cool in his head as Sky lowers the blade further, better into his reach. He hardly processes the motion, so focused on the words, which is perhaps why he doesn't question the stabilizing hand that lowers onto his back.

“Young Master,” Fi chimes softly in his mind. “The forces which have transformed you are not dark in nature. There is a 76% chance that they are in fact, of nature themselves. As such, my blade is unable to undo the curse. You will likely have to wait until this curse runs its course.”

“How long.” He grates out, nose shivering in irritation as his ears flick back, brushing gently against the Skyloftian's fingers and making Sky gasp softly.

“Processing....There is a 49% percent chance that this curse will fade and return you to your Hylian form in approximately three days' time, and there is a 27% percent chance that it will take a week for said change to occur. Additionally, there is a 15% percent chance that the curse will not fade, and a 9% chance that this curse will make you explode.”

A strangled screech escapes him and he doesn’t even realize his paws have released the sacred blade until they are grasping at his ears, tugging with all of the pent-up emotion inside of his body as he processes the words. Never mind the exploding bit, he might not turn back? There’s only a fifty-fifty chance that he’ll turn back in the next few days?

Sky’s long fingers drag through his fur gently, rubbing soothing circles over his back. “What did she say?”

“Three days!” He tugs his ears again. “Three days of being utterly useless and helpless, and it’s not even certain that I’ll turn back! I could be stuck like this forever! I could explode!”

“Exploding doesn’t seem likely-” Twilight attempts to calm him, but it only makes him tug his ears harder.

“Fi said it might happen!” He shouts back, high pitched and squeaky, and hating every second of it. He buries his face in the fabric beneath him, his rabbit heart pounding with panic and cold dread washing over him as the words continue to spew from his mouth. “And if Fi said it could happen than it might! And we were about to go into battle too! What’ll happen if someone gets hurt? I can’t help anyone and there's absolutely nothing that stupid bunny could do and-”

Someone’s scratching his ears.

Long fingers rubbing just right between them and Legend is helpless to tell them to stop because he’s too busy melting into a puddle in Sky’s lap at the sensation. All thoughts flee as he lets Sky’s hands drive away all worries. Should he be worried that he’s rendered speechless and vulnerable by something so simple? Probably, but Sky seems to know just how to place his hands and Legend can only hum in appreciation at the feeling, a squeaky purr escaping him as he leans into the sensation as Sky hums something soft and soothing under his breath. The vibrations carry down his fingers and tingle down Legend’s spine, calming him further.

“Cute.” Twilight's voice breaks him from his thoughts, and he’s pulling back from Sky’s hands and glaring up at the rancher with all the fury he can fit in his now tiny body.

“He’s not wrong, Kit.” Time chuckles soft and low, and Legend whips his head around to stare at the man.

“Oh no, you are not giving me a nickname!”

“Yeah Time,” Sky’s voice is low and mirthful as he speaks, hand once more settling on Legend’s back as he lifts an arm to block the vet from launching himself at their leader. “He’s my descendant, if anyone should be giving him a nickname it’s me.”

“How about Nibbles?” The sailor grins, leering into Legend’s space with enough mischief in his gaze to kill a Lynel. “I mean, the vet is always chewing us out.”

He forgets for a moment that his growls sound more like chirps in this form, baring his teeth at the sailor as he attempts to frighten him off. It doesn’t work, rabbits aren’t made to scare off bigger animals “So help me sailor I-”

Large hands scoop him off the ground and suddenly he’s being cradled in Sky’s arms. Like a baby. The indignity! “Calm down, Bun, he’s just kidding.” Sky’s crystal eyes glimmer with genuine concern as he looks down at Legend. “And we’ll find a way to change you back, I promise. The goddesses wouldn’t have let you change like this if it was for the worse. You’ll see,” Sky bops his nose with a smile entirely too pure. “It’ll be fine.”

Legend would like to argue that point, the goddesses have never shown any particular interest in what’s best for him before, and most of them seem to find humor in ruining his life time and again (except the Golden Trio, they’re alright he guesses, especially Din), but Sky looks so certain and Legend’s honestly too tired to start a big fight about Hylia again. (Heaven knows the last time he made Sky mad he nearly shat himself at how terrifyingly defensive Sky could get about those he loved). It doesn’t matter anyway, he supposes, as Sky’s already standing and making is way back to their main camp, gait just smooth enough not to jostle his reluctant passenger as Legend slumps in place.

He might as well let this happen, at least until he can figure out how to fix it.

It’s official.

Legend hates being a bunny.

They’ve settled down for dinner and as if to mock him and all that he loves, Wild has been struck with the inspiration to make his absolutely heavenly radish stew. The one that Legend would literally sell some of his rings for because it is that good.

And he can’t eat it.

He tried, and that attempt resulted in both himself and Sky covered in broth, the thick liquid clinging to his fur now as he sits on the ground with some raw fruits and vegetables instead. He doesn’t know that he’ll ever be able to eat it again without being forced to remember nearly drowning in the stuff.

He feels like a baby and he hates it.

He’s soaked himself and his ancestor and food and Warriors still isn’t done tittering about it.

He really hates being a bunny.

The others have nearly stepped on him numerous times, simply because they aren’t used to having to watch underfoot, so every time someone walks over to Wild to get seconds (why did the Champion sit next to him and Sky in the first place?) he has to back-peddle onto his haunches to avoid being crushed under heavy boots and even heavier feet.

Add to that that Wild and Wind both subconsciously reach out to pet his bedraggled fur every few minutes and he’s absolutely fed up with this shit!

At least the Champion was willing to lend him something to dry his fur off with, and even if he hates it, the spare brush Warriors has on hand does a decent job of detangling his fluffy hide. If he melts a little in Twilight’s lap as the rancher goes over him with the brush than no one says anything (although both Sky and Time have infuriating matching smiles on their faces).

But then it’s bedtime and Time is sorting through his things to try and make sure that no one person will have to carry all his stuff, and he’s reminded once again how utterly useless he is in this form. It only makes things worse that he knows that the others will be burdened with his bags, and considering his top speed at the moment can only be held for short sprints, he’s pretty sure the Old Man is going to have someone carry him too.

The very idea makes him puff out his fur in irritation.

At the very least though, he doesn’t have to worry much about how he’s going to handle the cold nights, Sky’s already taken his beloved sailcloth and bundled it into a little nest, and the minute Twilight is done with his fur the Chosen Hero is scooping him up and laying him in it (absently, he wonders if Sky might have a stronger paternal instinct than Time and if his own small form is triggering that). The fabric is warm though, and it’s nice. If Sky curls up around him in the middle of the night though, well, he supposes there’s not really much he can do about that.

Sky does curl around him and he’s trapped.

The Skyloftian may look soft and cuddly, but he’s got an iron grip when he’s asleep, and it’s only by the pure squishability of his current form that he’s able to escape (Sky will be disappointed when he wakes up, he knows, but even so, Legend doesn’t intend on staying a rabbit, not for a whole week, especially when there’s monsters out there.

Perhaps the thought of said monsters should dissuade him, but it doesn’t. He knows now what triggered this change, and he’s determined to hunt it down and trick it into changing him back, he just needs to escape his babysitters for a hot tic in order to do so.

It’s a lucky thing that Four and Warriors are both so drowsy that the feather light step of a rabbit doesn’t catch their attention as the two sit on watch, and Legend’s able to creep over to his bag (positioned with Twilight’s things) and dig through it until he finds what he needs.

You can’t go making deals with the fae unless you have something of value, or those tricksters will rob you blind and steal your first born. Not that Legend ever intends on having kids, but on the off chance that he ever did he’d rather they didn’t have a shitty life because he made an error in dealing with a forest sprite.

Come to think of it, how powerful are the forest people of this time?

Warriors looks seconds away from walking up to Sky’s sleeping form and throwing Legend as far as he can into the distance, and it’s making Four nervous.

Rationally, they know that Warriors wouldn’t consciously do such a thing, but they also know how much Warriors hates rabbits in general, and that the captain’s initial instinct at seeing them is to toss them away from himself as far as possible (never mind how rare a real rabbit is, Warriors’ time is apparently full of them and Warriors hates them). They’ve heard the story, how the captain was made to hunt rabbits down across his world and return them to their homes, the fact that he did so by throwing them is a bit concerning considering the delicate bone structure of the animals, but it’s not Wars’ fault that he doesn’t know that.

All the same, Four would feel a bit more secure if they knew that Wars wouldn’t be doing such a thing. (Rationally, they know he won’t, but rationality is only so much of the equation).

“I’m gonna check on the vet.” They murmur softly to their companion. Somethings not right and they hope it’s just Warriors’ previous retellings of his own rabbit-escapades eating at them and not something else. “Sky’s got a grip like a vice when he sleeps and I don’t want him getting crushed.”

Never mind that being small sucks when it’s this cold out. Four desperately hopes that it won’t rain tonight (although the air tastes right for it).

“Rabbits are tough little things,” The captain chuckles. “I’m sure he’s okay.”

Vio wrenches control from the others, gaze flat as he stares out at Wars. “You do know most rabbits can’t survive being thrown, right? They’re not like cats, if they land wrong their done for.”

The captain pales slightly but doesn’t say anything, and they take that as their cue to stand and make their way over to where Sky and the vet had bedded down for the night. Sure enough, Sky is curled up around the sailcloth nest he made for Legend like a child curled around their favorite stuffed animal (or Red with any of the rest of them), but at the very least it doesn’t look as if Legend would have been smashed, just caged. They wince, the vet doesn’t sleep well on a good night, but waking up to being trapped? That is...not good. There’s a reason they never force him to join everyone else when Red takes over and calls for a cuddle pile; everyone knows that the most Legend will stand is letting Hyrule hold his hand while he sleeps, and even then, the vet will still pull away when he finally does fall asleep.

Sky shifts (he’s a heavy sleeper, but all the same he moves a lot), arms wrapping tighter around the bundle in his arms. Tight enough that the sailcloth gives way. Sky’s face screws up in his sleep, wrapping even tighter around the bundle as if seeking out some form of resistance.

Four panics. Bunnies are delicate creatures and Sky is strong, did he just crush Legend?

Only, looking closer, Vio points out that there isn’t even a hint of pink amidst the fabric, and when Four dares reach out to test the bundle himself, they find that there is nothing within its folds.

“Four?” Warriors’ voice is tinged with concern as Four stand back up from his crouch, brows pinched together as he scans over the camp. “Is something wrong?”

“Legend’s missing.”

The captain’s brows shoot up, but thankfully he doesn’t bother with questioning them, instead hoisting himself to his feet and making his way around the camp, an ever-growing frown marring his features as he looks around. “Did he choose to sleep with Hyrule instead?” It’s a soft murmur, likely only spoken aloud because Wars is too tired to stop it before it reaches his mouth, but Four’s eyes flick over to where the Traveler sleeps regardless.

“I don’t think so.”

“Look,” Warriors groans softly, not loud enough to wake the others, stopping at Twilight’s bedroll and motioning to the bags stacked near the rancher's pillow. “His bag is open.”

“You don’t think he climbed inside of it, do you? We’d never find him!”

The captain gives him a look, blinking once before shaking his head. “No! But he was clearly trying to get at something.” Royal blue eyes turn to stare out at the forest. “What are the chances he went back out there, alone?”

Four hesitates, fingers drumming on his thigh as the colors swarm in his mind. “I don’t know, but I should probably check.”

“We need to watch camp.” The older hero frowns.

“You watch camp, I’ll go out there.”

“You can’t go alone, Four, it’s not safe.” Wars reminds him, concern glinting in his gaze as he turns back to the smithy.

“Fine.” Blue’s the only reason they roll their eyes, they swear. “I’ll take Hyrule. If the vet’s fallen down a hole or something then we can take care of it immediately.”

A smile breaks out across Warriors’ face, even if it is slightly strained. “Funny how that’s even a risk now.”

“Don’t I know it.” Besides, at least Hyrule seems to have a second sense for these sorts of things. Like Sky and Twilight, he has a knack for tracking down the others, especially if he needs to find Time for whatever reason. Four’s seen it themselves, it’s uncanny, but incredibly useful, so they’ve never really questioned it (Vio has, Vio has questioned it enough to give them a head-ache).

It’s the work of a minute to shake the traveler awake, as he’s one of the lightest sleepers of them all, and it takes even less time for them to be off, the simple words “Legend’s gone” being enough to send the traveler springing up and following closely after Four, one hand on his sword as the two of them make their way back into the depths of the forest.

Legend should know better than to try and make a deal with the fae.

Hyrule can recognize the look of a fairy about to claim her prize in an instant, and it appears Legend is about as clueless as a bunny can be about the loophole that he must have left open in whatever twisted deal the two have concocted. Anger burns in his blood as a whisper-hisses through his teeth, a few words all it takes before he’s zipping between the two of them, wings beating furiously as all six of his eyes stare into those of the other with nothing short of pure fury.

“Mine!” He hisses, darting forwards in a fake charge at the other, wings whirring angrily as his eyes stare at them “Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine!” His voice contorts and buzzes, his aura flickering brighter and sharper as he zooms down to hover over Legend’s ears. “MINE.”

“What is your claim?” The other chimes smugly. “What promise or service marks him as yours? Where is the Mark that makes a mortal the charge of a fae, hmm? Show it to me and I will release him to your care.” Glistening teeth glimmer as multiple eyes glisten with malice, jealousy over a potential catch making the fairy’s gaze spark dangerously. “Else ways, leave us be, our deal is near set and you have no business to interrupt it.”

“His true form,” He hisses. “There is my Mark on his hand. The Triangle, my symbol.” He hisses through bared teeth, every eye slitted and glimmering with fury. He can’t lie, not even if he tried, but he’s fae and they’re more skilled than anyone at finding tricks to get around things. The triforce is his symbol, something he’s recognizable by in his world, but it’s not only on his hand, the others bear the same mark and even if it isn’t Fae in origin, it's from the Scared Realm and none can deny that it sets them apart. Anyways, the Fae know mortals by their markings, this should be enough of a claim to make her renounce her dealings with Legend.

No fae dares mess with the Charge of another.

“What is your proof? Can you show me?” She taunts.

“My power isn’t that strong.” He hisses. “You do it and then you’ll see!”

“And give him what he asks without receiving my due? Oh no little Half-Blood.” She glares at him. “Give me Good Reason or leave alone.”

“He is goddess born.” He hisses out finally, grasping at straws. Mother only taught him so much of Fae law, but surely there’s something against touching those blessed by the heavens, right? “Hylia’s child descended. To touch him or any other of Mine is to plead wrath from the Scared Realm.” A sly smile slides over pointed teeth. “Would you wish that on Yours?”

She pales. “Mark your own in all forms, Halfling. This would not happen if you did.” It’s all she cares to say though, zipping away without another word.

“Do I want to know what I just avoided?” Legend’s voice croaks up at him, faint and pitchy all the same as he looks up to the fairy above him.

“I don’t know. But never, and I mean NEVER, make deals with fae again. Not even me! You can’t break promises or be too careful, you never know what they’ll do.” Two of his eyes glance over his shoulder to ensure that the other Fae is gone for good.

“I was trying to be careful.” Legend huffs, his breath sending Hyrule higher over his head for a moment before the fairy regains his balance. “They’re clever little-” He cuts off, violet eyes narrowing and bunny nose shivering as he looks up at Hyrule again. “You’re a fairy.”

His aura dims slightly, wings drooping ever so slightly as he looks down at his mentor. “Yes.”

Legend stares, violet piercing and sharp. Hyrule has never noticed the hint of gold that bands his irises, nor the flecks of blue that glisten under the effects of a fairy’s glow, and it only makes the Veteran’s stare all the more intense.

“Huh.” The bunny huffs softly. “That’s pretty neat, ‘Rulie.” There's no anger, no accusation in his tone, and when Hyrule brings his gaze up to meet that of his mentor again, all he sees is fondness and intrigue. “Is this new? An item? Were you- no,” Legend’s ears prick forwards, his interest obvious as he leans forward. (Hyrule wonders if the vet realizes that he's smelling him.) “You speak like They do. This isn’t new.”

It’s not a question.

“I’m, uh, half fairy.”

Legend nods slowly. “And you didn’t think to tell anyone?” At the dimming of Hyrule’s glow the vet pulls away, eyes flashing with panic for a moment. “I don’t mean that as a bad thing, ‘Rule, just-” He cocks his head long ears flopping to one side sloppily. “It’s not something I’d think you’d want to hide. Seems pretty useful to me.”

And by useful, Hyrule knows Legend means cool.

“I told Four.” He nods to the Hylian standing over them. The smithy’s eyes flicker various colors, his lips pulling aside into a slight smile as he crouches to be closer to their height.

“Now I’m taller than both of you.” Four chuckles softly, crimson tinged gaze sweeping over the two of them.

“Don’t get smart.” Legend huffs. “This is a curse, not my true form, you’d be tiny too if you were cursed into an animal form. Probably smaller than me!”

There’s a knowing look in the smithy’s gaze, but he holds his silence, smile still present as he carefully looks over the both of them. “Well, if neither of you were harmed in that little exchange, we should get back to camp. Wars will be in a huff if we don’t back with you soon.”

Legend huffs his own huff, but doesn’t object, gathering up the glimmering item he had brought as a toll (Hyrule thinks it might be a precious stone of some sort) and slowly hopping after the Smithy as he turns back towards camp.

They’d have made it to camp rather quickly too, if the sky hadn’t chosen that moment to weep out it’s sorrow with the world and the evils within. Great sheets of rain, the likes of which they usually only expect from the Champion’s Hyrule, flood down over them, and Hyrule thanks all things Holy that Legend is there to break his fall as the water soaks his wings and sends him careening towards the earth. Four yelps in surprise, hands fumbling for his hood as he tried to fend off some of the wet (it does little good, they’ll be soaked in seconds in this downpour.

“In here!” Legend squeaks, the rabbit hero already darting into the nearest hollow he can see that isn’t clearly inhabited. It’s a tight squeeze, and Hyrule nearly knocks his head on the bark of the opening, but Legend gets the both of them under, and despite the mushrooms that seem to fill the space with a soft light, it’s a comfortable fit for the two of them. The ground beneath is laid with moss, purposefully it would seem, and Hyrule lets himself side down into it with an appreciative hum.

“What about Four?” He murmurs softly, looking out of the crevice through which they entered. It’s still pouring buckets, and unlike them, the smithy has no dry place to hide (heavens knows the camp will be soaked. He feels terrible for the others).

“What about me?”

Violet and gold turn upwards as twin gasps escape the two. Four, in all of his minish glory, waves back at them from where he’s perched on top of one of the mushrooms. “Minish portal.” He smiles cheerily (but Hyrule can Taste the nervousness rolling off of him).

“Wait, both of you get small?” Legend’s ears stand up straight, brushing the roof of their shelter. “Smaller?” He corrects himself.

Four rolls his eyes. “It was get soaked or get small. I don’t fancy catching a cold, so I chose small.” He wrinkles his nose (it will never stop being cute), hopping down from the mushroom and free falling into the dampened fur of his rabbit-companion. “Now shut up and let me warm up, you’re bigger than I am and since you left me out there to soak I think I can get away with using you to warm up.”

Hyrule’s laughter rings soft and sweet through the hollow, Legend’s vaguely offended expression only adding fuel to the fire as he flits closer. “The vet doesn’t really mind cuddles, do you Ledge? Besides,” He lets his wings fall still, embracing the warmth of Legend’s soft fur as he lands in it lightly. “We just saved his ass.”

Legend turns his head to stare at the two of them, but even in rabbit form his lips twitch with amusement as he shoves him nose into Four’s personal space, making the minish-hero tumble down into the moss with a faint yelp. “You’re soaking.”

The smith grins back, plunging right back into the warm pink fur. “That wasn’t a refusal.”

“One time.” Legend huffs, ears flicking briefly. “One time only, smithy. Enjoy it while you can.”

“Trust me,” Four sighs, plonking down against the vet and leaning into the plush fur around him. “I will.”

It takes mere seconds before Four has drifted off, and Hyrule is reminded that the smith was keeping watch for most of the night before they had gone out looking for Legend. Guilt, sickly-sweet, yet bitter, taints his tongue as Legend stares down at the tiny form curled against him. Hyrule sighs. “I guess he was more tired than I thought.”

Legend only huffs, ears flicking back and nose shivering as he noses the smithy’s sleeping from. Four’s dropped off like a stone, completely dead to the world as Legend curls around him (not dissimilar to how Sky had curled around him earlier that night), easing the gentle shivers of the smith, who noses deeper into Legend’s pelt. Tiny paws coming up to catch hold of pink fur as Four curls up, feather-like tail brushing against the top of his tiny nose, moved only by tiny snores that make Legend’s ears twitch and Hyrule giggle softly.

“The rains still pouring down.” Legend hums, gruff as he can be in his current state, but Hyrule knows it’s all an act. “You might as well get some sleep too, ‘Rulie.”.

And while any other time Hyrule may have argued, Legend lifts his head to offer the space next to Four, and if Legend is offering cuddles, especially with his silky soft fur as a barrier against the cold, Hyrule knows he can’t resist it.

Four’s paw catches hold of him the instant he settles next to the smithy, and before he knows it the two of them are both bundled up in each other while Legend curls himself around them, breath soft and soothing as his heart pit-patters away inside of him.

That’s how they wake the next morning.

Wolfie’s nose shoved against the crack in the bark is what pulls them back from the land of dreams, and the soft snuffling bark followed by Time’s voice is what gets them up on their feet. It’s an awkward thing, emerging into the light again to find five heroes and a wolf staring down at them in a mixture of confusion and concern, but nobody seems to be able to bring themselves to scold when Four sneezes.

“We got caught in the storm.” Legend huffs when he sees the soft expression on Time’s face.

Wolfie huffs, and, much to the surprise of the currently shrunken heroes, they can hear the laugh in it. “Of course you did.”

Hyrule’s mouth drops open, all six eyes bugging out in shock as he turns to Four. The fairy’s whisper is high and shocked, but too sharp a noise for Hylian ears, although Legend, Wolfie and Four can all hear him quite clearly. “Wolfie is Twilight!”

#linked universe #linkeduniverse #fluffics #lu legend #lu twilight #lu hyrule #lu sky #lu four #lu warriors #fairy hyrule #bunny legend #minish four #minish four has friends!#fairies can taste emotions hc #Fairy Hyrule has six eyes #shut up and let me have eldritch hyrule!#wolfie linked universe #wolfie

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loquaciousquark · 4 years ago

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Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E116-119 (Dec. 15, 2020)

Hi! I missed the first three minutes or so and opened the stream to Brian giving an absolutely incoherent ...ad? for some jewel game? Six thousand jewels just for logging in? Some app in the app store and he’s literally been talking about this now for six minutes and I don’t know what he’s talking about. He finally wraps up, Laura brings the show to a close, and we’re all a little worse than we were before.

Ashley tries to get us back on track and Henry bays over her. Brian tries to ask the first question and breaks off into feigned sobs halfway through. This is chaos incarnate.

Tonight’s guests: Laura Bailey & Ashley Johnson.

How’s Yasha feeling right now about Molly? She and Jester both are desperately curious about whether there’s a spark of Molly left in Lucien that can be brought back. It’s not the same as when Yasha was controlled by Obann; this seems more like just the way this is now. They’d settle for even finding the good in him, like they did with Essek. Brian jokes that they can monitor his mental state if Matt’s Irish accent starts to slip a little bit.

Jester is a little wary about scrying on Lucien now since he’s able to see her back. She’s interested to try again now that Fjord’s given her the necklace.

Ashley has to run and grab a replacement set of headphones from Brian after hers get “crunchy.” It’s pretty cute seeing them run around and smooch on another screen. Brian teases that he doesn’t have any more questions for Jester since Caduceus has been doing all the healing lately. Laura tells us indignantly that she had Heal prepared for Caduceus in that last big fight, but Fjord got to Cad first. Brian explains how this is the same as all the good jokes he always lines up for Talks but never tells. Ashley’s crunchiness continues and we go briefly to a technical difficulties screen while Brian hops up to fix it.

Dani pips in to get this show back on track. Save us, Dani!

Ashley hadn’t thought about the aspect of Lucien controlling his friends’ minds, but finds it really creepy. It’s a cool game dynamic, and it’s a little different because they’re there willingly, but it’s really weird.

Jester thinks that “the tarot cards know all. She wants to buy into it real hard.” If it doesn’t make sense now, it will later. Laura has an Idiot’s Guide to Tarot Reading.

They’re super interested in why Aeor is like it is. Were they more advanced than us? Did they evolve along a different line? Ashley loves sci-fi and is all about this, especially since she wasn’t there for Happy Fun Ball time & hasn’t been able to get caught up on some of the things she missed in between, so she’s using this as an erstwhile replacement. She can already tell there are some things from this campaign that will bother her the way the unopened box did from C1. She and Laura both seethe at the camera about having to leave the spider behind.

Cosplay of the Week! Harland3r on instagram with a gorgeous winged Pike with a shield & mace. It’s an incredible photo and the wings look great.

Travis distracts Laura by dancing like a Trex offscreen. That seems right for this episode.

Jester’s encouragement of Yasha pursuing Beau was important in a lot of ways, not least because Ashley considered herself as uninterested in D&D romance as Travis & was a little unsure of activating a romance among her friends. However, it felt really natural within the game and it was really helpful to have Jester’s in-game encouragement. Yasha’s grown a lot and is in a much more positive place and is ready to find out what’s possible. Laura: “Jester from the get-go has seen Yasha as this wonderful soul from the beginning, and has seen how sad Yasha’s been through everything, and to see the difference that she exhibits when talking about Beau is drastic and wonderful. Jester’s joy in life is helping others find joy.”

Ashley points out it’s also so fun to “yes-and” with Laura because you’re like a little kid being dragged along by the hand - you don’t know where it’s going, but you know it’s going to be fun along the way.

Ashley does have a sense of “thank goodness Marisha isn’t jumping right into this” so she can coax herself into it, but when she tried to figure out the poem she had a lot of drafts that didn’t survive. She intentionally crafted the letter to give Beau an out if she didn’t feel the same way. There’s a lot going on with Lucien right now and there’s constantly a running thought in the back of her head about “maybe Beau is not into this.” Even the last couple episodes with Jester & Fjord have had Ashley finally understand shipping.

Brian brings us to the moment “almost as romantic as the pre-season finale of the Bachelorette.” Jester was “goo” afterwards. Early on in the campaign, Jester was very forward with her flirtations with Fjord & he shut her down. And then he kissed her underwater and immediately went and slept with Avantika, and Jester automatically shut herself down, because she thought she was misunderstanding & would only be hurt by those emotions. She deliberately focused on just being there with her friends, making everyone healthy and happy. These last few episodes where Fjord was flirting back felt like “my teenage heart again, my first kiss, the boy I like actually likes me back!” and she was able to open back up.

Yasha definitely has some instrument plans for those bones. She doesn’t know if she’s going to add to her harp or create a new one.

Ashley and Laura cheer about Travis stepping out his comfort zone. Laura thinks it was really good that he was doing it with her, his real-life wife, to see if he likes that sort of stuff in his D&D campaign. “It was just so sweet. It was just so sweet.” Brian says he’s actually a really romantic dude & Dani is so glad he asked before the kiss. Brian: “It’s going to be so sad when he breaks your heart and goes back to the corpse of Avantika.” Laura: “It’s fine, Jester will be long dead by then anyway.”

Jester does believe the four-year time trade was worth it, but that the city leaves “a mark on your brain,” especially as in-depth as she saw it. “Jester’s always been reticent to talk about her age because she’s aware she’s perceived in a juvenile way by a lot of people, and she’s insecure about that. She grew up by herself without a lot of social interactions and is experienced in a lot of ways now and naive in others; she’s very aware of human emotion around her, but chooses to see it in a certain way.” Losing the time makes her wonder if she needs to grow up & become an adult about certain things now. Laura: “I think actually she’s closer to Fjord’s age now. Actually, I’m not sure about his age. I don’t know how old he is - I’ve never even asked Travis!” Brian: “I think he’s definitely fifteen.” Laura: “Travis, how old is Fjord?” Travis, off-screen: “Sixty-five,” but he’s had the Mask of Many Faces up this whole time. Later, he adds that he’s in his early 30s.

Ashley has really enjoyed digging into Yasha’s more humorous side lately. It’s how she gets comfortable as a player, making it fun and light in a way that this year needs. “It’s also really funny to think that Yasha doesn’t know how Message works.”

Brian congratulates Laura & Ashley both on their game awards nominations. Brian vamps trying to get himself in as the presenter, but incidentally refers to Laura as his sister in the conversation and it’s super cute. “I would like to be the one to give the award to either my fiancee, or my sister!”

Fanart of the Week: @ethanmaldridge with an illustrated page from the Katzenprinz book. It’s just beautiful.

Jester’s polymorph gambit was terrifying, but the stakes got even higher when everyone else got stunned. She does lament choosing a bunny at the start. “Frickin’ Fjord’s armor!”

Yasha loves being polymorphed lately. She thinks it’s kinda funny, especially given her rigid upbringing with such defined roles.

Laura feels like Jester and Vex are weirdly two halves of herself. Brian: “You see the very bargainy, I’m gonna use my wit & smarts to negotiate situations. But at the same time, you’re very open to what people are thinking & feeling and navigating that. What you end up putting out (though it comes across as innocent and naive) is something pure because she truly believes it.” Laura thinks Yasha and Pike are the same way for Ashley, though Ashley feels a little closer to Yasha right now. Sometimes you just feel really exposed. Laura compares how much idealism she put into Jester to her character from Fruits Basket.

Since Yasha didn’t belong to either side in the war, she’s not hugely concerned by the fallout; she more wants to make sure her found family are okay and safe. Jester is the same way, Laura tells us. Jester doesn’t have any greater vision of the Empire & Dynasty interacting; she cares about the people, and it hasn’t been until the vision with the city that she kind of woke up and realized they have to really stop this now. It feels bigger than the Dynasty/Empire. Ashley: “It seems more of a thing for Beau and Caleb to care about.”

Really, up to now Jester was mostly concerned about getting Molly back, but now the stakes seem much higher. “We have to do this. We have to complete this, to beat them, to keep them from doing this.” Yasha is just going with the flow for now. There’s a lot coming at them and they are ready to find out what’s next.

And that’s that for tonight! Brian thanks the crew especially for working incredibly hard on switching everything to home-based streaming. He then gets stuck halfway spinning around in his chair and the last thing we hear is him idly wondering “What’s Fjord taste like?” which seems pretty on brand for tonight’s show. Is it Thursday yet?

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long post for ts

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forestwater87 · 3 years ago

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Chapter 15: Grand Gesture

Summary: GRAND GESTURE: He or she must be willing to put it all on the line now or risk losing the one thing they need to become whole-hearted. It’s life or death now.

CW: Smut in the last third of the chapter. Questionable quality.

Summer 2017

“Fuck!” Gwen felt her center of gravity shift as she leaned forward, overbalancing on the rickety chair she’d been using to reach the ceiling. It tipped perilously on two legs, then lost the fight with physics and sent her sprawling with a crash that shook the dozens of tiny papers taped around the room. She hit the ground with her hip and the side of her face, one of them making a disturbing crunch sound and both shooting bright white pain down her entire right side. “Shit!”

She was halfway to her feet, wondering if the crossed-eyes dizzy feeling was from lack of sleep, hitting her head, or marker fumes, when fingers closed around her upper arm and she was hauled upright. “Gwen! Goodness, are you okay?” David let go of her, his gaze roving around the room as he took a step back. “What happened in here?”

She looked around, taking a deep breath and noticing for the first time in hours the thick perfume of tacky glue and paint, as though David walking in had turned her senses back on. It was done, mostly. Well, no — it’d never really be done, but it was enough to prove her point.

She hoped.

While she was panicking, David had wandered over to the center of the room, ducking to avoid a string of origami animals dangling from the ceiling. “Is this for camp?”

“Yes — I mean, no, it’s from camp, and maybe we can reuse some of it but no, it’s . . . not really . . .” She’d planned this, during her mad crafting frenzy: how David would come home, wonder what she was doing, and she’d carefully tour him through everything — or maybe she’d let him get on with his morning routine while she added a few more things, made it just a bit closer to perfect.

But his presence had pulled her to a halt. She’d been like a shark all night, afraid to stop moving or she’d die, but now that he was here she felt drained, the giddy, terrified adrenaline that’d been keeping her going evaporating in an instant.

Though hey. At least she had a good reason to be tired, for once.

He frowned at her discarded supplies strewn carelessly around the room. “Are these from Art Camp?”

The question jolted her into action, and she stumbled forward jerkily, like the Tin Man without oil. “Yeah, but I already took it out of my paycheck, it’s fine. I’ll go shopping tomorrow for new stuff.” She wanted him to hear what she really meant, what she was trying to put together through exhausted babbling: that this was important, that it was worth sacrificing sleep and money for, that she loved him and she respected him and she wanted him to know that.

Finally, finally, he turned his attention to the walls. “Gwen, what is all this?”

“It’s you,” she blurted out, then winced and rested her forehead in her palm. “No, that’s not — it’s — some of the stuff you’ve taught me, look . . .” She took his hand, her nerves trembling at the brush of his fingers against her own, and pulled him toward the doorway. She’d made a messy semicircle around the room, right to left like a supermarket. Dropping his hand, she took a step back, steepling her fingers like she was praying and pressing them to her lips with another steadying breath.

She had one chance.

“Okay,” she began. “So . . .”

---

Gwen looked like she was on the verge of falling over, listing dangerously to the side as she led him across the room. There were feathers in her hair, and scraps of paper; she was speckled with color, marker and paint and even a smear of glitter glue on the tip of her nose, the pads of her fingers nearly black with a rainbow of ink that stained his hand as she held it. It was obvious she hadn’t slept, even more obvious that she desperately needed to.

But her eyes were bright even if the circles under them were dark, and she thrummed with an energy and animation David hadn’t seen all summer.

And he couldn’t bring himself to interrupt her, not when it finally felt like she’d returned to him.

“— song you taught me last year,” she said, and he felt a flash of guilt that he hadn’t been listening. She tapped the paper she’d stuck to the wall, the lyrics of his Camp Campbell song scrawled across it in uneven lines. “All the camp activities, remember? At least the most important ones.”

(It was really just the ones that fit best into the rhyme scheme, but he didn’t correct her as she moved on to a second piece of paper.)

“This is a list of all the facts about nature I’ve learned since I started here,” she continued, gesturing. This one was crammed so tightly with writing that he could barely read it, bullet points snaking in all directions and increasingly smaller handwriting as it moved down the page, until finally Gwen had started attaching sticky notes to the wall below and around the list. “I had to keep going back and adding things as I thought of them. I know I’m forgetting something, but I can’t —” She gestured around her head in a classic “scatterbrained” motion, chuckling weakly. “I’m kind of all over the place right now.”

Next: a bullseye, a pencil stuck point-first into the wall. “I couldn’t really shoot an arrow,” Gwen explained, “but remember that summer you taught me archery? I’m still pretty good at it — we went to a shooting range for Claire’s birthday last year and I was the only one who hit the target every time.”

Next: a messy drawing of a forest, a little stick figure kneeling next to a moss-covered rock. “That one time we got lost in the woods trying to find a good place for bug-catching, you got us out because you knew how to find north. You’d be pretty great in a zombie apocalypse.”

Next: a sheet of black construction paper poked through with holes, hastily taped to the back window so light from the lamp outside shone through in little pinpricks. He leaned closer and realized that they were in the rough shape of the constellations visible above Lake Lilac. “I didn't know much about stars and shit outside of, like, horoscope stuff — I mean, in the city you can’t even see them — but you always pointed out which constellations and planets were out during the summer and now I know them all too.”

And on, and on. Scale models of the crafts and activities they’d done at Camp Campbell, nature facts, and on one wall she’d tacked up a typewritten letter to the Director of Admissions at Queen’s University Belfast. Skimming it quickly, it looked to David like an application.

“I was trying to get into their Environmental Science program. I wrote about Sleepy Peak Peak and Lake Lilac,” she admitted, looking almost embarrassed. “I got in. And I mean, they’re not the best program out there, but they’re still in the top 300 worldwide so that’s pretty cool, I guess —”

“Belfast?” He leaned in closer, confirming that he’d read correctly. “Isn’t that in England?”

“Yeah.” She looked impressed, and he suppressed a weary smirk; yes, he did know a bit about the world outside of Camp Campbell. But she surprised him by adding, “I had to look that up, actually.” She shrugged. “Guess I should’ve just asked you, huh?

“Anyway, that was a couple years ago. I didn’t go, obviously,” she added, responding to his unspoken question. “International travel’s a bitch. I needed a scholarship, and my grades weren’t good enough. I think I only got in at all because of my letter.” She gestured at it, not quite meeting his eyes. “Which I never thanked you for. Or most of the stuff I’ve learned from you. I’ve been . . . kinda taking all that for granted. So, uh . . . thanks, David.”

He wanted to tell her she was welcome, that she didn’t need to thank him at all. That sharing these things with her had been the highlight of his life since they’d met, even if it hadn’t seemed like she cared about any of it. But there was a lump quivering dangerously in his throat and he didn’t trust himself to speak, so he just nodded.

After a second she cleared her throat awkwardly and led him over to a row of stick figures hanging from the ceiling. “Some of these are from Yoga Camp,” she said, pointing at a few of the ones contorted into uncomfortable shapes, “but also all that other stuff you do. Like smile exercises —” and yes, one of the stick figures had a big pink smiley face, “— and breathing techniques and stuff. I use those sometimes when I’m having a panic attack. They really help, even if smile exercises still make me feel like a dumbass most of the time.”

The decorations started to get more abstract as they made their way around the room, simple crafts and trivia giving way to colorful scribbles and symbols, representing things he’d said to her about her relationship with her parents, her love life. “You have really good advice, you know that? You could be the next Dear Abby or something, seriously. I think that’s still running.”

(It was; he read it every morning with his pre-breakfast tea.)

“These get worse, sorry . . . I was getting tired.” Gwen jerked her chin up at a wobbly butterfly — or was it a bird? — dangling over their heads. “I use your advice about hummingbird-ing all the time. With writing, mostly, but sometimes at work or something, too.”

He gently reached up and touched the bird’s feet, watching it spin in a lazy circle. Technically the idea had been his mother’s, a way to avoid burnout by flitting from one project to another and adding just a little bit to each, instead of devoting all energy and resources to one thing and slogging through until it was done. The whole idea was part of his ethos of being a counselor — wasn’t Camp Campbell a place to get a little taste of everything, after all? He remembered explaining it to Gwen during her first week at camp, just over five years ago.

He wouldn’t have ever imagined that she’d actually remembered.

He didn’t think she remembered any of this.

But the evidence was all around him — on the walls, hanging from the ceiling, dozens of examples, mementos of the tiny moments that meant everything to him. Immortalized, remembered, in increasingly sloppy handwriting and doodles.

In the corner was a bright red card that looked familiar. David moved over to it and laughed in recognition: it was one he’d sent her after her first or second summer at Camp Campbell, when he’d seen on Facebook that she was looking for work. He tugged it off the wall, careful not to damage the cheap cardstock, and smiled down at the deer wearing a plaid hunting cap, which he’d made out of tissue paper and markers (he’d gotten much better since then, thanks to a few years of Decoupage Camps).

‘Good luck on your job HUNT! I know you’ll slay the interview!’

“I’ve kept that for years to show my friends,” Gwen said, making him jump; he hadn’t realized she’d come up behind him, but she was close enough to nearly rest her head against his. “I felt like it really captured the kind of guy you were.”

Her breath prickled the side of his neck, and he distracted himself by opening the card — ‘oh deer, is this joke going on too long? I feel like it’s overkill!’ — noticing how worn the crease was, like she’d opened and closed it hundreds of times. “Does it?”

He felt her shake her head without having to face her, stray wisps of hair that’d escaped her ponytail tickling his cheek. “Not even close.”

Unable to resist, he looked back at her over his shoulder, and she took his arm, turning him around the rest of the way. He thought she was going to kiss him — she was close enough that he could see a smeary glue thumbprint on her cheek and what looked like half a smiley-face sticker in her hair — but she just took the card from him, setting it carefully on the couch before taking hold of both his hands. Her expression was grave, shining faint with hope, and between the craft debris and her naked earnestness, she looked incredibly young and vulnerable.

“There’s more,” she said, gesturing with her chin toward the far wall, “and I’ll let — I want you to look at it, but . . . I just had to tell you, I’ve been taking you for granted and it’s not right. I’ve been pretending I still think of you as this —” Pulling one of her hands away, she picked up the card again, her fingers shaking so the deer’s toothpick antlers clacked together, “— sweet, silly, kinda childish David, who belongs with someone sweet, and silly, and kinda childish. And I tried to be that and . . . I mean I sucked at it,” she said, breaking off with a weak laugh, dropping her eyes to their joined hands. “And it . . . kind of broke me. But I didn’t even think to ask if that was what you wanted, because I thought I knew what you needed, and that was — so, really fucked.” She looked back up at him, her eyes dancing with purple fire, her grip on his hand tightening. “And I — I don’t, you know so much that I don’t — I could fill the entire cabin with stuff I’ve learned from you, this doesn’t even scratch the surface.”

She paused, like she was waiting for him to interject, but David felt like he’d been turned to stone, paralyzed and unblinking while his brain whirled.

“But none of it matters if it doesn’t show . . . if you don’t know —” Her voice cracked, and she dropped his other hand, pressing a fist to her mouth. “— h-how amazing you are, how much you matter to this camp and to me and . . . and I didn’t know people could actually be happy 'til I met you. I mean, I guess I knew technically, but not that it was a real thing people actually were. But you figured it out. You’ve known what you wanted since you were a kid and then you got it and I’ve never done anything without second-guessing myself a million times but you just did it, and it meant making so many decisions about your life that could’ve turned out wrong but they didn’t because they were the right ones for you. And you knew it. You always have.” She swiped at her eyes with the heels of her hands, crying in earnest now. “You’re a marvel, David. I should’ve said that every fucking day. And I know it’s probably too little, too late, but I’m sorry. For not telling you and — and for everything.

“And I . . .” She swallowed hard, taking a few heaving breaths before continuing, and he knew she was trying to hold onto her composure even as tears poured down her cheeks, “I don’t know what you wanna do. With — with us, I mean. But you’re right, I haven’t been a good girlfriend to you, and if you don’t want to . . . if you want me to leave right now or after the summer ends or if you just wanna be friends or whatever , that’s fine. A-and — if you do . . . y’know . . .” Her face crumpled, her shoulders curling in on themselves. “I love you so much,” she managed, her words harder to make out through damp, hiccuping breaths. “Whatever — whatever you want — I — I — I trust you.”

Understanding pierced his chest, a small pinhole that allowed light to pour, warm and white, into his heart.

“I trust you.”

David hadn’t realized how desperately he’d needed to hear those words until that moment.

He stepped forward, plucking the card from her hand and tossing it onto the floor (he could make her another one, dozens if she wanted, hundreds) and tilting her chin up so he could kiss her. Her cheeks were wet under his palms, her mouth salty and acidic with the taste of not-quite-morning breath, and each brush of his lips against hers was broken by her pulling back to drag in a sobbing gasp, her mouth moving clumsily like she was as close to fainting from exhaustion and emotion as she looked.

It was, without question, the best kiss of his life.

He broke away to press his forehead against hers, sliding his hands from her face to cup the back of her neck and closing his eyes. “I love you too, Gwen,” he murmured, his heart fluttering at the giddily-incredulous, teary laugh she gave in response. “And I think you need to go to bed.”

She leaned back, and the bleary confusion on her face was so precious he rose up on his toes to press a soft kiss to her forehead. “Huh? But what about . . .”

“I’ve got some stuff to think about,” he said, then gestured at the crafts she hadn’t shown him yet, “and look at. And after that . . . we should talk. But it won’t be a very good talk if you fall asleep,” he added with a laugh as her eyes drifted closed.

She opened them halfway, just enough to glare at him, but the effect would’ve been more intimidating if she hadn’t been swaying slightly. “’m fine.” The adrenaline that’d been keeping her going was clearly wearing off fast, and David was a little worried she wouldn’t make it to bed, that he’d just find her unconscious on the floor of the hallway. “You didn’t sleep either,” she accused, pointing at him with a finger stained silvery with graphite.

Goodness, he loved her so much he couldn’t stand it. “I had a nap.” Not a long one, but he was used to not sleeping much. “Get some rest. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“It’s already the morning,” she complained, but like a sleepy robot she turned and shuffled back toward the front of the cabin. “I’m gonna brush my teeth and shower and stuff. So I look less like a sludge goblin.”

“You do that, Gwen.” He waited until the bathroom door had clicked shut before turning back to the mess she’d made of their living room. It was almost hard to tell the difference between what was art and what was trash left over, there was so much of both; it looked like an explosion had hit a crafts store.

Gwen wasn’t someone who put a lot of effort into things she didn’t care about. It was one of the most frustrating things about having her as a coworker, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t love how unabashedly honest she was, how he could read her feelings just by looking at her work.

There was the soft sound of tape unsticking and one of the decorations sagged, a corner curling away from the wall and drooping down. He pushed it carefully back into place and fumbled for his phone, setting it to camera mode.

This was worth remembering.

---

Gwen was positive she’d never be able to fall asleep; how could she, when things were still so up in the air? But she wasn’t twenty anymore, and after the exhaustion and emotional turmoil of the last few hours — days, weeks; hell, if she was being honest it’d been years since she’d truly felt well-rested — and despite the anxiety buzzing inside her skull she was out in moments.

Soft fingers in her hair drew her back to earth, and when she opened her eyes David came into focus, crouching next to her bed so they were at eye level. He smiled as she blinked at him, warmth and sunshine he probably didn’t even know he was emitting. “Goooood morning, Gwen!” he chirped, his voice way too loud for how close they were, and she winced. “Sorry,” he added, his voice dropping to a murmur. “Habit.”

“It’s fine,” she said, because she’d missed his morning bellow so much more than she could ever miss having non-punctured eardrums. She sat up, clumsily swiping at her face to double-check for drool or errant eye gunk. “Morning.”

“How are you feeling?” He hopped onto the bed, making her and everything else on the mattress bounce. He was being so . . . normal, like all the drama last night had been a dream.

Fuck it. They had some hard, painful conversations coming; she could enjoy a little bit of normalcy while her brain booted back up. “Good,” she replied, yawning. “I mean, tired, but I’m always tired so —” Her blood chilled, and suddenly she was wide awake.

There went normal. All because she had to remind him of what an unloveable disaster she was.

But when she looked back up he didn’t seem annoyed. He leaned against the wall, stretching his legs out so they dangled off the edge of the bed. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.” She scoffed before she could stop herself, and his gaze flicked up to hers, taking her breath away. (God, how she’d functioned for almost four years without feeling more than a flicker of attraction to this man was unfathomable.) “Really. I want to know what’s going on with you.” His hand landed on her knee, light as a bird but blazingly warm even through her blankets. “All I want is for you to let me in.”

A swell of emotion swept up from somewhere in her chest, causing her eyes to prick with tears for the thousandth time. She looked away and sniffed as discreetly as possible — which wasn’t very, she assumed, since he immediately reached over and handed her a tissue from the pack he kept stashed in his pockets. “I mean, if you want me to complain, I can do that,” she muttered, tamping down another flow of tears through willpower. “I can complain about fucking anything.”

David’s laugh made her turn back toward him, because it didn’t have a trace of sadness or pity or anything she’d expected. It was so purely, entirely delighted , more than even he could fake, and he was looking at her like she’d said something surprising and wonderful.

“You really like it,” she blurted out, unable to hide the awe in her voice. “That I’m like this. Whiny and —” she waved vaguely “— bitchy, and whatever.”

“I don’t.” He shook his head and her stomach plummeted. But as she took a breath to respond he shifted closer, gently cupping the back of her neck so he could tap his forehead against hers. “I love it, Gwen. I love everything about you.”

A laugh burbled out of her before she could stop it, and she pulled away to hide her face. “Oh my god. You bastard. You’re so cheesy.”

His fingers closed around her wrists, tugging her palms away from her face. “I love you,” he said, kissing the skin she’d covered with her hands — the tip of her nose, each cheek, her top and bottom lip, her eyebrows.

“I love you, too.” She could already tell that if he was going to keep saying that to her she’d spontaneously combust, because this was all too cute and romantic and lovely and she still didn’t fully understand how this was happening, why he didn’t hate her.

But she’d promised she wouldn’t question his decision, whatever it was. She owed him that much.

His smile faded slightly, a faint line appearing between his eyebrows. “What’re you thinking?”

“Nothing,” she lied automatically, and when that only made him sigh she added, “I said I was going to trust you,” hating the note of defensiveness in her voice, because of the two of them she didn’t have much grounds for righteous indignation.

“Then trust me with how you feel.” It should’ve sounded too much like a cliche, something she’d tease him for, but he was right and they both knew it.

She’d put him through hell by not telling him the truth, and they both knew that, too.

Gwen closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to relax. Things were — they seemed okay, didn’t they? Almost normal, but better, because all her ugliness was out there for him to see and he knew about it and he didn’t seem to mind. And wasn’t that something she’d never thought she’d ever actually find? “I don’t get it,” she admitted, her voice sounding small and stupid. “I keep feeling like . . . like I tricked you somehow. Like I didn’t explain well enough why you shouldn’t want me, because if you really got it you wouldn’t be here. Not because I think you’re stupid,” she added quickly, desperately, “because I don’t, really! But — but even smart people can be . . . I don’t know, manipulated?”

The confusion in her voice made her pause, sit back. Manipulated? That couldn’t be right, could it? She wasn’t trying to manipulate anyone, and she was pretty sure you couldn’t manipulate someone by accident.

Or maybe you could; she hadn’t always paid a ton of attention to her psych classes in college.

“I’m sorry,” she managed after a few deeply uncomfortable moments of silence. “I’m trying, I promise, but I understand if . . . you know. Whatever.” (She still hated saying it, especially now that it seemed like it might not happen. Breaking up with David was hard enough without having to say it.)

He put his arm around her shoulders, tugging her into his side and kissing her temple. “Thank you for telling me, Gwen.”

“You’re not mad?”

She felt him shake his head as she rested hers on his shoulder, scooting down to make up for their (lack of) height difference. “I wasn’t really mad when I came back this morning,” he said, “even before I saw everything you’d made. I had some time to cool down, and I . . . started thinking, I guess.”

Gwen wanted to look up at him, but she wanted to soak in his warmth more so she nuzzled into the curve of his neck, inhaling the smells of floral detergent and piney-woodsy cologne left over from the day before. “About what?” she asked, like there could possibly be more than one answer. Like maybe he’d been pondering the sociopolitics of Malaysia or something.

He let out a little huff of laughter, and she knew without looking that he’d glanced up at the ceiling in a slow blink (that he insisted was less rude than rolling his eyes outright, even though it was just as obvious). “You. Everything that’s happened this summer — and before it.” His shoulder shifted slightly under her cheek, a shrug aborted halfway through so she’d be comfortable. “Things started making more sense after everything we talked about tonight. Like the day we . . . well, when you told me about that gentleman you . . . almost took home.”

“He wasn’t a gentleman, he was a douchebag,” she interrupted, immediately feeling like an asshole. But David chuckled and squeezed her closer, like he enjoyed her company even when she was being annoying (which he did; somehow he actually did) and she let herself relax against his side, believe that maybe things were going to be okay after all.

“I’ve thought about the stuff you said a lot since that day. Mostly the parts that made me feel the worst.”

She flinched. “I’m so sorry —” she began, but he cut her off with a kiss to her forehead.

“I have trouble with . . . rejection,” he continued, sounding embarrassed. Like that minor character flaw even came close to the millions of ways she was fucked up. “I — I guess you could call it ‘abandonment issues’? But at first, and for a while, all I could hear were the ways you didn’t . . . seem to want me around anymore.”

“But I did —”

“I know.” Another soft kiss, and she wasn’t sure if it was to reassure her or himself. “I know that now. And I think, knowing that . . . it made what you said sound different.

“You were drunk — I know, you downplayed it, and it wouldn’t have excused . . . but your judgment was still impaired. And you didn’t kiss him. Thinking back, it didn’t even sound like you really wanted to. Did you?” She shook her head, not willing to look up at him because no matter how gently he tried to frame this she still felt like it was her fault. “And I just couldn’t stop thinking, how if this had happened a few years ago you would’ve told that story so much differently. If we were still just friends, maybe. You would’ve stormed into the cabin raging about how some jerk had ‘put his mitts all over you’ —”

Gwen couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing, pushing away from him and resting her head in her hands. “That can’t be how you think I talk!”

“It was an edited version,” he admitted, flushing. His smile was wide enough to illuminate the room, catching and refracting the dreary dawn light. “Please come back?”

She snuggled into his outstretched arms, her heart panging at the plaintive note in his voice. She wrapped herself around him, legs entangled with his and arms squeezing his waist; she’d missed him just as much. “Your impression of me is really bad,” she said with an uncontrollable giggle that made her feel like she was fourteen.

“I’ll work on it.” For a moment he just held her, soaking in the relief of being together and being okay. (At least, that's what she was doing.) “Why did it bother you so much?” he asked after a minute or so. “It doesn’t . . . well, it just doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong.”

“I guess — yeah, maybe not, technically anyway. But you’d just visited and saw how terrible my life is, and I was having an even harder time being a less-shitty version of myself . . .” He made a soft noise, almost pained, and pulled her closer. “So when this asshole showed up and was, like, exactly the type of guy I usually go for, it felt like . . . I don’t know. Like the universe was telling me we didn’t belong together. That sounds stupid. Never mind.” She pressed her face against his chest with an embarrassed groan. “Pretend I said something that doesn’t make me sound like I write horoscopes for a living.”

“I like horoscopes!” he replied, because of course he did. After a moment he added, “Thank you for telling me. It . . . helps confirm some things I was thinking earlier, when I left. Because what you said, and what you’ve been saying for a long time . . . I’ve been hearing it the way that’d hurt me the most, but I think you meant it to make me hate you.” He paused for a second, then added, “Do you think I’m right?”

Gwen shrugged, feeling more than a little like one of his campers receiving an aggressively pacifist talking-to. “Yeah. I don’t . . . like myself all that much.”

“I’ve noticed.” And David pressed another kiss to the top of her head, like he was rewarding her for being honest. Or like he just couldn’t help himself. “You haven’t treated me very well lately, Gwen. And I was — am very unhappy about that. But I don’t think it holds a candle to how you treat yourself.”

She wriggled away enough to sit up and look at him, frowning. “So you’re, what? Willing to come back to a shitty relationship because you feel sorrier for me than for you?” she demanded, even though it would’ve been smarter to just not say anything and enjoy his pity while she still had it.

But again, she said she’d be honest. And the true Gwen was kind of a bitch.

His smile turned sad, and he carefully tucked a flyaway hair behind her ear. “See, that’s what I mean. You never give yourself the benefit of the doubt.” When she frowned, not understanding, he took her hand and began playing with it, wiggling her fingers and twining them with his. “I understand better, now. How you’re feeling and what you’re thinking. And I’m not going to let you treat me like I’m a kid, or — or stupid, or whatever. I know you don’t really think that,” he added as she opened her mouth to argue. “There’s a whole cabin’s worth of proof in the living room that you don’t really think that. That’s why I wanna try again. Miscommunications, misunderstandings . . . those are fixable. And now that I know what’s been going through your head, I don’t think you’ve done anything I can’t forgive.”

Her eyes filled with tears — again, and she was going to die of dehydration if she didn’t get ahold of herself — but this time she couldn’t resent them too much, not when it felt like she was brimming over with hope that was eager to burst free. “What’re you saying, David?”

He shifted back, turning so he was sitting cross-legged facing her, and took both her hands in his. “I keep . . . trying to find a way to say it,” he admitted, looking down at their twined fingers and flushing pink, “because ‘do you want to be my girlfriend again?’ is maybe too middle-school, but ‘dating’ sounds too casual, and —”

Gwen pulled out of his grasp and closed the distance between them, straddling his lap and taking his chin in one hand. His face lifted toward her before his eyes did, darting from her chest to over her shoulder before finally meeting her gaze. She wound her free arm around his shoulders, sliding her fingers into the short, soft hair at the nape of his neck. With the hand cupping his jaw she gently swiped her thumb across his lower lip, slightly chapped but still warm and softer than it looked, each breath skating across her skin feather-light and making her skin prickle. “Yeah,” she said, closing her eyes and pressing her forehead to his, holding back a laugh — or maybe a sob, she wasn’t quite sure; the emotions roiling inside her were too much to separate between happy and sad. “Whatever you’re asking, yes, I want it.”

She felt his smile spread under her thumb before he brushed her hand away, tilting his head so he could kiss her. “Good,” he murmured with a breathless chuckle, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer. “I mean, I was pretty sure you’d say that, but still — that’s a relief.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “You idiot.” Her blood turned to ice, and she pulled away from him, stricken. For fuck’s sake, couldn’t she be anything but herself for five minutes? “I didn’t mean — !”

David smiled, far more fondly than she deserved. “I know, Gwen.”

Groaning, she buried her face in his shoulder. “I’m trying, really I am.”

“Don’t.” He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back until she was upright, looking down at him again. “Please don’t try so hard to be what you think I want. Just be you.”

“Right.” She forced her shoulders to relax, tilting her head back and rolling her neck until it cracked. “I’m . . . gonna have a hard time with that. ‘Just me’ is kind of the worst.”

“I know you think that,” he said, pressing his half-open mouth to the hollow of her collarbone and making her shiver. “And I’ll keep reminding you until you don’t think it anymore.”

She managed a weak chuckle, leaning into his lips as he moved up her neck. “Good luck with that.”

His answering laugh rolled over her skin, warm and teasing. “Haven’t you heard, Gwen? I like projects.”

Jesus. Grabbing a fistful of his hair, she tugged him upright, taking a moment to appreciate his gasp that wasn’t just surprise. “I love you,” she said, loosening her grip and kissing his forehead, petting away the furrows her fingers left in his fluffy red hair.

His expression softened. “I love —” he began, and Gwen tightened her hold on his hair and pulled back, just so she could watch his eyes flutter shut and his breath catch, “— y-you too.”

Dragging her palm down the side of his neck, she settled her thumb on his throat, feeling his pulse flutter rapidly, and bent to kiss him again. She hadn’t necessarily meant to turn it into anything, just wanted to feel his lips against hers, but her fingers tightened involuntarily in his hair and he moaned, and it was a lit match dropped down her throat to a stomach full of gasoline, a whoosh of heat blazing to life in the pit of her belly. “David,” she breathed, not so much because she had anything to say but because she needed to say it, to roll the sound of his name around in her mouth, let it melt like chocolate on her tongue and infuse her whole body with sweetness.

“Gwen,” he said, and she thought he was doing the same thing, saying her name just because he could, but then his hands were on her shoulders and he was pushing her away, gentle but firm. “Gwen, wait, we should — talk about this —”

“Oh, shit, yeah. Okay. Sorry.” She sat back, her face warming. But as she settled her weight more firmly in his lap he jolted; and if she’d thought she was embarrassed it was nothing to the way his already-flushed cheeks flamed pink, spreading in blotches up to his hairline and the tips of his ears, down to disappear underneath his bandana. He stammered out an apology, avoiding her eyes even as his cock twitched, like bashfulness could disguise how hard he was against her. She quickly rose back up — the last thing she wanted was to make him feel ashamed, or pressured; everything between them was as tremulous and new as the first time — but realized almost instantly when David squeaked that this just shoved her chest in his face.

She hovered there for an awkward second, the two of them staring at each other in mortified horror. Then his whole expression wavered, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth before quickly flattening into a thin line, and the break in his composure took hers out too. She snorted, and they both burst out laughing. “I’ll just sit over here,” she said through giggles, rolling off his lap and settling on the other side of the bed with her feet curled under her so they were no longer touching. He made a small sad sound like a squeeze toy deflating, and Gwen rolled her eyes and stretched out one leg until her foot brushed his knee. “Here, hold my foot if you’re that lonely. It’s practically holding hands.”

His eyes widened, hands closing around her ankle and setting it on his thigh with something like reverence. “Thank you,” he murmured, gently tracing the outline of her foot with his fingertips. “That was very sweet, you know.”

God, she was blushing, wasn’t she? She had to be. “Yeah,” she agreed, trying to ignore the ticklish feeling as he kept playing with her foot like it was a toy doll. “Felt weird, too. I kinda wanted to insult you or something, just to balance it out.”

He smiled, wiggling her big toe like he was playing that little piggies game she used to do with her nieces when they were babies. “That’s my Gwen.” And he sounded pleased, almost proud, like she’d done something wonderful.

But that was David; even though sometimes he was completely oblivious, sometimes he noticed and appreciated the tiniest, most inconsequential things. That’s my David, she thought, her heart swelling like it was going to burst. “You wanted to talk about something?” she reminded him, waggling her toes to get his attention.

“Oh! Right.” He gently took her foot and set it on the bed next to him, grabbing a pillow and hugging it to his chest. “Sorry, I was getting distracted, and that was the whole point of you moving over there.” (He said it with a pout, like she’d gone to Spain instead of just out of arms’ reach.)

“I thought the whole point of me moving over here was so you could cool down, tiger,” she teased. But when he didn’t respond except to flush darker, his gaze firmly on a fraying edge of the pillowcase in his arms, something weird and hilarious clicked in her head. “Oh my god, are you into feet?”

“No!” He lifted his head to give her a tragically betrayed expression. “Not a weird amount!”

She grinned, poking his thigh with her outstretched foot. “What’s a weird amount?” she asked.

He shrugged, not quite able to maintain the kicked-puppy look when a smile kept trying to break through. “I don’t know. Watching people in heels step on fruit. I don’t like that sort of thing, I’ll have you know,” he added defensively, and for a second Gwen was sure he’d stick his tongue out at her.

“Sure, but you’re into them enough to know those videos exist.”

“I think I’d like to go back to you being nice to me,” he muttered, and she felt a stab of panic before he gently patted her ankle and met her gaze with a slight smile. Like he knew what she was thinking.

So she shoved past her nervousness and said, “But I thought you wanted me to be myself. And as myself, I can’t believe you never told me you were a foot guy!”

“I’m a you guy. And . . . you know. All of you. You’re perfect.”

“Yeah, but the feet are a thing, huh? At least a little bit.” When he didn’t answer she laughed, shaking her head. “So do you, like, want a footjob or something?”

“I really don’t.”

“How have we been dating this long and I didn’t know about this? What other freaky sex things are you hiding?”

“Nothing!” he said, hugging the pillow tighter. After a moment he looked away and added, “I didn’t want you to think I was weird.”

“David.” She leaned forward, waiting for him to look at her and see in her expression just how ridiculous that was. “You can’t get weirder than I am. You know that.” When the color in his face receded just a little bit, and his eyes flicked back toward her hopefully, she sighed and attempted to dredge up one of the strangest kinks in her vast library. “I’d totally fuck Drogon.”

He frowned thoughtfully. “From Game of Thrones? So would I- Iiiiiii mean, s-so would most people.”

“No, not Khal Drogo, Drogon. The dragon. Not like a humanized version, either — just full lizard.”

“Oh.” He smiled a little, almost a smirk, and Gwen felt distinctly, lovingly judged. “That does make me feel better. Thank you.”

“No problem. And tomorrow I’m gonna go into town and get a pedicure, just for you.” She wiggled her toes at him, grinning. “I’m thinking something slutty, like hot pink.”

“Gwen!” He shoved her foot away, laughing. “I was trying to have a serious conversation before you started talking about — about slutty toes and dragons!”

She cracked up too, falling over onto her side and nearly toppling off the bed. “Slutty toes,” she repeated breathlessly, and it took a few minutes to recover; every time they tried to make eye contact they burst out laughing again.

“Okay, okay.” Gwen finally sat back up, trying in vain to smooth her hair out of its mass of tangled bedhead. “I’m sorry, you were trying to say something serious. What’s up?”

“Right.” He took a deep breath, fingers knotting in her blankets until his knuckles were white. “It’s just . . . it was starting to seem like we were going to — um, you know. Be intimate.”

She resisted the urge to tease him for his word choice. “I was open to it, yeah.”

“M-me too! That’s why . . . well. Okay.” He took a deep breath, dragging his hands down his face, and Gwen noticed for the first time how tired he looked.

“Hey, we don’t have to do anything,” she said, shifting closer so she could put her hand on his shoulder. “You know that, right?”

He nodded, patting her hand before brushing it away so she didn’t feel rejected, and once again she felt a rush of love so intense it almost brought tears to her eyes. He could be so simply, effortlessly kind, without even thinking about it. “I do. At least, I think I do. I- I mean, I know I do, but it’s hard to . . .” He waved his hand around his head like his thoughts were scattering birds.

“The night before we . . . well. Ended things.” He flinched at his own words, and she felt the same pain flicker over the surface of her heart.

It’s okay, she reminded herself, wishing she could sweep him up in her arms and block out all the bad memories she’d put there. It still hurts, but we’re going to be okay.

Like he’d been thinking the same thing, David stretched out his hand to find hers, squeezing her fingers. “I said I didn’t want to,” he continued in a rush, “you know. Be together like that. And you . . . seemed to get mad — at me. And then the next day you broke up with me.” He squeezed his eyes shut, taking a shuddering breath that had tears behind it, and she tightened her grip on his hand. “It’s okay,” he said, opening his eyes and giving her a slightly-watery smile. “I’m okay. But I just need to know . . .”

“God, no,” she jumped in, taking up the thread of his question as it trailed off into nothingness. “David, no, it had nothing to do with — I freaked out, but I was already — I mean, I was gonna fall apart over anything, it didn’t have to be that. You didn’t do anything wrong, I promise.” She couldn’t stand it anymore, so she pulled his hand to her lips, kissing his knuckles because she wanted to respect his need for space but she had to touch him or she was going to die.

He swallowed, watching their joined hands for a moment before looking away. “You — that really hurt me, Gwen. I just needed to tell you that.”

All the anger he’d thrown at her in the past several hours, all the pain and frustration, and it was those small, matter-of-fact words that slashed her heart in two. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

She hated apologizing — it always felt weak, or dangerous, or something. Like it was an opening for someone to hate her even more, like she was handing them a weapon to hold over her head for the rest of her life. (It was why she hated receiving them, too; she could be spiteful and vindictive as anyone, but it was uncomfortable watching someone flay themselves in front of her.)

But with David . . . it didn’t feel like she was giving him leverage when she told him she was sorry. She wasn’t scared he’d hold onto it and throw it back in her face someday. She wasn’t resentful of him, and she wasn’t worried about how he’d react.

She wasn’t anything but truly, genuinely sorry.

And he didn’t brush it aside, act like she had no reason to apologize the way she’d half-expected. Either she hadn’t been giving him enough credit, or he’d grown up while she wasn’t paying attention. Maybe a little of both. But whatever the cause, he just stroked her cheek with the backs of his knuckles and nodded, a ghost of his smile returning for a second. “It’s okay,” he said, looking at her like she was — god, like he loved her. “Hearing it helps.”

She wasn’t sure if he needed more than that, but she wasn’t going to let a single doubt linger in his mind. “Seriously, David, you can — I won’t ever be mad at you for saying no, ever. For any reason, or no reason or . . . whatever. It’s okay. It’ll always be okay.”

“I — um, I had a reason.” He spoke fast, his eyes wide like he’d surprised himself. Still, he pressed his lips together into a flat line and met her gaze, clearly nervous but just as clearly not intending to end the conversation until they’d said everything they needed to. He was so brave. “I should’ve mentioned it at the time, but I guess I was scared.”

Gwen snorted, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, I can relate to that.”

He rewarded her with a small, soft smile before continuing, “The thing is, everything had just been so gosh-darned strange between us, and it felt like you were avoiding me all the time — except when we were together like that.” He scratched the back of his neck, looking embarrassed. “It sounds silly, but I couldn’t help but worry that maybe that was . . . all you were interested in me for.”

Her stomach sank. “And then when you said no, and I freaked . . .”

David nodded, his throat moving as he swallowed again. “Yeah,” he murmured, looking away. “It — it sure felt like you only wanted me for that one thing, all of a sudden, and when you couldn’t get it . . .”

“I dumped you,” she finished, covering her mouth in horror. “Oh, David.”

“I was a little nervous to tell you to stop.” He pulled his hands from hers so he could fidget, twisting his long fingers together. “Earlier — just now. A minute ago. So we could talk. I — I know it wasn’t fair, but I couldn’t stop thinking you might get mad at me again.”

“I wasn’t mad,” she replied, her hands shaking with how badly she wanted to hug him. (And god, what a change from their normal paradigm, that she was the one who had to hold herself back from a hug.) “I mean, I was, but never at you. I was mad at me, for screwing things up. I — you’re right, I was avoiding you, or avoiding talking to you, I guess. Because I didn’t know how to talk to you, how to act so you wouldn’t find out that I’m . . .” Her throat closed, thick and gummy with tears, and she took a deep breath and swallowed them back. “Rotten,” she finished, which was a stupid, melodramatic word but it felt right; it described the way she still felt despite everything, squishy and overripe and putrid. “It was getting harder to hide, once we were together all the time. And when we were fucking —” She couldn’t tiptoe around the words like David, not when she could just say it and watch him flush red. Even her rotted heart skipped a beat whenever he smiled. “It felt like I didn’t have to try so hard. I couldn’t be amazing, but I could make you feel amazing. And if I could do that . . .” She sniffed, looking away and wiping her face clean. “I thought I was letting you know how much you mean to me,” she admitted, the realization coming right on the heels of the words. “I mean, obviously I wasn’t — add that to the list of things I suck at — but when you didn’t want to have sex, it . . . I took it really hard.”

Her face was turned away, so his hand on her shoulder made her jump. “It felt like I was rejecting the only thing you had to offer,” he guessed, his voice soft and sad but no longer on the verge of tears. “Gwen . . .”

“It’s fine,” she said, shaking her head like she could rattle her self-pity out of her head. “That was just me being stupid, I know that. More importantly — seriously.” She looked back at him, at his beautiful open face, at the way he was watching her like she could possibly have something to say that mattered. “It’s never been about sex with you, David,” she said. Felt the encroaching tears yet again and decided to ignore them. If they came, they came; they weren’t going to stop her, because it was the most essential thing in the world that he knew, that he believed her. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, the sex is really good —” He chuckled, blushing exactly the way she’d hoped he would, and it gave her a little glowing spark of strength, “— but it doesn’t even come close to being what I love most about you. None of that stuff —” She gestured toward her bedroom door, and the mess of crafts cluttering their common room. “— comes close. It’s — everything, a billion other things I don’t know how to explain or describe or show you but I love you, so much, more than I’ve ever loved anyone and it scares me, and — I’m rambling. Sorry.” She shrank back, feeling like an idiot again. “I just wanted you to know that. It . . . we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, ever, and I’ll never be mad at you, or disappointed, or anything like that.”

“Thank you, Gwen.” He was quiet for a minute, and she felt the tension ratcheting up in her shoulders with each long, spiraling second. Part of her wanted to snap at him to just say something, finish the damn thought before he gave her a heart attack, but that was her anxiety and regret talking, and she never wanted to take her own issues out on him ever again.

(She probably would, considering what a mess she was. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to do it on purpose.)

“You’re right, though.” David’s voice was a surprise, as was the soft laugh accompanying his words. He was sitting with his head tilted back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling like he could see through it to the fading stars and brightening sky. His gaze dropped to meet hers, and he immediately looked down and away, biting his lip to try and hide a smile. “We are pretty darn great together.”

A massive weight dropped from Gwen’s chest, rolling away like a stone. “Yeah,” she agreed. Then, to test the waters: “I taught you well.”

It worked; he turned back toward her, his shyness replaced with half-serious indignation. “I like to think some of it was natural talent!”

“Ehh,” she teased, holding her hand out flat and seesawing it back and forth in a “so-so” motion. “Pretty sure enthusiasm was doing most of the heavy lifting in the beginning there.”

He crossed his arms over his chest with a disbelieving scoff. “Well, I never!”

She pressed her lips together to keep from giggling. What a dork. “Y’know, I should say we were insanely good. But I dunno, for all I know you’ve totally lost it.” Shaking her head mournfully, she quickly glanced over to make sure he wasn’t actually offended.

His mouth dropped open, his eyes growing wide before narrowing. “I haven’t lost anything!” he snapped, and — oh, the playful irritation in his voice made her stomach twist. Not in the awful sick way she’d been tied up in knots earlier, but with a flush of heat that took her breath away.

Managing a smirk, she laid back on her elbows, a warm glow of satisfaction blooming in her chest as his gaze dropped to her stomach, to the narrow strip of skin where her camisole had ridden up. She waited until he dragged his eyes back up to her, dark and intense like the ocean in a storm, then grinned at him.

“Wanna bet?”

His face lit up — or, not quite. Because his smile was bright and warm as sunshine, but underneath the tenderness was a sharp competitive edge that he almost never turned on her. It was almost intimidating, but the shiver it sent down her spine had nothing to do with fear. “Always,” he replied.

Before she could respond he’d pushed himself to his knees and grabbed her just above her calves; a quick tug forward and Gwen was pulled flat on her back, dragged down the bed until her body was sprawled out beneath him. He let go of her, bracing his hands on either side of her head and bending down to capture her mouth in a kiss.

She curled one hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer, bending her knees so he was caged between her legs and arching her back to bring as much of her skin against his as possible. He was warm, almost uncomfortably so — her furnace, her own personal sun, and she wanted nothing more than to melt into him. When he abandoned her mouth in favor of trailing long, suckling kisses down her neck she pressed her lips together, biting hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from making a sound.

“You could’ve —” A gasp, too sudden for her to swallow it back, and she felt David’s satisfied smirk against the base of her throat as he bit down again. “— given me a concussion, you asshole.”

He hummed in assent, his lips skating up to her ear and his tongue lapping at the sensitive spot just behind it. “I know,” he said mildly, “but I didn’t.”

He gently took her earlobe between his teeth, and she couldn’t help the strangled noise that was somewhere between a moan and a sigh. Grabbing his hair again, she dragged his mouth back for another kiss, enjoying the shudder that rolled down his spine and made him tremble everywhere his body was touching hers. For a few dizzying minutes she held him there, barely allowing either of them to draw breath. His mouth was blood-hot, warmer than even her fevered skin, and she didn’t know exactly where she wanted it because she wanted it everywhere — against hers, his tongue lapping at the roof of her mouth and making her shiver; around one of her nipples, his teeth catching on the pebbled skin; sucking bruises into her inner thighs, closing around her clit, dipping inside her cunt, her asshole, along the sensitive strip of skin between the two. She wanted him to kiss her places that weren’t even close to erotic but she knew would burst into flame if he so much as brushed his lips over them: the bone jutting out from her ankle, the ticklish spot inside her elbow, wherever the fuck he wanted to press the gorgeous wet heat of his mouth she wanted to let him, because from the very first kiss he’d been good, better than he’d had any right to be but time and experience had worked their magic and now his mouth could ruin her; without even trying he could reduce her to twitching, shuddering goo.

“Take this off,” she gasped, not sure if she meant her clothes or his because she was wriggling out from under him and trying to remove both at the same time, her fingers clumsy and shaking with how badly she needed to touch him without any fabric in the way. She struggled to her knees, practically yanking her camisole off and throwing it across the room before hooking her fingers in his belt loops and dragging him close enough for her to undo the buckle. “Come on —”

“So I won?” He laughed breathlessly, untucking his shirt and pulling it over his head in one fluid motion, smugness making him unfairly graceful like he was trying to show off.

“Sure, whatever,” she muttered, because who cared about some bet when he was kneeling half-naked in front of her? They’d had silly, jokey sex but that was not this, not when he was so beautiful she was having trouble looking directly at him, hair mussed and lips damp and swollen and pink blooming in blotches under the light constellations of freckles across his skin. He looked debauched, flushed and obscene even with half his clothes still on, and there wasn’t room in her brain for humor when all she could feel was clawing shaking need. She dropped onto all fours, leaning down to trace the hard outline of his cock with her tongue, and even through his shorts he was burning warm. He sucked in a sharp breath, his pulse spiking under her mouth, and Gwen couldn’t resist closing her lips around the shape of his erection, breathing in the salty-ammonia smell of precome and feeling her mouth water. “David,” she began, but there was no end to that sentence so she lifted her head slightly, bit the delicate ridge of his hipbone where it peeked out from the waist of his shorts, caught him as his hips stuttered forward. She kept him steady, one hand splayed across his lower back, as she rose to her knees without lifting her mouth from his skin: over the barely-there softness of his stomach (no werewolf six-pack here, despite his lean strength), tongue swirling among the faint red hair below his belly button, following the curve of his ribs, just barely brushing one nipple — he made a small, strung-out noise in the back of his throat, almost despairing as she moved on up to his neck — until she found his lips again, dragging him into a bruising, breathless kiss.

When she pulled away David’s smile was gone, drawn out of his mouth and leaving him panting. “Okay,” he murmured, soft and almost reverent, but before she could figure out what specifically was okay he hauled her forward like she weighed nothing, capturing her lips for a second before trailing down her throat, pausing at a sensitive place above her pulse point and biting down hard, sucking the skin between his teeth.

Pain bloomed under his mouth, rippling out into shockwaves of cold-hot pleasure, and when he bit her again she couldn’t hold back a moan. “You’re gonna — leave a mark,” she gasped, gently shoving his head away and running her fingers over the damp skin. It was already tender, and judging by David’s expression, contrite and amused and darkly heated, it was going to be a hell of a hickey. “I can’t hide this!”

“I’m sorry!” he tried, but it wasn’t close to convincing when he couldn’t hide his grin. His eyes drifted down to the mark again and he licked his lips, expression growing dazed for a moment before he snapped back up to look at her face. “I can make you a bandana, if you want. Just until it fades.”

“Fucker.” Gwen laughed, not so much because it was funny but because it was him, and she loved him more than she could possibly stand. Tired of the overheated, confining clothes she was still wearing, she shimmied out of them, tossing her pajama shorts and half-soaked underwear without bothering to see where they landed. “Come here,” she said, pressing her legs together and shivering at the wet slide of her inner thighs and labia, a thousand nerve endings sparking to glistening life. “You can make it up to me.”

She swore she could almost see his mouth water, his gaze dropping between her legs as he took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “Yes, ma’am,” he said — and they’d never tried that before, but judging by the way his cock twitched and his eyes jumped sheepishly to hers, it was something he’d thought about a lot. Filing the information away for later, she held out her hand and pulled him closer when he took it, resting her forehead against his. It took just the slightest shift in the angle of her head to kiss him again so she did it without thinking, her hand sliding between their bodies to curl loosely around the outline of his erection.

He gasped shakily against her mouth, his hands fluttering up and down her waist like he couldn’t decide where to touch her. One of them dropped to her ass, a light, almost hesitant touch, and she rewarded it with a soft groan; he made a weak noise in the back of his throat and pulled her closer, kneading her ass before slipping lower, between her legs. The heel of his hand brushed teasingly against her clit as he pressed two fingers into her, and she mimicked his pace, gliding her palm down the length of his clothed cock and relishing the way his fingers twitched against her inner walls.

He fingered her like that, slow and steady, for — she didn’t know how long. Lost track of the strokes that sent warmly buzzing tendrils up her spine, lost count of the breaths gasped raggedly between their lips, of the kisses that melted into one another until she wasn’t entirely sure where she was, she was hyper aware of the heartbeat pounding in her clit and every too-gentle drag of his hand but numb to literally everything else that wasn’t right here, wasn’t David —

“Fuck,” she breathed, pressing her forehead against his shoulder with a shuddering sigh. She turned her head and lapped at his throat, sucking his skin into her mouth and biting down hard enough to make his fingers jolt inside her, pressing against her g-spot for one delicious moment. “God, I -- please, David, just make me come, please --”

Another shiver, another twitch of his fingers that took her breath away. “Okay,” he said, his voice strangled and hoarse. He pulled out of her and sat back on his heels. “Lay down, all right?”

Yes, yes, whatever he was thinking was 100% all right with her. She almost kneed him as she scrambled into position, but her embarrassed giggle evaporated as he lowered himself onto his elbows, scooching her up the bed like she weighed nothing and settling between her legs. Alarm cut through her arousal, her mind immediately trying to calculate the last time she’d showered, let alone shaved --

His eyes flicked up to hers, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I know,” he replied before she’d even opened her mouth. “I promise, I really want to.”

Oh, god. She covered her face to muffle a squeak, flopping onto her back and looking up at the ceiling. “I’m that predictable, huh?”

David hummed thoughtfully, the sound vibrating up the inside of her thigh. “Only with some things. Other times you surprise me quite a bit.”

“Yeah?” He kissed the top of her mound, his tongue dipping into the V formed by her lips and just brushing her clit — a teasing touch, his mouth moving away even as she lifted her hips instinctively. “I’m surprising?”

“You are,” he said, the camp-counselor cheer in his voice making what he was doing feel even more obscene. He traced the line of her cunt with his mouth before gently fingering her open. “The first time you did this, for example. That surprised me quite a bit!”

“This?” She knew exactly what he meant — her stomach still dipped and swooped at the memory of kneeling on the floor of his shower, the heady rush of confidence and vulnerability she’d felt looking up at him with his cock at her lips — but she tilted her head back with a sigh and breathed, “Pretty sure I’ve never eaten you out before. Not that I wouldn’t be into that, just saying.”

He gasped and spluttered, pulling back to wipe his mouth and staring at her with wide, shocked eyes, then coughed, tapping his chest with his other hand. “Excuse —?!”

When he lowered his head to cough again and take an unsteady breath, Gwen sat up on her elbows, not sure if she should be amused, worried, or mortified. “Oh my god, please tell me you did not just choke on cunt juice!”

David gave her a disgusted look, shaking his head and clearing his throat. “There had to be another way to word that,” he said, as primly as he could while still struggling to catch his breath. “But — um, you didn’t…w-was a joke, or…?”

“I meant it,” she admitted, “but I get it if you don’t want to, don’t feel pressured either way —”

“No — I want to.” He looked startled by his own words, and immediately dropped his gaze, smoothing his palms down her thighs like he could disguise how his fingers trembled. “Sometime. If — if you do.”

Gwen let the awkward silence linger for another moment, not quite sure how to move forward. “Good. That’s…something to put on the to-do list.”

“Y-yes. Okay.” He did meet her eyes then, brightening. “See, you did it again!”

She frowned. “Did what?”

“Surprised me.” He leaned over her body to tug her into a slow, sweet kiss. When she pulled back to breathe he cupped the back of her neck, holding her close and brushing his nose against hers. “You’re an adventure every day, Gwen,” he murmured.

“Yeah, I’m a real goddamn roller coaster,” she grumbled, shifting her hips upward in a blind search for his touch. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d fucking ride me already.”

David laughed softly against her mouth before turning his attention to her jaw, throat, collarbone — a damp, shivery brush of his tongue against her skin moving down her body. “Well goodness, Gwen, now I’m confused.” She both hated and loved the smug, teasing tone he got whenever her composure cracked. “I could make love to you,” he continued, nipping the skin just below her bellybutton and making her jump, “but I thought you wanted me to do this first.”

He closed his lips around her clit and sucked gently, catching her with an arm behind her back as she arched toward the maddening wet heat of his mouth. Lowering her hips back to the bed with infuriating tenderness, he paused, resting his cheek on her inner thigh and looking up the length of her body. When she met his eyes he smiled, pausing to press a chaste kiss to her leg before returning her gaze.

“What do you want, Gwen?” And he asked it untauntingly. Seriously. Like he wanted nothing more than for her to tell him what to do, and like he’d do it without question.

His sincerity was going to be the death of her, she decided with a groan, burying her hands in her hair and shielding her face from his view with her arms. “Fuck. I don’t know. Everything.”

When it came to David, she always wanted everything.

“That’s a real swell coincidence, then!” He traced the seam where her hip and leg met, then dipped down, dragging his fingertips through the wetness smearing her thighs before swiping them up to circle her clitoris. “Because ‘everything’ is exactly what I’d like to give you.”

She barely had time to absorb the statement before his mouth was on her again, sliding the hood back with his lips before swirling his tongue beneath it and around the exposed clit. It was almost too much, too sensitive, bordering on painful and if he stopped she might actually die; she knotted her fingers in the flimsy sheets to keep from pushing his face harder against her, vaguely aware that she was mumbling nonsensical pleas, an incoherent litany of “oh god yes please fuck don’t stop” —

He didn’t. Without lifting his mouth he braced one hand under her knee and pushed it toward her chest, bending her leg and using two fingers of his other hand to enter her. It took him a second but when he found her g-spot he pressed up hard, stroking with the same rapid pace of his flicking tongue. It was more pressure than she was used to, strangely achy but pleasurably so, and it was impossible not to writhe under his touch as the need to come coiled tighter, dragged her higher, kept her suspended on the brink for a frustrating, dizzying, electrifying moment that stretched like a rubber band…

Then it snapped — a dam breaking, a wave cresting and finally letting gravity take over — and she curled forward with a sob of relief, pleasure rippling through her limbs and turning her bones to liquid, trembling through the aftershocks.

The shift from overwhelmingly perfect to just plain overwhelming was a split second. “Nngh, stop, stop —” She pawed weakly at his head, just barely smacking the edge of his fringe with her fingertips, but he lifted his mouth from her with a look of concern. “You’re fine,” she added quickly, struggling to catch her breath and shivering from the buzz of overstimulation, “s’just too much.”

David nodded, relieved, and sat back, wiping his face with the back of his arm. “Wow,” he murmured, eyes wide and awed. “Wowzers. Gwen, have you ever done that before?”

She sat up, frowning. “Come like a train? Like every time we — whoa.”

The sheets between her legs were wet. Not damp, wet like she’d spilled a glass of water (and cooling rapidly, she realized with a grimace, shifting to avoid the blotchy patch). Presumably the same wetness dripping down David’s chin.

“Oh my god.” She groaned, hiding her face in her hands like if she couldn’t see it, it would disappear. Or feel it slicking her inner thighs. “And uh, not really,” she finally muttered, a belated answer to his question. “Once or twice, but you’ve really gotta work over the g-spot to make it happ --” She glanced up just in time to catch his expression, a flash of recognition mixed with pleased sheepishness. “Which you were.” David quickly looked away, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth and flushing pink. “On purpose?”

“I -- I’d read about it, that’s all!” he said, meeting her gaze defensively. “I knew it was, well . . . a thing. That some wom- people can do. And I was -- I’ve seen -- I was curious!” Gwen tried to stifle a laugh and failed, turning it into a choking snort, and he blushed even darker. “I know I should’ve just asked, but I couldn’t figure out how to say . . .”

She waited for him to finish the sentence, but when it became clear he had no intention of doing so, she injected as much demented cheer into her voice as possible and chirped, “‘Golly gee, Gwen, could I try making you squirt sometime?’”

Her imitation of his voice was passable -- she’d spent enough years making fun of him to get good at it -- and though he turned his head away she was positive he rolled his eyes at her. “I don’t know if that counts as bad language or not.”

“Oh no. It’d be so shocking if I said one of the no-no words.”

He chuckled, trying and failing to disguise it as a sigh, and climbed out of bed, tugging the rest of his clothes off. (As he picked up his shirt and wiped his face clean, Gwen quickly bent forward and sniffed the damp spot on the mattress. A little like saline, mostly like nothing. Good to know.)

“So how often do you trawl the internet for sex tips?” she asked, grinning. “Or -- god, tell me you’re not checking out books from the library.”

“Of course not!” He looked horrified at the thought. “And . . . sometimes. More often, after we started dating. I . . .” He paused, looking like he was reconsidering the rest of that sentence, and joined her on the bed to lean back against the headboard. “The time you visited, when I -- used my mouth on you for the first time.” (And what was it about his delicate tiptoeing that made it sound so much more filthy than if he’d said it outright?) “I thought -- or, well, I hoped . . . anyway, I did a little reading. Online, obviously. Just in case.”

So that was how he’d been so goddamn good right off the fucking bat. Always prepared, her boy scout. “Well, I appreciate it,” she said, and sat up, throwing one leg over his lap and draping her arms around his shoulders. “Can I please fuck you now, Mr. Greenwood?”

He sucked in an unsteady breath, his cock twitching up against her; the tip of his head slipped between her outer folds, making them both gasp. “C-condom,” he breathed, his voice raspy and uneven, and she scrambled off his lap before she could give in to the voice in the back of her head insisting they didn’t need to stop and get anything, he was right there , if she’d angled her hips right he could’ve been inside her already --

Her fingers were shaking as she retrieved the foil packet and brought it over, letting him take it with relief. (There was no way she wouldn’t have ripped it, with the way her whole body was trembling like the room had dropped ten degrees.) She watched him roll the latex down his cock, unable to tear her eyes away from how beautifully flushed it was, precome beading at the tip and slicking the inside of the condom.

God, she needed him inside her. Immediately.

David caught her with a breathless laugh as she vaulted back up onto the bed, curling his fingers around her hips and holding her steady. “Careful,” he murmured, and she rolled her eyes, fumbling blindly between her legs to line him up. “Have I- hhha --” He cut off, squeezing his eyes shut with a sigh as the head of his cock pressed into her, “t- told you how beautiful you are?”

Gwen frowned. It was kind of hard to focus on the question when her body was fluttering and pulsing as it adjusted to the welcome intrusion. “A lot?” she guessed, sinking down the last few inches too fast and bottoming out with an electric shock of pain and pleasure. “Fuck.”

“No. Not like that.” He slid one arm between their bodies, parting her folds to see the way she stretched around him. “I -- think you’re so pretty,” he managed, gently tracing her inner labia with his fingertips. “I like your colors. And how we -- um, contrast.”

No one had ever told her that her cunt was pretty before. It was just the kind of stupid, romantic thing David would do. And he was right; his cock looked so pale against her, where she faded from shocking pink into a dark purplish-brown that lightened as it blended into her normal skin tone. There was something about it that reminded her of a sunset -- which was just the kind of stupid, romantic thing David made her think.

“You’re an idiot,” she said, pressing her forehead against his and raising up a few inches, “and I love you so much.”

“I — love you too.” Suddenly he froze, his eyes widening and his grip tightening around her waist, keeping her from moving.

“David? Everything okay?” God, he wasn’t having some kind of terrible flashback, was he? Maybe they shouldn’t be doing this.

His eyes flicked up to hers, and a wide, sunny smile spread across his face like spilled honey. “This is just like the first time.”

It took her a moment to understand what he was talking about, but then it hit her: this was like the night they’d first had sex, from the position to the location to the dizzying, giddy strangeness of it.

God, he was perfect.

“Sort of.” She pressed a hard, quick kiss to his lips before grabbing a fistful of his hair and tugging his head to the side so she could reach his neck; he whimpered and twitched twice, each pulse against her inner walls taking her breath away. “Except I know you way better now.” She punctuated the statement by licking a wide stripe up the side of his throat, then sucked a mark right beside his Adam’s apple, where it’d be safely hidden by his bandana. “All your weak points.”

“I—” He swallowed, tilting his head obediently as she trailed a line of open-mouthed kisses up to his ear, “d-don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She just hummed; that wasn’t worth dignifying with a real response, and the vibrations against his damp skin made him shiver. Instead she toyed with him: tracing the shell of his ear with her tongue, nipping at his earlobe with just a hint of teeth, exploring the delicate area around his ear and neck she knew so well, had staked her claim to a hundred times before.

David’s breathing quickened, roughened, and she had to tighten her grip on his hair to keep him from squirming. Her hips weren’t moving but his were, minute jolts she was positive he couldn’t control. “Gwen,” he gasped, “please, I -- hhit's too much, I can’t --”

“Could you come like this?” she asked, fighting to keep her own voice level. She could feel his pulse pounding in his cock and in his throat, under her lips; her clit throbbed in response, a metronome perfectly attuned to him. “Without me even moving? Or just . . .” She squeezed her internal muscles, clenching around him in a quick staccato pattern, and lapped her tongue against his neck in time.

“Nnno. Or -- yes?” His fingers tightened around her hips, a helpless spasm. “I don’t know. It’d . . . be torture.”

His voice was so low, wrecked, and Gwen’s stomach went into a dizzying, delicious free-fall. “Good,” she said before she could stop herself, think it through and reject it as sounding weird and freaky. David successfully pulled back from her, his eyes wide and blown out with arousal, and he looked so beautiful she couldn’t stop herself from blurting out, “I want to torture you sometime. Nothing you’re not okay with -- and not now, but . . .”

“Yes,” he breathed, and the word was barely out of his mouth before his hand curled around the back of her neck and he was dragging her mouth to his, a kiss made of teeth and desperation with words gasped out against her lips: “yes, god, whatever you want Gwen please I love you --” His other hand slid to cup the curve of her thigh, urge her up onto her knees so he could fuck her properly, pull her back down to set a rhythm that bordered on frantic.

She couldn’t help but laugh, even as she braced her palms against the headboard for better leverage to ride him faster, harder. “Told you,” she teased, biting his lower lip hard enough to drag a breathy whine from him. “Weak.”

That made him moan, drawn-out and broken, and he slipped one hand between their bodies; curling it into a loose fist, he splayed his index and middle fingers just enough for her clit to glide between them, adding an extra jolt of friction every time she moved her hips. Gwen gasped, clutching at his back with one hand as her second orgasm coiled tighter at the base of her spine.

She bit his shoulder because she could, because she had to, because he’d like it and because it was that or scream loud enough to wake the entire camp. “Fuck, god, David --”

He shuddered and buried his face in her hair, his breath hot with a stream of pleasured mumbles beginning and ending in her name --

Gwen didn’t know which of them came first. It didn’t matter, really, because they dragged each other over the edge. His cock was almost painfully hard, unyielding as iron as her muscles tightened and fluttered around it, and the sudden snap upward of his hips as he came nearly knocked her breathless.

She was going to be sore tomorrow. Or . . . later today. She turned her head and mouthed at David’s neck, relishing the sweet-salt taste of his sweat, and let him hold her up as they caught their breath.

“I love you too,” she whispered belatedly. David huffed a weak laugh into her hair, stroking her back with a touch that was light and ticklish. “But we’re sleeping in your room tonight. I don’t wanna deal with the wet spot.”

Yeah, she was going to be sore, and exhausted, and facing a hell of a cleanup both in her bedroom and outside of it.

David groaned and gently pushed her upright, sliding out from under her and taking her hand, like she was a camper who needed to be ushered back to bed. “Phone,” she bleated, weakly reaching for it as they walked past, and he paused to pick it up for her, and in that second she loved him even more, more than she’d ever thought possible.

Worth it.

#campcamp #camp camp roosterteeth #gwenvid #cc gwen #cc david #this ending is too awkward to put in the main tags but fuck it #i spent weeks working on this okay #maybe even months #i am exhausted and cannot look at this anymore #hope y'all like your smut interspersed with pages upon pages of talking #because that's what you're getting #the only reason this isn't a total disaster is raenbows and don't anyone forget it #forestwriting

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adverbally · 4 months ago

Text

Eddie has taught him well! So well, in fact, that I would bet Eddie gets distracted by the nerdiness and doesn’t always notice the flirting. Maybe a little something like this:

When Eddie comes over one evening, Steve has a copy of the Player’s Handbook and his character sheet spread all over his dining room table. “Since we’re finally level 11, I need to pick a second-level spell. Could you help me narrow it down?”

Eddie glances at the book, already open to the cleric spell list. “Well, Find Traps is obviously going to come in handy for the next dungeon crawl. But Silence can be pretty useful to stop enemies from casting spells with verbal components.”

Steve comes up behind Eddie and wraps his arms around his waist, resting his chin on his shoulder. “I was thinking something along the lines of… Hold Person,” he breathes into Eddie’s ear.

Eddie is lost in thought, flipping the page to read the spell description. “I don’t know, it kinda sucks that it’s a saving throw. At least it can affect multiple targets?”

“Eds.” Steve squeezes him and kisses his neck.

“Augury is pretty cool, too, that’s a divination spell—”

“Maybe you should learn Detect Charm so you would be able to tell when I’m trying to seduce you.”

Eddie tries to spin in Steve’s arms, nearly tripping them both and elbowing Steve in the jaw. “Really?” He grabs Steve’s face like he can read his mind with strong enough eye contact.

Steve’s cheeks are pink, not from embarrassment but from silently laughing at his boyfriend. “C’mon, we’ve talked before about how lame Hold Person is. Why would I waste my only second-level spell on that?”

“Oh my god. Steve Harrington, you’re melting my brain right now. Are you trying to kill me?”

“I know it was a cheesy line, I’m sor—“

Eddie claps a hand over Steve’s mouth. “Don’t apologize,” he hisses. “It’s sexy as hell.”

Steve waggles his eyebrows until Eddie releases him. “Wait until you hear my joke about Tongues.”

“Babe, you won’t even be able to use that spell until you hit level 15.”

“Oh, no. It’s going to take me forever to get the experience points for that.” Steve’s pouty face is so exaggerated that Eddie can’t help but lean in to kiss him.

“Mmhmm.” Another kiss. “Forever.” A third, this one pressed to the vampire-bite moles on the side of Steve’s neck. “Definitely more than one night.”

Steve’s chuckle rumbles through them both. “Sounds like we better get to work, then.”

They’re halfway up the stairs when Eddie exclaims, “Wait, Lay on Hands! The ultimate Paladin sex joke! I can’t believe I didn’t think of that earlier–”

Take a Chance, Roll the Dice

written for the @steddiemicrofic july prompt "one" | wc: 111 | rated: T | cw: none | tags: established relationship, Dungeons & Dragons

“With a fierce battle cry, you swing your sword at the manticore!”

“So I... roll for the attack, right?”

“Yeah. With its AC of four and your plus-two sword, you need at least a ten to hit.”

“And that’s on the big dice?” At Eddie’s nod, Steve rolls the twenty-sided die. “Shit. One.”

“Again?!?!”

“Apparently Sir Staevyn is cursed.”

“Your dungeon master could be persuaded to… overlook that roll.”

Dustin groans, “You promised not to be gross!”

Steve rerolls. “Thirteen!” He bats his lashes at Eddie. “How will I ever repay you, oh merciful one?”

“We can talk later, baby.” Eddie blows an obnoxiously loud kiss across the table.

Dustin gags.

#steddie #steddie fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie #stranger things fic #i have only ever played D&D 5e so forgive me for any inaccuracies #first edition is very different actually #but i read the advanced dungeons & dragons player handbook #AND the dungeon master’s guide AND the monster manual #so I could semi-accurately write about two nerds in love

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writer-k-pop · 4 years ago

Text

Study Dates - Vocal

Description: It’s finals week and you drag them to the library for a study date. Warnings: Swearing Genre: Fluff

Seventeen Masterlist | Masterlists

Jeonghan

You’re just finishing up the first assignment of the day, all-be-it a small one, when Jeonghan shows up (late). Sweatpants and an oversized shirt hangs from his body and drips with his desire to be back in his bed.

“You are going to pay for this.” Jeonghan mumbles and drops his backpack onto the table, causing a few people nearby to look over at the loud noise.

You give him the sweetest smile and slowly shut your textbook, “But you’re grades are going to call me a god when the week’s over.” You prepare to dive into it because not even his good looks can distract you from your grades goal.

Scoffing and rolling his eyes, Jeonghan unceremoniously drops himself in the chair opposite you. “I highly doubt that.” He says and grudgingly drags his backpack into the empty chair next to him.

You pull out a notebook and opened your laptop to find the practice test your professor graciously gave out. “Take this practice test with me. Come on, you’ll be grateful for it later.”

Jeonghan crosses his arms over his chest and pouts while just starting at me. After a few seconds, he tosses his arms into the air, sits up properly, and then opens his backpack to pull out his school supplies. “Don’t expect me to be super focused like you are.”

You smile in satisfaction that A) you got him out of his bed and B) you got him studying. But he isn’t going to make it easy. He never does. And today is no different.

Halfway through the practice test, he’s drawing doodles in the margins of his notebook and then asks for your opinion on the doodles. 20 minutes later, when you’ve moved onto a different subject, he’s scrolling through his phone. And 15 minutes after that, he’s using his eraser as a hockey puck and his pens as hockey sticks to play a game of hockey that occasionally has the eraser interrupting your studying. Jeonghan giggles when you flick the eraser back at him.

“Come on, let’s just go back to my room.” Jeonghan bargains, resting his chin on the table and looking at you with pouty eyes, “I can lay in bed and you can study at my desk. It’s a win-win!”

Joshua

“Do we need anything else?” Joshua looks around the table. You’ve set up your laptops, notebooks, pencil cases, and drinks according to your personal studying style, reading for the study session that’s about to commence.

You shake your head, “Might need sustenance later, but we can deal with that when we get there.”

Joshua nods in agreement before he dives deep into his textbook and you do the same.

A handful of minutes later, you find yourself mindlessly twirling your pen in your hands and staring at Joshua as he scratches his head and tries to read his professors awful handwriting. He feels your eyes on him and glances at you, catching you red handed.

“Already giving up?” Joshua questions and peers down at your notes.

“Distracted.” You correct with a smirk before lowering your gaze again.

When you both reach the subject you’re in class together for, you decide to quiz each other to find out what you each need to work on.

“Okay, this one’s tricky.” You peer at the flashcard in your hands before flicking your eyes up at him.

Joshua breathes out in preparation for the “difficult” question and you wait a couple more seconds to show him the flashcard to add to the suspense.

“Oh, would you just show me the card already.” Joshua whines with a laugh mixed in.

You laugh along and give up on keeping him in suspense. Showing him the card he reads the card, squints and reads the card, then tilts his head to the side and just stares at the flashcard.

“Do you know it?” You question him.

Joshua puckers his lips and shakes his head, “I have no idea what it is.”

Woozi/Jihoon

“I’m stealing your highlighter again.” Woozi says, more mumbles, as he reaches across the table for your green highlighter.

“Uh huh.” You answer without words as you scroll down to another TikTok video. You are taking a break from studying with a well earned 5-minute-turned-into-20-minutes break.

Woozi rolls the highlighter back over to your side and you decide you should at least try to get some work done on a group project before you completely give up the efforts to study.

“What’s another word for ‘change’?” You ask Woozi as you proofread another group member’s section of the project.

“Why?” Woozi looks up at you in confusion.

“Because this person used ‘change’ like 600 times and it feels very very redundant.” You explain, “Like I feel like we could make this a drinking game. Something like take a chug every time the word ‘change’ appears.”

“We’d get drunk.” Woozi states the obvious and raises an eyebrow at you.

You point a finger at him with a knowing smile, “Exactly.”

“Oh gosh.” Woozi squeezes his eyes shut and giggles. “You’re already thinking about drinking? Finals week hasn’t even started yet.”

“It feels like it started months ago.” You joke with an eye roll, “I’ve been prepared for the post semester drunkness for AGES.”

Woozi shakes his head and turns the page in his notebook, “Adjust, modify, switch, revise. Uh...” He trails off in thought.

“What?” You ask, wondering why he’s saying random words.

“Synonyms for change.” Woozi reiterates your earlier request. “Oh, differ. And that’s all I got.”

“Oh, right. Thank you.” You quickly jot down the words in the margin of your notebook. “You still sure we can’t make this a drinking game?”

Dokyeom/Seokmin

The math problem staring up at you without giving you any hints at what the answer could be or how to solve for the answer. It’s like it’s mocking you with its numbers and letters gathered in that one particular spot on the screen.

“Curse you math.” You grumble and open to a fresh page to restart your attempt at solving the problem.

“What problem are you on?” Dokyeom asks and leans over the table to peer at your laptop.

“This one.” You turn the screen so he can get a better look.

“Ooooh, yeahhhhh.” Dokyeom drags out the words as if he’s thinking about how he solved them. Then he pops his lips, “Yeah, I haven’t gotten to that one yet.”

You muffle a chuckle and turn the screen back to face you, “Thanks, Kyeomie.”

“Did you try starting with the theorem we learned last week?” He offers a suggestion while you busy yourself with the nth attempt of solving it.

“Yeah, I did, but it just led me in a circle over and over again.” You tell him, “Didn’t work.”

“Hmm.” Dokyeom leans his chin in his hand in thought but you pay no attention to him. That is until he clears his throat to force your attention to him.

You flicker your eyes upwards for a second before double taking and a laugh bubbles in your throat. “What-?”

“I’ve got my thinking glasses on.” Dokyeom states seriously with three pairs of glasses sitting on his face.

“Where’d you get all those anyway?” You ask, laughing at his simple antics.

“One of them is mine, one is Minghao’s that he left in my bag, and the last pair are yours.” He explains and your hands fly to your face. No wonder your eyes were starting to feel tired. You’d been staring at your screen without your blue light glasses on. And now they are on Dokyeom’s face, assisting him in thinking.

Seungkwan

“Pencils?” “Check. Laptop AND chargers?” “Check. Notebooks?” “Check.”

“Fuzzy noise canceling headphones?” Seungkwan lists off the next item and pulls just that out of his bag.

“Fuzzy noi- what?” You look up from your backpack and see the headphones in Seungkwan’s hands. “Why do you need those?”

“It’s finals week, and I need to focus.” He waves the headphones at you, “And since SOMEONE made me come to the library, I need these so I don’t get distracted from the noise.”

You widen your eyes and go back to organizing your study supplies, “Oh-kay.” You definitely didn’t find this weird... at all....

“Judge all you want.” Seungkwan says, a-matter-a-factly, “These babies work wonders.”

You give him a half hearted nod and start your studying. He follows suit and places his earbuds on before settling the fuzzy headphones over his ears. Throughout your study session, friends of yours come up to you two and have small chats. And each time, Seungkwan is forced to take off his fuzzy headphones to be apart of the conversations with his friends.

By the 20th time, Seungkwan is annoyed and you can read the annoyance on his face like it’s a kindergartener’s book. Your friend bids you goodbye before leaving the table side and then Seungkwan lets out a sighed groan.

“How are those headphones working out for you?” You ask, trying to stifle a laugh.

“They’re working fantastic when I have them on. I just wished people would stop coming up to me.” Seungkwan whines, “I mean what part of fuzzy pink noise cancelling headphones says ‘please come talk to me while my head in buried in my notes’?”

You smirk and joke, “I’m guessing it’s the little eyelids and eyelashes stitched onto them.” You nod towards the sides and his lips twitch in distaste at your joke.

#kpop #kpop imagine #seventeen #seventeen imagine #seventeen jeonghan imagine #jeonghan imagine #seventeen joshua imagine #joshua imagine #seventeen woozi imagine #seventeen jihoon imagine #woozi imagine #jihoon imagine #seventeen dokyeom imagine #seventeen seokmin imagine #dokyeom imagine #seokmin imagine #seventeen seungkwan imagine #seungkwan imagine #writer-k-pop

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morgansmoreid · 3 years ago

Text

Secrets • Derek Morgan • Three

Fic Masterlist

Name: Happy Moments and Old Friends

Warnings: Sexual Content

(Italics Stand For Flashbacks)

Y/n lets go of her father's hands and switches the suitcase to her other side. She hates the man before her but she still leans in and presses a small kiss to his cheek, pulling back to examine him. Clean, is the word she would use to describe him. Colored hair and a shaved face, her father looked younger than she could pin him.

"Is it still the same?" Y/n points to the glass door. "It's been so long."

Y/F/N only nods and turns to hold the door for the three agents. Y/n goes in last, goosebumps on her arms from the seconds no one watches the two. But as Y/F/N makes no moves, she slowly calms down and ignores the looks she gets. She's her father's twin, she knows that, but from the way she carried herself past years, she can see the shock in some people's eyes as the badge resides on the band of the pants.

"Here." Y/F/N takes the three agents into the big conference room. The room Y/n was never allowed to go in, the one that held every meeting that pulled her father away from her life, the one she dreaded.

Y/F/N didn't follow Derek, Penelope, and Y/n into the room, leaving them to interrogate.

"Fields?" Derek was a little hurt and the sudden front his partner put on.

"Not now." Y/n shut down any further questions and walked past her team members to start the step up. The board looked clean halfway through, papers in order, and information that Y/n wrote up made it easier on Penelope, who was still giving Y/n the cold shoulder.

The silence the three create as they work is not tense. Frankly, the only sounds are Y/n's nails against her tablet and Penelope's keys being clacked against her research, mixed in with a little bit of Derek's blocky writing against his yellow pad.

Well, it was silent, until the door busted open with an angry man coming in and screaming at Y/n. "You should have answered my damn text!" He screamed, walking towards her, causing her to step out of her seat and back to the nearest wall. Derek did the same but in the protection of his girlfriend. "I was worried sick and you couldn't even bother to text me a quick answer? What the fuck is that about?" The man is still screaming until he is shut down by Derek.

"Excuse you!" He walks forward, his body still protecting Y/n's. "Watch yourself and who you talk to like that!" Derek isn't screaming like Deputy James, the tag on his uniform reads. Deputy James Diaz. But Derek's tone is indeed strict. It's rare anyone hears him speak as he did moments ago, even on cases. Daiz steps down. Derek doesn't move his body from Y/n but she moves from behind him to next to him.

"We can talk about this later." She looked him straight in the eye. Fear from her father still ran through Y/n's bloodstream as she spoke, but Y/n stood her ground and watched James slowly back up before he left the room himself. His face too looked cleaner and he overall looked better. It's hard to look at James from the last time they were alone together, but that didn't stop Y/n from seeing the differences.

For years and years, he kept quiet about his feelings to the woman next to him. Her hair smelled like flowers as she laid on his shoulder, hands connected as they watched the stars off of his apartment building roof.

"You are one the reasons I still come back to the wretched town, James," Y/n spoke truthfully. "You are the one friend that has always stayed by me."

James only smiled and looked at Y/n. She sits up from his shoulder and they meet eyes. It's regular to her so she doesn't stop him when his hand caresses her cheek. It's not regular when his lips meet hers and at first she wants to say something. But he kisses her again and she doesn't stop him. Y/n gets pulled in closer and lets James run his hand on her back.

"Should we?" Y/n's words drift.

"I've wanted to for as long as I could imagine." James honestly replied.

"Who was that?" Penelope finally spoke up.

"The deputy. Also, an old friend that I fell out of touch with."

"And what is talking about you not answering his text? What is going on here?" Derek pushed his writing pad aside.

"My high school reunion is in 4 days, on Saturday. James and a few others texted me because everyone wanted to know I was coming, I didn't reply because I didn't expect to be here." Y/n speaks fast, and if years with Spencer didn't help the two in the past, it helped them now as they picked up every word.

"And you didn't say anything? We could have made it if you were concerned about work-"

"I didn't want to go in the first place," Y/n spoke words that had less meaning of what she truly meant. Derek nor Penelope continued the conversation after that and tried to get back to work. It was only 8 A.M in the hot state and as much as they needed coffee, no one wanted the shitty police coffee they get every case.

20 minutes passed and Penny headed out to find a bathroom. Derek still hadn't said anything and only fiddled with his pen as his mind stayed blank. Eyes stayed on the filled page as the sound of Y/n getting up from her chair played in his ears. He tried to ignore her as he could until she placed a hand on his shoulder. No, he didn't shove her off or push her away, even though his muscles tensed.

"Babe.." Y/n called, turning her head to the closed door and the blinded window next to her before turning back. "I'm sorry, I should have told you."

"Yea. You should've." Derek scoffed, leaning himself back in the office chair he resided in. "I mean come on Y/n, this is the type of thing we are supposed to talk about."

"I know. I know." Y/n easily fits herself between the conference table and Derek. "I just can't be here and didn't want to think about it so I just ignored it in general, and I am so so sorry I didn't tell you." Derek takes Y/n's hands and closes them in his.

"It's ok, just.., let's get to the bottom of this case so we can go home ok?" Y/n nods and leans down pressing a small kiss to Derek's lips.

"How about we get this day over and at least hit the hotel? Wouldn't that be nice, daddy?" She smirked and whispered, the door making her pull away before she could receive an answer. Penelope sat down, more focused while the two soon joined her. It was just the three in the room for a while. When Aaron and Emily joined them first, evidence came with them, leaving Y/n to add it to the board.

"Y/L/N, you're 29 right?" Penelope finally spoke to the woman.

A small mhm left Y/n as she peeled the glove from her hand.

"But Christina and Rose are 32? How would you guys share the same reunion?"

But before Y/n could answer the given question, Aaron had his own.

"Reunion? You didn't say anything?"

"Small high school reunion for all. Not just for the seniors, we don't do that here. Technically, I still have 3 left to go because this year would be their senior year." Y/n clarified. "I didn't need to say anything because I don't ever come back to the place. Not for birthdays, weddings, I'm the black sheep that everyone knows."

And with that, Y/n proudly shut down the unwanted questions her way. Aaron looked over to Derek, surprised when he seemed equally confused. Y/n didn't say she knew the victims, but she talked about them as if she did and Aaron wrote it down as questions to bring up when his subjects came in for questioning later that day.

Penelope's profile and research grew more as the team was reunited again but she still didn't understand why or who was targeting these women.

"I set up times for everyone Hotch," Penelope closed tabs on her computer. She tried to stay focused but after 3 hours and more looking at horrible crime photos, she needed her baby kittens and pandas.

"Good, thank you," Aaron said, leaving the question in the air. "Lunch anyone? We all have to be hungry."

"Yea, any good places?" David put down his own work before turning over to Y/n.

"I'll ask around."

"You don't remember any?" A voice at the door spooked everyone.

"Nope." Y/n popped the P. Now that she was around her team, her father didn't scare her. Confidence boosted around her.

Spencer looked between Y/F/N and Y/n multiple times before saying some of the others were thinking. "Is he your brother? You both look identical!"

"No!" Y/n responded offended. Yes, her father cleaned up his act but there was no way he looked that young. "And it's not important, the only thing I remember is a diner about 15 minutes from here."

"It is important, I'm her father. But Y/n's right, there is a diner called Happy's 10 minutes west." He crossed his arms and rested his face. His eyebrow twitched, but Y/n ignored it and looked past him, out to the open.

"Not that important," She mumbled. "Let's go eat, I'll drive."

Y/n followed her father into the '80s themed diner. She stood behind him and watched as he tapped the bell.

"Hey, Lennie! Wanted to get me a coffee and my Daredevil a bagel before I headed in for the day, can you whip it up for us?" Y/F/N talked to the manager that had walked out of the back. The stupid nickname Y/n had since she was four made Lennie look at her, giving her a half-wave that she gave back.

"Sure Bud, on the house for our favorite sheriff and his wonderful daughter."

Y/n pulled the car into park and Aaron did the same. The team was large, one vehicle wasn't nearly enough. Y/n was the first to get out, holding open the door for everyone. The diner was almost empty. Only one woman resided in the back, her hair so long that her face was covered by it. She didn't want to be seen, that was clear. Y/n tapped the bell and waited for someone to come out, shocked, to say the least when Lennie came out.

"Lennie!" She said happily, putting a smile on the old man's face.

"Daredevil! You're back!" Lennie walked around the counter and hugged Y/n like never before. It was soon he learned why she got the name daredevil and it stuck until now.

"I am back, and pretty hungry, you still have those magic skills of yours?"

"You know it! Come sit, come sit," Lennie walked over to a booth and seated everyone. He more than happily took everyone's order and every so often he checked on the lady who sat in the back. For once, Y/n was happy to be home. Dipping her fries in the milkshake, true laughter ran from Y/n. For once, no one was pushing her. For once, everything was calm.

Lennie insisted that lunch was on the house and he had it covered, but Y/n still slipped that 100 dollars bill in his pocket like it was nothing. She hopped back into the driver's seat and led the way down the street, window open and the air humid now that the sun was fully out.

The time that displayed itself on her watch said 2:35. They had been out for less than 2 hours, and it was the best time she has had here in a while. Y/n walks into the station with a small smile and joins the team back to the conference room. Everyone is in a better mood. Work comes to them naturally and the only thing that stops the peaceful space is James.

"There has been another body- Daniela Choi."

#derek morgan #Criminal Minds #mjmoreid #derek morgan fic #bau #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfiction #derek morgan x reader #Derek Morgan x y/n #derek morgan angst #criminal minds x reader #derek morgan fluff

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dramarising-replacement · 4 years ago

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G1 Hoarder Revamp and the Mountain of Salt

Can we all just acknowledge how much of a total fuck up the new G1 ping system is? I feel bad because they obviously went through so much work and beta testing for this system but it’s absolutely garbage in practice. This isn’t meant as a huge roast (even though I do think the creators could do with getting knocked down a few pegs given how poorly they’ve treated people through this entire process, oops) but I hope they at least see this and see things that they can work on. Obviously, going to them and sharing this stuff in person isn’t possible since L from arcane is notorious for gossiping and overall not super trustworthy, so anon route we go. I’ll give credit where credit is due: they definitely tried to go on the right path and the coding is good in theory. The big issue here is that they tried to fix something that was not great but worked with something that is not great and barely works. Sure there are some good things about the new ping system: if it’s not busy it’s not longer than six or seven minutes to do all of it for a few dragons, which, compared to the previous method? Pretty good timing. Helps automatically tag some colorgroups without having people confused about if their dragon counts or not, and uh... probably something else. The cons far outweigh the pros though: -sheet can only be used one at a time: terrible in theory, terrible in practice, there’s no queue system either so you’re not even guaranteed to go next even if you’ve been waiting ages. This becomes a nightmare around any holiday, as we’ve seen around notn, since everyone flocks to the ping generator and then quickly abandons after seeing the mess there. This should have been something that they found a way to work with from the start, especially since the previous spreadsheet, despite how long it took to sift through if you were actually assed to do all the specifics, could still be used by multiple people. -userface issues: going into the spreadsheet and it may all just be blank, does this mean someone’s using it? Someone isn’t? If you go ahead and assume not you’re going to get warned that you overrode someone since they get the ID to your dragon, if you don’t assume then you end up waiting for ages like an idiot and someone else swoops up the opportunity. The loading bar on the side doesn’t help give that info either since it constantly reloads due to the poorly planned code. Where users have their cells selected also doesn’t help since that isn’t always accurate. There are many times where the loading bar isn’t seen going, there isn’t any visible text on the screen, no comment in the box, but it’s still in use. This isn’t viable for anyone, especially not people who don’t fully understand how the system works. If you’re going to make it for only one person’s use at a time, you need to ensure it’s easier to see what’s going on for everyone. -laggy as all get out: sure, I don’t have to go through 15 pages of different types of pings on the old G1 pinglist and shovel through all the duplicates and specifics list people, but having more than 13 dragons or even doing a bigger lair sale (or even just anything during notn) means you get to wait for the program to chug away for ages (as well as the easy chance for someone to just cut in halfway through a load and have you start all over again or wait) and hope that the three people behind you don’t get impatient or angry as you have to do three separate input sessions rather than massing them all together as you could with the previous spreadsheet. -poorly designed aesthetically: maybe this may sound petty to some, but the design of the system is pretty terrible in terms of layout and color choice. This isn’t to say it’s just ugly though; after speaking about it with people who aren’t neurotypical, have disordered thinking processes, and/or have generalized issues reading things (autism spectrum, dyslexia, semi-visually impaired, etc.) it’s pretty clear that the entire thing is not accessible whatsoever for anyone who can’t immediately decipher what anything is. Black text on bright red is not a good thing for most people beyond old MySpace edgies. If you, as someone without reading or comprehension difficulties, are having a difficult time focusing on it: maybe consider how difficult it’d be for anyone else. The way the rules or tutorial section is laid out also does not help in terms of accessibility! It’s clunky and hard to read, does not flow well, and doesn’t explain as thoroughly as you may think. If you’re someone who uses coded spreadsheets often? Yeah sure, it might be understood. If you’re not? Welp. Good luck kiddo. -very poor user help: this is on the mods or creators more than the spreadsheet itself. If someone has a problem, the first thing you should do is talk with them to find the difficulty and tackle it from there. I’ve seen, multiple times now, where either N (plague) or L (arcane) straight up tell people that they can’t help them and that they should just read the guide on the front page. Like sure, they read them, but something is tricky for them and they’re asking for help. They can read the rules and guide again but without outside help, guess what? Not gonna help them. If you just keep linking them the forum or telling them to read the first page it won’t actually help anyone! One of your jobs as the creators here is to help the community that you made it for, not just parrot that they need to read. Be better. Add that to a system which is not forgiving of any mistakes whatsoever and it becomes a terrible little cocktail. Also does not help that, despite their sugar attitude about having people test it in discord servers, the creators l and r/p (both arcane) don’t actually help people who need help using it. -wait times/queue: this ties in to an earlier point, but there’s no way to organize who goes next. Sure, it might sound strange, but when you have to wait ages to get access despite you being there ahead of anon llama/drama/dingdong/animal because they can all hop in ahead of you, it becomes frustrating. People don’t always type in that itty bitty box to say what they’re doing, and people easily erase it or write over it, or they just outright ignore it. Obviously not everyone is going to do that, but it’s way too easy for people who are greedy/entitled to step over those who are being polite and patient. -no quick ping options this is also kind of minor, but at least with the old spreadsheet you could just click in and say “okay, I just want to ping XXY general for this because I have a quick sale.” Guess what: nah. You have to go through the entire chugging process and queue and everything else just to get that snippet of information on who to ping. What once took maybe five clicks is now five minutes to thirty depending on how many people are using it. Wanna quick check if a dragon with XYZ colours you hatched is one that someone wants specifically? Nah, fuck you. You have to input all the data and wait instead of just doing what was once a super easy quick search. There is so much other shit wrong with this system and I’m honestly surprised N (plague) allowed them to do this. Sure, the old pinglist could have done with some updating, but that should have been done in the form of clearing redundant double pings, maybe a way to sort through specifics like ‘male only’ and mass copy names there. Quality of life things, not this just... total mess. I understand that L and R/P got it into their heads that they needed to fix it and that they wanted to take over the entire system themselves, but they should have kept their pride out of it for once. The sheet to input what dragons you want is also another entire nightmare. It’s frustrating to go through the google poll a dozen times to say exactly what colors/eyes/gender/pasta-shape/siesta-fiesta under the sun you want rather than have a quick way to input it by drop-downs or even just a text based option like the old one had. It’s so easy to forget what you put in or which one you want to put in this time, so easy to end up making mistakes that you don’t see, etc. It’s just not an effective system. It’s great in theory, and sure, it’s all sparkly and new, but it’s like admiring an aluminum trash can. Shiny and sparkly under the sun, still holding a whole lot of hot garbage though. I understand that some people may find it easier, and that’s great! I’ve used it for a few things and yeah, it’s okay, but I wish the old one was back given all the grief and frustration this one has caused. Obviously I’m not in the place to be like DO THIS OR DO THAT since I’m not the one making the sheet here, but I do feel like the people who use it have every right to give commentary and feedback where possible. Even moreso when the creators and team aren’t actually as welcoming as they try to appear to be. As much as it sucks, a lot of L and R/P’s (primarily L) false niceties have kind of come to the surface lately which makes this whole situation just that much more awkward. If people don’t feel like they can approach you because they know you’ll rip into them here or on the anon site immediately, maybe you shouldn’t be a main creator of something for the user base or a mod for a bigger group. Just some side-thought to all this other stuff. Big post, big rambles, I can’t bring myself to organise it though because I’m pretty fed up and tired. Take from this what you may, but basically fix your shit new G1 Hoarder peeps.

#Drama #Rant #Flight Rising #Long post #Shady #User #submission

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hypocrisyofandrewdobson · 4 years ago

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Dobson's Patreon: An Addendum to His Monument of Sins

(The following is a submission from @soyouareandrewdobson, meant to be an addendum to the multi-post submission @ripsinfest made a while back. Ironically, this one also had issues when being submitted, so I’ll be copypasting it here with all the images and links originally intended.)

In 2018, user @ripsinfest wrote a multipart series of posts for THOAD, recounting Dobson’s attempt to establish a patreon in 2015 and how it resulted in failure on a massive scale, to the point that his patreon is arguably “a monument to all his sins”.

Personally I think the post series is extremely well researched, rather “neutral” in terms of tone (letting the posts provided as evidence speak more for themselves than the opinion of the writer) and gives a detailed but quick rundown on what went wrong. Primarily that Dobson overestimated his own “value” as an artist and did NOT attempt to give his few supporters what they wanted through his artwork posted around the time.

I do however want to use the opportunity to also point out at certain obvious things that in my opinion (and likely the opinions of others) added to the failure of the patreon account, that were not accounted for in detail and are primarily related to how the internet perceives popularity and Dobson’s inability to understand, how to “sell” and make himself look good to the public.

To begin with, let’s just point out a certain truth about making money via Patreon: To do so, depends a lot on your popularity as a content creator online. That is simply because the more popular you are, the bigger your fanbase is and as such the more likely a certain percentage of people may be willing to donate money to you and your work in hopes they get something out of it, even if it is just the altruistic feeling of having helped someone they “like”. It doesn’t take a genius to see, how e.g. internet reviewers such as Linkara or moviebob (around 2800 and 4400$ earnings via patreon each month respectively) can make quite some money, while other, more obscure content creator or artists barely make money to go by, earning essentially pocket money at best.

In addition, popularity is fleeting. A few years ago e.g. internet personality Noah Antweiler aka The SpoonyOne managed to earn 5000$ a month via patreon, just shortly after establishing his account. But his lack of content over the years AND his toxic behavior online resulted in a decline of popularity and with it people jumping off his Patreon. As such, Antweiler only earns nowadays around 290$ a month via Patreon and most of that money is likely form people who have forgotten they donate to him in the first place anyway.

And Noah is not the only one who over the course of the last couple of years lost earnings. Brianna Wu makes barely more than he does, despite having once been the “darling” of the internet when the Gamergate controversy was at its peak. Many Bronies who once made more than 2k via video reviews on a show about little horses at the peak of its popularity (2013-15) earn less than 300-800 on average nowadays because interest on the show as well as people talking about it has declined.

Heck, in preparation of writing this piece I found out, that one of the highest grossing patreons nowadays is “The last podcast on the left”, a podcast that earns more than 67k a month by making recordings on obscure and macabre subjects on a regular basis.

So there you have it folks: As the interests of the internet users change, so does the popularity of certain people online and -in case they have a patreon account or similar plattforms- their chances of making money via their content.

Which now brings us back to Dobson, who was not popular at all at that particular time and managed to become even less popular as the months and years passed by.

Sure, Dobson had his fans via deviantart, people knew who he was. But the later was more because of “infamy” than popularity and the number of fans he had accumulated online were representing people interested in him at least since 2005 and did not quite represent his actual present day numbers of supporters at the time.

And mind you, the number of supporters was less than 100k, most of them likely underaged deviantart users. And if my research indicates something, then that most content creators with a halfway decent patreon earning need at least 100k+ followers in total. Because of those fans, only around 1-3% will on average then spend money on you, if you actually create content they enjoy and on a regular basis.

Which brings up the next major problem: Dobson did not create content people enjoyed and that in more than one meaning of the word.

On one hand, as pointed out by ripsinfest, he barely released any content at all over 2015 after a few initial months, despite the fact that he was obviously active online a lot, as shown by his presence on twitter. On the other hand, the few things he did create were not the stuff people wanted.

As an example: If you go to a restaurant and pay for a pizza, you expect the cook to give you a pizza. If however for some reason he just gives you a soda, you get ripped off and never come back. In Dobson’s case, the thing people wanted was not pizza but comic pages. But what he delivered was mostly bland fanart, such as of Disney and Marvel characters crossing over or KorraSami. Sure, a few strips of “So…you are a cartoonist” were still released at the time, but not really many.

To give an overview: Taking the release dates on Dobson’s official SYAC site into account, he released around 16 strips of it between March and August of 2015, the last two being “No Leia” being titled “Zip line”

Afterwards, the next official strip released was “Anything at all” in October of 2016.

Now to be fair, there was at least one more strip at the time Dobson released via patreon, that is also save to see on kiwifarms and other plattforms, which has not been uploaded to his official SYAC page. Likely because he simply forgot about it.

But I think that in itself should tell you something about Dobson’s work ethics when it comes to his webcomics. He promoted his patreon in his own video as a way to ensure he can make comics in a timely fashion again for others to enjoy, but in an environment where certain artists are capable to create multiple strips per week at minimum, Dobson could overall not manage to produce more than 16 over a course of six months, which means an average production of 3 strips per month.

For comparison, Tatsuya Ishida of the infamous sinfest webcomic (a garbage fire of epic proportions from a TERF who I think should be put on a watch list) has produced on average 4 strips per week, including full page Sunday strips, for years and nowadays even releases stuff on a daily basis to pass the covid crisis. So a mad man who wants to see trnas people die, has better work ethics than Dobson.

In other words, people expected Dobson to actually get back into creating comics (with some even expecting a return of Alex ze Pirate), but he got in fact even lazier than before, releasing only SYAC strips and random fanart as a product. Which he then also tried to justify as his choice to make because a) he had mental health issues and b) no one can tell him what to do.

And sure, people do not need to tell you what to do. But when people pay/donate money to you expecting to get a certain product in return, they should get the product. Linkara e.g. by all means doesn’t NEED to review comics to have a fullfilling life, but he got famous for his reviews, people want to see his reviews and they pay him for those reviews. So obviously, he will continue those things.

Then there is also the fact that despite Dobson’s claims how he wants to create comics for everone to enjoy and that he aims to keep his artwork online for free so anyone can view it…(his exact words in his promotional video AND text on his patreon once upon a time)

youtube

…the reality was, that he wanted to use patreon as a paywall. Something I actually kinda pointed out at on my own account (shameless self promotion) once, but want now to elaborate a bit. Basically at the time Dobson opened up his patreon, he also was on the verge of leaving deviantart as a platform people could look at his work behind. Which he eventually did.

Meaning that the only major platforms for people to watch any “new” stuff by him were his patreon or art sites such as the SYAC homepage or andysartwork. Which granted, he did EVENTUALLY put his stuff on.

But unlike other content creators who would put “patreon exclusive” new content up on more public plattforms often within a few days, weeks or a month after making them “patreon only” at first, Dobson waited longer and did barely anything to promote his sites as places to look his stuff up for a public audience. In doing so creating a “bubble” for himself that hurt him more than it helped, as Dobson made himself essentially come off as a snob.

A snob who did not create content for everybody to enjoy, but ONLY for those willing to pay him at least one dollar per month. As evident e.g. by the fact that as time went by, certain content was never released outside of his patreon at all, such as a SYAC strip involving Dobbear screaming at the computer because he saw a piece of art that featured tumblr nose.

Lastly, there is the issue of his patreon perks and stretch goals.

See, his perks were essentially non existent. Aside of the beggars reward of “my eternal thank you if you donate 1 dollar”, two other perks that come to my mind were the following: If you donated up to 5$ at minimum, you got your name thrown into a lottery to potentially win buttons and postcards of his artwork. Unsold cheap merch from years prior he failed to sell at conventions basically. There was just a problem with that thing: That lottery thing, which he also was only going to initiate when he reached a stretch goal of 150 dollar a month? It was illegal!

Patreon itself has in their user agreement a rule that forbids people from offering perks that essentially boil down to “earning” something via gambling, which this lottery by Dobson was.

(THOAD chiming in here to add that, in addition to all this, he fully admitted he would be excluding Patrons that he “knew were clearly trolls” from the lottery. Which made the already illegal lottery also fixed, so...yeah.)

The next thing coming to mind was his “discount” on previous books of his he offered online, if you donated at least 10 bucks per month to him. Or to translate it: You would get a bare minimum discount at pdf files of books such as Alex ze Pirate and Formera (you know, the permanently cancelled Dobson comics) if you paid up 50-75% of their original price on Patreon already. And considering the quality of his early works, he should have given you at least a book per month for free if you dared to donate him that much.

As for the stretch goals… lets go through them, shall we:

100$: A wallpaper per month. Something he did provide with eventually, but barely. And after less than five of those he stopped to make them overall

150$: Monthly Gift basket Lottery, which as I stated, was illegal and almost got him into serious trouble with his account. Also not an initial stretch goal he made up but instead came up with a few months into his accounts existence. Finally it got temporarily replaced by Dobson playing with the idea to use 150$ per month to open up a server and art site where people could upload stuff for free similar to deviantart, but under his administration. Promising a “safe space” for other artists. Which considering Dobson’s ego and inability to accept criticism or delegate responsibilities would have likely ended like this:

175$: Establishing a Minecraft server for him and his fans to play on. Meaning Dobson would have just wasted time he could spend on creating comics to endulge in his Minecraft obsession.

200$: Writing a Skyrim children book. Aside of the legal nightmare that this could have been (I doubt Valve would have been happy of someone else profiting of their property) I have to ask, who was even interested in Skyrim by 2015 anymore? Sure, Skyrim was a popular game and it had its qualities, but it was also a trend that had passed by that time. So in other words, there was not a market to cater towards here.

300$: A strip per week guaranteed.

… are you fucking kidding me? 75$ per strip essentially? Something people expect you to produce anyway if you want to be considered a “prolific” creator worth supporting online? Imagine if certain internet reviewers would do that, telling you that if they do not earn at least a certain amount of money, they will not produce anything, period, or less than usual. And Dobson had already proven that he can release more than just one comic within a few days, if he is motivated by enough spite.

600$: Starting a podcast with his friends to talk about nerd culture. In my opinion could only work under the assumption that people even like the idea of listening to Dobson and his opinions. Which considering how very little people like talking to him sounds doubtful. Also, considering how Dobson tends to be late to the party when it comes to nerd culture, likely tending to be out of date faster than he could upload. Finally... what friends?

700$: Returning the love, as he says it, by donating some of the money patreon users gave him to other content creators. This in my opinion is the most self defeating cause possible. On one hand sure, being generous and all that. But essentially Dobson admits here he would blow the money people give him to support HIS art on others, essentially defeating the purpose of HIS own account. He also does not clarify how much of that money he would donate, meaning there was a high chance that he would spend less than 10% of it on other creators, only creating the illusion of support while putting the actual earnings/donations into his own pocket.

2000$: A massive jump ahead. 2000$ per month would result in him getting better equipment (as in a new computer e.g.) and as such “potentially” make more comics. Mind you, only potentially.

This goal in my opinion is also the most fucked up one. Primarily for the following reasons:

Lets say Dobson would have achieved the goal and actually earned over 2000$ per month for at least a year. His annual earning would have been 24k, minus whatever he had to pay as taxes and payment for using the patreon service. And what would he do with this money? Get himself a better computer and equipment by paying a minor fraction of it once. Then he could use that computer for years to come while still having over 10k in his account, plus his monthly earnings. And he may still just produce 3-4 comics a month of a series that has as much depth to it than Peppa Pig if not less.

Sure, many patreon users have 2k+ as a stretch goal on their accounts to signify that if they could make that much monthly, they could have the necessary financial security to focus their time primarily on their content instead of a regular job. And if the content they create is actually well made, many people would support that or be okay with it.

But 2000 dollars to buy ONE computer and not account for how this money will add up over time? And that in light of such profits people may actually expect you to create more than you barely do already? That is either a case of narcissism, plain stupidity because you can't look further than 5 feet or just shows how Dobson did not understand at all the tool he had at his disposal.

Bottom line: Dobson, like many times before, fucked it up. He overestimated the potential support and resulting profits he could make, he expected that his name alone would be enough to assure gainings instead of creating content to justify support and he was unwilling to really give his supporters anything worthwhile back.

And while I am sure that there were also many other factors guaranteeing his failure, those at least to me, were his "common" mistakes most other people familiar even with the basics of internet popularity would ahve avoided.

#long post #patreon #syac #submission #very long post #andrew dobson #adobsonartworks #tom preston #adobsonart #soyouareandrewdobson #ripsinfest

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godofplumsandthunder · 4 years ago

Text

Our First Meeting

Paring: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes

Warnings: Swear words, Period Homophobia (nothing major, but Bucky does have some homophobic thoughts towards himself)

A/N: First chapter of Ancient History! This is a series that I wrote for @the-marvel-horniest-book-club and its sister blogs Week of Love Challenge. The way I wrote it is when Bucky and Steve are telling Peter their story, we see it from their POV. Like The Princess Bride, or How I Met Your Mother. I had such a fun time writing this and I hope that y’all will like it!

“And so, as ‘The Valkyrie’ made its fast descent into the Arctic Ocean, Captain Steve Rogers lowered the plane into the ocean, saving humanity from the treacherous plans of the Red Skull. Captain Rogers’ sacrifice cost him everything, choosing to leave behind the love of his life, his fiancée Peggy Carter, and their unborn baby. Sadly, losing the love of her life caused Agent Carter to miss carriage, losing the last surviving piece of Captain Rogers. But, as you know, the story doesn’t end there,” the school bell rings, cutting off Ms. Lund, Peter Parker’s American history teacher. Filing out of the over cramped room, Peter is left speechless. He couldn’t mention anything in class, but he thought he knew his Uncle Steve. Losing a child would affect him, right? Steve would have said something. Walking home, Peter decided to make a quick pit stop at the Avenger’s compound, where Steve and Bucky were enjoying their retirement. Sending a quick text to Aunt May letting her know he wouldn’t be home for dinner, Peter quickly slung his way over.

Peter found Steve and Bucky in the living room, Steve playing Mario Karts (he picked up a love for the game in his retirement, don’t blame the man, okay?) while Bucky read some weird book in Russian.

“You!” Peter points at Steve, “you have a lot of explaining to do! I thought we were family! But I had to find out from my freaking history teacher that you and Peggy were engaged and you were having a baby together?” Flopping down on the couch, Peter stares Steve down, his eyes showing how truly hurt the kid was.

“I… What?” Pausing his game, Steve looks up from his game confused. And Peter, crossing his arms, shakes his head. “Don’t lie to me! I thought we were close!” And sure, Peter knows he’s probably acting like a baby, but Peter’s pain is genuine. Steve was the first one to know about his crush on MJ, even helped him plan their first date. After Tony died, Steve became his father figure, someone he looked up to and tried to emulate.

“No, you just caught me off guard Petey. God, is that what they are teaching these days? No, I’m… Peggy and I…” Bucky cuts Steve’s floundering.

“He’s gay Peter, not bi or pan, gay. He likes dick, more specifically mine.” Steve blushes as he reprimands Bucky.

“Jesus, Buck, language! He’s still a kid! But he’s right Peter. I’m gay, I’ve always have been, and I always knew it too. Peggy and I were just really good friends. God, they’re saying I had a kid with Pegs, can you believe it, Buck?”

“Yeah, I can, actually. The government loves to erase me from your, our story.” The bitterness and hurt in Bucky’s voice don't go unnoticed by Steve or Peter. “For fuck’s sake, they’re still pushing this bullshit Americana nuclear family. We’re not in the ’30s! Instead of giving the kids hope, that their sexuality can’t limit their dreams, no keep on pushing this shit!” A heavy silence blankets the room. Bucky’s anger is still fuming in him. And in traditional Peter fashion, he butts in.

“Well, I’d like to know your story! We have to give a presentation on you, Steve, and well I know it’s just one classroom in Queens, but I’d like to tell your story. And I’d love to see my teacher try to correct me. I’ll just show her my Works Cited page. Two resources, Steven Grant Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes.” Steve, smiling at Peter, takes Bucky’s hand in his, rubbing over the vibranium band.

“What’d you say Bucky, do you want our story to be told?”

Putting the book down, Bucky cuddles up next to Steve as he turns to Peter.

“Buckle up, spidey. Our story is a long one.”

----- The last thing that Bucky wanted to do after moving halfway across the country at the start of the Great Depression was to go to mass. Hell, his family wasn’t even Catholic, but the way his Ma saw it was they could take any additional help they could get. And if that meant listening to some Catholic priest ramble on about the virtues of Saint Peter, then so be it. Even if Bucky complained the entire walk to the small chapel.

See Bucky wasn’t that religious. He believed that there had to be some sort of God, a purpose as to why we were all here. But he never once thought about becoming a catholic. So while the Father was rambling on about the lessons we could learn from Mary Magdalene, all Bucky wanted to do was go home and have some lunch. Bored, Bucky decides he’s going to play some people watching. Looking around, he sees the usual church suspects. Stuffy old ladies in godawful hats. Even his people-watching is getting boring. That is until he sees him. A boy, probably close to his age, 15 or 16 max, but small for his age. He had the most beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes. Bucky’s heart is racing, as he tries to push the thoughts in his head away. Recently he’s been having inappropriate thoughts about some of the boys at school. As his friends would go on and on about the gals they fancied, Bucky’s heart was set on the wrong gender. Or at least that is what he was taught to learn.

“Now brothers and sisters, the sister of the covenant prepared a light luncheon that’ll be served outside!” Father O’Malley’s booming voice broke Bucky out of his thinking. Getting up, he turns to his ma.

“I saw a boy that’s my age. Can I go talk to him?” Winnie simply nods as she frets over Becca’s dress. That girl could ruin any dress. Bucky wades through the crowd of people and finally makes it out to the church patio where he sees the blondie, alone on a bench, drawing.

Mustering up all the courage he has, Bucky steps up in front of the boy. “Hi, I’m Bucky. Family just moved here.” Blondie, as Bucky dubbed the boy in his mind, looks up. And god, those blue eyes were so much brighter up close.

“I’m Steve,” smiling at Bucky he motions to the empty space next to him. “Care to sit? My ma went to get some food. I don’t have many friends, as you could probably tell.” Bucky chuckles softly.

“I don’t either. Guess we can be each other’s friends.”

Something there clicked inside of Bucky. He finally understood what the other boys felt when they talked about their crush. Heart pounding and sweaty palms, as he tried to make sure he made a good first impression. He imagined going on dates with Steve, giving him the world. But Bucky knew he couldn’t have those things. He couldn’t take Steve out dancing, or on a date. He had to be his friend, and Bucky was willing to make that compromise. He just hoped his heart wouldn’t break in the process.

#the hbc #hbc week of love #stucky #steve rogers x bucky barnes #stucky fluff #bucky fluff #fluff #idiots in love #love at first sight #chris evans #sebastian stan #Ancient History

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rmnamjoons · 5 years ago

Text

Castaways [KNJ Oneshot]

➳ summary: You’ve always hated the ocean. Open water terrifies you, and you stay as far away from it as possible for self-preservation and peace of mind. Despite this, your friend somehow convinces you to go on a luxury cruise with her, her boyfriend Hoseok, and Hoseok’s nerdy friend Namjoon, who’s almost cute enough to distract you from your debilitating fears. When a sudden storm hits, however, you and Namjoon are swept overboard and find yourselves castaway on a desert island somewhere in the vast South Pacific.

➳ pairing: Namjoon x reader

➳ genre: smut with plot, slow burn, fluff, a pinch of angst, and a happy ending

➳ word count: 25.5k (this is a completed oneshot)

➳ tags: so much teasing, non-completed foot job in public, sensual massages, cuddling for warmth, nursing ur loved one back to health, relying on each other, face-riding, oral (f receiving), multiple orgasms, overstimulation, breathplay, cumplay, biting, rough sex, sweet gentle loving sex, fucking in water, sex outside, a small hint of a daddy kink, so much dirty talk, like 6k of this is just dirty talk

[read on ao3]

➳ a/n: Though I do try to make this somewhat realistic, this isn’t at all meant to be some dark, gritty tale of survival. They’re super lucky in their circumstances and everything is fine. This is basically just two people fuckin' a bunch on an island. Bon appétit.

➳ warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of almost drowning, having a panic attack in a terrifying situation (y/n is afraid of open water and they’re swept overboard during a storm without even life jackets), and dehydration symptoms including vomiting. They find an island with freshwater and everything is fine and peachy pretty quickly if you can make it through the rough stuff. I had to make it at least like 15% realistic, guys.

You fucking hated the ocean.

Like, ponds were okay. Streams? Great. Swimming pools, ideal. Rivers and lakes were fine, you guessed. It was the ocean that you hated and were downright terrified of on a pathological level. You had no idea what was down there, you didn’t know how deep it went. Reading about it made you want to throw up. Being out in open water you knew was deeper than five feet made you panicked and anxious and sweaty. You just couldn’t do it.

You had agreed to go on a cruise with your best friend Mina because she loved the ocean, for some fucking reason. When you’d gone on your senior trip back in high school together, you’d compromised: high school senior trip you’d go to New York for you, and college senior trip you’d go on a cruise for Mina. A selfish, immature part of you had figured you probably wouldn’t even be friends that far in the future, because that’s what happened when people went to college. People naturally drifted apart as they grew. You’d also figured that Mina would forget or find a new thing to fixate on. Maybe in four years she’d really love London or Bali or the desert and not the fucking ocean.

Instead, you’d remained close friends that whole time, and Mina still loved the sea. She’d majored in marine biology and spent most of her time down by the bay, where she met her lifeguard boyfriend Hoseok, a ray of sunshine, just like Mina. You had no way of knowing for sure, but for some reason you were willing to bet money the two of them had done some kind of mermaid sex fantasy roleplay before, as cheesy as they were and as much as the two of them loved the ocean.

You and Mina both finished your undergrads and then boom, just like that, you found yourself on your way to Sydney, Australia for the “South Pacific Grand Adventure,” just like you’d promised Mina four years ago. You distinctly remembered never ever promising to a fucking three week cruise, but, as always, you couldn’t say no to Mina.

Hoseok and his friend, a man you didn’t know, had been invited to come along as well. Once you knew she wouldn’t be by herself, you’d debated faking a serious injury or illness, but Mina was onto your tricks and dragged you along, insisting you’d have a good time once you were there and that you’d probably forget you were even on a ship.

Hoseok’s friend, a tall man with thick glasses and a backpack full of paperback novels, seemed to be as equally thrilled to be here as you were. Mina had introduced him as “Joon,” and he’d quickly corrected her, pushing his glasses up his nose and saying that his name was Namjoon, thank you very much. You noticed the way he grimaced when Hoseok and Mina openly made out on the too-long plane ride and how he rolled his eyes when they called each other over-the-top cutesy pet names. Namjoon seemed much more willing to show his distaste for the happy couple’s antics than you were, and you were now debating taking a page from his book.

You and Namjoon ended up stuck together pretty quickly, and you both seemed to realize that at the same moment, sitting beside each other in silence on the shuttle bus heading over to the port, while Mina and Hoseok sat together a few rows away, baby-talking to each other and cuddling and giggling. They were the only people on the bus making any noise this early in the morning, and they seemed not to notice that fact.

It was going to be a long cruise.

You’d had to wake up entirely too damn early to get on this bus, you were jet-lagged to shit, and the moment you saw the harbor and the cruise ship there waiting for you, you just knew you were going to very deeply regret this. The only solace you had was that Namjoon was stuck here with you. Maybe you could at least come out of this with a new sarcastic friend.

The four of you got off the shuttle and went up the ramp onto the massive cruise ship, and checked in at one of the front desks. You attempted to pretend this was just a normal hotel and was not going to take you out into the middle of nowhere in the awful ocean.

Mina did all the talking during the check-in process, Hoseok right by her side with his arm around her. You and Namjoon hung back with all the luggage, and you kept catching yourself staring at him and having to force yourself to look away.

Namjoon was tall, his messy dark hair sticking out from under a backwards baseball cap, his black thick-rimmed glasses slightly crooked on his deceptively cute button nose. He crossed his arms, his muscles there making you bite your lip, and you figured he was a man of contradictions. He was nerdy and kind of awkward, but was absolutely jacked, his chest nearly bulging out of his shirt. He had a cute, seemingly innocent face, but his resting expression seemed to be rolling his eyes at Mina and Hoseok’s expense. You decided you liked him.

After getting the keys to the rooms, the four of you went down and dropped your luggage off and then went to grab some lunch in one of the ship’s restaurants, and on the way there you only thought about jumping off the ship into the harbor and swimming back to Sydney once.

Hoseok and Mina sat beside each other and kept giggling and touching their foreheads together and cuddling, even giving each other a few quick kisses as they grinned at each other. Across the table, you and Namjoon sat there, just watching the two of them. Mina and Hoseok were lost in their own little world, while the two of you sat in an awkward silence, too embarrassed to say anything to your friends or each other. You mostly stared at your phone or the table in front of you, while Namjoon seemed very fascinated by a painting on the wall across the room. The waitress showed up and you ordered a mixed drink, figuring the only way you were going to make it through this trip was if you were highly intoxicated for most of it.

As you sat there during the course of the meal, you watched Namjoon’s reactions to different things Mina and Hoseok did as he leaned back into the corner of the booth, sprawling out, one arm across the back of the booth behind you. The two of them nuzzled their noses together, and Namjoon rolled his eyes. Mina leaned her head on Hoseok’s shoulder and snuggled in, and Namjoon tilted his head back, his tongue sticking out to the side and eyes rolled back in his head as he silently pretended to keel over and die. Everything the two of them did with each other, Namjoon reacted to it in some quiet passive aggressive way, mostly to amuse himself, but definitely amusing you.

Halfway through the meal, he realized you were watching him and silently giggling. When Mina and Hoseok started baby-talking and feeding each other, Namjoon looked at you with wide eyes and bit his lip, his body almost shaking as he tried so hard not to laugh at them. You put your hand up and hid your face, turning toward Namjoon so he could see you trying to hold in your laughter, too.

So far, Namjoon was more than making this trip bearable. He was turning out to be the best part.

***

Two days at sea passed. The ship was headed to New Caledonia and was set to get there the following morning, where you would have almost a full day to explore the port town of Noumea. After that, you’d be heading deeper into the South Pacific toward Fiji, another two days out on the open sea. On the map, it all looked so close together, but you saw at one point that it was over twelve hundred miles just from Sydney to Noumea. You tried not to think about it.

The next morning, you’d be on land again in Noumea, at least for a few hours. You just had to last until then, and then you’d have a brief break from the ocean. You tried to stop yourself from wondering if New Caledonia had an airport that could get you back to Sydney, where you could just hang out until Mina finished her cruise.

That being said, you actually weren’t having too awful a time, you had to admit. The ship was nice and had a lot of fun stuff to do, and Mina wasn’t spending every second of her time with Hoseok.

You did spend most of your time with Namjoon, though. You knew you were definitely attracted to him, and you’d caught him looking at you enough times to wonder if he was attracted too. He was so funny, and you’d grown to find his nerdiness endearing, and good lord did that man have muscles. You wondered more than once where on earth a little bookworm like him got a chest and arms like that. Every time he awkwardly pushed his glasses up his nose, his muscles in his arms bulged under his shirt. When he lounged on the ship’s deck reading yet another one of his novels, which he seemed to go through one of a day, you just stared at his thick thighs, imagining yourself riding them.

You learned a few things about Namjoon very quickly, the first being that he was very awkward and shy around new people. With everyone, from you at first to waiters to the random women who tried to flirt with him at the pool bar, he couldn’t look them in the eye and stumbled over his words, not knowing what to say when someone attempted to have a simple conversation with him. The man was terrible at small talk, though you could tell he was really trying his best. You’d tried so hard not to laugh at him on the first night at dinner when the captain came around to all the tables and introduced himself, and Namjoon had stuck out his hand for a handshake and the captain didn’t see him at all, and Namjoon had just sat there with his hand out for a few seconds until he dropped his hand to his lap, looking like a sad little kicked puppy.

The second thing you learned about Namjoon was that once he was comfortable around someone, he was a sarcastic, flirty tease, and this seemed doubly true for his interactions with you. At lunch on the second day, he’d taken a sip of your drink without asking, and when you’d turned and caught him, he’d just smiled at you smugly and winked, your straw still in his mouth. He’d then offered you a bite of what he’d ordered, holding up a piece of food on his fork, and when you’d opened your mouth and leaned in, he’d smeared it all over your cheek, apologizing profusely and insisting it had been a complete accident while smirking to himself the entire time. Underneath his shy awkward nerd exterior, he was all teasing and winks and sarcasm.

You dished it right back to him when you could. You’d stolen his book when he’d gotten up to get a drink at the pool, just for him to come back and see you reading it and refusing to give it back to him. You’d rubbed a bite of your dessert on his nose after offering him some at dinner. His eyes always lit up when you teased him right back, and with Mina all but ignoring you, Namjoon was proving to not only be your perfect distraction from the ocean, but a wonderful way of entertaining yourself on the ship.

It was now the third day, and you and Namjoon went to the pool together while Mina and Hoseok did some expensive couple’s massage all afternoon. As you walked out onto the pool deck together, you caught yourself staring at him yet again. Namjoon was shirtless, his swim trunks obscenely low on his hips, his chest so large, his big arms defined so beautifully. You were nearly drooling by the time the two of you found two lounge chairs together in a nice spot.

You had an idea for how to get some more attention from him, and you decided now was the perfect time to begin your plan.

“Joon? Will you do me a big favor, pretty please?” you asked, overly fake-sweet, as the two of you sat down and settled in. He’d unsurprisingly brought a book and was already laying down and opening it, but he tilted his head to look at you.

“What do you want?” he said, matching your sarcastically sweet tone.

“Will you put some sunscreen on me?”

“What, like on your back?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at you.

“All over me,” you said. “I don’t want to get sunscreen on my hands.”

“Neither do I,” he protested, pouting. “I’m the one reading a book, with paper. Do it yourself.”

“Ugh,” you huffed as you sat up. You reached into your bag and pulled out your sunscreen. “Please?” You made your voice higher and more feminine, almost a moan as you pouted and begged, holding out the sunscreen and batting your eyelashes at him when he looked over at you.

“Why can’t you do it?” he said flatly, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“I told you,” you said, “I don’t want to get sunscreen on my hands. I hate that feeling.” That was partially true. You were much more focused on the prospect of Namjoon’s big strong hands rubbing sunscreen all over your almost naked body, covered only by the skimpiest little bikini you’d brought on the trip.

“Fine,” he said, grumbling as he set his book down on the little table between you. “Where do you want it?”

“On my skin,” you said, smiling up at him innocently as you leaned back, reclining lazily in the lounge chair, your body on full display as you put your sunglasses on.

“But of course, your highness,” he said, sarcastically over-serious as he opened the bottle and squeezed a bunch of the sunscreen out onto his hand. “How could I not have known that?”

Whatever you were going to say was cut off by him suddenly smacking his hand down on your stomach, the cold sunscreen splattering out equally as surprising as his sudden movement. You gasped, squeaking in surprise, and Namjoon smiled to himself as he started moving his hand.

"Oh, I’m so sorry. Did I surprise you?” he deadpanned, spreading the sunscreen out across your skin.

“Not at all, Joonie,” you replied, relaxing under his touch. As sarcastic as he’d been, he was actually being normal about it now, sitting beside you on your chair as you laid back and let him touch you. He was also letting you get away with calling him “Joon” or “Joonie” lately, not correcting you or even reacting most of the time.

Namjoon was gentle yet firm, the cold sunscreen contrasting the warmth of his large hands so wonderfully it made goosebumps spread across your skin. You took in a deep breath and held it as you felt the tips of his long fingers slowly skim along the bottom of your bikini top, just barely going under the fabric and teasing the underside of your breasts as he rubbed the sunscreen in across your ribs. You sighed as he moved down your stomach to oh-so-gently massage your hipbones and navel, running his tips of his thumbs under the waistline of your bottoms just enough to make you raise an eyebrow at him.

He noticed your questioning look and smirked, moving back up to more neutral ground on your sides and massaging there instead.

“That feels good, Joon,” you murmured, relaxing again under his touch, and you noticed the way Namjoon slowly looked up at your face at your words, his lips parting as his eyes drug up and back down your body, drinking in the sight before him.

After getting more sunscreen on his hands, Namjoon started on your legs, touching you slowly and firmly, spreading his fingers out as he moved across your inner thighs. Your eyes nearly rolled back in your head, and you were thankful you were wearing sunglasses so he couldn’t see that. You wondered for a split second how much trouble the two of you would get if he fingered you right here on the pool deck in front of all these people.

Namjoon moved up to the top of your chest, spreading the lotion out there, and then up to your neck, where he stopped for a moment, his palm over your throat. You held your breath as his hand just rested there, and you knew he had to be able to feel how fast your heart was racing. He squeezed so gently, barely at all, and your breath caught in your throat, not from the tightness of his squeeze but from the intimacy and dirtiness of this moment. There were so many people around. All he’d have to do was squeeze a little harder. You were dripping wet for him, biting your lip and struggling to keep your eyes open. And then Namjoon moved his hand like he was rubbing in the sunscreen there completely innocently, stroking up and down your throat and then across your shoulders, returning to normal.

Namjoon moved back down to your legs. He put it on your inner thighs for the second time, and you noticed that but said nothing. You spread your legs just slightly, giving him easier access, and you could almost hear the small moan that escaped his lips when he touched the stitching of your bikini between your thighs.

He growled at you to roll over, a noise that went straight to your already throbbing core, and when you complied, he spread the cold sunscreen there, even pausing to carefully untie your bikini straps so he could cover your back fully. His massage was rough and thorough, rocking your body slightly with each of his movements. You almost moaned out loud, feeling his fingers digging into your flesh as he kneaded and spread out more sunscreen.

Namjoon used both hands on the backs of your thighs, dipping just his fingertips into the back of your swimsuit bottoms as he stood over you, stopping just before he was fully grabbing your ass with both hands under the fabric.

When he finished, Namjoon wiped his hands on his knees and then carefully tied your bikini back together. Before he even sat down, you jumped up and grabbed the bottle of sunscreen from his hands.

“Your turn,” you said, throwing your sunglasses down onto your chair. Namjoon’s eyes were dark, glinting with desire, and he immediately leaned back in his chair, ready for whatever you were going to do to him.

You straddled him, pouring sunscreen directly onto his tanned chest, making him hiss from the surprise of the cold liquid. He held you by the backs of your thighs as you rubbed it in with both hands slowly on his hot skin, feeling his muscles forcefully, spreading out your fingers. Namjoon didn’t take his eyes off of you the whole time, his jaw set as he watched you so intently. You felt his firm chest, his strong shoulders, his tight muscles, his large body seeming even bigger under your small hands. The whole time you worked, his chest steadily rose and fell, his breathing thick as he watched you with hooded eyes, his pupils blown.

You made him roll over. As you rubbed his back, you sat gently on his ass, still straddling him. You reveled in the feeling of massaging the cool liquid all over his warm skin, and you swore you felt him almost groan at one point when you really dug your palms into his lower back.

When you finished, you got up, smiling down proudly at him.

“There,” you said. “Now neither of us will get sunburnt.”

“That’s good. Skin care is important,” he said, rolling over slowly onto his back once again. You hadn’t touched him there, but somehow his hair looked ruffled and slightly messier than normal, his eyes almost satisfied, as if the two of you had just finished something much less innocent.

You could feel him staring at you intensely as you bent over, putting your sunscreen back in you bag. You bent at the waist and faced away from him, giving him the perfect view of what he wanted.

“I’m going to get a drink,” you said when you stood back up. You looked over your shoulder at him. “Do you wanna come?”

He blinked a few times, staring at you like you weren’t speaking a language he knew.

“Yeah. Yes,” he said when it finally processed. He stood up and followed close behind as you took his hand and led the way over to the bar.

While the two of you ordered, he stood close behind you, moving with you when you stepped off to the side to wait for your drinks. When you accidentally took too quick of a step back, partially bumping into him, you felt him through his swim trunks and realized that he was attempting to hide the fact he had a semi.

You definitely weren’t thinking about the ocean right now.

***

When you got dressed for dinner that evening, you picked out your skimpiest little dress, ready to taunt and torture Namjoon. You knew that packing your stockings, garters, and suspenders was a good idea, and you hoped Namjoon would potentially get to see them tonight if all went well. When packing, you’d anticipated a potential one-night stand with a crewman or fellow passenger, but this situation with Namjoon was far better than anything you’d imagined. You were sharing a room with Mina, but maybe you and Namjoon could sneak off together to some deserted part of the ship and he could fuck you against a wall, or something else equally sexy, passionate, and depraved.

Mina and Hoseok were meeting you at dinner and had already left, and Namjoon had texted you earlier, asking if you wanted to head down together. He came to your room to pick you up, and, when you opened the door, you grinned when Namjoon’s gaze immediately fell to your chest, his eyes wide. He quickly looked back up at your face, blinking in surprise as if shocked he’d let himself do that so openly. His cheeks were bright red, his lips parted as he tried to say something but couldn’t. He was so thoroughly flustered, and you stepped out of your room, brushing past him and knowing he’d follow.

You walked ahead of him down the hallway, accentuating your hips as you walked. You could practically feel that filthy boy’s eyes glued to your ass. This was going even better than you’d anticipated. Maybe he’d snap and fuck you against a wall before you even got to dinner.

You eventually found Mina and Hoseok, and the four of you sat together in a small booth near the center of the busy dining room. Waiters buzzed around like honeybees, and every last passenger on the ship seemed to all be here in this grand room. It was lively and exciting, a live band playing on the second floor and the kitchen staff loudly preparing course after course in the next room. If you were to look up, you would’ve noticed the chandelier swaying oh-so-slightly from the waves outside, nearly undetectable here in the belly of the ship.

You sat across the table from Namjoon. Part of the way through the meal, you decided to play with him some more and slipped off one of your heels. You continued eating normally, not letting your face or upper body show any signs of what you were doing.

You moved your foot up the inner side of one of his legs, feeling him jump only slightly when he first felt you. Your foot traveled farther and farther up until you were at his crotch, slowly moving the heel of your foot so that you pressed against him, teasing in a slow, circular rhythm.

You didn’t look up at Namjoon, but you felt him grab you by your ankle and squeeze. You cracked a small smile and tried to keep moving your foot despite his grip, and you could already feel him growing hard. He didn’t move or push your foot away. He held you right there in place, biting his lip as he moved forward in his seat, pressing his chest against the table as if he were simply sitting up eagerly.

“What did you two do this afternoon?” Mina asked politely, smiling at the two of you.

“Just hung out, mostly,” you said. You glanced up at Namjoon and saw his cheeks flushed red, nostrils flared, and you kept slowly moving your foot against him as he held your ankle. “Joon did some reading and I tanned.”

“It’s Namjoon,” he said, his voice deeper than normal, and when you looked up at him he was glaring, leering at you, eyes dark under those thick glasses you’d grown to adore. Mina and Hoseok seemed not to notice Namjoon’s suffering.

You smiled at Namjoon politely. You took a slow sip of your drink before speaking, maintaining eye contact with him the whole time.

“How could I forget? Namjoon,” you said, tasting his name on your tongue as if for the first time. You stroked him through his pants with your foot faster now, and you could almost see how fast his heart was racing in the veins in his neck and forehead. He was squeezing your ankle so tight you felt like you were losing circulation there, but you kept going.

Namjoon suddenly stood up, dropping your foot and turning away from the table and walking away as fast as he could, not looking back. Mina and Hoseok both looked confused, turning and watching him as he left, asking where he was going.

You slipped your shoe back on and excused yourself, saying you’d check on him, and quickly followed him outside.

Namjoon wasn’t hard to find. He stood out in the hallway, facing away from you when you walked out, arms crossed. You were in your own private little part of the ship, right near a balcony and where nobody could see or walk in on the two of you talking.

Before you could say anything, Namjoon turned around and looked at you.

“How would you like it if I just touched you like that while we’re in public, around all those people?” he said, glaring at you.

“Do you not like it?” you asked seriously, watching the way he set his jaw and looked away. Behind him, you could see out a large window that the sky was darker than it should be at this time. You could feel the sway of the ship way more than usual, but Namjoon’s distress pulled you back and made you focus on him.

Namjoon sighed before speaking. “You’re playing games with me,” he said, his voice deep and gravely. He shook his head like he was disappointed, but you saw how he looked back at you, his eyes falling to your legs and how short your skimpy little dress was.

“Do you not like games?” you asked, tilting your head and smiling now. He stared at you for a moment, his eyes now lingering on your mouth.

“I don’t think I like being played with,” he said, not taking his eyes off your parted lips. He watched you lick your lips slowly, and you swore you almost heard him growling.

“Well that’s a pity,” you cooed. “Because I love playing with you.”

Namjoon sighed, turning away from you and running a hand through his hair. “Fuck,” he mumbled, mostly to himself, and he walked out of the hallway away from you and out onto the deck.

You followed as he went out onto the balcony to get some air, both of you still under the large overhang. You froze in the open doorway, though, eyes wide and horrified as you looked out at the ocean, finally seeing the full scale of the situation.

Rain poured down as the dark waves churned and threw themselves against the ship, the angry water covered in white caps and sea foam. The sky was black, the roar of the wind and rain near deafening. The humidity out here was suffocating, even as you still stood in the doorway. You’d barely noticed it before, but now that you were paying attention and away from the center of the large ship, the vessel was rocking with the waves, your stomach lurching with it. You grabbed onto the doorframe, holding on for dear life.

“When did it start storming?” you said distantly, eyes wide as you stared out at the large, dark swells in the water.

“I don’t know. While we were eating,” Namjoon said. “Jeesh, it’s really coming down. It must’ve started up in just the last ten minutes or so. It was so nice this afternoon.” He continued talking about something, but you didn’t listen. Instead, you braced yourself there on the doorframe, eyes wide as you stared out at the water, feeling only the ship rocking side to side. The rocking wasn’t even that bad and you were both more than ten feet from the railing, but even being exposed to the outside air just this much was overwhelming.

You needed to get out of here. So many people had told you that you could barely feel the intense waves of a storm when you were in the middle of a ship, so you just needed to turn around and go back to your room. You heard an announcement on the ship’s broadcast system vaguely in the distance, but couldn’t hear what they were saying over the wind, rain, and the pounding in your ears. Beside you, Namjoon seemed to finally notice how you were reacting.

“Hey, are you okay?” he said, resting a hand on your shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” you said, voice cracking, not looking up at him. You were pretty sure you were going to throw up. After a few seconds of Namjoon not saying anything, you spoke again, now trying not to hyperventilate. “Okay, I’m really really afraid of the ocean, and right now is like my worst nightmare, and I think I might pass out.”

“You’re afraid of the ocean?” he said in disbelief. “What the hell are you doing on a three week cruise?” When you didn’t respond, Namjoon moved so that both hands rested on your shoulders gently, grounding you. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked, his voice much softer as he tilted his head to look at you better.

You didn’t answer. The ship swayed and rocked with the harsh waves, and you tried to get used to it, swaying with it. Instead you just felt sicker. You knew it was near impossible, but you felt like the ship was going to flip over or break in half, and it kept getting worse by the second, the rain only coming down harder and harder. Lightning cracked and thunder immediately followed, making the whole ship rumble.

You needed to get out of here. You needed to go lay down in comfy pajamas and listen to music and not concentrate on the ship rocking and the sound of rain and thunder and huge waves. You needed to forget you were on a ship.

You stepped away from the doorframe, and Namjoon stepped back from you, giving you space.

The ship suddenly jerked side to side exactly three times as huge rogue waves hit it on each side, tossing it around like it was nothing, the ship tilting back and forth and making dishes inside fall off of tables and shatter.

The first wave threw both of you forward against the railing, nearly ten feet away from where you had been standing, the ship listing so dramatically so suddenly that you weren’t sure if you’d been thrown or just fallen. You fell into Namjoon and Namjoon fell against the railing, and he cried out as his back hit it sharply and you slammed into him.

The second wave threw both of you in the opposite direction, away from the railing and back towards the middle of the ship, the large wave coming up over the railing and soaking both of you. You coughed and gasped as Namjoon tried to both grab onto you and grab at the wall you’d been thrown against, both of you nearly tripped over each other on the now slick floor. You’d hit the wall beside the door you’d walked out of, and Namjoon had crashed right into you, unable to stop himself, both of you being tossed around like children’s toys.

The third wave threw you both back against the railing again as the ship tilted dramatically, and both of you, while still holding onto each other, fell overboard.

You felt like you were falling forever. When you hit the water, it felt like slamming into concrete, and a huge wave immediately sucked you under, into the darkness.

You couldn’t feel Namjoon anywhere. You were thrown against the side of the ship, pressed there, still underwater, the back of your head hitting the ship so hard you saw white. The force of what held you there felt like enough to grind you into nothing, and then, just as quickly, you were sucked back out away from the ship.

You didn’t know which way was up. Wave after wave hit you from every direction, making you spin and twist and throwing you around like you were a ragdoll. You didn’t have time to think, you just tried to find the surface, survival instincts taking over.

Your lungs burned. You couldn’t breathe. You felt like you may as well be a hundred feet underwater, and for all you knew, you were. For a split second you felt like you got your head above water, but you were immediately swallowed by another wave before you could even take a breath.

This felt like it lasted for hours, but in reality it was less than a minute. Eventually you got yourself above water and took in a deep, agonized breath, gasping for oxygen and coughing up seawater. A huge wave came toward you but hadn’t crested yet, so you floated with it, letting it bring you up and back down again.

Looking around in all directions, you tried to find the ship or Namjoon. You saw neither.

Your isolation and terror hit you like a freight train.

You were in the middle of the ocean. Alone. During a storm. With no ship in sight.

You had no idea if Namjoon was even alive. You couldn’t see the ship anywhere — had you been under that long? Had you been pulled one way while the ship sailed another? Or was the ship lost to the storm too, everyone else now drowning and being pulled to the bottom of the ocean?

This was you worst nightmare coming true. Your imagination and intrusive thoughts kicked into overdrive; you imagined what could be underneath you, what monsters and leviathans could be swimming up toward you right now, ready to swallow you whole. You screamed, trying to swim upwards even though your head was already above water. You kicked your arms and legs furiously, hyperventilating and gasping as you entered complete panic. The waves still tossed you around, but they were big enough and most were not cresting, so you could float and stay above the surface mostly. The rain poured down on you, and you felt like the rain alone was going to drown you.

Namjoon surfaced then, about twenty feet away from you. Gasping, he saw you and swam toward you, and you swam franticly toward him, you arms and legs moving violently. As soon as he reached you, you grabbed onto him, wrapping your arms and legs around him and moving like you were trying to climb on top of him to get yourself completely out of the water. You were kind of vaguely aware of the fact you were screaming and gasping and maybe sobbing.

What you were doing made Namjoon’s head go back under the water again, and he tried to get you off so he could breathe. You curled up into a little ball, twisting your body so that your legs could stay up near his chest and your arms could wrap tightly around his neck and shoulders.

“Help me! You’ve got to help me!” You were screaming near-gibberish, holding onto Namjoon as tight as you could as you wept and gasped, a small part of the back of your mind recognizing you were having a panic attack.

Namjoon hadn’t even had the chance to react yet other than his basic survival skills keeping himself above water and keeping you from drowning him. His feet were treading water desperately, his neck twisting as he looked around for the ship. His hands went up to hold you in place as he looked, his attention not really on you as he tried to find your way back to safety.

“I don’t see the ship,” he said loudly to be heard over the storm, eyes wide in horror. “Where’s the ship?”

You didn’t respond, instead twisting yourself so that you were wrapped around him again, clinging onto his body as tight as you could with all of your limbs. You were crying and gasping for air, your mind simultaneously blank and full of every panicked thought you’d ever had as you wept and hyperventilated.

A huge wave crested above you, pulling you both under for a moment. You kept yourself on him, and Namjoon got both of you to the surface. You clambered up him wildly, trying to climb him again as you gasped and cried, tears streaming down your face with the rain and seawater.

“Y/N, stop—” Namjoon started to yell, but you accidentally pushed him under the surface, cutting him off short. He got himself back up and wrapped his arms tight around you, if only to stop your movements, using just his legs to tread water. You held onto him like a leech, shaking, hyperventilating, sobbing as your panic consumed you.

“I can’t keep us both above water,” Namjoon said loudly, thunder crashing around you. “You’re gonna have to swim. You’re going to drown us both—”

A wave swallowed you both then, sucking you deep under yet again.

You lost consciousness before you reached the surface.

***

When you woke up, the first thing you were aware of was that your face, arms, and legs were sunburnt to hell, your mouth unnaturally dry, your tongue like sandpaper. Your entire body felt bruised and sore, the back of your head throbbing, the dull ache intensifying with each pulse. You felt like you’d been hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat, and, remembering how you’d been thrown against the side of the ship underwater, you kind of wished you’d been hit with a bat instead.

The second thing you realized was that the sky above you was now clear and blue, and it was daytime. You were floating in the water on your back, the hot sun beating down and filling your corneas, all but blinding you. You were partially submerged, the gentle, calm water lapping at your sides.

Beneath you, you felt Namjoon holding you in place against him as he gently tread water, floating on his back as you laid on top of him. One of his arms was around your stomach, the other slowly moving in the water as he kept you both above the surface. Your head was back on his shoulder, strands of your hair floating loosely in the water.

“You’re awake,” he said then. His voice was lazy and deep, and you realized his movements weren’t just slow, they were sluggish, exhausted. You tried to shift your head and look back at him, but couldn’t at the angle you were at.

The sun where it was in the sky, perfectly above you, you guessed it was midday. Namjoon must’ve been awake since the storm last night, which meant he’d been awake for almost thirty hours, keeping you both above water during and after the storm all night and all morning, treading water all this time.

“Jesus, Joon,” you said as you realized that, but started choking on the dryness of your throat.

“I haven’t… seen the ship,” Namjoon said slowly. He sounded like he was drunk or half out of his mind, moments away from giving out from exhaustion. “I saw a plane, a few hours ago. I… I tried to signal it.” He held up his hand weakly, showing you he was wearing a watch. You didn’t catch the time on it. “I tried to use it, like a flare. A light flare, a re… reflection, from the sun. I don’ think it saw us though.”

“That was smart of you,” you croaked, your voice almost gone from dehydration and dryness.

“My phone… it fell out of my pocket las’ night, or maybe I forgot it at the table,” he slurred. “I don’ remember.”

“Namjoon…” you started. You wanted to ask him to trade places with you so you could tread water instead and he could rest and lay on you. The thought of being the one on the bottom, the one much more exposed to the ocean sent a shiver of pure terror down your spine, but it was the absolute least you could do for him. You could give him the chance to rest after keeping you both alive this whole time.

He kept talking, apparently not hearing you.

“I’m sorry I did this, but I… I checked to see if you ‘ad your phone. I’m sorry… I know some girls, keep it in your bra. I didn’t look much.”

“That’s fine,” you said. You completely understood and would’ve done the same. “Hey, Namjoon, here, let’s trade places.” You started to move, but he held you in place.

“No, 'is 'kay,” he said. His speech sounded like it was becoming more and more slurred every time he spoke. “I know you’re… 'fraid of the water. Jus’ keep looking up at the sky. 'Is okay.”

“Namjoon, really, let me take a turn. You need to rest.” You moved off of him and his arm fell off of you into the water, as if he were unconscious. You felt almost lightheaded as you shifted, moving upright instead of laying down for the first time in so long. You held onto his hand so he wouldn’t drift away as you started treading water on your own, your muscles sore and stiff.

Namjoon was worse off than you’d thought. His eyes were bloodshot and vacant, like he’d been forced to keep them open way too long in the bright sun. He looked exhausted and drained, deathly pale yet sunburnt to a crisp. You swore you could almost see his veins through his skin. You knew it wasn’t possible in the time frame, but he looked like he’d somehow lost a little weight.

His sunburnt skin was somehow already peeling, though one spot on his cheek looked more like a saltwater sore than a sunburn. His lips looked as dry as yours felt, and his lower lip was chapped, split, and bleeding, the blood just starting to run down his chin toward the water.

You immediately brought your hand up and wiped his chin with your thumb, keeping his blood from touching the water. You brought your thumb up to your mouth and sucked. You knew that bleeding in the water, especially warm waters like this, was a very, very bad idea. For all you knew, ten sharks were already circling the two of you below the surface right now.

Namjoon breathed slowly through his mouth, nearly wheezing, like just breathing agonized him. In your clinical paranoia and anxiety, you’d read a lot about surviving in open ocean: you knew that spending a lot of time in water like he had — and he’d kept you mostly out of the water for a lot of this, so you weren’t feeling it yet — the pressure, even at just a foot or so deep, started to affect the body. It constricted breathing, changing the way the chest cavity moved and expanded, and was even used as a torture technique in some places: making someone sit in water until they couldn’t breathe, even though their head was above water the whole time. That, plus the fact he’d been treading water for two people and exerting himself that much over such a long period of time, was more than enough to drain a person.

Being in saltwater this long also affected the skin, and you knew that if you didn’t find a way to get out of the water within the next day, your skin would start to deteriorate, loosen at the pores, and rot away. That was if dehydration and exhaustion didn’t kill you both first.

“What are we going to do?” you said. You really didn’t want to become panicked again. You held yourself back, refusing to let yourself break down now, but you still asked him that anyway, just to voice your fear.

“'Is okay,” Namjoon said. As he spoke, his eyes blinked slowly, like he was starting to nod off. “Don’ worry. We’re okay. We’ll jus’ float an’ find an island, or a ship’ll find us. It’s okay.” Namjoon was not a talented liar when half-dead.

You refused to let yourself cry or even think about the water, your odds of survival, any of that. You needed to focus. Namjoon had kept you above water all last night and this morning, and now it was your turn to return the favor.

Fish. You knew your best chance right now at not dying of dehydration was catching and eating fish, and using the fish oil you consumed to stay alive. If it rained, you’d need to find a way to collect the water. Now, though, you needed to focus on a way of finding, attracting, and catching fish, which you’d have to then eat raw and alive.

Wait — you also remembered that shark attacks, especially in warm waters, were something to stay alert to, and leaving bloody fish guts in the water was a very quick way to attract predators.

You were going to die.

Before you could say or do anything, you watched Namjoon suddenly slip out of consciousness, his eyes all but rolling back in his head. He slumped forward in the water, face down, and you caught him, pushing him back up so that his mouth and nose weren’t in the water. You moved behind him and held him the same way he’d held you, laying his head on your shoulder and keeping him flat on his back, just floating.

You floated like that for at least an hour. At one point you pulled Namjoon’s arm up and checked what time it was, but his watch was waterlogged and had stopped working at 9:15, and you didn’t know if that meant it had broken last night or this morning. You checked for his pulse a few times, each time finding it still going steady, albeit very slow.

At one point, something suddenly touched your arm. You screamed in surprise, pulling your arm away and trying to get yourself and Namjoon away from whatever it was, but stopped when you looked over and saw it was a piece of driftwood. Namjoon hadn’t stirred, even when you’d screamed.

You didn’t know what for, but you figured the driftwood could be useful at some point. You didn’t have a free hand to hold it, so you laid it on Namjoon’s stomach. It was light enough you could barely feel it in your hand, like it was made out of something just slightly heavier than styrofoam.

You started talking to Namjoon, blabbering on and on just to keep yourself entertained and to keep yourself from thinking about how deep the ocean was beneath you.

“I don’t really like tap water. I feel like it tastes really different, from whatever they put in it. Fluoride, right? I hate the taste of fluoride. I could really go for some fluoride water right now, though. I think my favorite kind of water is Smart Water. You know those really big bougie bottles? I love those. Or Fiji Water. We were supposed to be in Fiji… three days from now? We were supposed to be in Noumea today. I bet Mina and Hoseok haven’t even noticed we’re gone.” You laughed at that dryly. “I bet they got up and left while we were gone at dinner, and haven’t even left the room since then. Oh man, last night at dinner, I ordered this big ol’ tilapia with mashed potatoes and green beans. I’m so hungry right now, I might eat this driftwood later.”

You felt like you were losing you mind. Namjoon just floated there, still unconscious, and you kept checking to make sure he was still breathing.

Something else hit your arm, making you jump in surprise. When you looked down at it, you saw three little fish swimming by. You watched them go, and you realized something here was very off. You looked down in the water and didn’t see a dark abyss. You saw golden sand.

You could see the bottom of the ocean, and the water was only ten feet deep, maximum. You’d drifted far enough to find shallow water.

You spun around, looking around wildly. Above your head, two large white birds flew by. You saw it then. Maybe a football field’s length away was a small island, overflowing with green.

You nearly started crying in relief as you pulled Namjoon along, swimming as hard as you could.

“Joon, Joon, wake up, there’s land! We found land!”

Namjoon remained unconscious, but you dragged him with you as you swam with your legs and free arm. You almost cried out when you felt your feet touch the bottom, and as soon as you were in shallow enough water, you stood up and started pulling him, splashing through the warm water.

You immediately fell over, your muscles weak from exhaustion and not being used to gravity and normal weight. The top half of Namjoon’s body fell on your legs, and you shifted yourself and him so that you were pulling him along, dragging him and yourself up onto the sand.

You managed to get both yourself and Namjoon up to where the water just barely washed over your legs before collapsing. You laughed, nearly hysterical, feeling the wet sand between your fingers, holding onto it in handfuls. Tears streamed down your face, your heart bursting from joy and relief in catharsis.

After probably a half an hour of just laying there on the sand and just breathing, you managed to get yourself sitting up. In front of you was the ocean and nothingness on the horizon. To each side, beach curving away. Either the island was small or you were on a peninsula. Behind you was dense jungle. You could hear birds and noisy bugs — there was definitely an ecosystem of living plants and animals, which meant there would be fresh water and some kind of food supply.

Standing on shaky legs, you got to where you could move behind Namjoon, who laid on his back, arms out where you’d dropped them. Even while unconscious, he looked so weak and fatigued, the saltwater sore on his face and his split lip now both bleeding.

You still had on one of your heels. You must’ve lost the other one at some point in the storm, and you were shocked you hadn’t lost both. You bent and took off the one you still had, tossing it behind you further up the beach. Digging your feet into the sand, you dragged Namjoon up onto land by his arms. The white sand burned the bottoms of your bare feet, and you moved as fast as you could to get him up into the shade, only falling over from exhaustion a few times during the process.

The piece of driftwood was still on his stomach, and when you got him under a cluster of palm trees, you moved it from his stomach and used it to support his head, moving him as gently as you could. You took off his soaking wet shoes and socks, not wanting him to get whatever it was, that disease World War I soldiers got back in the day from walking in wet socks, and his belt, to help him be more comfortable.

You took off your garters and suspenders, peeling off your hose. You hung your hose and Namjoon’s sock on a branch nearby. You figured your suspenders would be useful at some point, as well as maybe the wire in your strapless bra. Namjoon’s belt would definitely be handy. Maybe you could use some of this stuff to make something to go fishing, maybe a net with the hose and—

Your thoughts were cut off when Namjoon, still unconscious, started gagging. You froze in shock and uncertainty, watching as his body shook, convulsing upward as he began throwing up. He was on his back so it had nowhere to go, and you watched, still frozen, as he began choking. Hearing that made you jump-start, and you quickly turned him onto his side, moving him so that he threw up onto the ground instead.

You felt Namjoon’s forehead, holding his head in place so he didn’t slide facedown into vomit. He was feverish, so hot to the touch you felt uncomfortable just touching him. His skin felt strange, deathly dry but also covered in a cold sweat, and it felt as if his skin were less movable and elastic. You gently pinched his arm, and his skin was unnaturally slow moving back, like his flesh was made of loose putty.

When he stopped throwing up — and he didn’t throw up much, just bile — he started moaning weakly, barely opening his eyes. His breathing was fast and shallow, catching in his throat with each agonized breath.

You moved your hand to his neck, feeling his pulse. You had trouble finding it, but when you did, it was racing and irregular. He moaned in agitation, weakly trying to move away from you, like just your touch was bothering him.

Namjoon showed every sign of severe dehydration you’d ever heard of, plus you had no idea what he was going through from exhausting himself so much and treading water that long. You needed to find him water and you needed to do it right now.

“Joon, I’m going to go find some water. You’re gonna be okay,” you said sweetly, trying not to speak too loudly and surprise him.

Namjoon mumbled a string of words you couldn’t understand. The only words you caught were “tree,” “dark,” “sun,” and “sea” between his harsh gasps. He looked back at you, barely able to keep his bloodshot eyes open, and said something else. He wasn’t making sense or saying anything coherent, just quiet gibberish as he breathed hard, lost in delirium.

You needed to go, but you didn’t want to leave him laying here alone. He could just roll over onto his back the second you walked away and throw up again, or he could get worse. Well, you figured, he was going to get worse no matter what if you didn’t go find water.

“Namjoon, you need to stay laying on your side,” you said, gently rolling him back over so he wasn’t looking at you. He moaned in irritation. “I know,” you cooed, stroking his hair back out of his face.

You couldn’t do anything for him here. You had to go and find the spring. You knew there had to be one, with this much wildlife, and it was your only chance at staying alive or helping Namjoon.

As you ran into the jungle, the end of your dress snagged on a low-hanging branch. It ripped, a few inches of it splitting. You’d all but forgotten you were still in your fancy skimpy dress, now discolored and faded from being in saltwater for so long. You were lucky a shark hadn’t tried to eat you, thinking you were a big colorful fish.

It took you about ten minutes to find it. The ground became wetter and wetter, the flora taller and stronger. You felt around with your bare feet, feeling your toes almost sinking into the wet moss. You turned around, looking around yourself wildly, and tripped backwards, falling on your ass right into water.

You were sitting in a pond. A small waterfall fed into it, the water coming out of a crevasse near the bottom of a large rock jutting out of the ground. The water was perfectly clear, probably only five feet deep at the lowest part. Tall palm trees and tropical leaves and ferns surrounded the area, shading it, the clearing surrounded with colorful flowers, bamboo stalks, and light gray rocks. A fish the size of your pinky swam by where you sat, not at all concerned by your presence.

You needed to find a way to get this back to Namjoon. Thinking fast, you stood up and walked over to one of the leafy plants, your dress dripping down your legs and onto the jungle floor. You found the biggest leaf you saw, pulling it out. When you cupped it and shaped it with your hands, it probably had enough room for about a bottle’s worth of water.

You waded into the water, heading straight for the direct source of the spring water, figuring that was the best place to get the cleanest water. You held the leaf there, letting water gently collect, and once you had it full you slowly and carefully made your way back toward Namjoon.

When you found him, he was unconscious again, thankfully still alive and breathing. You sat behind him, careful not to get yourself or him in the vomit still laying there, and had him sit up a little so he could drink as he leaned back on you. You held the leaf up to his mouth, but he didn’t wake up, sending a spark of panic through you. You moved so that his head tilted back and forced some water into his mouth. A lot of it ran down his chin and onto his chest, but at least some of it went into his mouth and down his throat. You saw him swallowing after a moment, and let yourself sigh in relief.

You got him to drink about half of the water before he started gagging. He threw up again, but was self-aware and awake enough this time to turn himself to the side and not throw up on himself or you. You held the leaf up above your head, careful to make sure he didn’t knock into you and spill it.

You drank the rest of the water and then went back to the spring, this time making a path for yourself on the way. You used rocks and large branches to move the foliage aside, leaving behind a clear trail you could easily follow. This would also help you get back faster, and you wouldn’t have to move around the thick plants while holding a leaf full of water.

You got Namjoon to drink about half of the next leaf too, and you figured that was enough for right now. You swore you remembered reading that giving someone too much water when they were dehydrated would make them sick, so you’d give him more very gradually.

You now focused on setting up a shelter. You were in survival mode, not allowing yourself to think about anything except your next move and how you were going to keep yourself and Namjoon alive.

A little bit down the beach, you found a tree near the tree line with a branch about four feet off the ground, and another tree maybe six feet away with a similar branch. You walked into the foliage, looking around for a huge, narrow stick. When you found one, you brought it back to your two trees and set the stick on the branches, making a bar. Now, you just needed to find more large sticks to lean against your bar, and then you could tie leaves to those sticks to make a thick barrier that could protect you both from the elements. You always knew your years in Girl Scouts would eventually pay off.

Setting up your plan took a while. You stopped part of the way through and went back to check on Namjoon, still laying there unconscious or sleeping. His breathing was normal now and he seemed more relaxed, but he was still feverish. You went back to the spring and drank a lot yourself before bringing water back to Namjoon. Even while not awake, he drank without hesitation this time, immediately swallowing instead of just laying there unresponsive. You stroked his hair back from his forehead, wiping away the sweat there.

Before standing up to leave him again, you leaned in and almost kissed Namjoon on top of his head, but caught yourself. What the hell was that? You shook your head and got up, gently easing him back down on his side.

The shelter was done by sunset. You cleared the ground underneath the slanted roof — it was still sandy there, so you figured you probably wouldn’t have to worry about bugs too much. You still laid down a layer of large leaves anyway, setting up a kind-of mat to lay on. This was about as good as it was going to get right now.

Your stomach felt like it was trying to eat itself. You didn’t have time to find food now, though — wandering around the jungle at night sounded stupid at best, and you still had things you had to do before the sun went down. The hunt for food would come tomorrow.

You went back and found Namjoon again. He seemed closer to sleeping than unconscious, and that comforted you. You went back to the spring one last time, filling yourself up and then taking one more leaf back to Namjoon. Once you got him to drink, you dragged him down the beach to your shelter, which took quite some time. He was a big boy, and you were fucking tired, your muscles still weak from being in water so long. You pulled him by his arms, though, and eventually got him there and rolled him under the lean-to.

After that, you went and found your discarded heel, garters, and hose and Namjoon’s belt, socks, and shoes, and brought them all back, keeping your stuff together and close. The spring was about a five-minute walk down the path you’d made from the shelter. Everything was fairly close together, and for that you were thankful.

You laid Namjoon on his side in the shelter and then climbed in behind him. You didn’t know how cold it got here at night, but you laid behind Namjoon, spooning him, partially for warmth and partially to make sure he didn’t roll onto his back at any point in the night.

The sound of the ocean was eerily lulling. You listened to it, the gentle waves lapping against the shoreline in the dark, and when you really listened you could hear Namjoon’s steady breathing. The jungle behind you was silent.

***

When you woke up, your arm was asleep. You’d used it as a pillow because of your lack of anything else, and that had been a minor mistake. You stretched it out as you got up and climbed over Namjoon, looking out at the early morning ocean.

The sun was just coming up, which meant with its position, your spot on the beach was facing north. You didn’t know why knowing that comforted you. Maybe knowing more about the situation, even inconsequential stuff like that, made you feel a little bit more in control of everything. Your head didn’t hurt as much today, and you felt your energy coming back, albeit only slightly.

You looked back at Namjoon. He hadn’t thrown up in the night, which meant he was keeping fluids down, finally. You felt his forehead — a little warm, but not clammy and feverish like he’d been yesterday. He had to be a little warmer than usual because of his sunburn, too, so that was okay. At least you couldn’t see his veins through his skin anymore.

Your own skin was peeling, too, your face and shoulders the worst. It itched so bad, but you kept yourself from touching it. You knew in the back of your mind that going into the ocean would help heal your skin — living with Mina, you knew all the little things about the ocean like that, about how clean saltwater healed wounds and made sunburns not hurt. Right now, though, the last thing you ever wanted to do was go back into the ocean.

You were hungrier than you’d ever been in your life. You needed to find food today. Namjoon wouldn’t be able to take anything besides water for a little while, so this was just for you. First order of business, though, was getting more water in both of you. Your number one priority was keeping both yourself and Namjoon hydrated.

You made your way back to the spring. As you walked, you thought about how you would try to make a fire today, and maybe start using big rocks to spell out “HELP” on the beach. Your mind kept wandering to food; not even you favorite foods, but basic stuff — bread, red meat, and fruits. You pictured a big, juicy steak and nearly whined out loud.

When you got to the spring, you saw something that made you freeze in your tracks. A wild boar, about the size of a fat house cat, was drinking from the pond.

Your mouth started watering just looking at it. Your mind just saw sizzling bacon as you stared blankly at the boar, unmoving as you stood there at the tree line of the clearing. It looked up at you and didn’t really seem to be afraid of you, just going back to drinking after a few seconds of a glance.

You pushed it out of your mind. The meat would probably go bad before you could even make a fire to cook it. You’d just find something easier, like fruit, and hold onto the knowledge that there were boars on this island for a time when you’d be more prepared to cook it. You’d probably also need to make some kind of defense weapon, in case this little guy was just a baby, and papa boar was around and angry.

You drank directly from the spring for a moment, letting yourself feel almost full, and then found another leaf and filled it up. When you got back to Namjoon, he was almost stirring awake.

As you sat down behind him, he tried to sit up, but was too weak.

“No, shh, stay down,” you cooed softly. You brought the leaf to his mouth and he drank slowly, a few drops spilling down his chin. When he finished, you set the leaf aside and looked down at him, wiping his chin and stroking his hair back off of his forehead.

You took his dress shirt off of him — it was long-sleeved, and you didn’t want him to overheat during the heat of the day today. You moved him onto his side again and bundled up his shirt, using it as a pillow underneath his head. Namjoon drifted back to sleep as you moved him.

You saw a large yellowish-purple bruise across his lower back and remembered how he’d hit the railing so hard when the ship had been tossed around in the storm. Reaching out, you let your fingertips skim against his skin, feeling his bruise. There wasn’t anything off about the way his spine looked, at least externally, and he’d been using his legs just fine when you saw him treading water. You hoped his kidneys were okay, since the railing must’ve hit him hard there, but you knew you had no way of telling what kind of pain he was in until he woke up.

Sighing, you stood up, leaving him. You then began your search for food, walking down the beach.

After a few minutes of walking along the tree line, you saw a plant you thought you recognized. A tree about three feet taller than you grew right beside the sand, fruit growing out of the top of it below its leaves. You recognized the fruit, but the name wasn’t coming to you. It was shaped like a fat eggplant and was a mix of green and yellow in color.

Papaya. You knew that’s what this was.

You reached up and pulled one off, and brought it down to look closer at it. You squeezed it with your hands, looking at it intently. You had no idea how to tell if papayas were ripe or bad, but this one looked as good as any.

You just bit right into it. The skin was hard to chew, like eating an orange peel, so you spat that out into your hand and bit off the meat of the fruit, leaving behind just the skin. You repeated this all over the papaya until the skin was gone, and then you devoured it. When you got to the seeds, you spat them out, unsure if they were safe to eat, but you ate every last bit of the meat of the fruit until there was nothing left.

You ate two more papayas before you moved on. About ten feet down the beach you found a banana tree, but all the bananas were small and green.

You kept walking. You wanted to see how big the island was, and see if there were maybe other inhabitants there. For all you knew, you were on a resort island, and you’d walk around a bend and see a big five-star hotel.

You found a few more papaya and banana plants, some of the bananas even ripe, and saw some coconuts and a few things you didn’t recognize. One looked like a huge blueberry, another like a bumpy green lump, and another like a small, light pink pear. You only gathered the ones you knew for sure, and figured that eventually you could test the others to be certain.

You kept walking and walking, and then you saw Namjoon laying under the lean-to. You’d walked around the entirety of the island, seeing no signs of civilization, and had done so in an hour at most, and that was with you stopping and looking at fruit. The perimeter of the island could only be a mile or so. You and Namjoon were definitely alone here.

You took your armful of fruit over to the shelter. You didn’t want to waste anything by picking it too early, so you’d only brought two yellow bananas and a papaya. You planned to get just a little bit of food into Namjoon tomorrow if he seemed up to it, starting with banana, since people could usually eat that when they were sick.

Namjoon was still asleep. Judging by the sun, it was nearing midday now. You went to the spring in the woods and drank, and brought some back for Namjoon, methodically keeping him hydrated, and then moved on, starting your call for help.

You spent a large part of the afternoon finding large rocks to arrange in the shape of HELP across the beach. Each letter was probably fifteen feet long and half that wide, and you only got halfway through the E before getting too tired to keep going today. The last thing you wanted to do was wear yourself out, so you figured tomorrow you’d finish E and do L, and then do P the next day.

You continued your routine. You checked on Namjoon. You went to the spring and drank some water, and then brought back a leaf full for Namjoon. You ate two bananas and called that a late lunch.

Late in the evening, you sat on the sand a few feet from the shelter. You faced out toward the ocean, watching the waves as the tide slowly went out and the sun set far to your left. At the highest point of high tide, the water was about forty feet from you. That comforted you, being that far from the waves.

You were thinking about how you could try to make yourself go fishing eventually when you heard Namjoon stirring, and you turned around, looking back at him.

“Hey, sleepy,” you said, smiling warmly.

Namjoon opened his eyes slowly, blinking as he got used to what he was looking at. As far as you knew, this was the first time he’d been aware of what was going on since that first night in the water.

You moved and went to sit beside him.

“You’ve been out for about a day,” you said. “There’s a spring a few minutes away, with clean freshwater. I found a bunch of fruit, too. I checked and the island’s small, no people. There are animals, though.”

Namjoon blinked a few times slowly. “Animals?” he asked, his voice deep, gravely, lethargic.

“I saw a boar,” you said, smiling. “That means there’s more, unless this guy swam here like we did.” You giggled a little at that, trying to lighten the mood, but Namjoon just laid there for a moment, thinking and looking out at the water behind you.

“What happened?” he said, his face blank. You bit your lip, not sure if you wanted to scare him, but figured you may as well tell him everything.

“You kept me alive until I woke up,” you said, watching his face to see if he’d react to anything you said. “It was afternoon when I woke up, and you seemed delirious. You passed out, and I kept you above water until we drifted and found this island. You were really dehydrated and sick, and I found the spring and got you to drink some water and rest. You’ve slept for over twenty-four hours. Probably twenty-eight, if I had to guess.” You added the last part nervously.

Namjoon nodded slowly, listening to all that. Behind you, the waves hit the shore steadily. You were getting sick of hearing that noise.

“I didn’t feel your pulse after that big wave,” Namjoon started, staring out at the water, speaking slowly. His eyes were blank and vacant, still bloodshot, though not as bad as they’d been. “I kept your head above water, just in case. I figured you’d swallowed some water, or maybe drowned. I tried to do CPR but it was kind of hard, with the waves and the rain.” He took in a few deep breaths, as if just speaking that much had worn him out.

“Thank you,” you said quietly, looking down at your hands in your lap. Your heart swelled from his words, and you almost felt yourself tearing up. He’d worked so hard for so long to keep you both alive. It must’ve been terrifying, thinking he was alone in the middle of the ocean, the only person with him potentially dead.

You glanced up and saw Namjoon slightly shaking his head, brow furrowed.

“When you didn’t wake up the next day or the following night, I started to get really worried. I felt you breathing, though, so I kept going.”

You looked up at him suddenly, eyes wide, heart all but stopping in your chest as your blood ran cold. “Following night? What do you mean?”

Namjoon shook his head again slowly. “The storm happened and we had that night in the rough waves, and then there was a full day and another full night where you were out, and then I don’t really remember anything after that.”

“Jesus, Namjoon,” you said, eyebrows about in your hairline from your shock. No wonder he’d been so exhausted — he’d had another twenty-four hours more than what you’d thought, and just what you’d thought he’d gone through was enough to kill him. Another twenty-four hours of keeping himself and you above water. Another full day of being alone with his thoughts and fears while adrift in the ocean, keeping an unconscious person above water just in case you were still alive. How the hell had he survived?

This meant that you had been unconscious for almost two full days. Didn’t being unconscious that long mean brain damage? You felt fine now, but shouldn’t you not be fine? You remembered hitting your head on the side of the ship, and you were certain going into shock from your panic hadn’t helped that at all, but your head barely hurt anymore, other than when you were exerting yourself too hard. Had you been in a coma or something? What the fuck?

Namjoon started to sit up then, but you stopped him, moving over to him and putting your hand on his shoulder to make him lay back down.

“You need your rest,” you said.

“I’ve rested enough,” he said, trying to sit up again, but he was too weak to even push against your hand just barely resting on his chest. You didn’t say anything, instead just watching him huff and lay back down.

A few moments of silence passed between you. The sounds of the ocean and waves mingled with distant birds and the gentle wind moving the leaves on the tall trees.

“I wrote ‘HELP’ with some rocks,” you said lowly. “Or at least, I started to. I’ll finish it in the next few days.”

Namjoon rolled onto his side and stared out at the ocean blankly. Just moving that much seemed to wear him out.

“That’s good,” he said flatly. “I’ll help tomorrow.”

“No you won’t,” you said. “You need to keep resting and recovering.”

“I’m not dying, I–”

“You were,” you shot at him, your expression and words turning harsh. You stared at him intensely, all but snarling. You were prepared to make him keep resting, even if it meant tying him to a tree with vines from the jungle.

“Well, I’m not anymore, and I want to help,” he said, not giving up on it.

“Too fucking bad,” you said, setting you jaw.

Namjoon glared at you. Apparently just to spite you, he sat up, pretending not to be dizzy once he was upright as he braced himself.

“I’m going to get more water,” you said coldly, standing up. “I’ll be back in a few minutes so I can put water in your mouth for you and help you drink, again.”

Without waiting to hear a response, you turned and walked down the beach to your path to the spring.

***

The two of you didn’t speak much the rest of the day, both of you too stubborn. That night, when Namjoon found out what the sleeping arrangements were, he huffed and pouted but didn’t comment, apparently still annoyed at you for refusing to let him help.

The two of you did talk for a little while seriously. You figured it was warm enough at night without a fire, but you’d need one to cook any eventual meat or fish and to keep warm if it rained or the temperatures dropped, and it would of course be great for signaling rescuers. You planned for Namjoon to work on that tomorrow while you worked on the “HELP” letters, since beating rocks together to make sparks was stationary and he could sit down and take his time with it. He seemed like he really wanted something to do, to feel helpful, and being put in charge of the fire seemed to please him. He tried to pretend he was fine, but he was still so exhausted.

You’d found some baby coconuts earlier and were fairly confident you’d be able to get them open, and tomorrow you’d have Namjoon try the milk to start getting used to something besides water, and then you could use the husks as tinder for the fire.

When the sun went down, it was a little bit colder than the night before. You curled up against Namjoon, who’d laid on his back, and he wrapped his arm around you, gently pulling you closer to him as he also felt the chill, your head on his chest, your hand over his heart. You used his dress shirt as a blanket, laying it over both of your upper bodies. You hooked your leg up over him, your thigh resting across his thighs, and he put his large, warm hand on your knee. He moved his thumb in small circles on your skin, sending sparks to your core. He was so warm, and you tried to remember and focus on how he’d been warm on the ship too, when he’d put sunscreen on you at the pool. His fever wasn’t so bad anymore. He was just a warm person. You didn’t need to worry about his fever anymore, you told yourself.

The ocean was so loud right now. Your mind drifted to how close to death you’d both been, especially Namjoon, and how you were probably going to die on this island. How could you possibly survive here long-term? What would happen if one of you got a little cut that got infected, or if one of you got seriously hurt? Just a broken bone or toothache could kill you. What if nobody every came looking for you? The ocean was so fucking big — how could anyone find anything? How had you even managed to find this island at all?

You felt and heard him sigh then, your hand and head both rising and falling with his chest.

“What are we gonna do?” you asked. Your voice sounded so small, nearly cracking as you spoke.

He didn’t answer for a moment. You wondered if he was actually asleep.

Namjoon did answer, his warm voice a low, comforting noise you could almost feel rumbling in his chest. “We’ll stay alive.”

He turned his head and kissed the top of your hair, resting his mouth there as he breathed slowly. The ocean didn’t sound as loud now.

***

Namjoon’s snoring only woke you up twice. You found yourself getting used to it, much preferring it over the awful sound of the waves you knew were going to eventually drive you crazy. You almost found his snoring comforting after a while, because now you knew for certain he was alive and sleeping, not unconscious or worse.

In the morning, after you’d gone to get your and Namjoon’s first drink of water, you went and found Namjoon some rocks to try to make his fire. You set up the pit, circling up some larger rocks to contain it and arranging some dry leaves and sticks. You helped Namjoon move over to where you’d set it up, since you didn’t want it right beside your very flammable shelter, and you helped him get settled in his new spot.

He started working, and you went and got one of your baby coconuts. You hit it against a tree nearby, and after only two hits it started to burst. You hurried over to Namjoon and held it as he drank from it eagerly. He brought his hands up to hold the coconut tighter, his fingers on yours as he drank up every last bit of liquid. A small amount of it dribbled down his chin, running in a long, thin line down the column of his neck, which you tried very hard not to stare at as he drank and swallowed, his large Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

You peeled the coconut open and found the meat inside. You saw the way Namjoon was staring at the meat intently where he sat, mouth watering, and you reached in and brought some of the meat up to your own mouth.

“No solids for you until tomorrow at the earliest,” you said between bites, and he huffed, annoyed with that.

You put the dry parts of the cleaned out husk in the fire pit and went and cracked open another. Namjoon drank, you ate, and you threw it in the fire pit again.

You got to work on the “HELP” letters, working slowly not to overstrain yourself. Around midday, you took a brief break to get some water to Namjoon and get him another coconut. You had two papayas plus a leaf of water and the coconut meat.

In the afternoon, you continued with the rocks. Namjoon wasn’t having much luck actually starting a fire, but he was starting to make sparks and absolutely insisted that he’d eventually get it.

When you walked out of the jungle with yet another rock, back to the beach on what you told yourself was the last trip, you saw Namjoon standing and walking into the ocean, only in his boxers and already up to his knees in the water. You threw the rock in your arms off to the side and ran to him.

“Namjoon!” You sprinted, moving yourself as fast as your legs could carry you. You didn’t know what he was planning on doing, but with him as weak as he was, there was no way he’d be able to fight a riptide or maybe even just the normal waves pulling him out.

You splashed into the water and when you got to him, you wrapped your arms around his waist, physically dragging him back to shore.

“Stop it, get off,” he grumbled, trying to wiggle free. “I’m just trying to get clean. Neither of us have bathed in days.”

“Sorry, buddy. There’s a rule about this,” you said, still attempting to pull him back. “No swimming in the ocean when you almost died two days ago.”

“I’m fine,” he whined, begrudgingly allowing himself to be pulled backwards until you both stood with just your feet in the water.

“Nuh uh, Joon,” you said, letting go of him and walking around to face him. You were ankle-deep in the water and tried to ignore the small spike of fear even just this now brought you.

“Yeah huh, Y/N,” he said, matching your tone.

“If you’re fine, do ten jumping jacks right now,” you said, putting your hands on your hips. Namjoon didn’t say anything and definitely didn’t do what you’d asked, instead just setting his jaw and glaring out at the water behind you.

You smirked at him, knowing damn well that he wasn’t able to do that right now, and he knew it too.

“I’m going in and you can’t stop me,” Namjoon declared. He moved to step around you, and you sidestepped, standing right in front of him. He tried to do it again, and you just sidestepped again, smiling now.

“I can do this all day, Joonie. You getting tired yet?” you said.

Before he could say anything, you felt something touch your ankle and you screamed, jumping out of the water and up onto the sand. Namjoon used your distraction to walk straight out into the waves.

“Namjoon, stop,” you begged, walking in after him. You saw what had touched your ankle: a little piece of seaweed maybe an inch long.

You went right into the water after him, ready to pull him back again, but he moved down, dunking himself under where it was only about three feet deep. He stood back up, running his hands through his hair.

You looked down at his muscular, broad body as he faced away from you, his caramel-toned skin glistening from the water in the bright sunlight and thoroughly distracting you from your worry. It didn’t seem to fit, him still looking like this but you knowing he’d been starving and dying the past few days. You knew logically that of course he wouldn’t change size too much or in any way reflect his complete lack of food yet, but still. It felt odd seeing how muscular he was and remembering how frail and weak he’d been.

Namjoon dunked himself back under one more time, and then walked back onto shore.

“See? I was fine,” he said as he walked by. You ignored the way the droplets of water ran slowly down his firm chest and stomach and the way his smug smile made you want him to bend you over something.

“And if you’d been caught in a riptide, I’m sure you would’ve been a-okay,” you said, turning and walking back up to the shelter with him. When you got there, you decided to give him some privacy, and to go off and take a bath of your own.

You went to the spring. On your way there, you saw a low-hanging palm tree with more baby coconuts, just off the path. You got one and carried it with you.

You had nothing to use for soap, but maybe using coconut milk on some of your body would be the same thing as coconut oil or lotion. You knew that was an ingredient people used in soaps and stuff, and had read about fresh coconut milk being used on the skin. You could just rub it in and then wash it off with water. You were probably doing something really stupid, but you didn’t even care. You just desperately wanted to not smell like sweat anymore.

When you got to the spring, you stripped off your dress and took off your strapless bra and panties and laid them all out on a large flat rock near the edge of the water. You cracked the coconut against a tree and carefully set it on the rock beside your clothes.

The first thing you did once you were in the water was wash your panties. You didn’t want to fully transition to full-time commando, especially not with your short dress, but the time you’d been wearing them now was already far past way too long. You soaked and scrubbed them with just water, and then laid them out to dry.

You leaned back and dunked most of your hair in the clear water. Getting a little coconut milk on your hands, you ran your palms over your shoulders and upper body, rubbing it in and pretending it was a nice body wash back home in your shower.

It smelled so good and pleasant here. The little waterfall from the spring was the only thing you could hear besides the leaves and flowers moving in the gentle island breeze. You dunked yourself completely under the water, letting it soak into your skin. You ran your hands all over yourself, and felt, for the first time in days, almost clean. Your skin had been so dry from the salt water and pained from the sunburn, and the coconut milk felt like a thin lotion, exfoliating you skin.

You moved toward the deepest part of the pool, where you could still touch the bottom if you were on your tiptoes. You really didn’t mind being in this water. It was clear and you could see around you, and it was small enough you could see all of it. There was nothing hiding here.

“Hey, you.”

You nearly screamed in surprise.

Namjoon had followed your path and now stood near the entrance to the clearing, still dripping wet in his boxers, which were so low around his hips you could almost see a bit of dark hair. He seemed completely unconcerned with the fact you were naked — you had been facing the other way before, but when you’d spun around and saw him, you’d covered yourself, knowing the pristinely clear water would do very little to distort his view of you. You covered your breasts with one arm and crossed your legs, wrapping your other arm around your body instinctively.

“Fuck, Joon. You scared the shit out of me.”

“Language,” he said sarcastically. “And it’s Namjoon to you.”

Namjoon walked around the clearing, looking at the different plants and making his way over to the spring. He didn’t seem to notice or care that you were on edge, turning yourself with him so he wouldn’t see your ass.

“Uh, do you mind?” you said after a moment.

“Not at all, go ahead,” he said, sitting down on a rock beside the crevasse where the spring water flowed out. He cupped his hands and drank some before continuing. “I can’t see shit without my glasses, which I lost in the storm. You just look like a little skin-colored blob to me right now, especially this far away.”

You rolled your eyes and huffed. You’d been so relaxed and calm before he showed up, and now you were standing here covering yourself. Though, realizing that he’d lost his glasses and couldn’t see well without them did make you feel almost bad for him.

“So I was thinking,” Namjoon began conversationally, and you bit the inside of your cheek, preparing for a full conversation with him like this, with you covering yourself. “We can use your pantyhose as a fishnet. Nothing big, but enough to catch something we can eat. We don’t have enough for a mosquito net, but I haven’t really seen any mosquitos, even here with all this sitting water. We don’t need to make a rain filter since we have the spring, so our only real use for your hose is fishing or drying foods.”

“You know how to dry foods?” you asked. You were still covering yourself fully, but relaxed some as the two of you talked seriously. He wasn’t leering or trying to catch a glimpse, and he couldn’t see that well anyway, but he did look over at you and make eye contact when you spoke. His expression was serious and businesslike.

“Yeah,” he said. “Just hang it up and keep it in the sun for two days or so. It’s easy, I used to do it all the time when I hiked more. Bananas would probably be best, but we’d have to cut it up somehow. I’m not sure mashed bananas would be very good dried.”

“We can use the wire in my bra,” you suggested. Namjoon raised an eyebrow, but nodded after a moment in agreement.

“We can also use the prong on my belt, if we can get the buckle off, as a spear tip. Just tie it to a nice stick, and boom, we have a spear to use on that boar you saw. Twenty-first century arrowhead. We can probably tie it with your sexy little leg straps.”

“Sexy leg straps?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding seriously. “You know, your hose thingys?” He made a straight line motion with his finger, drawing up and down the side of his outer thigh.

“They’re called suspenders.”

“Whatever. You knew what I meant.”

You looked at him for a moment. You were still standing there in the water covering yourself as much as you could, and he didn’t seem to have any plans for leaving any time soon.

“Yes?” Namjoon said when he noticed you staring at him. You could see the smallest hint of a smile on the corner of his smug mouth.

“Get out,” you said simply, smiling fake-politely.

“I’m just here to drink water,” he said, feigning innocence. “Remember the whole dying of dehydration thing? Plus we were talking about plans to survive. You plan on wearing that dress every day?”

“Were you planning on going permanently naked any time soon?” you said.

“Pants don’t last forever, and neither will that pretty little dress of yours.”

You set your jaw. Before you could say anything to him, he stood up, eyeing the water beside where he stood.

“Uh, what are you doing?” you said in surprise, realizing what he was doing.

“Going for a swim,” he said, like it was obvious. He pulled down his boxers, and then there he was, completely naked before you. You only looked up at him in short glances, your eyes wide, careful not to let him catch you staring. Even in the cool water, you felt the heat and slick wetness starting to build between you legs. You didn’t let yourself look at him anywhere below his stomach, but you could see even when not looking directly at him that he was a big boy, short dark hair surrounding his thick length, so big even when flaccid like this. He seemed completely at ease, this moment not sexual to him at all as he eased himself down into the water.

“Didn’t you just swim in the ocean?” You made yourself look only at his eyes.

“You barely let me go in at all, and I see you invented some coconut soap, which you didn’t share,” he said. “I wanna be clean and not smell bad, too.” Namjoon waded over through the waist-high water to where your coconut was sitting on a rock. You watched him glance at your panties drying there, the corner of his mouth quirking.

Namjoon got some coconut milk on his hands and rubbed it on himself. He was still facing away from you, so you stared blatantly as he rubbed his hands across his arms and shoulders, the muscles in his back moving and stretching.

He continued talking to you as he worked. “So, when are you going to let me start eating? Or is your plan to starve me out?”

You snorted. “How are you feeling with the coconut milk you had earlier?”

“Good.” He glanced back over his shoulder at you for a second, and your eyes snapped up to his eyes from where you had been staring at his ass through the crystal clear water. “Hungry as hell, and ready to start eating something.” He spoke normally, apparently not catching on to your leering, thankfully.

You didn’t answer him. You relaxed yourself a little, still keeping yourself covered but not letting your muscles stay as tense as they had been. After a moment, Namjoon spoke, still facing away from you and rubbing coconut milk on his upper body.

“I gotta ask. Where was all this shyness and modesty when you nearly jerked me off in public with your foot? Or is it different for you if you’re playing a game?”

You froze. You’d all but forgotten about how much you’d teased him on the boat. All of that seemed so long ago now.

“What game?” you said.

He turned around and looked at you, one eyebrow raised. You smiled at him innocently.

Namjoon moved slowly through the water, coming toward you. His dark eyes were so intense, you couldn’t look away if you wanted to, though his smile was playful. Your legs were still crossed and one arm still covered your breasts, but as he approached, stepping closer to you, you dropped your arm and moved to stand firmly on two feet. You were where the water came up to your breasts, the water level teasing your nipples as the gentle waves from your movements swelled around you.

To his credit, Namjoon didn’t look down at your breasts. You were standing nearly chest-to-chest now, though he was so much taller than you. Under the water, his hands moved slowly to touch your sides low on your hips, his fingertips just barely skimming against your skin as he gazed down at your eyes. You stood up straight, eager, leaning back just slightly as if presenting your chest to him.

Namjoon leaned in a little, looking down at your mouth with an absolutely depraved look in his eyes, his lips parting. You parted your lips too and watched his eyes darken as he took in a deep breath. This close to him, you could see the freckles he’d gotten from the sun, and the little moles he’d had before that you hadn’t really noticed before this moment. You studied the curve of his nose, the lines of his plush lips, all the details of his handsome face. You wanted to touch him, you wanted to feel his face with your hands, your breasts, your inner thighs.

One of his hands moved slowly around your hip toward your ass, lightly tracing his fingers there, his touch so gentle you could barely feel him. He moved around the swell of your ass and straight up your spine, watching you shiver as he moved. You looked up at him through hooded eyes, arching your back and wordlessly begging him to touch or even just look at your breasts.

Namjoon looked down, admiring you finally, and he leaned in so that his mouth was less than an inch from yours. You closed your eyes and could almost feel his mouth on yours. You felt his warm breath on your skin and nearly whined, a small moan escaping you. His hands traced up your ribcage, resting just below you breasts. Other than his hands, he didn’t touch you, though the rest of him was close enough to tease your skin with light touches and traces in the water.

His hands were so big and strong, you thought you might pass out just thinking about what he could do to you. His fingers touched the undersides of your breasts, moving upwards so slowly.

“This game,” he said then, pulling back completely and smirking at you.

You should’ve known.

You sighed and rolled your eyes as he moved back in the water, looking at you with a shit-eating grin on his face. You knew you were flushed and hot and bothered, and he’d gotten you so desperate in such a short amount of time, all but begging him to touch you.

Two could play this game.

***

It had to have been about ten days or so on the island by now.

You had yet to see a boat, plane, or any hint of other humans existing within a hundred miles of you. You would’ve been nearing the end of your cruise by now, you thought with a sigh. You had yet to get your period, guessing that was about due next week, and you were not looking forward to that experience at all.

The day after your game with Namjoon at the spring, you’d finished making the “HELP” letters and Namjoon had gotten a fire going. He’d eaten some bananas that night and didn’t get sick, so you considered that a success.

In the following days, you both got used to your routines. Namjoon worked on getting his strength up. He ran laps around the island, did push-ups, swam in the ocean — staying close to the beach, at your insistence. You even caught him lifting large rocks at one point, and made fun of him for that quite a bit. He’d insisted that he was doing it just to test if his strength was fully back yet or not.

You both went fishing and hunting. Namjoon made a spear like he’d said, sharpening the point on his belt buckle and using one of your suspenders to secure it there. He found and killed a small boar, which you roasted over the fire and split between the two of you. Namjoon made a joke about you eating a baby Pumbaa, which made you want to hit him. The following day you caught a huge fish and split that, too, though Namjoon seemed to not like seafood all that much.

You tested one of the fruits you didn’t know over a few days and found it was edible and wouldn’t kill you, and when you brought it back to your little camp proudly, Namjoon was sitting by the fire, cleaning the fish he’d caught that day.

“Noni?” he said, looking up at you as you walked over.

“Huh?”

“The thing you’re holding,” he said, motioning up toward your hands. “It’s called noni fruit.”

You looked down at the fruit you were holding. You’d spent days testing to make sure it wasn’t poisonous, and had wanted to present a new food to him as a nice surprise, and Namjoon had known the whole time what it was. Figured.

You had a fish and noni fruit dinner, finished off with coconut meat and milk and a leaf of water split between you afterwards. You didn’t have many complaints food-wise. You figured the two of you were about as lucky as you could get not to have ended up on an island with nothing, and even luckier to have ended up on an island at all. The place you’d landed pretty much served up all you needed to eat, and the only thing you really had to work for was meat, but even that helped give you something to do.

That night, you both sat by the fire talking for hours. You’d done a lot of that since you got used to your routines and set everything up. There wasn’t very much to do, besides hunt, collect fruit, and keep the fire going so potential rescuers could see it and the smoke.

Every night, you slept right beside each other, cuddled together. In the light you both were cocky and play-fought each other, teasing and bickering, but at night you held onto each other, neither pointing out aloud how much you depended on each other. A few times, you’d started crying in the middle of the night, and Namjoon always hugged you tighter and stroked your hair and told you it was going to be okay. You’d done the same for him when he’d broken down, and learned that night how much he liked and was comforted by you stroking his hair and humming to him. You were both so terrified, and at night you clung to each other like you were still lost and adrift in the middle of the sea.

When you went to bed that night, Namjoon just wore his boxers and you your panties and his dress shirt. You washed your clothes in intervals, wearing one outfit for two days or so and washing the other at some point in that time period. Namjoon was pretty much always shirtless now, to your delight, so he alternated between his dress pants, which he’d ripped into shorts, and boxers. You’d basically torn apart your bra when you got the underwire out to use, so now you alternated between your dress and Namjoon’s shirt. Both of you were clinging to the last semblances of modesty and normality you had left for as long as you could.

Tonight you laid facing in, turned away from Namjoon and the ocean, and after you’d been laying there for a while, you felt him turning toward you. He wrapped his arms around you, nuzzling his face into your hair, the tip of his nose touching your scalp. Your legs were bent and he bent his too, right along behind you, fully pressing his body against you from nose to feet. He was so gentle with you, and you immediately, reflexively, melted back into him. Namjoon exhaled, a hint of a small moan in his deep sigh.

You only ever felt truly safe at night, like this in his arms.

***

You woke up in the middle of the night. Namjoon was asleep, his erection pressed hard against your ass, and you sighed, snuggling back against him, using the slight friction for warmth. You loved when you woke up and could feel he was hard. The tension between the two of you had yet to be resolved, and nothing had happened after that day in the spring. You wanted him so bad your pussy almost ached when you looked at him, and when you woke up and could feel his huge length hard against you, it always made you shift and snuggle back into him, loving the feeling and idea of him being aroused by you so much, even if he was asleep.

He groaned in reaction to your movement. Still asleep, his arms tightened around you and pulled you even closer against him, holding onto you firmly with his muscular arms you loved so much.

He smelled so good. Earthy, like sea salt and smoke from the fire still burning a few yards away, with a hint of coconut and his musky natural scent and pheromones. You wished you could just lay here and smell this forever.

You turned over slowly, careful not to wake him. Once you were facing him, you nuzzled in against his chest. Namjoon tightened his arms around you again, sighing.

Facing him was even better. He was so warm and smelled so good, and you were right up against his bare chest. This close, you could see the hints of very slight stubble on his chin and the freckles across his face and shoulders from all the sun he’s been getting. Namjoon was so broad and muscular and big, and you brought one of your hands up to rest over his heart, very subtly feeling his pectoral muscle and heartbeat.

At your touch, Namjoon’s eyes shot open and he rolled both of your bodies, moving so that he was directly over you, straddling you, his face buried in against you neck.

You let out a small squeal in surprise, grinning and gasping in delight. He moved slowly, grinding his erection into you as he let out a low growl. You moaned, your eyes rolling back in your head as you felt his thick, hot length pressed against you through his boxers.

“What are you doing, Y/N?” he murmured against your neck, moving so that his lips brushed your skin while slowing down the pace of his grinding to downright torturous. He had to know that he was rubbing right against your clit, every sudden movement making you gasp.

“Nothing,” you said, your voice high-pitched and breathy.

You couldn’t see his face — the only thing you could see was the low light from the fire yards away dancing across the ceiling of the shelter above you — but you could feel him. The tip of his nose touched your pulse point on your neck. His breath both warmed and made goosebumps spread across you skin. He braced himself with both arms, caging you there, his hips grinding into yours.

“Are you sure?” he murmured right against your ear, his breath hot.

“Yes,” you said, closing your eyes. Right after he’d finished speaking, he’d taken your earlobe between his teeth and pulled gently. Your fingers dug into his bare shoulders, holding onto him desperately as he moved against you still.

“Tell me to get off,” he said, his voice so deep and gravelly and low you had to close your eyes. The tip of his nose traced your jaw playfully as he spoke. “Tell me you don’t want this, and I’ll get off and never touch you again.”

You wrapped your legs around his waist, your centers pressed together fully through your thin clothes.

“Don’t get off.”

He didn’t even respond. Namjoon thrust so hard against you, your entire body rocked. He did so repeatedly, quickly humping and grinding against you through both his boxers and your panties. All you could hear was his breathing directly against your ear, low growls and breathy moans escaping him through the exertion of how forcefully he was moving. He was saying something you could barely understand, though you thought you heard “Yeah, you fucking like that?” after you moaned loudly.

You tried to meet his thrusts but he moved one of his hands down to grab your hips, roughly holding you in place.

“You’re so fucking good, so beautiful,” he growled, biting along your jaw. “I wanna fuck you forever, baby. God, I wish we could, so fucking bad.”

Before you could say anything, a sudden loud thump hit the roof of your shelter, and you both jumped and froze, waiting and listening for any other sounds.

Your heart raced. Namjoon looked down at you, eyes wide, and slowly moved off of you, shifting to his knees and then to a standing position outside the shelter.

He grabbed the spear from where it leaned against the tree, slowly walking where you couldn’t see him. You quickly jumped up too, watching him walk around the shelter, looking for what had made the noise.

He bent over and you couldn’t see him, and then stood up again, holding a coconut. You both looked up above you: you had set up your shelter underneath a palm tree that now had three coconuts hanging from it, and a fourth had just fallen and hit the roof of your lean-to.

You both laughed in relief, and Namjoon tossed the coconut behind him into the jungle, since you had no way of cracking into a non-baby coconut.

Namjoon walked straight for you then, throwing the spear off to the side. His eyes were dark and intense, and when he reached where you stood, he picked you up by your thighs, wrapping your legs around him as he sucked on your neck roughly, carrying you back to the shelter. His hands ran over your back underneath the shirt as he walked, feeling your bare skin desperately, and you tilted your head back in ecstasy and gasped, completely willing to let him do whatever he wanted to you.

He laid you down inside the shelter, his mouth still connected to you. He kissed you roughly, hungrily, claiming your mouth with his own, his tongue so deep inside you. You wrapped your legs around Namjoon tighter, pulling him down against you harder. He kissed you ravenously, one of his hands behind your head, knotting in your hair, holding your head just how he wanted you.

You could feel his erection through his boxers and your soaking wet panties. He ground himself against you roughly, bucking his hips, again nearly fucking you just like this through both your clothes.

“I’ve wanted you under me since the moment I saw you,” he growled against your ear, biting at your jaw. “So fucking beautiful.” He dipped his tongue into your mouth, so deep you swore you felt him in your throat, growling again.

You loved every moment of this. He moved so desperately, he was rough with you without hurting you, and god, the things coming out of his mouth were obscene. Namjoon brought his lips to your ear and whispered all the things he wanted to do to you, all while grinding himself against you harder and harder. You nearly cried out, just his words and his hips bringing you close already as you felt him moving against your clit through your clothes. His voice was deep and gravelly, contrasting his usual smooth-as-honey tone. You felt his growls and moans deep within you, all the way to your tight, throbbing core.

“–And then when you’re writhing and begging me, your beautiful legs spread so wide, I’ll kiss your pussy, taste your sweet, wet cunt. I bet you taste so fucking good, don’t you, baby? I can feel how wet you are right now, and it’s all for me. I wanna kiss and lick every inch of you so bad, I swear I could swallow you whole. Do you want me to call you ‘baby girl,’ sweetheart?”

“Yes,” you gasped, clawing at his back.

“I knew you would,” he growled against your ear, still thrusting against you, and you could almost feel his smile. “I want to kiss every inch of your beautiful skin, baby girl. I want to bring you pleasure with just my mouth, I want to please you, praise you, worship you. I want you to know what I can do to you. I want to feel you cum for me and taste you as you cum all over my face. I think about that so much, baby.”

His hips bucked faster, spreading his knees apart to spread your legs even farther as you whimpered from his filthy words.

“You think about me?” you managed to say, your voice so much higher than normal, you barely recognized yourself.

Without answering, he brought his mouth to yours, the tip of his tongue nearly touching the back of your throat again as he tilted his head, trying to dive deeper still. He kissed you and fucked your mouth with his tongue, groaning obscenely into your mouth when you sucked on his tongue.

He parted from you after a moment, gasping for air. He kissed along your jaw as best as he could while trying to get his breath back, and bit at your earlobe playfully again before answering.

“You’re the only thing I think about, baby girl,” he growled, bringing one hand to your breast, squeezing roughly. “I imagine fucking you on your hands and knees and making you scream for me, stuffing you full of my cum ’til it’s dripping out of you. I imagine making love to you, so fucking sweet, holding you so tight to me as I take you over and over, holding you like you could break. But I know you can take it. I know you like it rough, princess. And I’ll do anything you want. You want me to make you feel good, even if it hurts too, because you like it. You like pain with your pleasure, don’t you, princess?”

“Yes,” you moaned, arching your back up against him, so far gone by just his words and him dry-humping you through your clothes. How he’d managed to work you up this much without even touching you under your clothes was beyond you.

“I wanna fucking drown in you,” he growled, your earlobe between his teeth again. He pushed himself fully against you, so hard you could feel his cock throbbing. “I bet you feel so fucking good, and taste even better. I wanna fuck you every moment of every day.”

You couldn’t take it anymore. You brought your legs down from around him, and Namjoon started to move off of you, surprised and confused. You only let him move enough so you could get your panties down and off of you and the buttons on your shirt undone, and then you brought him back down to you, pulling his boxers down to his knees and letting his erection spring free, bobbing up against his stomach, painfully hard. God, he was big, so long and thick and perfect. Your mouth watered just looking at him, already so eager to be filled up and stretched out by him.

“I don’t have a condom,” Namjoon said, biting his lip and holding himself off of you as you wrapped your legs around him again.

“Obviously,” you deadpanned, looking up at him. You giggled, shaking your head. “What? You mean you didn’t run down to the store and buy any?”

“Shut up,” he grumbled, hiding the smile he had from your teasing.

“Don’t worry,” you said, sobering after a moment of your giggles, your need for him taking over. You spoke quickly, nearly babbling in your excitement and need. “I have an IUD. Birth control for two years, no condoms needed. The doctor said it’s more than ninety-nine percent effective and it’s the most effective of all the birth controls, bla bla bla, and it may be stupid but I’m definitely willing to take that risk right now. Now get inside me.” You tried to pull him closer to your throbbing core where you needed him so badly with your legs, but Namjoon stilled above you.

“Huh?” he said, tilting his head and looking down at you. He didn’t follow, mostly because he was completely lost in a haze of lust, barely seeing straight, and you realized that you had kind of spoken about a hundred miles a second. His eyes twinkled in the light of the fire, but they looked glazed over, lost in his desire. He was breathing hard and already breaking a sweat, and you could feel his heart racing, his whole body throbbing from his need.

“I have a birth control implant in my uterus that lasts two years,” you said much slower, calming yourself down and looking him in the eye. You put your hands on either side of his face, making him focus. “Basically, I can’t get pregnant for at least another eighteen months. Now get inside me, daddy.” You added the last bit with a smirk, watching his reaction as all of that slowly sunk in.

Your words registered with Namjoon, and he immediately jumped into action, apparently also willing to take the less than one percent risk of pregnancy. You figured this island might be the actual worst place on the planet to get pregnant, but you trusted your IUD enough and were so far gone in your lust, you were willing to be stupid.

Namjoon reached down and lined himself up with your entrance, and then thrust into you in one smooth motion. You cried out as he stretched you, and he kissed you, swallowing your moans. A deep, broken noise escaped him as he felt your walls clenching down on him and adjusting to his size.

“You feel so fucking good, I knew you would,” he groaned, his words turning into a whiney moan as pleasure almost completely overwhelmed him. He was so big, and even though you were soaking wet, it was a tight fit. You’d had a while of intense foreplay and dry-humping, and now both of you were barely holding on by a thread.

“Keep talking, naughty boy,” you said, pulling his hair. You tightened your legs around him, and he began slowly moving, muttering praise and more dirty talk, his nose and mouth directly against your skin on your neck.

“Your pussy’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever felt, baby girl. You’re so fucking good, I’ve wanted this for so fucking long. I wanna make you feel so good, sweetheart, that’s all I want, I–” He cut himself off as he picked up his pace, and you arched your back and brought your legs up even higher around him. One of his hands held onto your thigh, bracing himself and holding you in place exactly how he wanted you. “You feel so fucking good, Y/N…” He moved his hips so quickly, you knew you both weren’t going to last.

You knew exactly what you needed for him to do to push you over the edge. You reached down and took his hand he wasn’t using to support himself, and brought it up to your throat. You squeezed your hand around his, making him choke you.

Namjoon took the hint and squeezed his hand tighter, and you gasped, your vision going blurry as he pumped pure bliss into you body. Every stroke filled you perfectly, the head of his cock hitting you deeper and deeper with every thrust, stroking a spot within you that made you see stars as his thick girth stretched you out. You tried to bring your legs up even higher around him, and then he was hitting you at the exact perfect angle.

You tried to scream out in pure uninhibited pleasure, but his hand on your neck made the noise choked off and broken. The hand that wasn’t around your neck was in your hair now, and he squeezed his fingers there too, just hard enough to hurt. He pulled you so that you head tilted back almost painfully, showing off your neck to him as he squeezed there tighter.

Namjoon’s movements were becoming erratic and brutal. He wasn’t speaking anymore, just moaning and grunting. He loosened his grip on your neck just long enough for you to wheeze in a shaky breath. Tears streamed down your cheeks from the force of it all, your eyes watering from asphyxiation and pure pleasure. His thrusts filled you so hard, you were sure the sound of his skin smacking against yours could be heard on the other side of the island, if they weren’t drowned out by both of your moans.

Namjoon buried his face in against your neck, his nose against your rapid pulse and feeling you trying to breathe and moan, his hand now squeezing your throat harder again. You couldn’t even see anymore, the only things your mind registered were his voice and the feelings of his cock moving inside you and his hand on your throat.

“God, you’re so fucking tight,” he groaned. “Your pussy’s so fucking perfect, I could fuck you forever. I wanna cum in your tight little pussy just so I can lick it clean. You want that? You want me to eat your perfect cunt, princess?” He paused long enough to lick once up the side of you face, slowly, his tongue wide, which would’ve made you gasp if you could breathe.

He rubbed his cheek against yours roughly, completely animalistic and primal, as he continued. “I’m gonna make you fucking scream, I’m gonna make you cum so hard you can’t see, can’t walk, can’t think. I’m gonna fuck you so good, the only thing you’ll know how to say is my name. Fuck, you’re so good. Scream when you cum for me, baby, or I’ll spank your ass raw.”

If you had any air within you, you would’ve screamed as you came. Instead, you tried to gasp, unable to inhale at all with Namjoon’s hand tight on your throat, and he only moved himself harder and harder, savagely pulling every drop of pleasure from your body. You’d never felt anything like this, your orgasm completely overpowering you. He must’ve loosened his hold on your throat, because you somehow screamed, and he came right as he heard you and felt you clenching and spasming around him.

Namjoon quickly pulled out, finishing himself off with his hand on your stomach, his head buried in your neck as he kept himself mostly up off of you. You gasped desperately, his hand gone now as he stroked himself furiously with it, thrusting into his own fist as if he just couldn’t make himself stop, moaning in pure ecstasy as he fucked his own hand and spilled his cum all over your stomach.

Namjoon let out a noise from deep within him and just barely managed to keep himself from collapsing on top of you when he finished. Instead, he held himself up with his arms and knees, giving you plenty of room to breathe and recover as you both gasped for air. His arms and legs shook like at any moment his limbs might give out, but he focused solely on keeping himself up. You noticed, and you turned your head and kissed the corner of his mouth, trying to pull his body down onto you with all of your limbs wrapping around him.

He reluctantly let himself rest his weight on you, only partially. You didn’t mind; if anything, you loved feeling him on top of you. Feeling the weight of his big, perfect body was so comforting, and you still just wanted to be closer to him. His cum pressed between your bodies, smearing on both your stomachs as he let himself put more of his weight on you. It was a sticky mess, but god, it felt so dirty and filthy and good.

After a moment of catching his breath, Namjoon started kissing your shoulder. He peppered your skin with his love, his breathing still deep and slow, his voice in his breath muffled against your skin as he moaned with almost every exhale, and the sound was music to your ears.

He made his way down your body slowly, and you only had the energy to lay there and enjoy being worshipped. His tongue circled one of your nipples, and you brought your hands to his hair, knotting there. He sucked your nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it lazily, and you arched your back, letting out a lazy moan and closing your eyes.

He kissed down to your stomach and started licking you, tasting his own cum and your sweat from the exertion of what you’d just done. He held you with both hands, holding you perfectly in place, his hands nothing but gentle as his fingertips skimmed along your ribs and his tongue lapped up every drop on your stomach, licking you clean, just as promised.

As Namjoon licked his cum off of you, he moved his mouth so slowly, so gently, so sweetly, like he wanted to do just this for days. He moved down your body slowly though, and dipped his tongue into your belly button playfully when he reached it. You felt him smiling against your skin when you giggled in reaction.

He got to your legs and spread your thighs gently. He kissed your cunt so chastely, his lips pressed together like he was a gentleman kissing a lady’s hand. He tilted his head and kissed your folds, his mouth opening and his tongue moving on you. You knotted your hands in his hair and moaned as he dipped his clever, evil tongue into you.

“Joon,” you moaned, spreading your legs wider, and Namjoon moaned back to you in response, the noise muffled against your pussy.

He opened his mouth as wide as he could, covering you from entrance to clit, and then he started sucking roughly, drinking you, tilting his head as if kissing you deeper as he slowly moved his lips back together and slurped. You cried out, pulling his hair roughly as the new source of such intense pleasure overwhelmed you. As he sucked, he thrust his tongue in and out of you rapidly, fucking you with his tongue and moving his whole head around like he was trying to fucking motorboat your pussy, or maybe attempting to bury his head inside you.

He closed his lips on you with an obscene wet slurping noise and started drinking at your entrance, his tongue quickly lapping into you as you felt nothing but his talented mouth.

“Joonie, that feels so good,” you moaned, trying to thrust up against him. He groaned against you and moved his hands then, grabbing your ass with both hands and pulling you tighter against his face. Namjoon sucked and drank and fucked you with his tongue, every moment such sweet bliss.

He’d planned to work your entrance for a while before going up to your clitoris, but you didn’t even last that long. Your whole body shook when you came, holding onto his hair with both hands. This time you did scream fully, and you thought you heard birds all over the island flapping away from the trees, as if spooked by the noise. You scream-moaned with every exhale, and Namjoon kept moving his mouth and holding you close to him, working you through your orgasm roughly.

You laid there gasping, staring at the ceiling of the shelter, dazed and fucked out and so far gone. As you recovered, you felt Namjoon leaving hickeys on your inner thighs and hipbones, entertaining himself with marking your skin.

You glanced down at Namjoon when you felt him pulling back. He stared up at you, eyes dark and mouth nearly dripping from your wetness. After a moment of eye contact, he leaned in again and licked you slit, as if he were trying to lick up the new wetness that now dripped from you from your orgasm. He watched your reactions as he slowly worked, seeing you spasm and squirm as you moaned and arched you back again in overstimulation.

Namjoon pulled back again and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand before climbing on top of you. He moved in close, pulling your legs up around him and nuzzling his face in against your neck.

“You taste so fucking good, baby,” he murmured, his deep voice a low rumble, grinding his erection against your stomach, hard again just from eating you out. “I knew you would. So fucking sweet, princess, I can’t get enough of you. I’m gonna eat your beautiful pussy forever.”

Namjoon slid into you again and you screamed, full-out actually screamed, crying out in ecstasy and overstimulation as you gripped at his sweaty shoulders. You swore he was going to kill you, he felt so good.

“God, baby, keep sounding like that and I really will fuck you forever,” he groaned, his hands on your body squeezing you tighter.

This time he moved so much slower, holding himself up with his arms and spread knees. He kissed your mouth, slowly moving his tongue deep within you, hitting the deepest corners of your mouth and completely dominating you as he moved his tongue in time with his hips. His large arms caged your head, and he was the only thing you could see or feel at all.

He pulled his mouth back enough just to say, "See how good you taste?” before dipping his tongue back into you, hungrily, so slowly claiming your mouth. He growled when you started sucking on his tongue, thrusting in hard once and circling his hips when he was inside you as deep as he could get.

You moaned into his mouth and he moaned right back, not taking his mouth off yours as he kissed you and rolled his hips over and over, just fast enough to keep you desperate. He pinned one of you arms down above your head by your wrist, holding it down tightly but not painfully, lacing his fingers with yours.

As Namjoon moved, you felt him becoming more and more desperate. He began bucking his hips, kissing the corner of your mouth sloppily. His breathing picked up as his pace did, and he gasped, the two of you cheek to cheek as he brought one of his hands down to hold onto your hip.

You started encouraging him. “Yes… fuck, you’re so big. Fuck my tight little pussy, Joon,” you groaned, tilting your head back as he slammed into you so hard and fast you could barely breathe. He moaned with every exhale, so far gone, only moments away from falling apart again.

“What’d you fucking call me?” he growled, not stopping or slowing his pace at all.

“Joon?” you moaned, closing you eyes.

Instead of answering, he suddenly bit down on your neck so hard it had to have broken skin. You cried out, and as Namjoon kept biting down and kept thrusting, going even faster somehow, you kept screaming, short cries with each exhale between desperate gasps for oxygen.

“Joon,” you repeated, loving every moment of this, and he bit down again, harder, now where your neck met your shoulder. You felt the sharp pain in your shoulder throb, and it felt incredible, the pulsing matching that in your aching cunt. He licked at the part of your skin between his teeth, and you swore you felt him moaning.

You repeated “Joon” one more time, and Namjoon stopped suddenly, pulling back and glaring down at you, seething. Saliva and traces of your wetness covered his chin and lips, a wild look in his eyes.

“Call me that one more fucking time,” he snarled, “And you’ll fucking regret it, you little slut.”

You must’ve looked scared, because Namjoon’s eyes immediately softened, a concerned, terrified look on his face. He leaned in and kissed your cheek gently, murmuring against your skin.

“Only if you want to, sweetheart.” He kissed your cheek again. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you just surprised me,” you said, your voice so small and high-pitched you barely recognized it. “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, angel. I’m sorry I scared you. I’ll never do that ever again.” He nuzzled in against your neck gently. He was still inside you, your bodies joined so perfectly, and he shifted his hips, trying to get even closer to you.

“You can do it again, I was just taken by surprise this time,” you said. “I’m sorry I kept calling you Joon.”

“No, it’s my fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. You can call me anything you want. I won’t do anything like that ever again, I promise, sweetheart. I’m sorry.” He kissed along your neck, avoiding the bite marks he’d left there before.

“I want you to do it again.”

Namjoon froze when you said that. He pulled back just enough to look at you and see your serious expression.

“Yeah?” he said, watching you carefully with a small smile spreading on his face.

“Yeah.” You nodded, biting your lip and looking up at him through your lashes. “I want you to fuck me like I’m your little slut, daddy.”

He flinched when you said that, apparently no longer in that kind of mood, so you corrected yourself.

“Namjoon,” you corrected, smiling up at him. “Joon,” you added, smiling, and Namjoon smiled too.

Namjoon moved to the other side of your neck, pressing kisses on your skin there. One of his hands went up to your ribs, just under your breast, resting there lightly as his mouth teased you.

“Tell me exactly what to do and I’ll do it, angel,” he murmured, his breath hot in your ear.

You could tell that he was trying to make up for his perceived wrongdoing by saying he’d do anything, and that he really just wanted to take it slow and gentle right now, scared out of his rough ‘daddy’ mood he’d been in before.

“Make love to me,” you moaned, holding onto his shoulders, and Namjoon complied.

Rolling his hips, he moved slowly in you, not lazily, but deliberate. Every gentle thrust brought your bodies closer together, the head of his cock stroking you so deep, exactly where you wanted him. You moaned, encouraging him with how good he made you feel.

He whispered soft praises in you ear. “You’re so beautiful, Y/N. I’ve never felt anything so good, ever. You’re so tight, so wet for me, so perfect,” he said, holding your body tightly to his. “I could make love to you forever. You taste so good, and feel even better. Your pussy’s like milk and honey. Like warm, wet silk.”

Your orgasm was gentle this time. Namjoon had to work for it, making love to you exactly as you’d asked, and when you finally came you let out a long, anguished moan that made him gasp and still, cumming into you as he felt you clenching down on him so tight. You froze when you heard what he was saying as he came, muttering almost unintelligibly as he spilled into you and hugged you.

“Don’t leave me. Please, don’t ever leave me here alone. I need you. Please, please, I need you, I love you. Please….”

This time he did collapse on you, completely spent. He breathed in sharply, rasping for air, and got himself off of you as soon as he could, propping himself up on his knees and forearms. You breathed steadily and tried to will your heart to stop beating so fast and hard as you looked up at him.

Namjoon started to roll off of you, but you leaned up and kissed him, holding onto the back of his head. He rolled anyway, keeping your mouths connected, both of you rolling until you were on top. He hugged you tightly, your breasts squeezed against his chest, and he moved one hand behind your head to hold onto your hair, pulling it back from your face for you.

You pulled back just enough to look down at him. He looked completely love-struck, hearts in his eyes as he gazed up at you, a lazy smile on his face. You could barely see his face in the darkness, the dying fire and the moon’s reflection on the water your only light. The warm red glow of the fire covered one side of his face and twinkled in his eyes.

You cupped his face, stroking your thumb on his adorable round cheeks. Namjoon closed his eyes and snuggled into your hand, letting out a small sigh. His hands rested on you lower back, his fingers drawing small lazy circles. You turned and kissed his cheek gently, closing your eyes too.

***

You weren’t aware of it, but you’d fallen asleep like that on top of him. When you woke up in the morning, you were still laying on top of him, your face turned in toward his neck, your cheek on his shoulder. Your hand rested over his heart, feeling his steady heartbeat, and you rose and fell gently with his breathing. Namjoon was still asleep, but his hands were where you’d last felt them, on your lower back.

He must’ve felt you stirring, because started Namjoon waking up slowly, too. You heard his deep sigh-moan as he stretched his muscles, and when he realized what was on top of his body and under his hands, he smiled lazily, bringing his arms up to squeeze you in a lazy hug.

“Good morning, baby,” he said, his husky voice so deep from his sleep.

You pulled yourself up, sitting up and straddling him as you stretched your arms. The ocean seemed louder today, the waves nearby crashing on the shore. The breeze was just a little stronger than normal, but the sun was bright, not a cloud in the sky.

You looked down at Namjoon and saw him staring at your breasts, mouth all but watering, eyes darkening from lust already.

“I see you staring,” you smirked, rolling your eyes.

“I wasn’t hiding it,” he said, matching your playful tone but still not taking his eyes off you chest. His hands rested on your thighs, holding you in place where you straddled him, his thumbs drawing small circles on your hipbones.

“I slept on you last night,” you said then after a moment. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” he said quickly, looking up at you. “Don’t be sorry. Do it again, as much as you want.”

“Really?” you asked, incredulous. “It doesn’t bother you, having a person laying on top of you as you sleep?”

“It feels amazing. Kind of comforting, too. And not to be rude, because I know talking about weight is a bad thing for a lot of girls, but you barely weigh anything and I love feeling you on top of me,” he said, his eyes so dark and intense and loving and playful all at once.

You shifted. You knew you didn’t weigh nothing, but hearing that he loved feeling you on top of him made your heart flutter.

You knew where this conversation was going, and you cut it off before it got there. You had shit to do today before more fucking.

“All right, we need to get up,” you said.

Namjoon groaned, his hands on your thighs gently massaging you. “Why?” he whined.

“We need to eat breakfast so we can keep our strength up, and I want to take a coconut milk bath at the spring.”

Namjoon’s eyes lit up. “Can I–”

“Yes, you can join me,” you said before he could finish.

Namjoon sat up, kissing you deeply and wrapping his arms around you.

***

After breakfast, your bath at the spring consisted of ten percent bathing and ninety percent fucking in the water. You wrapped your legs around him and he thrust up into you, holding onto your hair and pulling your body closer to his.

Namjoon carried you back to your shelter bridal-style, both of you giggling the whole way. When you got there, Namjoon fucked you on your hands and knees, his hand resting on your lower spine as he thrust into you savagely, his hips smacking against your ass so hard it sounded like he was spanking you. He did actually spank you at one point with his hand, and you came near instantly at the feeling.

After that, he laid you down and got down beside you on his side, propping himself up on one arm and looking down at you as you laid on your back. He leaned in and kissed you while his free hand moved down your stomach, his fingers playing with your curls as you spread your legs for him.

You gasped when he stroked your folds, and he smiled, sighing as he looked down at your face. You bit your lip and barely held in a groan as he curled two fingers into your soaking heat.

“You look so fucking beautiful like this,” he groaned. You held onto his wrist with both hands, feeling his tendons moving as he pumped his fingers inside you.

The two of you just laid there, Namjoon fucking you with his fingers and watching you as you reacted, moaning and writhing. His thumb circled your clitoris, pressing hard and moving slowly. You felt his erection against the side of your leg, and he seemed to be holding himself back, not wanting to lose control of himself but already so desperate for friction.

“Please, Namjoon, please,” you moaned, hips rolling, trying to fuck yourself on his hand. “I need you.”

“I’m here,” he murmured, leaning in and kissing the corner of your mouth as your lips fell open, breathing roughly as you felt yourself drawing close. “Let me take care of you, baby.” His fingers picked up their pace and you gasped, coming with a long, breathy moan.

Namjoon almost came just from watching your face in pleasure and feeling you squeezing his fingers. He quickly pulled out and moved on top of you, and even as you gasped for oxygen, you brought you legs up around him, wanting him, wanting this. You cried out when he slid into you, and he brought his fingers up to his mouth and sucked them as he started bucking his hips, desperate to finish himself off.

He held himself up higher off you, not trapping you and keeping you immobile with his body so that this time he could look down at your breasts bouncing with each quick, hard thrust. You arched your back, giving him an even better view and presenting your breasts to him like a gift, and you moaned and squeezed his cock purposefully and brought your legs higher up around him. Namjoon’s breath caught in his throat, his mouth agape and eyes nearly rolling back as he spilled himself into you, his thrusts sloppy and erratic.

Namjoon let out an agonized moan that almost sounded like your name before collapsing on top of you. You held him there with your legs, stroking his hair with one hand and resting the other on his shoulder. You loved feeling him on top of you just as much as he did you.

When he had the strength, he rolled both of you so that he was on his back and you were on top of him, just like how you’d slept. You leaned up about halfway, but Namjoon moved both his hands to your breasts and you stopped. He basically just supported your weight with his hands as he felt you, massaging slowly and watching your flesh between his fingers as he squeezed and kneaded you, your hard nipples against his palms.

You moaned, closing your eyes, and Namjoon lowered you down so that one of his hands was still on your breast while the other held you up by your shoulder and his mouth moved to your nipple, sucking and licking and biting.

After a moment, Namjoon suddenly pushed you up so that you were upright, and then pulled you forward by your thighs. He moved you around his arms and you let him, Namjoon moving your whole body like you were nothing. He positioned you so that you were straddling his face, and you gasped when you felt his tongue moving along your folds, surprised by all he’d just done but immediately tangling your fingers in his hair when you felt him sliding his tongue inside you.

You tilted you head back and closed your eyes, trying to spread your legs even further as Namjoon tried pulling you down on his face harder, both his hands on your ass as he sucked your cunt and fucked you with his tongue, making it rigid for you as you ground down against his face. You could hear him moaning against your pussy, the waves hitting the shore, the obscene slurping noise he always made when he sucked you dry, but there was something else you were hearing, too.

You suddenly froze as you listened, realizing this sound was something new. Namjoon kept going, unaware, but you looked out at the water, biting your lip to hold in a moan.

Out in the distance, a huge ship sat just on the horizon, and your heart skipped a beat when you saw it and realized you weren’t hallucinating. You thought you could see shipping containers on it, and the whole thing had to be the size of a football field. A small inflatable boat with a motor was headed directly for you, and would probably be here in a few minutes, its motor a quiet buzz in the distance.

“Namjoon!” you said, quickly moving off of him and jumping to your feet outside the shelter.

“What..?” he said, dazed, lost in his lust, looking only at you, still laying there on his back. His cock was half hard against his stomach already, his mouth, chin, and cock all glistening from your wetness. You grabbed your dress from its spot hanging on a tree nearby and quickly pulled it on, and Namjoon must’ve looked over and seen the ship and boat too because he started pulling on his boxers as fast as he could, jumping to his feet as well.

You both ran down to the surf, making yourselves much more visible to the people on the smaller boat, waving your arms. You were jumping up and down in your joy, holding onto Namjoon’s arm as you tried to hold in your tears, looking back and forth between him and the boat. Namjoon was grinning ear to ear, moving to hold your hand as he waved his other arm wildly at the smaller boat. You looked up and saw him tearing up too, and when he realized you were looking at him, he turned and kissed you, both of you barely able to press your lips together from smiling so wide.

The boat reached your shore a few minutes later. A cargo ship on its way to New Zealand had seen your fire earlier that morning, and had finally made its way to you after preparing its small rescue boat. You really really hoped they hadn’t seen any of what the two of you had been doing that morning in your lean-to, if they’d been looking at the beach with binoculars or something like that.

The three men on the speedboat had shock blankets and water bottles for the two of you, one of them realizing who you were and saying that the two of you had made big news all over the world the past few weeks. You and Namjoon gathered up your scarce belongings, each carrying the remainders of your clothes, and were escorted onto the little boat to be taken over to the ship.

As you sat in the back of the boat together, you in your faded, torn party dress and Namjoon in his boxers and his unbuttoned, worn-out dress shirt, the two of you cuddled close together, sharing one shock blanket. Namjoon closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against your temple, smiling softly.

“We made it, sweetheart. We’re safe,” he murmured against your cheek before kissing you there. He could tell you were nervous being out on the water again, so he held you close to him, his arm around you and nose nuzzling your cheek.

You tried to stop yourself from crying, but holy shit, you were saved. You weren’t going to die on that island. You were both safe and healthy, and you were together.

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