#if anyone WANTS to hear them be my guest and ask but fair warning: I am insane and incomprehensible

[soup-for-ghosts]

you know I’ve lived in my imagination for so long now that I almost forgot crick is canonically dead

like tf you mean he died, he’s right there

[thatdeadaquarius]

Ok but polygot reader who's like a pro singer who sings im all the languages they know all across teyvat cuz y not <3

Having a duet with yunjin and xinyan

Harmonising with barbara

Singing for nilou's dance

I WANNA SING LULLABIES TO MY CHILDREN SO BADLYYYYYYYY

Orah my beloved genius you <333

LMAO SORRY I JUST HAD TO USE THIS GIF

Orbit: Short Headcanons-ish

Stars: mostly Mond/Liyue characters, mentions of other singers/musicians

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: none known. & Trigger Warnings: none known.

Please comment if I missed any. /gen

☆

U get to sing a solo with Barbara yes!!

but u know whats more important? whos more hype abt ur songs/diff languages???

Venti.

Venti is.

Venti is vibrating with barely contained manic energy

poor guy is sick of always being familiar with songs, nothing is "new" to him, but ur songs?? they're from a different world, and he can't know any of them!!!

Venti's has a surprising amount of strength in those noodle arms bc ur suffocating in his hug rn-

He is constantly begging asking you to sing for him, sing in public, he'll put you on the Barbatos statue hands just so everyone can hear you,

constantly pleading politely requesting if he can lay in your lap under the Windrise tree while you sing slow songs

Hogs you from Barbara, Klee, and anyone else in Mondstadt who would want to personally hear ur singing/duet with you lmao

u had to bring in the cavalry (Rex Lapis/Zhongli) to get a week away from him lol

luckily the retired god was more than motivated to bring u to Liyue, after all he spends a fair amount of his time listening to operas/music

DUETS DUETS DUETS!!

Yunjin blew ur eardrums out of excitement the first time u copied her singing perfectly, kidnapped u for an entire week of festivities where u were the special singer guest <33

Xinyan looked at you like u hung the stars in the sky for both playing a little guitar/singing to her rock music (as she's used to instrumental rock so far bc its been just her)

Qiqi, Klee, Yao yao, Diona all ask (in their own ways lol) for lullabies,

they each wanted you to sing to them every night but it wasn't possible... so u got cloud retainer to invent a machine to record some lullabies you've sung in each of their countries languages so they can sleep 🥺<333

and the dancers.

you cannot escape the dancers.

Nilou, yunjin, eula, gaming, ayaka, doesn't matter, u cannot have peace.

u will sing for them all at some point, u will have repeated performances, u will attract crowds, u will be going on a world tour

(Lyney has also kidnapped u for his magic shows to show off ur singing in French)

☆

finally scheduled a post and am able to rlly get at my asks more frequently now thank goodness

im so ready to open ask box again 😭😭

hope u guys have a fun Tuesday!! :)

Safe Travels 0rah,

💀♒

If you wanna join a taglist, DM me what for! "Pspspsss, please tag me for [All SAGAU posts, Only SAGAU Language AUs, diff fandom, etc.]!"

(If you ever wanna drop, just DM me! "No more taglists/[specifically this AU/fandom] please!")

���the beloveds♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche / @chocogi / @fallen-starr / @areaderofbooks / @devilangel657 / @esthelily / @justinsomniachild / @nanithefuck / @questionotmystopit / @chinuneko

@kiyomi-uchiha777

[lvrhughes]

Mason's Sister | J. Drysdale

pairing: Jamies Drysdale x fem!reader

word count: 1.4k

summary: Mason told Jamie that his sister was off limits, until she isn't

warnings: none? this is trash though be warned

not my gif!

“Mason!” You yelled, running down the stairs to jump at your brother, his arms opening to catch you. 

“Goose!” He grinned, holding you in a tight hug. 

“Told you not to call me that!” You groaned, letting go of your brother. 

“And I told you no.” The smile never left either of your faces. 

Until you saw his guest. Jamie Drysdale. He hated you for no reason, always ignoring you and when he did acknowledge you it was purely to annoy you. 

“You brought him!” You whispered to Mason, making sure he didn’t hear. 

“He’s my best friend, you’ll be fine for a week.” He shrugged, picking you up and throwing you over his shoulder after. 

“Mase!” You laughed, your world upside down as he carried you outside. Setting you down in the grass after, sitting beside you while Jamie followed behind. 

“Why’d you bring me out here?” It seemed like a fair question, looking away from the blossoming sunset to look at your brother.

“Wanted to watch the sunset with my sister who I’ve missed so dearly.” He grinned, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and dragging you down. 

A mumbled comment falling from Jamie’s lips, earning a hard smack from Mason. You didn’t hear what he said but seeing how hard Mason hit him, you’d assume it wasn’t anything nice. When you heard your name slip past your brother's lips as he was whispering to Jamie, you took it as your cue to leave. 

“I’m going to go in.” You gave a false salute to your brother before getting up to walk inside, remembering to leave the door unlocked for them. 

“I can’t believe you!” Mason groaned, running his hands through his hair. 

“What? Said I was sorry!” Jamie claimed, calling his mumbled sorry an apology. 

“What did she do to you? You’re never like this to anyone else, you’re my best friend. I can't have you hate my sister.” 

“I don’t hate her!” 

“Then why do you do this shit?” Mason groaned, gripping at his hair now. 

“I don’t know! It just started and it worked because if she hated me then I could tell myself I have no chance of being with her and especially because she’s your sister!” Jamie’s words mumbling out, ending barely audible. Mason’s head lifting at the confession.

“You started acting like this when I told you that you couldn’t date my sister,” The correlations connecting in Mason’s mind. “You like her! And you chose to be a dick to her so she won’t like you? What fucking logic is that?” Mason exclaimed, watching blush cover his best friend's cheeks. 

“The logic that you told me she was off limits.” He urged back, pushing a hand through his hair to calm himself. 

“You should’ve talked to me! Not been a fucking dick to my sister! If there was one person I’d let have a chance with her it was you!” Mason argued back, earning a blank stare from Jamie. 

“You would’ve let me ask her out?” Jamie’s voice was quiet, staring at his best friend in awe. 

“Had you not been an absolute dick and lost any chance with her, yes. Now you have no chance but if you ever get another chance with her, you better not fuck it up.” Mason warned, keeping his eyes on Jamie’s slightly scared expression. 

Jamie nodded, standing up to run inside, trying his best to get away from his best friend who looked ready to kill him. Quickly darting inside while Mason stood up, running into the nearest door in the house when he entered. Yet unluckily, it had been your room. 

“What the fuck?” You were sitting in your bed, laptop on your lap watching a movie. Jamie was stunned, his eyes trailing your body quickly before spitting out an answer. 

“‘M sorry, your brother just looks like he’s going to kill me right now.” 

“And so you run into my room?” You questioned, pausing the movie to talk to the Canadian.

“I didn’t know it was your room, it was just the first door I saw!” 

“Okay, differently, why is Mase out to kill you?” 

The question seemed to freeze Jamie, his mouth got dry at the question simply not having an answer available or the time to make up a lie. 

“Jamie?” The call of his name sounded miles away as his head spun, he knew it had no logical answer for you right now. 

“I- Um” Mumbled of started but never finished words slipped past his lips, standing in the middle of your room just staring at you. 

“I get you hate me but like tell me or leave please?” It was like his brain short circuited when he heard you say that you thought he hates you. 

“I don’t hate you, I love you.” The minute the words slipped past his lips his hand was covering his mouth, his eyes widening in shock. A quiet ‘oh no’ mumbled under his breath as he tried to gauge your reaction. 

“What?” Was all you could seem to say, staring at him in awe. 

“Nevermind, it was an accident. I didn't mean to say anything.” He quickly got out, turning towards your door again. 

“No Jamie, come back.” You groaned, moving off your bed when he didn’t stop moving towards the door. 

Your hand on his shoulder stopping him just before the door, making him turn to look at him. His eyes held a panic that you couldn’t help but hate. 

“Why do you act like you hate me?” Jamie shook his head at the question, focusing on how soft your voice sounded as you spoke to him.

“I do hate you.” He tried, his voice giving away the clear lie. 

“No you don’t, you just told me you loved me.” You pushed back, watching panic cover his features again. “Stop panicking.” You mumbled at the fear covering his face. 

“I just told you I love you. I think that’s a good reason to panic!” He answered in return, making you laugh.

The panic on his face lessened at the sound, smiling at the way you tried to stop yet couldn’t, a smile prominent on your face. Once you had composed yourself you leaned up, pressing a chaste kiss to Jamie’s cheek. 

“I love you too idiot.” A wave of confusion covered Jamie’s face at your words, letting the emotion cover his face. 

“But I was so bad to you?” 

“You were so good at first, just because you randomly became an asshole didn’t mean I could get rid of how I felt for you before.” 

“Fuck I’m so sorry, I should’ve just talked to him, please baby, tell you’ll be mine?” Jamie’s words came out fast, like a breath of relief. Letting you nod before he kissed you, his arms wrapping around your waist while yours tangled through his hair. 

“What did you mean talk to him?” You asked Jamie when he moved away, pecking your lips once more before completely pulling away.

“Oh, Mason. He told me you were off limits and then told me that I was the one person he’d let date you.” Jamie admitted, luring you back towards your bed, moving your laptop before getting you to lay with him. Keeping his arms around your body, making sure you were pressed against him as he laid in your bed.

“I’m going to kill him, he doesn’t get to decide who I date!” You protested, shifting in Jamie’s arms as if to get up. 

Jamie’s grip tightened, not wanting you to leave yet. His hands rubbing circles on your back as if to lure you to stay, and it worked. Letting the calm overcome you of Jamie’s hand running along your skin you sunk back into the bed, curling in Jamie’s arms before letting sleep overcome you. 

“What the fuck?” Mason’s voice interrupted the quiet that fell over the room not even ten minutes later.

“Shh, you’ll wake her!” Jamie whispered, his hand moving to cover your ears. 

“Why are you in bed with my sister?” Mason’s tone still loud but his voice a whisper now. 

“Because I ran in here when you looked like you were ready to kill me.” 

“That doesn’t explain anything!” 

“I uh- may have accidentally confessed I love her?” 

Mason shook his head, mumbling something about talking about this later before closing the door, a small smile on his face.

[sluttywonwoo]

instead of you [part fourteen] || l.mh

pairing: [best friend’s brother] lee minho x college!reader ft. han jisung

summary: you didn’t expect to spend your summer pretending to be your best friend’s girlfriend- then again, you didn’t expect to fall for your best friend’s brother, either. 

warnings: swearing, mentions of sex (18+ mdni)

word count: 3.4k

a/n: revamped my tom holland series from my main blog ( @wazzupmrstark ) to try and motivate myself to finish it!!

series masterlist | early access to the next chapter on ko-fi

Minho and Felix were holding a spot in line for the four of you already when you arrived at the gate with Jisung. You mumbled a handful of sorries and excuse me’s as you shuffled past other guests in the queue. You hated being that person to cut in front of others, but you weren’t left with much choice since Jisung’s brothers had gone ahead without you.

To be fair, you had shown up later than you’d agreed upon. Patience didn’t really run in the Han family. Jisung was probably the most mild-mannered of the bunch.

You weren’t even sure that the people you were squeezing past understood you as you whispered half-assed apologies to them. You just hoped they were able to read your pitiful expression and took it as remorse.

Jisung held your hand as he dragged you through the line to get to his brothers. You ran your thumb over the little scar on his knuckle repeatedly to comfort yourself. His hand was nowhere near as sweaty as Minho’s, or maybe yours had just dried by now, but accepted the familiarity of the motion, letting him lead you to the front.

Minho perked up when he saw you and Jisung finally break through the crowd. He waved you down and stepped aside to give you both some space.

“You okay?” Felix asked, putting his phone in his back pocket to give you his full attention.

You nodded, smiling sheepishly. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

“Did you get sick?” Minho pressed, thinly veiled concern evident in his voice.

“No, I was fine. Jisung bought me some popcorn so I’d have something on my stomach just in case. Now I’m just… embarrassed.”

“Don’t be,” Felix insisted, “everyone’s afraid of something.”

“But not everyone’s a pussy about it,” you sighed.

“You’re just unique like that,” Jisung teased, earning an elbow in the ribs from you.

You glared at him and then turned to the other two boys. “Anyone need a ride partner? Mine is available for trading.”

Jisung pretended to pout. “Aw, babe, don’t be like that.”

You ignored him. “Anyone? Going once…”

“I’ll take him off your hands,” Felix offered with a smug grin.

You traded spots with Felix so that you were standing next to Minho. You’d wanted Jisung to be able to ride with Felix anyway. You felt guilty that he’d be stuck with you when it was tradition for him to sit with his twin brother. You also felt a little guilty that Minho would be stuck with you as a result, but less so. You figured it was only fair given what had gone down in Rome.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay without him?” Minho asked, low enough for only you to hear.

“I’m sure. This is just like a bike ride, right?”

“Yes, but elevated.” A lump formed in your throat. “Did you not see the track outside?”

“It’s not as high as the other rides,” you said, mostly to yourself. You narrowed your eyes at him. “Are you just trying to get rid of me? Do you not want to ride with me after what happened last time?”

Minho’s eyes widened in surprise at your accusation. “No! That’s not-”

“Because that’s sure what it sounds like.”

“I swear, I wasn’t trying to discourage you from riding the bike thing, I just didn’t want you to feel forced to or regret getting on it or anything.”

“I’m just giving you a hard time,” you confessed.

He visibly relaxed. “Jesus, don’t do that.”

“Sorry.”

“I don’t think you mean that.”

You shrugged, a hint of a smile playing at your lips. “Can neither confirm nor deny.”

“That’s what I thought.”

The queue for the Ptera Cycle moved slower than the one for the coaster had. It made sense, seeing as it drew in a greater variety of riders. There were a lot of families with their small children in line, many of them wearing backpacks or harnesses attached to a tether held by one of the adults or older siblings.

“I used to be a leash kid,” Minho said, following your gaze to a toddler trying to unbuckle the straps of their backpack.

“You’re fucking kidding.”

He shook his head. “I wish I was. To be fair, I was a runner, so my parents didn’t have much of a choice unless they wanted to lose me.”

“I’m surprised they never ‘accidentally’ forgot to secure it. I know I would have.”

Minho put a hand over his chest in mock offense. “You’re mean. I can see why Jisung likes you.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t necessarily a compliment. To you or Jisung.”

“I know. But I took it as one.”

Minho mumbled something under his breath that you didn’t catch before continuing the recollection of his childhood. “All three of us were leash kids, actually.”

“That makes sense. You guys look like leash kids.” He didn’t acknowledge your comment aside from scoffing. “I don’t blame your mom, either. Twin boys plus you would be hell.”

“Jesus, brutal.”

You grinned wickedly. “I can’t wait to hold this over Jisung’s head.”

“Hold what over my head?” Jisung turned to look back at you suspiciously.

You wrapped your arms around his waist from behind, holding him close.

“Nothing.”

“I don’t believe that for a second.”

“Don’t worry about it,” you chided.

“Too late, I am worried about it.”

“Your big brother just told me some very interesting information about you.”

“Minho, I will strangle you,” Jisung muttered through gritted teeth.

“I’d like to see you try,” Minho challenged.

“Guys, we’re next,” Felix said tiredly, yanking his twin brother forward by the collar of his shirt.

You waited silently until you were paired off with Minho by one of the ride operators. He took the bike closest to the outside edge and you climbed onto the one next to his. The bikes were situated in a little cart together, with the handlebars extending over the edge. The cart was topless and open on both sides so that the riders could feel like they were suspended above the park- something that you preferred not to experience.

Minho gave you a sideways look once you were strapped in, once again looking worried. You mouthed I’m fine to him, but you weren’t sure that he bought it.

“We can go slow,” he said.

“I don’t want to hold up the people behind us, though.”

“Fuck them. We can go as slow as you need to.”

You rolled your eyes, but secretly appreciated the sentiment. Although, you’d try to pick up the pace so as not to ruin the ride for the others. You tried to pedal in tandem with Minho at first, but that proved to be too difficult. Every time you would stop to try and match his rhythm he’d also stop, and your car would get stuck in the middle of the track. It made you both laugh every time, but you weren’t so sure that it was as funny to the couple behind you.

Finally, you decided to just focus on your own pedaling which ended up working a lot better than the previous attempts.

Minho talked to fill the silence. You suspected it was to distract you from the height, but you liked listening to him anyway. He had a nice voice. And it was endearing, watching him come up with new topics so that you’d never have the chance to be consumed by your own thoughts. It reminded you of Jisung’s stories.

“Where’d Jisung and Felix go?” you asked, suddenly remembering there were two other people in your party.

You squinted, trying to see ahead through the darkness. You were unable to make anything out, even with all of the Christmas lights twinkling around you.

“They’re probably trying to see how fast they can make these things go,” Minho said dismissively.

“You’re right. I’m sure they’re already waiting for us at the photo checkpoint.”

“They turn everything into a competition.”

“Uh huh, they do. And I’m sure you have no idea where they got their competitive nature from…”

“None at all.” He grinned, but you frowned in realization.

“I’m sorry I’m depriving you of that. I’m sure you would’ve wanted to race them, or beat their time or something if you weren’t stuck with me.”

“Stop that,” he said softly.

“I’m serious though, Minho. You guys can leave me in Child Swap for the next ride and I’ll wait for you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, we’re not leaving you in Child Swap. Stop acting like you’re a burden, because you’re not. I’m perfectly happy taking our time, admiring the view. I mean, how often are we going to be able to see this?”

You paused for a moment to take in the surroundings he was referring to, slowing your pedaling so that you were almost stopped.

There were strings upon strings of lights as far as the eye could see. In the distance, the colors of the lights bled together so that they were indiscernible from each other, creating an ever changing rainbow effect.

“The lights are beautiful,” you whispered.

Minho hummed in agreement, but he wasn’t looking at the lights.

When you turned back to look at him you locked eyes automatically. The nearby light display was illuminating his face in the most captivating way. It was like looking at an intricate mosaic, or a stained glass window. Gentle hues of blue, pink, green, and purple washed over his features, reflected even brighter in his eyes.

You looked away and pushed forward on the pedals, making the bikes lurch back into motion.

“They, um, remind me of Disney World’s old holiday lights. It used to be the biggest light display in the world. I would go every year with my family, but they got rid of them.”

“Oh, at Hollywood Studios, right? I always wanted to go to that, but they axed it before I got the chance.”

“Have you ever been to Disney World?”

“Yeah, when I was on tour we’d go on our days off. DisneyLand too. ”

“Right, I forgot who I was talking to.”

Felix and Jisung were, in fact, waiting for you at the photo checkpoint like you had predicted. They were both laser focused on the screens that were showing new pictures of riders, though you couldn’t say why. Neither of them noticed you and Minho approach them until they heard your voices.

“We thought you guys might have gotten stuck!” Jisung exclaimed teasingly, scooping you up in a hug.

“Nope, we’re just slow.”

“I’m slow,” you clarified.

“We took the scenic route,” Minho added.

“There’s only one route,” Felix pointed out.

“It’s an expression, dumbass. We went slow on purpose.”

“Because I’m a pussy, remember?” you mumbled, giving Jisung a pointed look.

He smirked and opened his mouth to respond, likely to turn the word pussy around on you in an even less family-friendly way, but thankfully Felix cut him off before he could.

“What’s next on the agenda? The park closes in like two hours.”

The boys squeezed as many attractions out of those two hours as they possibly could. Your social battery had died hours ago so you clung to Jisung the rest of the night, using him as a human shield so that you could avoid conversation.

Nikki and Dom had already left the park and taken a cab back to where you were staying. They had texted the group that you didn’t need to worry about them and that they’d see you in the morning.

The four of you piled into a taxi around one am. Everyone was sore and exhausted by then, and for once no one was in the mood to talk. Minho took one for the team and sat in the passenger seat even though he was just as tired as everyone else. It was odd to see him so quiet. He was usually so personable and talkative, but he only spoke when he needed to give the driver directions.

Jisung kept his hand on your thigh for the entire ride back, rubbing soothing circles with his thumb. You could tell he wanted you to rest, and you weren’t going to argue. You drifted off with your head on his shoulder, lulled to sleep by the quiet thrum of traffic.

-

Jisung gently shook you awake when the cab rolled up in front of your hotel. He helped you out of the car and more or less dragged you through the lobby and to the elevator. 

“She’s gonna sleep like a baby,” Minho said. You could hear the smirk in his voice. 

“I hope so,” Jisung sighed. “She’s barely slept since we got here.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know, maybe because you two stress her out?”

“Us two?” Felix asked, joining in. “What could we possibly be doing to stress her out?”

“Being yourselves, for starters.”

The elevator dinged, signaling its arrival at your floor. You lifted your head from Jisung’s shoulder and stepped out into the hall with him right behind you. Minho fished the key out of his pocket and unlocked the door for the rest of you, holding it open so that everyone else could file in. 

Jisung placed you on the bed and tried to get you to sit up. He brushed your hair out of your face before wrapping his arms around you and hoisting you upright. 

“Baby,” he whispered, “do you want to take a shower before you go to bed?”

You nodded. 

“Come on, let’s get you up.”

You had lost count of how many times Jisung had gotten you into the shower or the bath by now. Every time you got too drunk, too sleepy, or too depressed to take care of yourself he was always there, waiting to do it himself. It was like a tradeoff for all the times you’d edited his essays, all the times you’d played wingman for him at the karaoke club, all the times you’d stayed up until sunrise helping him perfect a recipe. 

He helped you onto your feet and over to the bathroom, hanging the towel you had used the night before on the hook behind the door. He started the water for you and hung the showerhead over the side of the tub so that it could get warm. 

“You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Are you sure?”

You paused. “Can you stay?”

Jisung nodded, hesitant, but steady. “What do you need me to do?”

“I just want you to sit with me. Is that okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course that’s okay.” He turned away and slowly crouched down until he was sitting on the floor with his back against the tub. 

You took a deep breath and began to undress, trying not to think too much about the implications. You had seen each other naked plenty of times. On more than one occasion Jisung had been the one washing your hair while you sat in the bathtub after a night out. But that sort of vulnerability with your best friend felt different now. It had felt different since you landed in Seoul almost a month ago. 

And maybe that’s why you had asked him to stay. You were grasping for any sort of normalcy that still remained between you, or you were trying to recover it. 

You pulled your t-shirt over your head first, letting it fall to the floor. You then unclipped your bra, dropping it on top of your t-shirt. Jisung wasn’t even looking at you, but you still felt self-conscious as you shimmied out of your jeans and underwear. 

You picked up the showerhead and stepped into the tub at the same time, accidentally spraying Jisung in the process. 

“Hey!”

“Sorry!”

“Watch where you point that thing!”

“Watch where you point that thing,” you mocked. “That’s what she said.”

“I will get up and leave right now.”

“No, don’t!” you protested. “I’m sorry.”

Jisung acted like he was about to get up, but ended up just shifting his position against the tub. You laughed to yourself, bringing the showerhead up to your shoulders to rinse your body. You lathered yourself in the hotel’s body wash, listening to Jisung hum in the background. 

“What are your brothers going to think?” you asked aloud. You realized they might question why you were both in the bathroom at the same time. 

“I don’t know,” Jisung said with a shrug. “Why?”

“I don’t want them to think we’re fucking in here or something.”

“They don’t think that.”

“How do you know?”

“Because they know we’re loud when we do.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. Go us.”

“I mean, you can start moaning or something if you want them to think that.”

“I literally just said I didn’t want them to think that.”

“Well, if you change your mind-”

“Do you want me to spray you again?”

Jisung flipped you off even though he couldn’t see you and you rolled your eyes at him behind his back. You washed off the soap and moved on to your face, using the same body wash to scrub your cheeks and forehead. 

You knew every single one of your friends back home would cringe if they saw you washing your face with something other than face wash, but in your defense you didn’t really have a skincare routine anyway. One of them had forced you to buy face wash a moisturizer a while back, but you rarely remembered to use it. You didn’t think to get a travel container for them either, so you were left using whatever accommodations provided. 

“Can you believe we’re in Japan?’ Jisung asked suddenly.

You looked down at the top of his head, wondering what had prompted the question.

“Not really,” you admitted.  

“Me either.”

“We used to talk about traveling together,” you added thoughtfully. 

“Yeah, and we kind of did! Remember, we took that road trip with my roommates a couple years ago to the west coast.”

“We tried to go to the west coast. Your Prius didn’t make it past Ohio.”

“It was actually the tires that didn’t make it past Ohio. My car was perfectly fine once we got them replaced. We only had to go back home because we spent all our motel money on the tow truck and the auto shop.”

“I don’t think engines are supposed to smoke, though.”

“Whatever. Can you hurry up, I still need to shower,” Jisung urged. “And so do my brothers.”

“I’m going, I’m going.”

You rinsed your face and turned off the water. Jisung stood and grabbed your towel for you, handing it to you with his back turned. You dried off and wrapped the towel around yourself like a dress. 

In your half-awake state you hadn’t thought to grab your pajamas to change into before you got in the shower.

Jisung noticed your pause almost immediately. 

“Did you want me to-”

“No, it’s okay I can grab them myself. We’ll probably get less questions that way.”

He gave you a look that said I don’t know about that, but let you go, following you into the room. 

Minho and Felix were sitting at the table playing cards. They both looked up when they heard the door and then looked back down when they saw you in nothing but a towel. You wanted to laugh at their instinctive panic, but mostly you found it endearing. 

You made your way past the boys to your suitcase where you began digging around for something to sleep in.

“You’re still dressed?” Felix asked, now turned in Jisung’s direction. 

“I was just keeping her company, asshole.”

“Don’t give me that look! Just thought maybe you were saving water, is all.”

“Yeah, right.”

You brushed back past the three of them, locking yourself in the bathroom once more to get dressed. You hung your towel up since you didn’t need to dry your hair and then let yourself out back into the room, trading places with Jisung. 

“I knew they’d still give us shit,” he whispered. “You should’ve let me get your clothes for you.”

“It’s not a big deal. And let’s be real, it’s only Felix who gives us shit.”

“Felix’s the only one who ever says anything because he has no filter, but Minho thinks that way too, trust me.”

You shook your head as you left, closing the door behind you. You caught Minho’s eye as soon as you stepped into the room. 

“Hey, you can put all your laundry in the canvas bag by the door. It’s gonna get washed tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, okay, thanks.”

You shoved the clothes you’d just been wearing into the bag and then made your way over to your suitcase to collect the rest of your dirty laundry. You did the same with Jisung’s clothes, sorting through his suitcase to find all of the things he’d already worn. 

“Wanna play?” Felix asked once you were done.

“Sure,” you said, sliding out a chair for yourself. “Deal me in.”

“We’re playing Go Fish,” Minho explained. 

Felix gathered his and Minho’s stack of cards and re-shuffled them into the deck, dealing each of you new hands. You looked at your hand and grimaced. You only had one match, a pair of jacks, while the two boys both had two sets of pairs. 

“Thanks a lot, Felix,” you grumbled.

“You shuffle next time, then,” he shot back. 

“I will.”

“Minho, since you lost last round, you can go first.”

“We didn’t even finish the last round! There wasn’t a winner.”

“Well you were losing at the time, so it still counts.”

“I don’t think I was,” Minho argued. “I’m pretty sure you had more cards in your hand than I did.”

“Too bad we’ll never know,” Felix chirped. “Just take your goddamn turn.”

Minho sighed, rotating to face you. His annoyed expression was quickly replaced with a cocky one. He smirked at you, eyeing you over his hand of cards. 

“Y/n, do you have any sixes?”

You glanced down at your cards in disbelief. “How’d you know? Did you look at my cards?”

“Just a lucky guess,” he replied and held out a hand expectantly. You reluctantly passed over your six of diamonds. “Thank you. Do you have any twos?”

“Oh my god, again? Why do you keep asking me?” you complained as you held your cards to your chest, jutting out your bottom lip in a pout. 

“Being cute doesn’t exempt you from the rules,” Minho chided, beckoning with his fingers for you to give him the card. 

A beat lapsed as the three of you processed the fact that Minho had just called you cute. You froze, unsure of what to do. He probably hadn’t meant it to come across like that, but it’s what it sure as hell sounded like. And no one at the table missed the connotation, including Minho whose ears were turning red. 

“I mean,” he stuttered, “just give me the two.” 

You held the card out for him to take without responding. He plucked the card from your grasp, careful not to brush his fingers against yours, and paired it with his two of hearts on the table in front of him. He turned to Felix. “Do you have any kings?”

Felix narrowed his eyes at his older brother. “No. Go fish.”

lmk what you think i always appreciate feedback!!

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[player1064]

I love your drabbles. How about this this time it is Phil's turn to walk in on them during some heavy petting (on a sofa, under a duvet?) but unlike the others he is totally oblivious for the longest time, until he's basically going "haha lads why are you acting so strange, are you not wearing any pants haha :).... :) .... :) ... :l lads?"

YESSSS I love this honestly. Phil Neville voted most annoying younger brother in the world for the 47th year running.........

---

The beauty of living alone, Gary’s always liked to think, is that – well, that you’re left alone. And that if, hypothetically, you wanted some adult company then, hypothetically, you could invite your colleague/maybe best friend/maybe boyfriend over and would be free to enjoy his adult company on any surface you liked, because there’s nobody who could stop you because, crucially, you live alone.

The trouble with hypotheticals is that they don’t often factor in annoying little brothers.

So, Gary’s lying back on his giant sofa, enjoying some adult company with the Scouse bastard/definite bane of his existence/maybe love of his life, when they hear the front door click open and both freeze.

“Fucking Phillip,” Gary mutters, extracting himself out from under Jamie with a sigh.

“Thought you said his flight only got in later?”

Gary glances at his watch, swipes away the ‘high heart rate’ warning to check the time, and groans. “Seems we lost track of time.” He straightens his jumper and turns his head towards the open living room door. “Din’t anyone ever teach you to knock,” he calls out to where he hears his brother still shuffling around in the entryway.

“What’ve I got a key for, then, if I ‘ave to knock,” Phil calls back. There’s a couple of seconds silence while he pads in his socks down the hall, which Jamie and Gary use to frantically check they’re both presentable, and then he’s sticking his head round the doorway with a smile. “’sides, I thought you were probably workin���, since you didn’t answer my text when I landed. Oh! Hiya, Carra, I weren’t expectin’ to see you today.”

He wanders over, uninvited, to flop down on the couch next to them. “What a flight, I tell ya I’m knackered. And I couldn’t even get direct, neither. Absolute nightmare, but it’s good to be home. Julie and the kids send their love, they’re already asking when you’re comin’ over to visit. New house is pretty nice, an’ all.”

When he finally stops for breath, Jamie slaps his thighs and goes to stand up, saying “how’s about I leave you two to catch up, ‘s a long drive home for me, maybe I can beat the traffic.”

Gary shoots him a glare that he hopes says ‘if you leave this room I will kill you.’

Jamie sits back down.

“We were gonna order somethin’ for dinner, Carra, weren’t we?” he asks, inching his hand across to pinch Jamie in the side to make sure he behaves. “What’d’you fancy, Phil, you’re my guest of honour.”

“Ooh, I could go for a fish and chips, to be fair. And mushy peas, y’don’t get those in Portland…”

“Sounds great! D’you want to go collect, then, and me ‘n James can tidy up a bit round here.”

Phil tilts his head back against the back of the couch. “I only just got in!” he whines, “give us a break, just order it on one of the apps.”

There doesn’t seem much use in trying to argue, so Gary gets out his phone and hands it to Phil once he’s got the local chippie’s deliveroo page open. Phil takes his sweet time to pick out what to get, which seems an uneccessary kind of torture when his whole life he’s literally never ordered anything but a medium cod and chips with gravy and mushy peas.

When he hands the phone back to Gary, he pauses, tilts his head with a frown.

“Oh, Gaz, y’ve got somethin’ on your neck there, lemme just –”

Jamie displays the kind of quick reaction time that he barely even managed in his playing days and grabs Gary by the chin, tilting his head with force so that his neck is angled towards him and away from Phillip.

“No need,” he says breezily, lifting his thumb to his mouth to wet it like he’s an anxious mother trying to get a speck of dirt, “here, lemme see…”

He rubs his thumb against what he knows damn well is not a speck of dirt, which he knows is a fresh bruise by virtue of the fact that he’s the one who just put it there, and when Gary’s breath hitches at the pressure against it he shoots him a wicked grin because he is evil, he is sick and twisted and Gary is going to kill him.

“Aw, no,” says Phil, leaning in closer to peer at the mark, “it’s not budging, must be a skin thing. Are you getting stress hives again, Gaz, I thought you said you were takin’ it easy for a bit?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Gary says tightly. Jamie releases his neck and Gary shakes his head around a bit to get it feeling normal again.

When Jamie lowers his hand back down, however, it lands to rest lightly on Gary’s thigh, fingers curled just above his knee, because he is a fucking bastard.

Phil shrugs and flops back to where he was on the sofa, idly picking up the TV remote. “Anythin’ good on TV lately?” he asks, pulling up the channel guide, “I tell ya what, me ‘n Julie’ve been watchin’ this –”

“—Why don’t you go unpack, Phillip?” Gary interrupts quickly, because he feels Jamie’s hand slowly tracing up his thigh and he doesn’t need for there to be any witnesses when he murders him in a few seconds. “Freshen up before food comes, maybe, you were just sayin’ what a long flight you’ve had.”  

“Ooh, you’re right, maybe I’ll even run a bath if there’s time.”

Gary nods encouragingly, maybe a bit frantically, and sits tense until Phil wanders back out, humming the tune of some silly little pop song.

When he’s safely out of earshot, Gary hisses “you fucking bastard”, and slams his mouth against Jamie’s, pushes him backwards and swings a leg over him to straddle his hips.

Jamie just grins against his lips, slips a hand under his jumper. “How long d’you think that’s bought us?” he mutters, “ten minutes? Can get a lot done, w’that.”

“Y’better make it at least fifteen or I’m not invitin’ you back.”

“Bossy, bossy,” Jamie says, still grinning, then he scrapes his teeth over Gary’s bottom lip and Gary forgets that he's meant to be annoyed with him.

“Was gonna call Julie but I left me phone in ‘ere, silly me,” comes Phil’s voice from just outside. Gary freezes. Jamie does too, but it’s much too late for either of them to do anything besides that, because by then Phil is already stood in the doorway flushed a bright red.

“Oh!” he says. He blinks a few times. “Oh! Oh, alright then, I’ll just – food’s in half an hour, yeah? I’ll just – I were gonna call Julie, and the kids…” he says, before practically sprinting out the room and back down the corridor.

Jamie just laughs, pulls Gary back down to kiss him again. “Look at that, lad,” he murmurs, “half an hour, eh? Could get a lot done twice, w’that.”

Gary’s torn, momentarily, about what he should do with this idiot he’s got underneath him. Killing him does seem tempting. He rolls his eyes. “Not on yer life,” he says, and kisses him back.

[l-lend]

Another entry for Moto!Batch AU. Hunter, Crosshair, and Omega check out one of T-Bird's stunt shows.

Warning(s): mentions of past addiction,

Tagging: @kelpiesummer @ghostlythunderbird

The smell of burning rubber and the grease of questionable clawed its way to into the nostrils of anyone within a five mile radius of the fair grounds. A gathering crowd mixed with locals from the suburban sprawl looking for a bit of high octane excitement. They crammed in like sardines as they eagerly awaited the event.

“Can we sit up front?” A blonde haired teen asked her chaperones earning a dismissive sneer from the taller of the two.

“We’ll see what we can do.” Hunter replied offering a wave to a familiar face in the crowd. The woman who caught his glance returned the wave and began weaving her way through the onlookers. Her dark hair meticulously gathered into a messy bun.

“Glad you could make it,” Siren greeted, her gaze was drawn to the child at Hunter’s side, “and who’re you?”

“This is Omega. She-”

“I’m their sister.” Omega spoke up, causing Siren’s smile to grow.

“Ah, well I guess you’re used to getting primo access when your brothers race huh.”

Omega offered a shrug, “I guess. Mostly it’s the trailer on race day while Tech runs through homework with me.”

“Hmm, well if Hunter doesn’t mind, I can show you around a bit. My stunt rider will be on in a bit.”

Hunter gave a half hearted roll of his eyes. Omega’s eyes were glued to him. His sensitive hearing could already pick up the beginnings of a high pitched drawn out please.

Hunter sighed through his nose, “Alright,” He relented, earning a giddy grin from the girl, “but I’ll be coming along too. Might as well meet the rest of your crew while I’m able.”

“Excellent, most of them should still be by the trailer.” Siren replied before leveling her gaze to the surly rider, “Will you be joining us?”

Crosshair’s stony gaze gave Siren all the answer she needed.

“Oookay, so I can take you guys back now if you want.”

“These are awesome!”

T-Bird cracked a grin as she looked up from her bike. The sound of tools pinging together drew both of their attention.

T-Bird huffed a ghost of a laugh at seeing the flutter of the maintenance curtain.

“I wouldn’t take it personal. Nessie doesn’t do new people too much.”

“We’re…still working with her on that.” Siren chimed in.

“T-Bird, everything all ready to go?”

“Yep, but I always got time for a fan.”

“This is Omega, and you remember Hunter.”

T-Bird gave him a nod before focusing her attention on Omega, “So do you ride too?”

“Not professionally, no, but Hunter says once I’m done with school I could race on weekends when I’m in college.”

“If you keep your grades up.” Hunter butted in, “I’m interested to see you in action, T-Bird.”

“I’ll be sure to put on a good show.”

The curtain rustled again from the corner of T-Bird’s eye. However, another member of the crew popped an earbud out of her ear.

“Kelpie. Just the person I wanted to see.” T-Bird greeted, “You get the merch table set up?”

“Even got the new designs I printed this morning.”

T-Bird’s smile widened, “You know, it’d be a shame if someone wasn’t testing out our stuff.” She turned her gaze back to Omega and then back to Siren, “If it’s cool with you, I’m buying whatever the kid wants at our merch table.”

“Really?!”

“That’s kind of you.”

T-Bird offered a shrug, “Consider it an apology for me acting out during the meeting.”

Crosshair had chosen a seat near the end of the stands to keep his distance from the locals who were biding their time by inhaling some deep fried something. One of his brothers would feel right at home among them. The sharp tang of cigarette smoke wafted into his nose, and he inhaled deeply.

How long had it been? Omega was about 10 now, and she became of permanent house guest after her 7th birthday. His hand ferreted around in his pocket before producing a substitute that helped whenever a craving hit. The whisper of the pack sliding open was drowned out by the crowd chatter as he plucked up the slender piece of wood to perch between his teeth. He slouched in his seat as he waited for the show to begin.

The announcement system buzzed to life and began to welcome everyone to the stunt show. Hunter and Omega eventually made their way back to their seats. However, upon his sister's return Crosshair nearly dropped his toothpick.

“What. Are you wearing?”

“T-Bird let me have some merch, pretty cool right?”

The girl was completely decked out: shirt, hat, a lanyard around her neck. All with the stunt biker's logo plastered all over. Crosshair's lips formed a hard line.

“Spectacular.” He replied with a roll of his eyes.

[gukyi]

love me or we both go down | kth

summary: after going through with an arranged marriage to please his parents and secure his inheritance of the family business, kim taehyung thinks he’s got it all figured out. he doesn’t. apparently just being married to you isn’t enough, not when everybody and their mother can pick up on the fact that the two of you absolutely loathe each other. but taehyung wants his inheritance one way or another, so he decides that desperate times call for desperate measures: the two of you need to fall in love, and you need to fall in love fast.

{enemies to lovers!au, arranged marriage!au, rich kids!au}

pairing: kim taehyung x female reader genre: fluff, angst, smut (i know, crazy right?) word count: 32k warnings: oral sex (m & f receiving), fingering, penetrative sex, multiple unprotected sex scenes (they’re married y’all), fat cock tae, tae has a wife kink, lots of praise, alcohol consumption (but they’re safe), minor character death (not explicit), mentions of heart attack, slow burn like there is no tomorrow a/n: hello and welcome to the fic everyone, literally everyone, has been waiting for! i am so, so, so excited to share this with you all, especially because none other than rose @kinktae​ helped me write the smut, and i am literally forever indebted to her. you all better go spam rose with all the love and support you can because this fic would not be here without her and i love her so much. 

also, to all my readers who aren’t comfortable reading smut, please know that the smut in this fic is not imperative to the storyline, and you skipping past it will not affect your reading experience., enjoy!

Never in your life have wedding bells felt so ominous.

The sound of them is akin to the sound of strings, of a single piano note in a horror movie, right when the film opens and someone random is about to die on screen for the sake of proving to the audience that this is, in fact, a horror movie. Make no mistake about it; these wedding bells spell doom for you, too. And the most horrific part about them is that just like that poor, helpless soul in the movie, there is no way for you to escape your fate either. 

With only seconds left to go before you have no choice but to promise yourself to the man waiting at the other end of the aisle, you desperately try to think of any last-ditch efforts to get out of this. Many, if not all of them, are utterly useless. 

Feigning sudden illness won’t work, because then your parents will just reschedule the wedding to a later date. Running away is fruitless. Where will you go? The parking lot?

If only you had a lover out there in the audience somewhere that could object to the marriage when the officiant says, “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.” A knight in shining armor that could whisk you out of the venue and off to a new life, far away from here. Too bad all of the people you’ve dated before hate you now. 

Maybe getting married isn’t such a bad thing after all. Instead of having relationships with multiple people who will eventually despise your existence, you only have to have a relationship with one. And the feeling, as has always been, is mutual. 

You bristle as your assistants do some last-minute prepping, fixing your sleeve and adjusting your necklace and making sure you don’t trip on your enormous train. They flutter around you like a swarm of well-meaning but ignorant butterflies complicit in the agenda of your family. None of them have said a word to you about the wedding ever since you arrived at the venue, choosing to talk more about things like the weather. Not that you were ever under the impression they had been hired to entertain you. Maybe they were told to not engage you, just in case you try to conspire with them.

As if they could be of any use in your wildly unrealistic escape plans. 

The truth is that, unless you were to drop dead on this marble flooring right now, you’re getting married. Whether you like it or not.

The doors open. 

You’ve attended red carpets, galas, award shows, and balls. You’ve had hundreds of cameras flashing in your face, the bright light capturing each and every centimeter of you. You’ve had paparazzi waiting outside the restaurants you eat at, the stores you shop at, desperate to catch a picture of you in sweatpants without a drop of makeup on. You’ve been on dates with ex-lovers that looked at you like you were a piece of meat with a credit card. And yet, for some goddamn reason, walking down the aisle in a white dress the size of Pluto, with the rest of your life waiting for you at the other end, makes you feel fucking transparent. 

Face resolute, you clutch onto your bouquet so tightly the flowers feel like they’re about to pop right out of your grasp. Determined not to look at anybody in the audience, you stare straight ahead, right into the eyes of your future husband.

Kim Taehyung, for someone you have seen multiple times drunk off his ass with hickies dotting his neck and jawline, cleans up pretty well. For someone getting married, at least. He dons a simple black tuxedo that still probably costs more than the average car, his caramel brown hair is pushed back off his forehead, and his expression is firm and still. He most certainly has had an equally expensive team prepping him, but they haven’t done too bad a job. The silver lining is that he doesn’t look any more thrilled than you are to be doing this, right here, right now. But to his credit, this is definitely the best he’s ever looked, as far as you’re concerned. 

When you reach him, he offers his hand out to you, a hand that you only accept for the sake of professionalism. The bouquet in your hands is handed off to one of your bridesmaids, and the two of you take your position at the front. Your train drags along the aisle, draping over the few stairs you had to climb to reach the altar, this satin trail behind you that cements you to the floor. It may as well be a ball-and-chain. It’s about as heavy as one, anyway. 

This is the longest you and Taehyung have ever held eye contact. Not that you’re really keeping track of how long the two of you have met each other’s gazes, but if you had to make an educated guess, this would definitely be the victor. Most of the time you end up sneering at each other ten seconds in, but to be fair, those other times you were also not getting married. To one another. In a ceremony attended by hundreds of people. And cameras.

There can be no sneering here. 

“Don’t you look nice?” Taehyung whispers, loud enough so only the two of you can hear. He has that drawling, sickly sweet tone to his voice, the one that you hate because it makes him sound like he thinks he’s so much better than everyone else. “Surprised they were able to makeup that scowl off your face.”

This, of course, brings on a hearty scowl only he can see, your backs both facing the rows of attendees. “How much concealer are you wearing to cover up all of the hickies on your neck?” You quip back easily. It’s not like the two of you are going to pretend he doesn’t waltz around at every club or bar or private venue he can find, looking for his next treat. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Taehyung grins, and if you weren’t standing in front of hundreds of people about to get married, there’s no telling what next you would do.

The two of you would probably go on like that for another ten minutes if it’s not for the officiant, who coughs once he’s ready and opens the book in his hands. Next to you, Taehyung straightens, hands clasped together at his front, and lips pressed into a neat line. You do the same. There will be no giggles, no laughter nor smiles, nor any genuine emotion at this wedding. This is a wedding for the sake of politics, for economics, for security, and anyone in attendance would be a fool to think otherwise. Especially you. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, family and friends, loved ones, and esteemed guests,” the officiant bellows, listing off as many groups of people as he possibly can in an effort to both include and compliment every person in the audience, “We are gathered here to celebrate the wedding, and future life, of Taehyung and Y/N…”

Taehyung turns to you, grinning in that god-awful way, the way he does when he feels like he’s got something over you. And sure, you can’t think of any punishment quite as bad as this, but what’s Taehyung got to smile about? He’s marrying himself off to a woman he hates, kissing goodbye his days as a free-spirited, heartbreaking bachelor, and promising what may very well be the rest of his life to loving you. That is not cause for celebration. 

But perhaps, to him, your suffering is enough to bring a smile to his face. 

Your vows are, to put it simply, total bullshit. Your family hired someone to write yours and there’s not a doubt in your mind that his family did the same thing. This nonsense talk, this complete and utter garbage that spews from your perfectly-glossed lips, shit about how you promise to love each other until the end of your days, how you promise to take care of each other when you’re sick and accompany each other at every event, every gala, every ball. Shit about how you promise to look only at each other, promise to uphold your family traditions and become a dependable spouse. 

The words don’t belong to you. But the thing is that this marriage was never yours anyway. 

When the kiss comes, there’s a part of you that thinks maybe you should have psyched yourself up a little more for this. When Taehyung pulls you in, placing a stiff hand on your lower back as he brings you towards his chest, your stomach turns and shivers run down your spine. The feeling of his hand on your body, the breath from his lips brushing against your own, are enough to keep you frozen in place. 

He smiles at you, almost as if to ask, “Are you ready?”

And you squeeze your eyes shut, almost as if to respond, “Let’s do this.”

When his lips meet yours, there is almost nothing. Nothing runs through you, nothing explodes, nothing strikes. But when he pulls away and cheers and applause rings out throughout the room, there is something. A little heat, a remnant of a flame, left on your lips. A little sting, just to remind you it happened. 

The entire hall is cheering but nothing about this is worth celebrating. The fact of the matter is that you and Taehyung will never love each other the way that you are supposed to. 

“Ugh, finally.”

The elevator doors haven’t even properly opened by the time Taehyung is loosening his tie, tugging it off over his head as he stretches his head back and runs a hand through his perfectly-styled hair. As he rakes his fingers through his caramel locks, the hairspray and gel loosens, strands falling down by the side of his face, framing his temple.

“Don’t sound so relieved,” you huff out, deciding now is as good a time as any to start getting undressed yourself. Reaching down to lift up the hem of your reception dress, you tug off your heels, already feeling lighter on your feet. Who cares if Taehyung is watching you pull off your stilettos like a defeated movie heroine? You don’t think you can walk another step in those shoes. “We still have to live together, you know.”

“Don’t remind me,” Taehyung says gruffly, brushing by you roughly as he stomps out of the elevator. “I’m just glad the fucking night is over. I swear, seeing that fake-ass smile on your face made me want to gouge my eyes out.”

You storm after him, refusing to be the helpless damsel in this situation. “Oh, like you didn’t also have that exact same fake-ass smile on your face. It almost made me think you were actually enjoying yourself tonight.”

“I was only enjoying the fact that I know you hate this just as much as I do.” It’s perhaps the only thing you will ever be able to empathize with him on. Mutually relishing in the other’s destruction. Taehyung fumbles with the keypad to the door to the penthouse for a moment before you hear the lock click, the door sliding open as the entrance lights flicker on. 

The reason Taehyung’s penthouse is so clean is because he’s never lived here before. Neither of you have—Taehyung’s parents bought it just for the two of you. And as much as you absolutely despise the idea of having to live with him, at least it was not you who paid for your place of residence. 

You can tell Taehyung’s never lived here before because it’s actually quite nicely decorated inside. The ceilings are high and the sleek velvet curtains are pulled open, revealing a shimmering skyline. The furniture is modern and functional, and the whole damn place smells brand new. You’ve had the unfortunate pleasure of entering the place Taehyung lived in before now, and it looked nothing like this. The furniture was worn and stained despite the live-in maid, the house reeked of five hundred different spices that wafted from the kitchen to the living room, and the bookshelves were covered with comics, graphic novels, and old textbooks. 

If it weren’t for the fact that you and Taehyung are rich kids in their twenties that hate each other, you might have actually thought the place looked… homey. 

You don’t have time to be impressed by the interior design and architecture skills of whoever designed this place. Right now, all you can think about is tugging yourself out of your airtight reception dress and passing out on the nearest bed. Which, hopefully, will be as far away as possible from Taehyung’s bed of choice. 

“How many bedrooms does this place have?” You ask, shimmying along the floor so you don’t trip over the hem of your dress. From the looks of it, you can see one giant hallway to your right and a massive, double-sided staircase leading up. 

“Enough,” Taehyung grumbles in response. The hazy stupor from all of the fancy champagne is starting to wear off for the both of you, leaving behind two grouchy, begrudgingly-married individuals who want absolutely nothing to do with each other and have no problems making that known. Whatever golden light of the evening that was making Taehyung at least a little bit more attractive than usual has faded, and now you see him for what he really is: an unceremoniously tired man in a suit. “You want upstairs or down?”

You gaze up at the marble staircase in front of you, then back down at your too-long dress. “Down.” The last thing you want is to trip in front of the man you have to see, every day, for the rest of your life. 

“Fine by me.” Taehyung’s halfway up the stairs by the time he turns back around to say something else. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess?”

“Yeah.” There’s no point in being hostile now. The both of you are too exhausted to mean anything by it. Besides, what else can you say? Everything to complain about has already been complained about. At least the two of you managed to wrestle out from your parents the stipulation that you would not be going on a honeymoon together. Now that would have been your worst nightmare. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It’s as good of a goodnight either of you are going to get. Taehyung heads up the stairs and disappears around a corner, and you start wandering down the hallway. All the bedrooms look the exact same other than different colors on the walls and bedsheets, but they all look serviceable to you. Clean. Empty. Far away from wherever Taehyung is. 

You pick the one at the very end of the hall just to be as much of a diva as possible, and don’t even bother drawing the curtains before tugging off your dress. It’s past one in the morning, and you’re so high up you don’t think anyone will be able to see you anyway. By the time you’ve stripped naked and are tugging up the too-tight sheets tucked into the mattress, your legs are about to give out beneath you. The bed could be made of rocks for all you care. Anything to lie down on is fine by you. 

Sleep comes fairly easily to you tonight. Once your head hits the pillow you can already feel yourself drifting off, eyelids fluttering shut, but you don’t sleep quite yet. Not before you can think about how this is your life now, sleeping in a foreign bed in a foreign place with a foreign husband upstairs. This is what you will be living in now. Now and forever. 

Living with Taehyung is, in both the best and worst ways possible, like living with a roommate that doesn’t give a shit about the fact that they live with another person. It’s good, because you and Taehyung hardly see each other and speak even less, which was pretty much the only thing you were asking for when it came to living with him. But it also sucks, because whenever you do happen to cross paths, Taehyung acts like you don’t exist, barely sparing you a hello or even that tight-lipped smile you send to drivers on the road when they let you cross the street. 

Not that the two of you ever engaged in energetic conversation before you got married. But at least the two of you would acknowledge each other, even if only to shoot a glare and a scowl the other’s way from opposite sides of a hotel ballroom. Maybe it’s just because it’s him, but you did always find yourself actually relishing in those little interactions with Taehyung. In this strange, twisted way, it seemed to provide some sort of continuity to your ever-changing life. Like no matter what happened, at least you would know that the two of you would always despise each other. 

To be frank, right now you’re not sure if Taehyung even remembers he got married at all.

Nights have been a lot more sleepless since your wedding day. After two weeks, the reality of it has finally started to settle in. This is your life now. And ever since you realized that, your bed has felt much less comfortable. 

“But the place is nice, right?”

You look around the living room from where you’re sat on the sleek, white suede leather couch, eyes glossing over the bookshelves, the floor-to-ceiling windows, the draping velvet curtains. From here, you can see the entire city skyline, flecks of gold from the windows of skyscrapers against a navy blue background. Slowly, as the moon creeps over the sky and the clock gets later and later, those lights will soon begin to flicker off, one by one. 

“Yeah, it’s not bad.” Nothing to write home about. That is, if home were a place other than here. 

“That’s good. At least you don’t live in, like, a total dump or anything,” Victoria says on the other end of the line. “How’s Taehyung?”

His name alone elicits this deeply-exhausted sigh from your lips, like it’s been ten years since you married and every day has felt worse than the last. “Fine.” You can’t really complain about anything yet, considering that you hardly ever see the man. 

“Just ‘fine’?” Victoria sounds skeptical. 

“Yeah,” you draw out the word, as if trying to convince yourself of its truth. “I mean, it’s like he doesn’t even live here. I barely see him. And when I do, we don’t even speak to each other.”

“That’s good though, isn’t it? You hate him.” Victoria says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And in a sense, it kind of is. 

“I mean…”

“I know that your life hasn’t exactly… gone the way you had planned, but isn’t this your best case scenario when considering everything?” She asks. “If Taehyung is as distant as you say he is, isn’t it almost like you never married him in the first place?”

As if on cue, you hear footsteps coming down the stairs, heels clicking on the marble as they make their way to the entrance. You whip your head around to find Taehyung, all dressed up in loose, flowy slacks and a flowery silk button-down, strolling down the staircase as he scrolls through his phone, paying you zero attention whatsoever. 

He notices you briefly when he reaches the bottom, meeting your eyes with his own. He offers this measly, unenthused half-smile your way before he grabs his wallet and some house keys from the table by the entrance, opens the door, and vanishes off into the night. 

If you hadn’t been in the living room, you probably wouldn’t have even realized he left. Not that you being present as he’s planning on leaving would have stopped him anyway. This is the sixth night he’s done this in the past two weeks. You could stand by the door and stare him down as he emerges from his bedroom, all dressed up for something you’re definitely not invited to, and he would offer you that same goddamn smile and walk out the door without even blinking. Who he was before you got married and who he is now are no different. Not even a ring could change that. 

“I guess,” you tell Victoria. At least Taehyung hasn’t turned into a helicopter husband. “I don’t know. Maybe I just wish that I didn’t have to deal with him at all.”

Wish you could turn back time. Wish you could worm your way out of an arranged marriage before it was too late. Wish you could go back to the way things used to be. 

You and Victoria talk for another couple of minutes before she regretfully has to end the call, citing both her beauty sleep and an 8AM meeting tomorrow morning as her reasons for hanging up. The moment you put the phone down, you sink back into the couch cushions, staring out the windows at the world below you.

Here’s the deal. What Taehyung does in his free time is none of your business. But also, it’s totally your business, because you are his spouse. A spouse who is an equal amount in the public eye as he is. What he does and does not do has a direct impact on what you do and do not do. 

It’s no secret that when you catch Taehyung sauntering down the stairs looking like a Gucci runway model, it’s not because he’s planning on catching a movie with a college friend and then playing video games for four hours on a couch in a basement. He is going out. To clubs, to parties, to exclusive events that he’s been invited to by his equally-rich friends, all of whom are acting like he’s the same bachelor he’s always been. 

And maybe that’s the real problem with your whole marriage—other than the glaringly obvious issue that it’s a marriage wholly unwanted by the two parties involved in it. Despite the ring on his finger, Taehyung is going out and pretending that nothing in his life has changed while you’re trapped at home, desperate to save you and your family’s reputation by keeping as low a profile as possible. You would give anything to march around the city all day, flashing middle fingers at paparazzi as you shop at your favorite high-end stores and frequent your favorite clubs. But you can’t, because your family’s fortune and influence is on the line. 

And apparently, Taehyung’s isn’t. 

It sort of makes you wonder why it was even Taehyung you ended up marrying anyway. His family isn’t any richer or more powerful than yours. Your spheres have always been sufficiently separate. What was it about him, and perhaps more importantly, his family that drew your parent’s eye? And what was it about marrying you that prevented him from saying no? Money? Prestige? Influence?

You suppose you’ll never know. But whatever mystical force that convinced Taehyung to agree to this must not be as important to him as your reasoning is to you, because it’s become exceedingly apparent that Taehyung does not care that he’s married. He doesn’t care about the ring on his finger, he doesn’t care about his public image, and he most certainly doesn’t care about you.

Perhaps you were naive for thinking this, but you actually believed marriage might tone him down a little. Might age him into a real adult with real world obligations. Instead, it’s only given you a firsthand look into who Kim Taehyung has been and always will be: a selfish rich kid.

You don’t bother waiting around in the living room until he gets back, but you are still awake by the time you hear the door creak open. Taehyung makes no efforts to hide his return. You can hear him chattering loudly on the phone as he stumbles up the stairs, can tell from his gait alone that he is most certainly wasted. You don’t want to know what he did tonight. You’ll probably be able to figure it out anyway when you wake up tomorrow morning and check your social media. 

What were you thinking, marrying him? That he would change? That he would suddenly become someone that you could rely on? You had no choice when you said, “I do,” but you were at least hoping that maybe one day, one day in a long, long time, the two of you would finally see eye to eye. Maybe there would even come a time when you would genuinely love him. How foolish. 

You close your eyes and try to imagine a world where you have married someone you love, someone who loves you back.

Not unlike the many nights preceding it, tonight is sleepless. 

Unlike your marital status and general disposition, one thing that hasn’t changed about you is your love for extravagant events. Call you conceited, but there is something so much fun about putting on a fancy, expensive dress that you love and getting your hair and makeup done before going to an exclusive gala and posing in front of five hundred cameras. 

Actually, now that you think about it, maybe your wedding could have actually been pretty good, considering it let you do all those things. It’s a real shame there happened to be a storm cloud in the form of Kim Taehyung there to ruin it. Otherwise, you think you would have rather enjoyed that day. 

Tonight is the first event since your marriage where you and Taehyung are both required to show up and act like a happy married couple. Which would probably be a lot easier if you and Taehyung had exchanged more than ten words over the past two weeks. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but there was a part of you that thought you could use your arranged marriage to actually cultivate some sort of meaningful relationship between the two of you. So events like these wouldn’t be such a drain on both of you. 

When Kim Taehyung comes down the stairs, he actually doesn’t look too bad. You don’t know why this sort of thing keeps catching you off guard—like you don’t expect him to look that good whenever you see him. The problem is that you can’t even chalk up the surprise to him wearing tailored clothes or having his hair done. He just looks… good. 

Well, you suppose you do have to look at him every day for the rest of your life. It’s a good thing he’s attractive. At least he’s not sore on the eyes. 

Taehyung and his unfortunate attractiveness aside, the two of you don’t say a word to each other as you join up at the entrance, grabbing any last-minute items like house keys, chapstick, and whatever dignity you have left to spare. You send forced smiles and tight nods each other’s way in the elevator, staring straight ahead in the lobby of your building as the car pulls up to the front door.

By the time the two of you sit down in the back of the limousine, the built-up tension between the two of you is so thick you’re almost positive that even the chauffeur can feel it through the closed partition. 

If you were any more idyllic, you’d probably spend the drive over to the gala staring out the window and imagining yourself in a different life, on a train to nowhere, flowers in your hair and a journal in your hands. Or perhaps you’d be the CEO of your family’s company instead of having that responsibility passed down to a husband you don’t even want, sitting in an office at the top of a skyscraper overlooking the city. Anything. Anything but this.

But the idyllic part of you died when you realized that fantasies like that are nothing but distractions and that daydreams are for romantics and optimists and losers. 

“What’s our plan for tonight?”

Taehyung scoffs. “What do you mean, ‘what’s our plan’?”

You frown. “Well, we’re married, so we at least have to act like it, don’t you think?”

“Isn’t standing there and smiling enough?” Taehyung asks, an unimpressed eyebrow raised. 

You bristle. Maybe that sufficed for your wedding, but there was so much going on it was easy to distract yourself from the gravity of it all. But this event is not about you. It’s not even about either of your families. It’s about someone the two of you are, at best, distantly connected to, through work, through fame, through power. Which means that though the focus will not be on you, there will still be eyes looking your way. Eyes watching your every move. 

“Do you think it will be?” You challenge. Doesn’t Taehyung realize that things are different now?

Taehyung’s lips curl downwards. “What do you expect us to do, shower each other in kisses? We don’t even sleep on the same fucking floor.”

“Maybe I just expected you to act less like a stranger and more like a husband!”

Taehyung sighs. “Don’t.” The word is clipped, short. “Don’t tell me you actually want to be married.”

“I don’t.” It’s a response that you hardly have to think twice about. “But we are, and nothing can change that.” Unfortunately. But it’s a fact that you and Taehyung have both had to grapple with over the past few weeks, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that you are more aware of it than he is. If Taehyung could have his way, he would ignore you for the rest of his life and keep partying with the rest of his bachelor friends until he keeled over and died. 

He huffs next to you, eyes staring straight ahead. You don’t think the two of you have met each other’s eyes in a week. Maybe more. They’re starting to feel as soulless as your marriage itself. “Whatever. What do you want me to do?”

“What do you think?” You cross your arms over your chest. “Just act like you don’t hate me. Can you do that?” The way Taehyung’s behaving right now, you expect that will be a challenge for the both of you.

“Only if you can. I’ll even hold your hand to prove that we love each other.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

The idea of holding Taehyung’s hand makes you want to implode. The mere thought sends shivers down your spine. But it’s better than nothing, and that’s good enough for you. At least you won’t have to kiss. 

The rest of the ride there is silent. You drive to this gorgeous mansion just outside the city, bathed in lights hidden amongst the bushes, illuminating both the architecture and the enormous fountain that sits in front of it. In a house this size, you imagine you could probably go your whole life without ever having to come across Taehyung. It actually makes you consider investing in a home that big. 

Taehyung helps you out of the back of the limousine, a cold hand clasping your own as you rest your palm against his. You can feel the way his fingers hesitate as yours make to intertwine with his as you walk towards the entrance, smiling at whatever camera flashes you encounter on your way. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you were holding hands with a ghost. 

The moment you step inside and are ushered out of the door’s view, Taehyung’s grip relaxes on yours. For a moment, you think he’ll actually spend the rest of the night like this, a gentle hand wrapped around yours, but then he pulls it away entirely and shoves it back into his pocket. Oh. You frown quietly to yourself. So that’s how tonight’s going to go. 

You don’t make an effort to reach out towards him again. 

For an event concerning people you don’t know a damn thing about, everyone sure seems to know things about you. Other than greetings, you don’t think anyone’s said anything to you about anything other than your recent marriage to Taehyung. Every conversation is punctuated by a Congratulations! you do not feel that you have at all earned, considering you and Taehyung could barely look at each other on the way here.

Maybe Taehyung was right. All you really can do is stand there and smile.

“Oh, don’t tell me… Y/N, is that you?”

The champagne swirls around in the flute between your fingers as you turn towards the sound of your name, looking up to see a familiar face headed your way. 

Kim Seokjin is nice enough. He’s terribly handsome and got a flawless smile, but you know better than to trust those pearly whites of his. The sight of him alone is enough to make your body tense up. There was a reason you had explicitly told your parents not to invite him to your wedding. 

“Seokjin, what a surprise to see you here,” you say, forcing a smile. “I thought you were supposed to be in Switzerland right now.”

“Change of plans,” Seokjin grins back in that awful, awful way, the kind of grin that makes you feel like he’s looking right through you. “I came back early. It’s a shame, though, I missed your wedding.”

You shrug. “It was a humble affair.” It wasn’t. And you’re positive that Seokjin knows it wasn’t an accident that you didn’t extend an invitation to him or his family. 

“Ah, I see,” Seokjin says, nodding his head. He turns to Taehyung next to you, who is making no effort to hide how wholly uninterested in this conversation he is, and holds out a hand. “You must be Kim Taehyung, then. I’m Kim Seokjin. Congratulations on your wedding.”

Taehyung shakes his hand firmly, the air between the three of you growing unbearably palpable. 

“Seokjin’s father is the VP of News Daily,” You explain, eyebrows raised as you try to signal to Taehyung what exactly it means when Seokjin is speaking to the two of you. “And his mother is a popular journalist for the city’s post.”

Seokjin grew up in the world of media, and it seems he’s picked up his parent’s affinity for sticking their noses in places they don’t belong. You know he’s not talking to the both of you out of the goodness of his heart. 

Seokjin laughs, his hand waving away the mention of his parents. “Oh, please. That’s them. I’m just a bored socialite like the rest of you.”

You resist the urge to scoff. 

“Marriage treating the two of you well?” He changes the subject to what he really wants to talk about: you. 

“Of course,” you say quickly, preventing any hesitation on your end. Your empty hand reaches towards Taehyung’s, fingers searching for his between the two of you. But his refusal to join hands does not go unnoticed by you nor Seokjin, who is eyeing the space between your bodies with an eyebrow raised. “It’s just been—well, it’s just been difficult to adjust to a new life. That’s all.”

If you were to describe the face of a non-believer, it would be the exact expression on Seokjin’s face. “Perfectly understandable,” he says, that same toothy smile lacing his features. “But it must be nice, you know, to marry someone you love.”

“I couldn’t be happier,” you say, almost challenging Seokjin to say something even more inflammatory. He must know that all you’re trying to do at this point is save face. Love? Ha! As if. 

“And Taehyung?” Seokjin motions to your husband. 

You can feel the way Taehyung is stiffening beside you. “I suppose we are both lucky and unlucky in many ways when it comes to who we love.”

It’s enough of an answer to get Seokjin off your tail. For now. He bids the two of you a tense goodbye before sauntering off to go poke his nose in someone else’s business, fish for drama, a thread of a rumor he can pick apart with nimble fingers. You wonder if anybody actually likes him. 

The moment he disappears from earshot, you grab Taehyung’s wrist tightly and pull him close to you. “What the hell was that?” You hiss into his ear. 

“What?” You can’t tell if he’s playing dumb or if he really is that dense. 

“You!” You exclaim. “Kim Seokjin is the one person who could easily expose how fake this marriage is and you pull away from me? Right in front of him? You can’t even hold my hand for two seconds, that’s how much you hate me?”

“Who cares what he thinks?” Taehyung says. “He’s just another media rat. No one will even remember we were here tomorrow.”

“But if you keep acting like this, people will start to notice! Why can’t you just act like you don’t hate me, for one night? Is that so bad? Is it that torturous, to spend one night with me?”

“Do not turn this on me,” Taehyung orders harshly. “You’re making a scene. Come on.”

You don’t have time to shout at him for bossing you around like you’re a toddler throwing a tantrum before he drags you out of the venue, the two of you finding a back door to the building that leads outside. The cold air blows against your body, goosebumps popping up against your skin, but you find that the chilly night provides quite the respite after practically overheating indoors. Taehyung makes fire rush through your veins but at least the air can cool you back down. 

Nevertheless, your conversation is not over. It’s just been moved to a more private location.

“You do realize that our marriage isn’t going to suddenly go away, right? That we’re going to have to keep doing this for the rest of our lives?” You remind him, eyebrows raised. There’s a part of you that genuinely thinks he’s completely forgotten that your marriage is permanent.

“Oh, and not holding hands for five minutes for this one event is totally going to change the course of our lives, isn’t it?” Taehyung fights back.

“Don’t act like you did the right thing,” you spit out. “You don’t have to pretend in front of me. I know you don’t give a shit about our marriage.”

“What marriage is there to even give a shit about? Just because we had a wedding and signed some documents does not mean there is a real marriage between us. Look at us,” he motions between the two of you like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “We hate each other. Is this what you would call marriage?”

“But at least I’m trying to get past that!” You exclaim. “You make it seem like being as miserable as possible is some sort of badge of honor. Do you actually want to spend the rest of your life hating the person you married? Or do you want to grow up and try and move on?”

Taehyung frowns. “What I want is for the person I married to stop acting like they’re doing me such a huge favor by pretending to care about us. Especially when all they really care about is their family’s goddamn reputation.”

“No,” you tell him sternly. You are doing him a favor. He just can’t admit that he actually needs help from you. “You are putting zero effort into this. What am I supposed to do?”

“Let it go!” Taehyung shouts. “Maybe one day we’ll actually start getting along, but right now it’s obvious that neither one of us can stand the other. I don’t need you to do favors for me. I can handle it myself.”

You look away, rolling your eyes. “Doesn’t look like it to me,” you mutter to yourself. 

Taehyung cracks. “Fine. You want me to pretend that I actually care about us? I will.” Thank God. Maybe now the two of you will finally start seeing eye-to-eye. “But make no mistake about how I feel about you,” he spits. “Getting married to you ruined my life.”

You stare straight at him and his eyes are swirling, so obscured in the darkness of the night that you might even think he doesn’t have a soul at all. His pupils bore into yours and for once, for once in your goddamn life, after so many years of staring each other down at debutante balls, so many years of witty refrains and snarky insults hurled each other’s way, it feels like the two of you might actually snap. 

Then, a camera flashes.

Trouble in Paradise! would be a suitable title for the front page of the city’s biggest tabloid… if anything about your life with Taehyung could be considered paradise. Unfortunately for the both of you, that is not the case. 

You don’t need to keep reading the rest of the trashy article on the front page of the daily tabloid to know how much trouble you’re in, nor do you even have time to scroll beneath the terrible photo of you and Taehyung literally shouting at each other before you hear your phone ring. 

You don’t even bother saying hello to whoever’s on the other end. You know it’ll go in one ear and out the other. 

“I assume you know why I’m calling,” your mother’s harsh tone spits from the other end of the phone. There’s no doubt in your mind that she’s standing in the middle of her office, snapping her fingers at her fifteen secretaries as they partake in the worst damage control your family’s had to deal with since your cousin two years ago was caught with a mistress outside a high-profile restaurant. 

“Can I take a wild guess?” You’re about to be scolded into the next century, so you might as well enjoy your last few moments. 

“Don’t get cheeky with me,” your mother warns. “Care to explain why you and your beloved husband made the front page of the Daily Post today?”

“I know,” you sigh, a hand coming up to rub at your temples. It’s eight in the morning, you’ve barely looked at your phone, and you haven’t even brushed your teeth yet. It feels like you’re still asleep, and most certainly lack the energy to deal with this right now. 

Your mother, on the other hand, thinks otherwise. “You know? You know, and you still go out and do this? For everyone to see?”

“We tried to take our argument outside,” you begin to explain, but your mother isn’t having a single word of it. 

“The fact that you thought it was even appropriate to have an argument in a public setting at all astounds me, Y/N. We raised you better than that.” There’s no need for you to even see her face. You’ve grown so used to that disappointed frown over the years that it’s burned into your brain. 

“Maybe you should have thought about that before marrying me off to a man I barely know so I could be someone else’s problem instead of yours,” you bite. 

“We did this for your own good,” she hisses back. “You are married because we love you, and we want you to succeed outside of this family.”

“Then why do you care what the tabloids print about me?”

“Because being married does not mean you are no longer a part of this family,” your mother informs you sternly, lips smacking together. “Your marriage reflects on all of us, and you know that. What will people think of us when they see how terribly behaved you are?”

“Everyone acts like that, and you know it.” How could your mother preach good behavior when everyone, everyone you know, is just as spoiled and entitled as you? There’s no such thing as being altruistic when it comes to people like you. Being genuine, and good, and pure—that will get you ruined. 

You can hear her breathing into the phone when your mother responds, “But not in public, and that is the point. We expect better from you.”

“If you were so worried about me behaving so badly, then why did you even marry me off anyway? You knew that I didn’t want to. What did you think would happen?” It’s a question you wouldn’t have dared ask three months ago. Hell, even a year ago, when it was first revealed you were to be engaged, you wouldn’t have dared open your lips. But things are different now. You’re married to a man that hates you just as much as you hate him. He is making no effort to improve your relationship and seems hellbent on despising you forever. There is no way to get out of it. And if your parents really foresaw all of that, then what was the point in the first place?

“Your grandmother.”

Your mouth shuts. 

“You know she wanted to see you married before she passed,” your mother says, words clipped and biting and harsh. “She cares about you. She wanted to make sure you’d be taken care of.”

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me,” you mutter to yourself like a petulant child. In a way, you sort of are.

“If you want to stay in her will, I suggest you change that mindset.”

You freeze in your tracks. The will?

“Is that a threat?” You ask, positively dumbfounded. Are you being coerced into staying in this marriage because of your grandmother’s will?

You can hear your mother laugh, that muted, knowing chuckle of hers. “It was the deal all along, remember?”

Vaguely, you do. You remember fighting your parents tooth and nail over getting married until your grandmother revealed it was her dream to see you wed. You remember the look on her old, wrinkled face, that soft, sad smile that said she knew she didn’t have much time left. You remember agreeing, because how could you deny her? You remember her promising to remember what you’re doing for her. 

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“But—”

“That’s the end of this conversation, Y/N. You fix things with your husband or you’re out of her will. She’s made that clear. I expect you’ll make the right choice.”

She hangs up. 

Well. 

There are a lot of ways to describe how you’re currently feeling, and you most certainly had an expensive education that would provide you with plenty of the vocabulary, but you think the most appropriate words for the current situation would be: you’re fucked. 

At least the feeling is mutual. 

Hardly two minutes after your mother’s brutal phone call, Taehyung comes storming down the stairs, hair still mussed from the night prior, his own phone clenched tightly between is fingers. Even from where you stand in the middle of the living room, you can see the way his eyes are glinting with anger, the veins popping out from his skin. 

“I just got off the phone with my parents,” Taehyung begins, not even bothering to spare a ‘good morning’ your way, “and they are fucking furious about last night.”

You shrug. “Join the club,” you mutter, arms crossed in front of you. What, does Taehyung really think you got off scot-free?

“Don’t act like this means nothing to you,” Taehyung says as he approaches you, footsteps calm despite his demeanor being anything but. “You’re the one who’s so obsessed with keeping up their family’s perfect reputation. You’re the reason we’re even in this mess in the first place.”

“What do you mean, ‘I’m the reason’?” You ask, astounded. Like he’s totally absolved of all blame and just an innocent third party. “You are the reason we went outside. You are the reason we had that argument, because you refuse to accept the fact that we’re actually married and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Right, because holding hands is really gonna show all those people how in love we are. I bet your parents are so thrilled right now.” Taehyung drawls. 

“It’s a start!” You shriek. “God, you’re just so—so infuriating! You can’t accept that this was your fault, too. You just have to turn everything against me and you always, always have to get the last word. It’s like you think you’ll die if you don’t.”

“Like you’re any better,” Taehyung huffs back. “You think I’m the villain because I don’t want to pretend to be in love with someone I’m not in love with. You act like us not holding hands is going to ruin our lives. It was one event! One! It’s obvious we hate each other, so why even try?”

“What, do you expect me to just sit around and do nothing? To act like everything’s fine? Like I’m happy?” As if. This marriage is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. “While you prance around the city with your rich boy friends, going out to clubs and parties and pretending that I don’t exist? Is that what you expect from me?”

Taehyung laughs, this loud, disbelieving sort of noise, like he’s never heard such nonsense before. “Just because we’re married doesn’t mean the rest of my life has to change. Am I not allowed to enjoy myself with my friends? Or are you determined to keep me chained to your side for the rest of our lives?”

“What I want,” you punctuate every word, “is for you to stop acting like you haven’t got stakes in this, too. You think I don’t know how your family works? What being married to me means for you? Because I do. And I know that if we were to divorce, it would be you who would get the short end of the stick. Make no mistake.”

That’s enough to shut Taehyung up for a good few seconds. And it shuts him up, because he knows it’s true. Taehyung’s family may have a little more money, a little more power than yours, but you’ve got a family intimately more connected with the media. One phone call and Taehyung may have a rather messy, rather public breakup to deal with. 

“You wouldn’t,” he says, calling your bluff. 

“Are you sure about that?” You say, sticking your ground. You would never really divorce him, of course, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“I am,” Taehyung says firmly. “Don’t think I don’t know what being married to me is in it for you. What is it? Money? Power? Your father’s CEO position?”

“That’s none of your business,” you snap quickly. Maybe you’re more transparent than you thought. Bristling, you straighten your shoulders and turn back to meet his eyes. “Regardless, it seems we both have a reason to stay in this marriage.”

“It seems we do,” Taehyung agrees with a thin, contained smile. “Then I suppose we can reach some sort of agreement.”

“As in…?” Your interest in piqued. 

“I’ll stop going out with my friends if you stop picking fights with me all the time,” he says economically, like he’s killing two birds with one stone. 

“Only if you agree to also act more like my husband when we’re in public,” you tack on, because you just can’t settle for anything less. 

“Public only,” Taehyung specifies. 

You scoff. “Like I’d even want to pretend to be your wife when we’re in private.”

“Good. It seems we’ve come to a deal.”

“What’s in this for you, huh?” You prod, just to be annoying. Taehyung’s right. There’s a reason you’re not divorcing him the second you get the chance. But there must be a reason why he’s not doing the same thing. 

“Does it matter?” He challenges, a single eyebrow raised. “My life is just as awful as yours.”

Fair enough. 

“Do we have a deal?” Taehyung asks, holding out his hand, that sneaky, devilish grin lacing his features. 

Taking his hand in yours and grasping it firmly is the easiest decision in the world. His palm presses against your own, hot hand meeting your cold skin, and it feels like the two of you are finally finding some sort of balance. You look up into his eyes, burn your gaze into his pupils, watch them glint in the white ceiling light of the living room. 

“Deal.”

For two people raised on the values of reading the fine print and making educated choices when it comes to business deals, you and Taehyung sure haven’t worked out any of the intricacies of the deal the two of you agreed to. Unlike those business deals your parents constantly agreed to, however, knowing all of the stipulations and provisions of your strange, strange agreement with Taehyung may prove more harmful than helpful. 

Like right now. 

“Wait, we don’t have to be by each other’s side the whole night, do we?” Taehyung asks you, eyebrows furrowed in a knot, as you sit in the back of a big, black van on your way to a mutual friend’s twenty-first birthday bash. 

“There are going to be a lot of cameras there,” you respond. 

“Yeah, outside the entrance to the damn club. You know they won’t be allowed in, so who cares?” Taehyung rebukes. 

You huff out a little sigh, not wanting to get into an argument when you’re literally minutes away from your first public appearance since the whole tabloid debacle from three weeks ago. You and Taehyung could both do with being a bit more relaxed than you normally are when you’re around each other. 

“Hasn’t Clarissa invited hundreds of people? They’ll all notice if we aren’t together,” you remind pointedly. The girl whose birthday party you are attending is an heiress who grew up on the money of two people with a monopoly over the current artificial intelligence market and has millions of followers on social media. There will be notable people there. And people will know the two of you, as well. 

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “That’s the point, Y/N. There’ll be so many people, no one will even care. It’s her twenty-first birthday. Do you think people are going to be sober?”

You purse your lips together. He’s got a point. “How about when we are together, we hold hands. But if you see a friend or something then feel free to say hi.” Taehyung can be afforded that luxury. Especially because the chances of him not bumping into someone he knows is exceedingly low anyway. 

Taehyung nods in agreement. “You too. But I won’t leave you unless I know you’re with someone you’re close with.”

“You don’t have to stay, I’ll be fine,” you say with a small chuckle. What, is Taehyung suddenly worried, or something?

“Yeah, but it would be in bad taste if I left you with someone you didn’t know well. Or alone. Just wanna make sure you’re taken care of.” He shrugs nonchalantly, turning back to look out of the window on his side of the car. 

“Okay.” 

You don’t really have anything else to say to that. You’re sure you can handle yourself if you’re left alone for a few minutes while Taehyung says hi, but you actually find yourself rather appreciative of his resolve to look after you. Or, at least, make sure someone else is looking after you. It’s quite… chivalrous. Strikingly out of character for the Taehyung you’ve become well-acquainted with over the past couple of months. 

By the time you arrive, it’s obvious that Taehyung was right about there being so many people you two practically don’t even exist. Other than the herds of camera crews waiting outside the joint, photographing everyone that steps out of a black car to see what they’re wearing and who they’ve come with, no one seems to be paying you any attention. And in a way, that sort of nonexistence, that anonymity, it’s refreshing. Your entire life you’ve felt like all eyes were on you, like there was constantly a spotlight above your head, but here, the party centers around someone else. 

Despite that fact, Taehyung keeps his promise. He keeps himself pressed closely against you when there’s not enough space for you two to stand side by side, and he makes sure to have a hand gently intertwined with your own as you weave your way through the dozens of bodies in the room. He doesn’t say anything, of course, always looking up and forward instead of beside him, where you stand, but you find that you’re actually quite relaxed with his presence. He spots a bit of a clearing near the back of the first floor of the club, where a whole bunch of leather couches are pressed up against the brick walls, where the two of you can take a breather. 

“Damn, Clarissa knows a lot of people,” you say when you finally settle down, happily plucking a martini from a tray held by one of the many caterers wandering through the venue. 

“I doubt she’s even spoken to half of them,” Taehyung comments. “She and I have maybe spoken once… three years ago.”

“It was enough to get you invited, wasn’t it?” You point out with an eyebrow raised. 

Taehyung nods, chuckling a little. “Touché,” he says, clinking his own cocktail glass against yours. 

You take a swig of the drink, letting it wash down your throat. You’re not exactly sure how else you’re supposed to survive the night. “You must enjoy this, huh?” You muse, looking up at Taehyung from where you’re seated on the couch. He’s standing next to you, looking around the room with a distant gaze in his eye. 

“Enjoy what? The drink? It’s nice,” Taehyung says, having another sip. 

“No, I mean this,” you say, motioning toward the crowd. “The clubbing, the dancing, the drinking. I’ll bet that if you could do this every day for the rest of your life, you would.”

“I’m honored that you think so highly of me,” he deadpans. 

“Just making an observation,” you say, holding your hand up in surrender. “I mean, isn’t this what you used to do every weekend before we got married? Get wasted and party? Wake up in someone else’s bed the next morning? Muscle your way through the week just so you could do it all over again?”

Taehyung shakes his head, a knowing grin on his face. “Looks like someone keeps up with her tabloids. Let me guess, you would scroll through all of those trashy articles on your phone whenever you woke up so you could see what your future husband was doing?”

“I could have never even met you and I would know that that’s exactly what you do,” you say, even though you definitely did do those things before your engagement was announced to the public. “You’re a heartbreaker, Kim Taehyung. I don’t need to read a tabloid to know that.”

“Well, you must be quite the lucky girl, then,” Taehyung comments. “You seem to be taking up so much of my energy that I don’t have the time for that anymore.”

You place a sarcastic hand on your heart. “I didn’t know you were always thinking about me. I’m touched.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Taehyung huffs out, making the two of you both shake your heads as you chuckle to yourselves. First civil conversation you’ve had with each other in a long while, even if there may have been a few blows exchanged. 

The privacy doesn’t last long. Soon after, a huge crowd of people that could honestly still pass for teenagers herds towards the back of the club, all of them wanting to take pictures with each other. You and Taehyung do your best to stay out of the way, but one of the girls recognizes him from the Elle photoshoot he did about a year ago and begins to strike up a conversation with the both of you about your recent marriage. If she was paying attention to anything the tabloids leaked three weeks ago, she doesn’t mention it. Taehyung smiles and happily answers all of her questions, and even offers to take a picture of the group for them. The conversation ends before the two of you even catch her name. 

You’re standing by the line of buffet tables laid out against the staircase leading up to the second floor, no doubt as crowded as this one, when the opportunity for you to speak to someone other than Taehyung finally presents itself. 

“Y/N!”

You’d recognize that voice anywhere. You turn around to see Victoria barreling towards the both of you, not even caring when she accidentally spills a bit of her piña colada on the floor as she does. 

“Hey!” You exclaim excitedly. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Are you kidding? I’m pretty sure Clarissa invited everyone on her, her best friend’s, her best friend’s cousin, and her best friend’s cousin’s dog’s contact list,” Victoria says with a laugh. “It’s nice to see you. I feel like you’ve been holed up in that big ol’ penthouse for weeks.”

“Damage control,” you remind her succinctly. Victoria knows enough that that’s all the explanation she really needs. 

“I don’t know if the two of you have ever met formally,” you say, thinking back to your wedding, where Victoria spent most of her time schmoozing with your parents (who love her) and didn’t even engage with any of the people who Taehyung’s family had invited. “Taehyung, this is Victoria. Victoria, Taehyung.”

“Pleasure,” Victoria says in that loud, unabashedly forward way of hers, holding out a friendly hand. Taehyung smiles back curtly, taking her hand and shaking it gently, so as not to spill any more of her drink. 

“Mine as well. I remember you were at our wedding.” Oh? So he does know her?

“That I was. Oh, I miss that day. The food was excellent. Tonight’s isn’t too bad either. Hope you’re doing well, the two of you. It’s nice to see you getting along,” she says, always the observer. 

Taehyung’s eyes widen a little when he picks up what Victoria is not-so-subtly putting down, but you place a hand on his upper arm to calm him. “It’s okay,” you tell him. “She won’t say anything.”

“My lips are sealed,” Victoria adds. 

“If you wanna go spend time with some of your friends, you can,” you say, giving Taehyung a nudge. He looks positively helpless standing in between the two of you as Victoria out-extroverts him. 

“Alright,” he says hesitantly, even though you know he’s already spotted at least ten people you’re sure he’d want to spend time with over you. “I’ll come find you soon, okay? Don’t go too far.”

You nod, and Taehyung disappears off into the crowd. Not two seconds later, you hear someone else call his name in a familiar tone. 

“I thought you said you hated him,” Victoria points out as the two of you watch his caramel brown hair makes its way throughout the crowd. 

You take another sip of your drink. “I do,” you say. 

Victoria looks at you like you’ve just told her you’ve sworn off custard-filled doughnuts. 

“What?” You ask, feeling suddenly defensive. 

“Nothing,” Victoria singsongs. “It just doesn’t look like that to me.”

“We just need to keep up a good appearance in public, that’s all. You know how mad my parents got when the tabloids leaked all that shit a few weeks ago,” you explain. You’re not sure what all the fuss is about. Taehyung said he would do these things. And he did. That was him upholding his end of the deal. This is you upholding yours. 

“If you say so…” Victoria says, not looking at all convinced. “I guess I’m just surprised that—that you two seem to be getting along so well. Maybe you being married isn’t going to be the worst thing after all.”

You stare back out into the crowd, scanning the top of people’s heads for Taehyung’s familiar locks. In the dim light of the club, you have a difficult time finding his, squinting your eyes slightly as you look around, but eventually you spot him, dancing happily with some old friends of his you recognize. He looks like he’s having a good time. And that makes you feel like maybe, just maybe, this might end up alright. 

“Yeah,” you say, though with the pounding of the bass and the alcohol already rushing through your veins, it doesn’t really feel like your voice belongs to you. You look back at Taehyung, knowing exactly where he is now, and you smile. Just a little. “I guess he’s not so bad.”

You never do get a chance to meet Taehyung’s friends that night. By the time he joins back up with you and Victoria he’s by himself, a little more drunk than when he left, and ready to go home. And for once, instead of fighting him, instead of insisting you stay an hour more just to make sure you’ve done all of your rounds, you let him take you home. 

Taehyung has been spending a lot more time at the penthouse lately. Perhaps his family’s business happenings are slow, or perhaps he’s actually starting to get more comfortable with inhabiting the same space as you, but he has definitely found himself quite the rhythm in that house of yours. He even comes down to the first floor rather regularly. 

When he’s home, Taehyung is a lot quieter than you thought he would be. Granted, you don’t exactly know what you were expecting in the first place, but it certainly wasn’t him ruminating in one of the home offices while the Beatles play softly on the stereo, nor was it him reading a book in French in one of those big old grandfather chairs in the living room. If you didn’t know any better, you’d probably think he was still absent in that old way of his, ghostlike and silent, like he was occupying the space instead of truly living in it. 

But you do know better, and even though Taehyung is just as noiseless as he used to be, the house already feels a little bit fuller. 

Perhaps the reason you’ve become so keenly aware of his presence over the past few days is because of the notable fact that Taehyung has indeed held up his end of the deal, and no longer goes out with his friends in the evening. Or at all, for that matter. Which strikes you as rather odd, because he’s the epitome of a social butterfly, a thousand contacts in his phone and a whole group of friends he regularly spends time with. Maybe his parents told him to tone down the public appearances, too. And that’s understandable, but don’t they know Taehyung? Can’t they see how much he thrives on social interaction? It almost makes you feel… bad for him. 

To remedy this, you suggest he invite over his friends. Just for a few hours, you swear you won’t mind. 

“Seriously?” Taehyung looks positively shocked when you tell him he can, standing in the doorway of the office he seems to have designated as his own. 

“Yeah, why not?” You say with a carefree shrug. Besides, you’ve never met his friends anyway, and now seems as good a chance as any to introduce yourself. You are his wife, after all. “Unless your parents say you can’t. But it’s not a problem for me.”

“You… don’t mind if I have my friends over for a bit? Honest to God, we’re probably just going to play FIFA for three hours straight,” Taehyung says like it’s some sort of warning. Like the idea of him and his buddies from college are going to sit in the living room screaming at the television, leaving you alone to do literally anything else, is somehow bad. 

You laugh. “It’s fine, really. Call them. I’d actually quite like to meet them.”

Taehyung picks up his phone almost instantly, as if you’ll change your mind in the next five minutes so he better get them over soon, and already you can see the way his face is lighting up, the way his eyes crinkle as he chats to his friends and the way his lips curl upwards when they crack a joke back. Isn’t it obvious? He feeds off of the energy of others. Who are you to deny him such a simple pleasure?

As it turns out, Taehyung’s friends actually end up being quite nice anyway. 

He invites over three, because four people is apparently the perfect number for a hardcore game of FIFA on his Playstation, and they are all very handsome men you have never met before. You suppose like attracts like, after all. 

“You must be Y/N,” says the first one you see when you open the door to let them in. He doesn’t look a day over twenty-one—in fact, he could probably still pass as a college student—and has rather long dark hair that drapes over the sides of his face, covering the edges of his big doe eyes. “I’m Jungkook. This is Jimin and Hoseok.”

“Nice to meet you all,” you say, stepping aside so they can enter.

The shortest one, Jimin, grins in response, and Hoseok, behind him, gives you a wave. It’s refreshing enough as is, not having to exchange formal greetings and shake each other’s hands like you do with everyone else. Hoseok even gives you a bit of a nod, too.“You, too,” he says. “We’ve heard so much about you.”

Oh, have they, now? Interesting. 

“All good things, I hope,” you say awkwardly, forcing a small smile as Taehyung comes bounding into the room, ears perked up at the sound of his friends’ voices. 

“Definitely. Thanks for having us over. We didn’t wanna intrude on the sanctity of your new place,” Jungkook says, gesturing vaguely to the house as a whole. He’s got this excellent, genuine grin on his face, the kind that people who are just happy to be alive always wear. 

Already he’s said enough to charm the shit out of you. Who knew Taehyung’s friends could be so… friendly? “Please, you’re welcome any time. I was just thinking Taehyung was getting a little lonely.”

“There he is!” Jimin shouts excitedly when he spots Taehyung behind the two of you, looking a lot more casual than he normally does when he’s alone with you, having abandoned his usual silky button-down and wide-leg slacks for a loose shirt and some sweatpants. You didn’t even know he had those things in his closet. 

“Hey, everyone’s here!” Taehyung exclaims, just as happy. He squeezes past you to give the three of them a big hug, and it almost makes you feel like you’re intruding on something you shouldn’t be in. Even though this is literally your house. 

“Nice place you got here,” Hoseok comments, eyes drifting around the living room. “Very minimalist, I like it.”

“Sure hope you don’t spill anything on those nice leather couches of yours,” Jungkook says. 

“Yeah, unlike Kook, who has spilled tomato soup on every shirt he’s ever owned,” Jimin jokes, earning laughs from Taehyung and Hoseok and a punch from Jungkook. 

“Moved after we married,” Taehyung says simply, shrugging his shoulders. It’s an easy enough explanation for why it doesn’t look at all lived in. Here’s hoping none of them realize you sleep in different bedrooms. 

“Yeah, congratulations on that, man,” Hoseok says, giving Taehyung a celebratory nudge in the shoulder. “Who’d have thought, out of the four of us, Kim Taehyung would be the first one to settle down.”

The way Taehyung’s body tenses up at that comment does not go unnoticed by you. 

“Seriously, I would have never guessed,” Jimin adds on. “You’re showing us a new side of yourself, Tae. But I’m happy for you.”

Normally, you’d probably take offense at such blatant insinuations that your husband was a former playboy, especially from his equally noncommittal friends. But truthfully, it’s not like you were blind to Taehyung’s transgressions either. And what matters most is the fact that since it was announced publicly, you are the only woman he’s been seen with since your engagement. 

“Me too. You seem to really like her. I’m glad,” Jungkook pipes up, sending a smile your way. You definitely feel like you don’t belong in this conversation. “I think the two of you will be good for each other.”

“Yeah, I hope so,” Taehyung says with a nervous chuckle. His eyes quickly shoot your way, the two of you meeting gazes, your hesitant expressions matching. At least the two of you are on the same page. “Alright, alright, enough,” Jungkook says. “Who’s ready to get their ass kicked in FIFA?”

“You’re on, Jeon. But when I win, you owe me a five-star dinner,” Hoseok challenges. 

“Deal.”

Hoseok, Jimin, and Jungkook immediately crowd towards the couch, and you take that as your cue to leave. But before you can disappear down the hallway, you and Taehyung look awkwardly at each other, hands tied. It’s not like you can say anything to them. 

The truth is that, sometimes, it’s easy to forget that not everyone else knows that your marriage is just for business. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there are still people out there that believe you marry for love. 

Isn’t it crazy to think that you used to be one of those people, too?

“Hey,” Taehyung says when you meet up at the bottom of the stairs again. 

“Hey,” you respond. 

“You look nice.”

You scoff a little to yourself. What, are you exchanging compliments now? “Thanks,” you say, looking him up and down. “You’re not so bad yourself.” Like he ever is. 

“I knew you had taste,” Taehyung teases, and it’s the sort of comment that would have earned him a melon ball to the face back when the two of you were teenagers at a debutante ball, but today only earns him a roll of your eyes as you join hands. You don’t have anything big tonight—just a small dinner to celebrate some sort of business accomplishment for your family, which means that all you have to manage is not ending up in some sort of food fight by the end of the night. 

“I didn’t have a choice, did I?” You retort easily as you get into the car. 

You don’t normally speak a lot on the way to events. Not that you ever did, but even as your relationship has slowly faded from pure hatred to attempts at compromise, you both seem to relish in being able to stare out of your respective backseat windows and into the city that surrounds you. Just out of curiosity, about halfway through the ride you look towards Taehyung to see what he’s up to, and find yourself genuinely surprised to see him leaning against the window with his eyes closed. Is he sleeping? A couple more minutes of gazing at him tells you he is, because his body has gone lax and his breathing has evened out, soft snores leaving his mouth. This ride can’t be longer than twenty minutes. Has he not been sleeping well? Up in that enormous second-floor bedroom of his?

He’s awake by the time the car parks outside the restaurant, this fancy name brand steak place that was chosen solely because the biggest beneficiaries of your family’s new business deal are two sixty-year-old men whose entire diet consists of beef and beer. No cameras tonight, just a small family affair. You and Taehyung hold hands as you enter the restaurant and are led to the private room in the back anyway. 

You and him are seated on the far end of the long, rectangular table, alongside all of the other adult children dragged along to celebrate something that has no effect on their lives. But it’s nice, because the space alone prevents your parents from actively speaking with you, and you and Taehyung can stay in your own little bubble, only chiming in for a toast when necessary. 

“What are you going to get?” He asks you, the two of you gazing at the menu. No matter how fancy this place is, all the options seem to boil down to steak, steak, steak, steak, and caesar salad. Classic. 

“Oh, so you actually care now?” You counter, an eyebrow raised in amusement. 

Taehyung laughs. “Aren’t I supposed to?”

You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously, wise to his usual shenanigans. It’s hard to tell if Taehyung really means what he says, or if it’s all for show. But perhaps he’s asking because he’s genuinely curious, since no one else seems to be paying you any attention. 

“The choices on this menu are simply overwhelming,” you say, motioning to the six options in front of you. 

“I know, I’m so torn,” Taehyung jokes, making you huff out a little giggle. At least he’s still got that same sense of humor. 

You both end up going for a pretty classic steak dinner, which neither of the two of you finish because the damn portions are the size of your head. Dinner is, in and of itself, absolutely mindless, all of your parents talking about things that don’t concern you whatsoever, leaving you and Taehyung to your own devices as you desperately try to make the night go by faster. 

At one point, you notice Taehyung’s foot brushing up against yours, the leather of his loafers brushing against the toe of your patent heel. Thinking someone of it, you push back, foot nudging his back to his own chair. It’s not a second later that Taehyung retaliates, the two of you dancing around each other underneath the table. 

If the two of you were any younger, or perhaps any less resigned to your fate, there’s no doubt in your mind you would be attempting to get Taehyung to fall off his chair in an effort to do the same to you. Footsie means war. But when the both of you know that, at the end of the day, you’ll still be going home to the same place, and waking up the next morning in the same house, it doesn’t feel like this is a battle.

It’s just life. 

Eventually, you meet Taehyung’s eyes with a hesitant smile, shoe pressed against his, stuck in ceasefire. And for once, he doesn’t have that devilish look in his eye, that smug little grin on his face that tells you that he’s going to make you regret whatever it is you just did. He’s just smiling back at you, all pink lips, having found real fun in the little things. 

And that makes you happy. 

The rest of the dinner is uneventful, which, in your book, is about as good as a dinner can go. You cheers to the future of your parents’ relationship with their newfound partners and say a quick goodbye to them both, hurrying out of there before they can ask you any questions on your relationship with your husband. But you don’t spend the car ride in silence on the way back. 

Instead, you say, “Have you been sleeping well?”

The question seems to catch Taehyung off guard. He was already getting in position to take a power nap on the ride home, head pressed up against the window of the car. 

“What?”

“Have you been sleeping well?” You repeat. “I noticed you fell asleep on the way here.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess,” he says, a hand scratching the nape of his neck. “I mean, it’s been hard adjusting, I suppose. But I’ll get over it.”

Hard adjusting? You’ve been together for nearly three months now. Three months worth of sleeping in the same penthouse bedroom, on the same soft-as-a-cloud mattress, underneath the same weighted blanket. And he’s still having trouble? 

“Oh. I mean, I just wanted to ask because you seem really tired lately.”

“I got a lot on my plate, what can I say,” Taehyung says with an empty smile, forcing a chuckle. “I’ll be fine, seriously. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Isn’t that my job?” You remind him. “I am your wife.”

Taehyung doesn’t say anything to that. He just lets out an audible breath, the kind you let out when you’re amused and have something snarky to say, but don’t have the energy to get the words off your tongue. 

The rest of the ride is pretty quiet. 

When you get home, you place your house keys in the bowl by the entrance and take off your shoes, just about ready to take a hot shower and collapse in bed, when Taehyung’s voice stops you. 

“Hey,” he begins, almost hesitantly. You look back at him inquisitively. “I was thinking, maybe, if you wanted, we could start sleeping in the same bed?”

You scrunch your nose up. Not in disgust, but in surprise. In bewilderment. What brought this on, all of a sudden?

“Really?” You ask, because you can’t help yourself. “I thought we liked the separate bed thing. Gives us privacy.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung says with a shrug, “but—I don’t know, it’s stupid. I just thought, you know, since we’re married and all. And it’s been three months.” He looks about two seconds away from backtracking, from shaking his head and going upstairs before you can say anything else. 

“Alright,” you say quickly, nodding your assent. Taehyung’s eyes widen when he hears the word, like he had completely expected you to shut him down the moment he made the suggestion. “If that’s what you want. We can try it.”

“You sure?” He asks, that same hesitant smile from earlier lacing his features. It’s strange. He almost looks… sweet. Nervous. 

You grin back at him. “Yeah, I am.”

Taehyung lets you grab some of your toiletries and your pajamas from your designated bedroom before you head up the stairs together, towards the bedroom he’s claimed for himself. Funnily enough, this is the first time you’ve been in his room. Three months of living together and you haven’t dared step foot on the second floor. 

You don’t know what you were expecting when he opens the door to let you inside. Maybe a room that screamed ‘Taehyung’ a little more than this one does. One that looks like an actual human has been living here. But other than one of his classic silk button-downs draped over a chair, there’s not a shred of evidence someone has actually been sleeping here. You could honestly be fooled rather easily that the shirt, too, is just decoration. 

“You can pick a side,” Taehyung says casually. He grabs his own sleepwear—an old t-shirt and some sweats—and heads into the bathroom to change. 

You wonder why Taehyung has had such a difficult time adjusting. This room is about as lavish as a bedroom can get. And yet. 

Sitting down on the left side of the bed, you begin to remove your own clothes, unzipping tonight’s dress and stepping quickly into your pajamas, hurrying to make sure Taehyung doesn’t catch you half-naked. How funny is that, you think to yourself. You’ve been married for three months and you still can’t bear the thought of Taehyung seeing you without a shirt on. 

When Taehyung comes out of the bathroom, hair all messy and clothes all casual, he grins lazily to himself. “I sleep on the right anyway,” he comments mindlessly. 

Within twenty minutes the both of you are about as ready to pass out as you have ever been, the only lights still on the ones on your respective nightstands. 

“Goodnight,” Taehyung says, reaching an arm over to switch his off. 

“Goodnight,” you tell him, turning off yours as well. And all of a sudden, the room is shrouded in darkness. 

You fall asleep instantly. 

When Taehyung wakes up the next morning, the first thing he says to you is that he hasn’t slept that well in ages. 

“You slept together?” Victoria shrieks, so loud you actually have to move your phone away from your ear as you punch in the code inside the elevator for access to your floor. 

“We did not sleep together,” you emphasize. “Okay, well, we sleep together, as in, in the same bed. But we are fully clothed. And not the slightest bit interested in doing anything other than sleeping.”

“I thought you said you liked having your own space,” Victoria points out. “When was the first time you—uh…” she pauses to find the right words, “shared a bed?”

“A couple weeks ago. It’s really not so bad, I don’t know why you’re so hung up over it,” you say, lips pursed. You squeeze the phone between the side of your head and your shoulder, hands full of shopping bags, the string of the handles burning your skin. Maybe you should look into getting a personal shopper. 

“I’m hung up over it because, for the longest time, you have sworn off Kim Taehyung. Called him dead to you. Insulted him every chance you get.” 

You scoff. You don’t need reminding of how much you hated him, how much you can’t believe you have to spend the rest of your life with him. “It’s different now. We’re married. And he said he wasn’t sleeping well. I felt bad.”

“He wasn’t?”

“Enough about him,” you say, shutting her up. You don’t feel like talking about him with Victoria anymore. “Word through the grapevine says that your parents are actually thinking of letting you start your own company?”

It’s enough to distract Victoria. For the rest of the ride in the elevator, she talks animatedly about a new streaming service her parents are considering letting her launch, under their parent business, of course, but it’s her own company nonetheless. And you’re proud of her. Proud she could do something your parents would never dream of letting you do. Proud she could make that happen. 

You push open the front door with the side of your hip after entering in the security code, phone still snug between your ear and your shoulder, when you hear Taehyung call out your name. 

He comes into view from the kitchen, which surprises you because you have, on multiple occasions, made fun of how much of a disaster chef he is, especially because he’s admitted to you he’s not a very good cook. 

“I made brownies,” he says, holding out a plate of the chocolate treats in front of you. Instinct has you dropping your bags on the floor by your feet and reaching out, but you eye him first, suspicious. 

“I have to go,” you tell Victoria, hanging up before she even gets a chance to object to your sudden departure. “You made these?”

“Yes, I did,” Taehyung says, rather proud. 

“And the kitchen is… still standing?” You ask, skeptical. 

Taehyung frowns at you, clearly unimpressed. “How bad of a chef do you think I am?”

“Pretty bad,” you admit with a shrug. 

Taehyung pouts sadly to himself for a moment. “These are good, I swear. Nothing weird in them like vegetables or anything either. I used a box mix.”

“No wonder they look so nice,” you comment snidely, hesitant hand reaching out to grab one. They feel like brownies. So that’s good. 

“Hey, I was the one who had to crack the eggs and shit. Three eggs! And not one eggshell in the bowl!” Taehyung says, clearly very pleased with himself. 

You laugh at his enthusiasm, taking a bite. It’s good. And exactly what you needed after a long day of shopping. “I’m proud of you. They taste good.”

“I knew you wouldn’t doubt me.” Taehyung grins.

“They’re really good, actually,” You amend, genuinely surprised. And the best part is that you can count at least ten brownies left on that plate, which means that you get at least five more. Which, if you had any less self-restraint, you would probably eat all at once within the day. 

“I’m glad you like them. They’re all for us, you know. No one else to share them with,” he says.

“Honestly, I’m probably going to finish them by tonight. You’ll have to make more tomorrow,” you say sheepishly. 

“We can make some together,” Taehyung suggests. 

“I’m looking forward to it,” you respond. The words come off your mouth easily, tumbling from your lips without you having to think about it. You aren’t saying them because you have to. You’re saying them because you want to. Because baking with Taehyung doesn’t actually sound too bad. Especially if it means more brownies. 

“You’ve, uh, you’ve got something,” Taehyung says, gesturing vaguely to the side of his lip. 

“Oh, I do? Yikes,” you say, a little embarrassed. Your hand comes up to wipe at the left side of your mouth. “Is it gone?”

“Wait, here, let me do it,” Taehyung says, reaching out towards you. He presses his palm against the side of your face, cradling your cheek and jaw in his enormous hands, and all at once it feels like your skin is on fire. 

Your body freezes up at the touch, at the way his thumb swipes at the corner of your mouth, right against your lips, wiping away nothing but a goddamn brownie crumb. You look at him, look right at him, how can you look anywhere else when he’s right in front of you like this, and it feels like you are caught in his gaze, a rain droplet trapped on a web, a bee stuck in its own honey. His big, brown eyes sparkle from the ceiling lights, a chocolate sky that mirrors the food he just made for you. He looks at you and his eyes are so soft, so open, so happy to be looking right back at you. God. 

“There,” he says, a moment too late. 

“Thanks,” you stammer out, speechless otherwise. 

You both stand there, looking at each other, wordless expressions drawn all over your faces, no idea what to do next. 

After a while, Taehyung breaks the silence. “Do you wanna order takeout tonight?”

“Okay,” you nod, still a little breathless. Taehyung smiles before retreating back to the kitchen, leaving you standing in the entranceway, shopping bags abandoned by your side. 

You look over to where he’s vanished. There’s a part of you that wishes he hadn’t left. A part of you that makes you want to see him again. 

Phone calls from your mother are never good. The last time she called… well, you know how that went. So when you see her contact information light up your home screen, it’s only instinct that you feel your heart rate spike. 

“Hello?” The voice that comes out doesn’t even sound like yours. 

There’s no good way to put what comes next. Your grandmother has died. Heart attack. The paramedics got there too late. It was over before it even started. 

For a moment, for a split second, it feels like everything is frozen. Like the world has come to standstill. Your mother’s voice echoes in your ears, suspended in time, the words turning into stone as they crash onto the floor. And when they do, it is as if everything comes back to life. 

Truth be told, you don’t know how long you stay there, sitting on the edge of the left side of the bed, your phone resting lifelessly in the palm of your hand. It feels at once like an eternity and only a second in time. You spoke to your grandmother two days ago. You had promised that you and Taehyung would visit her soon. How can this be happening?

Your phone buzzes relentlessly in your hands, condolences pouring in from every person in your contacts, sorry’s and heart emoticons and If you need anything, I’m always here’s filling up your screen. There’s a part of you that vaguely registers your mother, alongside some of the other members of your family, trying to call you. But nothing can seem to shake you. 

Until—

“Y/N? You still up here?”

You hear Taehyung before you see him. Hear his voice, hear his footsteps, hear the door creak open as he enters your bedroom. Slowly, almost sluggishly, you twist around to look at him, the mere act knocking the wind out of you. Or maybe you were already breathless. 

“Hey, you alright?” Taehyung knows instantly that something is wrong. 

“My grandmother died.” The words sit heavy on your tongue. There’s no point in not telling him. He’ll find out soon enough. He’s… he’s family, isn’t he?

“What?” Taehyung freezes in place. “I—I’m so sorry to hear that, Y/N. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” you say, voice weak but steady. You blink up at him, once, twice, three times, and then suddenly you feel tears running down your cheeks. 

Taehyung doesn’t say anything else. He rushes to your side and sits himself down on the bed next to you, arms wrapping around your body. And you don’t think about the fact that it’s him, about the fact that this is the closest the two of you have ever been. You just let yourself be engulfed in his frame, let yourself be enveloped in his hold as the tears stream down your skin, little hiccups jolting your throat. You close your eyes and press yourself into his arms, head resting against his chest, and wish so desperately that so many things about your life were just a little bit different. 

It must be at least five minutes before either one of you dares to move. Your phone begins to rattle incessantly, that familiar and insistent buzz that the both of you are hard-pressed to ignore. 

“I think you should answer that,” Taehyung whispers into your skin, lips right by your forehead. 

“Yeah,” you sniffle, sitting up next to him and wiping the remnants of wetness by your eyes. Well, Taehyung’s seen you cry. There’s no going back now. “You’re probably right.” You look down at the phone. It’s your father. 

“I’ll be downstairs, okay? Unless you want me to stay,” he offers, looking hesitant. 

You shake your head. “No, it’s—it’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

“Call me if you need me,” he makes you give him a nod of understanding before he finally gets up, hands slowly removing themselves from your skin, leaving little sparks in their wake. Remnants of warmth. Suddenly, you feel much colder. Hardly a minute later he’s out of the room, and you can hear his distant footsteps as they make their way down the stairs. 

Sighing, blinking, and swallowing all at once, you pick up. 

The call passes by in a blur. Your father says the will will take at least half a year to be executed, but that the funeral is already being planned. Your grandmother had hoped you would eulogize her. You agree, but you have no idea what you will say. He says Taehyung is invited but does not need to come if he cannot make it. He says a lot of other things too, about your mother, about your cousins, about your aunts and uncles and your poor grandfather, who passed five years ago, but you can’t even remember them moments after he’s said them. 

When he hangs up, the tears on your cheeks have dried, patches of them left along your skin. You head to the bathroom, getting off your bed for the first time that day, and try to wash away everything that has stained the morning. A part of you doesn’t even want to bother, just wants to slug downstairs and eat as much sugary cereal as you can get your hands on, but you can’t go down there looking like this. Looking so helpless. 

By the time you reach the kitchen, Taehyung is already standing there, on the opposite side of the counter island, a big stack of pancakes in front of him. They look mouth-watering. 

“Hey,” he says softly. “Thought you might want something to cheer you up.”

“Did you make these?” You ask, a little endeared. That was thoughtful of him. 

“Yeah. They’re still warm,” Taehyung says. He holds out a fork. 

You grin. 

The funeral is a week later. It sucks in every way that something can suck. But not in the same way your wedding sucked, or even the announcement of your engagement. It sucks because it’s a funeral, because you have to stare down your grandmother’s casket when a part of you still doesn’t even believe that she’s gone. Because everyone there is so sad, so melancholy, dressed in all black and looking down at their feet. Because everyone is so sorry for you, so sorry for your loss, everyone has nothing but condolences to offer you. What will those do? They won’t bring her back. They won’t change things. They won’t make you feel even the slightest bit better. 

Taehyung comes. He comes because he offers, and because you want him to. You want someone whose hand to hold. Want someone to smile at you when you’re speaking in front of your entire extended family and trying not to cry. You want someone who is familiar, and warm, and there for you. 

And most of all, you want someone who won’t keep the conversation going when you get home. 

“Do you wanna order Chinese?” He asks, coming into the living room, where you have been sulking on the couch ever since you stepped foot inside the door. 

“That sounds nice,” you force out. 

“Okay. Your usual?”

“Yes, please.” You don’t bother asking how Taehyung already remembers what you like to order when you’ve only gotten Chinese twice in the last three months. 

“I’ll call them.” He disappears off into the kitchen. 

What you do appreciate about Taehyung is how he has defaulted to food as a comfort measure, and how the thought alone genuinely brightens you up a little bit. You don’t know each other very well—still, after three months, you couldn’t even say his favorite color—but he is doing his best, and he is trying his hardest. In some ways, you were unlucky to marry him. To marry someone you didn’t love. To be forced into a union you had no say in, with someone you had so much antagonistic history with. 

But in some ways, your luck has changed. In some ways, marrying him was perhaps the best thing that could happen to you. Taehyung is snarky, a little devilish, and absolutely full of himself, but he is not thoughtless. He is not heartless. He has proven that he is willing to put in the work. That he can grow to care. To change. To compromise. And isn’t that the luckiest thing you could have gotten?

“I’m sure you’re probably sick of hearing people tell you they’re sorry for your loss.”

His voice breaks your reverie, carrying throughout the wide open space of your living room. He’s grinning honestly where he stands, slowly making his way over to you. 

“Kind of, yeah,” you admit. “It’s not going to bring her back. Most of those people probably don’t even mean it.”

“Don’t say that,” Taehyung says, sitting down next to you. “I’m sure they do.”

You look at him skeptically. 

“I mean, they’re sorry for your loss because that loss is causing you pain. And that sucks,” Taehyung explains, albeit a little less eloquently than you thought he would. “I know it sucks for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t like seeing you sad,” Taehyung says honestly, shrugging to himself. 

You scoff a little to yourself. “I would have thought my downfall would be the exact thing the great Kim Taehyung would wish for himself.”

“Maybe a couple of years ago.”

You narrow your eyes. 

“Okay, maybe even a few months ago,” Taehyung admits with a laugh, making you smile, ever so slightly. “But it’s different now. I like it when you’re happy. When you’re snarky and funny and a little evil. Seeing you like this… I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”

“That’s called empathy,” you point out. 

“I’m trying to tell you that seeing you sad makes me sad, stop being a smartass,” Taehyung chides, and that really makes you grin. “There. There’s that smile I was looking for.”

“You’re so annoying,” you say, even though there’s no malice behind it. You give him a little push, palms of your hand pressing lightly against his shoulder as you roll your eyes. 

“Only for you,” he promises. He manages to grab a hold of your wrist as your hand meets his torso, pulling you into him as he wraps an arm around your torso. You gasp a little at the sensation, head falling against his body, fitting snugly in the crook of his neck. He gives your side a comforting rub. “I’m sorry today was so shitty.”

“It was,” you agree. “But Chinese food will make it a little bit better.”

Taehyung looks positively scandalized. “What? ‘Chinese food will make it better’? But not your loving, doting husband?” 

You pretend to think for a little bit, tilting your head up to the sky as you tap your chin with your finger. “Okay. Maybe that, too,” you cave after a bit of waiting, just to be extra bothersome. 

“That’s what I thought,” Taehyung says proudly, looking down at you, eyes sparkling. You can feel his grip tighten as he presses you against his body, letting you rest your head on his side. It feels like the longest hug ever, like you’re wrapped up in a weighted blanket. Only it’s not a blanket. It’s Taehyung. It’s your husband. 

He’s your husband.

“Tomorrow will be better,” he says, and it sounds a lot like a promise. 

You nod against him, letting your eyes drift shut. Things are pretty awful right now. Your grandmother’s dead. The funeral was the saddest family event you have ever attended. You have no idea what’s supposed to happen next. 

But he’s right. He seems to be right a lot these days, actually. 

Tomorrow will be better.

Taehyung lets you sleep in for the next few days. Next several days, actually. Every time you wake up it’s close to noon and your husband is nowhere to be seen, the right side of the bed cold to the touch. It’s nothing to be worried about, though, because you can still see the noticeable dip in the bed from where he lies upon it, sinking his weight into the mattress. Taehyung’s an early bird and you’ve been having fitful nights ever since your grandmother passed. 

Today, you pull yourself out from underneath the covers around noon, sluggish and still tired, squinting as the near-afternoon light streams through the enormous windows of the bedroom. Taehyung must have thought to keep the curtains open today. 

You pull on the first casual clothes you see in your shared closet, some wide-leg sweatpants and a drapey t-shirt, and trudge downstairs like a raccoon to a trash can, hoping to fish through the kitchen cabinets to find something to eat. 

Taehyung is, as far as you can tell, nowhere to be seen. You can’t seem to hear him anywhere, and a part of you wonders where he’s at when you stumble upon the note left on the granite counter. 

Had a meeting downtown, be back around 1! There should be smoked salmon and some cream cheese and bagels in the fridge. 

Taehyung.

You chuckle to yourself as you read his flowy handwriting, amused that he thought to let you know of, of all things, the available breakfast foods in the kitchen. You check the clock. It’s nearly noon. Which means you have just over an hour of the house all to yourself. 

Having the house to yourself for five minutes is infrequent enough as it is, let alone for a whole hour. So often is Taehyung around, somewhere, holing himself up in one of the dozens of rooms or mindlessly wandering down the hallways. And for how much Taehyung is present, the funny part is that you still have no idea what he gets up to most of the time. Despite your voluntary abandoning of the separate bedroom rule, the two of you are still firm proponents of the sanctity of your personal spaces. There are rooms in the penthouse Taehyung has never been in, rooms filled with your clothes and makeup and accessories for when stylists come over before an event. A sewing room that you had specifically asked your parents for, because a part of you never let go of that childhood dream of being a fashion designer. 

And there are rooms in the penthouse that you have never been in. Rooms with dark wooden doors that have always been kept closed, that you have never stepped foot in. It’s not that you aren’t curious as to what Taehyung gets up to. He could have a goddamn evil lair in one of those rooms and you would be none the wiser. But you don’t go, because he doesn’t go into your rooms. Because you two, despite all the vows you have broken, promised each other you wouldn’t.

An hour to yourself is almost a good enough excuse for you to head back up to the bedroom and take a nap. Not that you don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis, or that you even had a fitful night last night—hell, you woke up near noon today and already you want to go back to sleep—but what else is there to do when he’s not around? What new freedoms have suddenly been given to you?

You head back upstairs, much less groggy after that delicious bagel of yours, when you catch a whiff of what smells like wet paint coming from down the hallway. It’s potent and immediately invades your senses, prompting you to wonder if that has always been there, or just magically appeared. Maybe you were so sleepy earlier, you didn’t notice it. 

Well, you notice it now. Unable to help yourself, you start to wander down the hallway, towards the source of the smell. God, it stinks. It takes you back to those days in middle school, when you would spray paint projects inside a tiny little classroom, have to step outside for fifteen minutes while you cracked the windows and aired it out. It gets stronger the further down the corridor you go, like a thick, smelly cloud stationed firmly within the walls of the penthouse. And then you realize where it’s coming from. 

It’s an art studio. 

A very messy art studio, you amend to yourself, as you peek inside. The door is wide open, and all of the windows are popped too, but the extra air circulation doesn’t seem to have made a dent in the scent. And all over the floor, the walls, and the tables are canvases covered in paint, denim jackets and pants and shirts with these wide, unafraid brushstrokes. Open cans of spray paint lie discarded on the hardwood floor stained with splotches of red, yellow, and green. 

Is this what Taehyung does in his free time? Is this where he goes, this bright, sunny room at the end of the second floor hallway? Is this what he is making?

You look down in awe at the clothes resting on the floor, splayed out to maximize dry time. Abstract faces, landscapes, and words are painted onto the backs of jackets, the fronts of old white t-shirts. What hasn’t made it onto the clothes has been put on canvases instead, blurs of color mixed together in this purposeful pattern, confidence emanating from every stroke, every dot. It’s not art in the way that the gorgeous landscapes of Monet, the picture-perfect portraits of Kahlo, the messy, unplanned splatters of Pollock are. It’s art in a different way. In a Taehyung way. 

Who knew he loved it so much? 

You almost feel like an invader encroaching on his territory when you lean down to start cleaning up some of the mess, throwing out empty spray-paint cans and tossing out grey paint water. You don’t dare touch any of the work, don’t dare try to move it. You do what you can, washing out the brushes resting in the water and cleaning up the wet splotches of paint on the hardwood. Over time, the thick scent of still-wet paint slowly fades, disappearing out the window as the fresh afternoon air seeps in. And you stand there, in a room full of art, in a room full of pieces that Taehyung has undoubtedly poured his heart into creating, and you smile to yourself. 

That’s how Taehyung finds you ten minutes later, peering into the room after declaring that his meeting had ended early. 

“Thought I’d find you in here,” Taehyung says with a grin as you jump at the sound of his voice, eyes widen when you turn around to see him standing by the door. 

“Oh, hey,” you say sheepishly. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Maybe because this is the farthest room in the house from the front door,” Taehyung teases lightly, coming up behind you. “I see you found my studio.”

“I know I’m not allowed in here,” you admit. 

Taehyung scoffs. “Who says?”

“Didn’t we both agree on that?”

He shrugs. “Sort of. I think we just reached an unspoken understanding we wouldn’t invade each other’s personal space. But it was not in the fine print, no.”

“The fine print of what?”

“That deal we made.”

Right. That deal you made, four months ago, That deal, where the two of you agreed to pretend to be in love with each other during public appearances so you wouldn’t get burned at the stake by your families. Where the two of you agreed not to interact with each other otherwise because you hated each other so much. 

“Oh, yeah,” you say distantly, feeling naive for already forgetting about it. It doesn’t seem to have slipped Taehyung’s mind whatsoever. 

“It’s okay, I don’t mind that you’re up here,” Taehyung says, interrupting that piercing little voice in the back of your head that is asking you why on earth you forgot about that deal in the first place.

“Yeah, I—” You scratch at the nape of your neck, trying to find the words to say. “It just smelled like paint, so I wanted to see what you get up too. And it’s this, apparently.” You motion vaguely to the entire room.

“You sound… surprised,” Taehyung muses correctly. 

“I guess I am,” you surmise. “I’m rather impressed, too, actually.”

“Really?” It’s Taehyung’s turn to sound surprised. 

“Yeah,” you tell him honestly, looking into his eyes. “I—you know, I just came in here because the entire hallway smelled like wet paint and I wanted to know why. But I didn’t know you loved art so much.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Taehyung points out. 

You suppose that’s true. You don’t know his favorite color. His favorite song. His favorite book. For a long time, you didn’t know what he got up to on his side of the penthouse. You don’t know how he met his friends. What he studied in university. Who he has loved in the past. Who he loves now. You don’t know why he does the things he does, and why he doesn’t do the things he doesn’t do. 

But you do know his Chinese takeout order. 

And you do know his hobbies. Well, one of them, at least. 

Who’s to say you can’t learn more?

“Well,” you start with a smile. “I’m your wife, aren’t I? Shouldn’t I begin to learn?”

Taehyung picks up what you’re putting down instantly, grinning in response. “Only if you’ll tell me things about you, too,” he requisitions. 

“I will,” you promise. It’s the easiest one you’ve ever had to make. 

His face is light, bright, bathed in the rays of the afternoon sun. His eyes shimmer as they meet yours, golden flecks more pronounced like this, in this gorgeous, open space, daylight streaming through the windows. Looking at him makes you feel like you are surrounded by warmth, makes you feel like the sun is opening its arms out to you. He has always been gorgeous. Beautiful. But looking at him like this, standing in the middle of a room filled with all the things he loves, a yellow halo surrounding him—he is ethereal. 

Taehyung smiles. “Then I will, too.”

The hand-holding comes naturally tonight.

The funny thing is, actually, you don’t need to hold hands at this gathering. It’s not an event. Or a public appearance. It’s not even a business dinner. It’s your aunt’s sixtieth birthday party, reserved exclusively for family. Isn’t that strange? That Taehyung is, technically, family now?

For so long you had vowed to stay as far away from him as possible. Vowed to stick it to him whenever and wherever you could, do anything you could to get on his nerves, rile him up. Vowed that when you, one day, took over your family affairs, you would never, ever invite him. Make it known that he wasn’t to be a part of your life. And yet, here you are. Clinging to him despite being well-acquainted with—loved by, even—every other person in the room. Holding his hand like a goddamn lifeline. 

To be fair, Taehyung doesn’t look a hair out of place here. Dressed relatively casually, a smart sweater with a collared shirt underneath it, he smiles warmly at all of your relatives and presents your aunt with a beautiful and very expensive scarf the two of you had commissioned from a designer in Italy, which she absolutely loves. She pinches his cheek and proceeds to wear it for the rest of the night. 

“Damn,” you murmur to yourself as you wander around your aunt’s house, hand wrapped around his arm. “This place hasn’t changed a bit.”

“When was the last time you were here?” Taehyung asks. 

The question actually makes you think for a moment. “I don’t know, maybe five years ago? Last couple of birthdays I was overseas or in school. Had to send her a card.”

“Bet your parents were real pleased with that,” he jokes, making you both laugh. At least you two will always be able to share your experiences of domineering and influential parents with each other. 

“Oh, I’m sure. Just as pleased as they were when they realized how much we hated each other.” You expect that little jest to elicit a laugh out of Taehyung as well, but he just smiles tightly, huffing out a breath of acknowledgement. 

“Eh, it’s not like that now, is it?” He offers up. 

“I suppose not,” you muse, sitting down together on her ancient grandma couch in the living room. No matter how rich your family gets, she’ll never get rid of this thing, that’s for sure. 

One thing you’ve picked up over time is that, for every second Taehyung spends basking in the spotlight, he spends an equal amount of time lingering by the wall, watching the rest of the world turn without him. He’s an observer. He is one by nature, feeling an irresistible pull to understand humans in a way only artists could ever do. He sits down next to you and watches your family in an environment where they can relax, where they can feel comfortable and be casual with one another. 

Very seldom have you ever brought friends to events like these. Small family affairs. But Taehyung isn’t a friend, is he? No, he’s your husband. He belongs here just as much as you do. 

“My family seems to really like you,” you point out. Not that anybody has ever harbored as much disdain for him as you. Your parents called him respectable and polite when they told you you were to be wed. Your grandmother had said he was a dashing young man. He doesn’t exactly have to reach far to be loved around here. 

“That’s my job, isn’t it?” He replies snidely. 

“Oh, just take the compliment,” you say with a roll of your eyes. Taehyung always has to be so difficult. “I’m surprised you aren’t nervous as hell. Last boyfriend I brought to meet my parents was shaking in his Louis Vuitton shoes.”

“Last boyfriend, huh?” Taehyung’s interest has been sufficiently piqued. “And, uh, how many of those have you had?”

You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously, smile twitching on your lips. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Mr. Heartbreaker.” Pretty rich of Taehyung to be asking you such a question when he’s probably had more girlfriends than you can count on both hands. “Not as many as you’ve had girlfriends, that’s for sure.”

“Guess I’m a lot different than all those trashy guys you’ve dated, aren’t I?” He asks, an eyebrow raised as he looks at you. 

“You are?”

Taehyung nods assertively. “Well, yeah. First of all, I’m your husband. Second of all, your parents love me. Third of all, you love me, too.”

You scoff. “Don’t humble yourself. You don’t know me that well.”

“Speaking of which,” Taehyung says, eyes wide as he points to you knowingly, “how about you tell me a little fact about yourself? It’s my job to learn about you, isn’t it?”

“That is my line, watch it,” you sneer, pointing back at him. You wrack your brain for a fact that you can tell him, something more exciting than your favorite color but less weird than one of those terrible icebreaker exercises you had to do in college seminars. Something that has pertinence to who you are. Who you’ve become. “Alright. I used to want to be a fashion designer when I was little.”

Now that catches Taehyung off guard. “Really?” He says, genuinely intrigued. 

You shrug. “Yeah. I learned to sew when I was really little. Been tailoring and hemming clothes all my life. But I always wanted to design my own stuff.”

“Is that what’s in your room?” Taehyung asks. “A sewing machine?”

“Bingo.”

“Wow,” Taehyung says. “I didn’t know that.”

“Isn’t that the whole point of this exercise?” You say, just to be smart. 

Taehyung shakes his head, eyes rolling. 

“What about you?” You ask. You can’t imagine what he’ll say. Astronaut. Veterinarian. Or, if he really wants to surprise you, a business executive. 

“A museum curator.”

It is an answer that simultaneously surprises and doesn’t surprise you at all. 

“Fitting,” you muse. “You could have put your own art on display.”

“Pretty sure that’s, like, super unethical,” Taehyung reminds you. 

“So? You’re rich. Start your own museum. Put your own art on display. Live your dream,” you amend. “It shouldn’t be holed up in that studio of yours forever. It deserves to be seen.”

Taehyung smiles at you. “You think so?”

You nod. “Of course. You create beautiful things, Tae.” It’s the first time you’ve ever called him that. And that is not lost on Taehyung, either.

“Thank you,” he says softly, blinking as he looks at you. He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to.

Later that night, when everyone’s gotten a few drinks into their systems and Bruce Springsteen is playing low on the stereo, Taehyung disappears off towards the bathroom, no doubt because of the excellent soup that was served that night. All by your lonesome, you feel a little stranded, surrounded by your old relatives dancing on the hardwood floor of the dining room, your other cousins too young to actually spend time with. 

In the commotion, your mother comes up to you, swirling a rather large glass of red wine in her hand. 

“Where’s Taehyung?” She asks. 

“Bathroom.”

“No wonder you were alone,” she says with a hearty laugh. “The two of you have been glued to each other’s sides all evening.”

“He’s my husband,” you offer as an explanation. 

“I know, I know,” she says, shaking you off with a smile. Your mother is a lot more casual once she’s had her fill of wine, no doubt her favorite, Bordeaux. A lot more loving, too. “You really made your grandmother proud, you know? She loved you so much.”

“I know,” you say, trying not to get choked up at the mere mention of your grandmother. 

“She was so happy to see you with Taehyung. It made her feel safe that you would be taken care of,” she continues on, barely paying you and your swimming eyes any attention. “She would be so happy to see you with him now, too. How much you love her.”

“I miss her,” you hiccup out, trying to compose yourself. Nothing kills a birthday party like some sad sack crying over her deceased grandmother. 

“I know, darling,” your mother says, calling you by a nickname she has hardly used ever since you turned eighteen. She squeezes you tightly, a small hug of comfort. “I miss her, too.”

Someone calls your mother’s name, distracting her as she wanders off to your uncle, who is asking what the best way to cut the three-tiered cake on the dining room table is. She bids you a goodbye before disappearing towards the kitchen, no doubt ready to make the cutting of the cake an affair all on its own. 

Taehyung comes back soon after, spotting you instantly as you stand around in the living room. 

“Hey,” he says, noticing the wet shimmer of your eyes. “You alright?”

You nod, feeling better already now that he has returned. Now that he is by your side. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“I hope those tears aren’t because you missed me,” he says, wiping away a stray one that has escaped from your eyes. You close them as his thumb brushes against your upper cheek, your eyelashes, opening them only when you’ve felt his touch vanish from your skin, leaving little sparks in their wake. 

“No,” you say. But the night makes you honest, and a couple of drinks, even more so. “But I’m glad you’re here.”

Taehyung smiles. “Me, too.”

For all those days you have spent together, never have you and Taehyung had a night in. Which isn’t necessarily completely surprising, considering how many evening events the two of you have had obligations to attend, considering your differing work schedules and meeting times. Considering that, for a very long time, the two of you had no desire to spend any time with each other at all. 

But tonight, there is nothing on your calendar. No galas, no dinners, no meetings, no schedules. There is only Taehyung, who has spent the entire afternoon up in his studio, inhaling spray paint fumes and doing what he loves. And there is only you, who has spent the entire afternoon wondering what the hell you’re going to do tonight when there is nothing else planned. 

You knock on the door to his studio, catching him right as he’s finishing up another piece. This one is a single flower, painted in broad, confident strokes, bright green and red and sunflower yellow decorating the canvas. 

“Hey, what’s up?” He asks, turning around to face you. 

“Wanna order takeout tonight?” You suggest. 

Taehyung grins. 

Thirty minutes and your favorite Chinese food later, you and Taehyung have settled onto the couch, trays of dumplings and noodles and rice in front of you, an unfunny movie playing in the background. 

You can’t remember the last time the two of you sat on this couch together. Maybe that night you had made the deal? Perhaps not even then. It wouldn’t at all surprise you if you found out that this was the very first time you and Taehyung have sat together on your couch, in your living room, in your house. So often is it occupied by others—Victoria, who sometimes comes over to ooh and ahh at your closet, Jimin, Jungkook, and Hoseok, who sit on this couch and play FIFA like it’s their job, your mother, when she wants to make herself at home in a place that doesn’t belong to her—but never you. Never you and him. 

“This is kinda nice, isn’t it?” You ask, swallowing a bite of dumpling. 

“Chinese food is always nice,” Taehyung responds over a mouthful of cold noodles. 

“Not that,” you say with a sigh, “this. Sitting together. Watching this shitty movie.”

“It’s not that shitty,” Taehyung tries to reason. On screen, the main character is getting pied in the face during some weird college fundraiser. “Okay, it’s a little shitty. But it’s good background noise, right?”

You nod halfheartedly. “I guess.” Silence. You take another bite of your dumpling, not really sure how to continue the conversation. “We don’t really get to do this a lot, you know? Sit and eat dinner and watch a movie together. Like a date.”

“We’re on a date now, are we?” Taehyung muses, eyeing you snarkily. 

“Isn’t that what this is?” You retort. 

He shrugs. “I suppose it is.”

“Tell me another fact about you,” you request, looking over to him where he sits on the opposite side of the couch. 

“About what?”

“Anything.”

Taehyung pauses, ponders for a moment. But he could never say anything wrong. Not when there is still so much you don’t know about him. Still so much you want to learn, so much you want to commit to memory. For so long you have stared at the planes of his face, the curve of his nose, the twinkle in those dark brown eyes. Those you will always remember. But what about who he is? What he loves? Those are things you still don’t know. 

“The very first time I met you,” Taehyung begins, “I asked Jimin what your name was.”

“When was that?” You ask. Despite you being someone who has spent the better part of the last several years vowing never to give Taehyung the time of day, you sure don’t remember when it all started. 

“That debutante ball,” Taehyung remembers fondly, “when we were fifteen. I asked Jimin what your name was because I wanted to ask you to dance.”

“Shut up, no you didn’t,” you say with a scoff. 

“It’s true. You were standing there in that poofy white dress and I wanted to ask you to dance,” Taehyung points out. The fact that he even remembers what you were wearing is shocking. 

Who knew. Who knew, back then, that you would one day grow up to marry him. 

“And what did I say?” You demand more. 

Taehyung laughs at the memory. “I came up to you, and I asked you if you wanted to dance, and you said, and I quote, ‘Who are you?’”

“No,” you say, aghast at your own behavior. Were those really the first words you ever said to KIm Taehyung?

“You did. Don’t you remember?”

You think back. Think back to every year you have ever known Taehyung, every year you have spent scowling at him from across ballroom floors, making some snide remark as you pass by each other in the hallway. Every year you have spent cursing his existence, willing him away from you so he could bother someone else. Every year you have listened to rumor after rumor of girlfriend after girlfriend. You think back and somewhere, somewhere in there, in those dusty corners of your brain and cobwebbed boxes of your heart, is that first memory of Taehyung, too. 

Of him standing there in some generic black suit, black hair swept over his forehead, shoes too big. Of him coming up to you, trying to be as suave as a fifteen year old could be. Of you saying to him, instead of a hello, or even a what’s your name, “who are you?” 

Of him saying—

“And you said, ‘your dream come true’.” Like a dam bursting open, the memories flood back to you all at once. “I remember that.”

Taehyung laughs out loud at the thought of him saying something so cheesy. “Unsurprisingly, you didn’t want to dance with me.”

“You were so—” you begin, but you don’t have the words. Don’t have the words to express how you felt about him that night. Don’t have the words to express how you feel about him now. Thinking about this, talking about it, it is a bridge. A bridge between what was then and what is now. A bridge between who Taehyung was and who you were and who Taehyung is and who you are. “—so unthinkable. I couldn’t believe you had come up to me and said that. I couldn’t believe you had the audacity. But something about that night made me remember you. Made me remember your name.”

“You thought about me after that?” Taehyung asks. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

“There is something about you that is unforgettable,” you say, honest and real and true. What else can you tell him? The truth is that you have always thought about him. Whether you liked him or not. 

You finish your dinner and place your trays on the end tables next to you, stacking your empty bowls and plates on top of one another as the movie rumbles on in the background. 

“It is kind of a shitty movie,” Taehyung admits after a while of being wholly unenthused. 

“Yeah,” you agree. “But it’s good background noise.”

Taehyung laughs at your little mockery, warm and deep and from his belly. You look at him. He feels so far away, on the other side of the couch. Feels like he’s miles apart from you. You have spent countless nights clinging to his harm, hand gripped tight in his. And sitting like this, a full couch cushion of space between the two of you—it isn’t enough anymore. So you inch closer. 

And closer. 

And a little closer. 

Until you’re pressed up against his side, legs touching as they rest neatly in front of you, backs stick straight as you stare at the television. 

Taehyung holds his arm up. An open invitation. 

Without asking, you lean into him, resting your head in the crook of his shoulder, in the space right underneath his jaw. You pull your feet up onto the couch and curl into his frame, pressing yourself against him. He is warm and firm and inescapable. He smells of coffee and paint and Chinese spices. He wraps his arm around you and pulls you in, as if there were any other place you’d rather be. 

You sit like that for a while. Wrapped up in each other. Lazing around on the couch as the stars twinkle above your head. The movie ends and the two of you don’t even bother skipping the credits, letting them and the cheesy 80’s pop song play on, a distant soundtrack. 

“I never thought any of this would happen,” you breathe out. 

Taehyung looks down at you curiously. “What? This?”

“All of it,” you admit. “Us. Getting married. That stupid tabloid picture. My grandmother. This. It’s all so new.”

“New things will happen all the time,” Taehyung muses aloud. “We can’t help when things change.”

“You don’t have any regrets?” You have plenty. Regrets that you’ll never become the CEO you wanted to be in college. Regrets that you’ll never become the fashion designer you wanted to be as a little girl. Regrets that you will come to resent this marriage, resent Taehyung more than you have in years past, all because you had no choice. Regrets that your grandmother couldn’t see you now. Regrets that there were so many things in your life you could have changed, but didn’t.

“I thought I did,” Taehyung tells you. “I wanted to spend more time with my friends. I wanted to major in art in college. I didn’t want to marry you. I know you didn’t want to marry me.” He looks down and you look up at the same time, eyes locking, inches apart. “But looking back on it, I’m happy where I am. With what I have.”

“I never thought it could ever be like this,” you say, words falling off your tongue before you even ask them to.

“What?”

“Us.”

There’s no need to elaborate. Taehyung understands. He understands that, half a year ago, you both would have thrown yourselves into a volcano before holding hands with each other. He understands that getting over your hatred for each other seemed like an absolutely insurmountable task. He understands that you had never wanted to marry each other, that you couldn’t believe you would have to spend the rest of your lives with each other. 

And he understands that now, things are different. 

“I’m glad things happened the way they did,” Taehyung begins. “I’m grateful for us.”

You press yourself impossibly closer to him, feel his grip tighten around you. Like this, you can hear his heartbeat. Hear it thump like a drum, steady and firm and unwavering. His heart beats against his chest and you wonder. 

You wonder if he can hear the way yours beats for him, too.

There were lots of things that made your night in together special. But one of them is the glaring fact that you don’t get them very often. That their infrequency makes them all the more valuable. 

This has become blatantly obvious to you, because right now you are not spending a night in together. Right now you are stuck at a gala that you have to attend for the sake of business, drinking thin flutes of champagne and mingling with people you barely speak to. 

The one good thing about nights like these is that Taehyung looks positively gorgeous in suits. He sort of always has, but you’d never admit that to his face. At least not until now. And as his wife, you are lucky enough to have a front-row seat. 

“I can feel you staring at me all the way from over here,” Taehyung deadpans as he helps himself to a chocolate-covered strawberry from the buffet table. 

You’re too obvious to have any shame about it. “What can I say, I like the view.”

“Hard to believe I was the once the one being shouted at for being inappropriate in public,” Taehyung says with a shake of his head. He bites into the strawberry and eats it all in a single go, tossing the stems into a bin nearby as you join back up in the heart of the crowd. 

“It’s only inappropriate if other people hear,” you tease, letting him guide you, hand intertwined with yours, towards an empty corner where the two of you can snuggle up to one another in (relative) peace. 

“I don’t think the champagne was very good for your filter, Miss Y/N,” Taehyung hisses into your ear, warm breath tickling your skin. 

“Don’t you mean Mrs. Kim?” You pose, an eyebrow raised. 

That seems to do something to Taehyung. It’s not very bright in here, with it being nighttime and all, but even still you can see the way his eyes darken. See the way his lips curl upwards, feel the way his grip on you tightens. It sparks something within you. Something deep in the pit of your belly. 

Something that makes you want more. 

You test the waters. “Mrs. Kim has a nice ring to it, don’t you think, Tae?”

Taehyung looks about a moment away from losing control. But instead of slamming you against the wall in front of all of these people and giving you what you really want, he growls out, low and powerful, “Home. Now.”

He doesn’t need to tell you twice. 

You hail your car outside of the venue and it’s all the both of you can do to not jump on each other right then and there, in the backseat of this giant black van, overcome with want, with need, with everything in between. Taehyung’s leg bounces impatiently the entire ride back, and the feeling of your hand pressed against his doesn’t seem to be calming him down. He pulls you close to him in the backseat of the car, a hand resting on your thigh. You eye him carefully, as if challenging him to be any more daring. He grins. 

Home cannot come soon enough. The two of you tumble out of the backseat and into the elevators, where you mash the top floor button after entering in the security access code, desperate and shameless. The ride seems to take hours, and the heat that surrounds you practically smothers you, covers you, fills up your lungs and chokes you. 

There is nothing left by the time you reach your door. The moment it slams shut behind you Taehyung presses you up against the back of it, pins you against the wood as he hovers over you, eyes tracing your lips. 

“Tell me something,” he demands. 

“What?” 

“A fact. Something I don’t know.”

It doesn’t take much thinking. “I want you,” you breathe out, watch it hit his skin, watch the way his eyes glint in the light of the entranceway. “Please, Tae. I want you.”

It’s enough for him. 

This is not the first time you and Taehyung have kissed. The first time was nearly five months ago, in a chapel, at an altar, surrounded by hundreds of people. It was so unfun that you seem to have eradicated the mere thought from your memory. But you remember that feeling from that day. That feeling you got when you pressed your lips against his, cemented your marriage with a kiss. That heat. That sting. 

Kissing him now—that feeling has returned tenfold. When his lips meet yours, it feels like fire is rushing through your veins, setting alight every nerve it passes, unforgiving and relentless. His enormous hands come up to cup your jaw, fingers pressing against the skin of your cheeks as they pull you close to him, keep you trapped in his hold. This is not the first time you and Taehyung have kissed but it feels like it is—it feels like there is a lotus blooming on a lilypad in your heart, it feels like you have been struck by lightning, it feels like nothing else you have ever felt before. It feels brand new. 

Pressing back against him, he slowly releases you from the cage he has created against the door, spinning around so the two of you can tumble up the stairs and into your bedroom, unable to resist sneaking in pecks here and there as you make your way upstairs. Every step you take you stop, giggle as he presses you against the railing just so he can steal another kiss from you, put his hands all over your body. It’s a wonder the two of you even make it into your bedroom at all. 

When you do, however, all bets are off. Taehyung presses you against the still-made bedsheets with a glint in his eye and a growl on his lips, pupils blown wide as he stares down at you, at your body.

"Aren't you a sight? Laid out so pretty for me," he purrs, robbing a breath from you.

It's a tone you have yet to hear from him. You find yourself growing impossibly hot under his stare, burning with an uncharted desire.

You can hardly wrap your brain around it. Here you are, craving the man you had spent the better half of your young adult life loathing. Maybe it’s the champagne; maybe it’s the way his fingers are running slowly up the length of your clothed torso. Whatever it is, your stomach does flips, unfamiliar to the way your body preens under his touch.

"Don't let it go to your head," you tease, simply because you could.

Taehyung hums disapprovingly, pressing kisses into your neck as he grabs one of your thighs and wraps it around his waist, riding your dress up in the process.

You sigh, exposing your neck further for him as he paints bruises into your neck. It feels like just yesterday you had called him out at the altar for his habit of sporting the very same marks you were soon to wear.

Perhaps you should have thought twice about letting the man you had married purely under business pretenses press his hips against your clothed center, but as he rolls his into yours, your mind falls blank, silencing any and all reservations you should have.

Whimpering, you beckon his mouth back onto yours, tongue meeting his wantonly. 

You feel his fingers creep up the outside of your bare thigh, thrilling you in the most primal way. Reaching the band of your underwear after what felt like entirely too long, he runs the pad of his thumb against the lacy fabric.

 You could scream. He is doing this on purpose. He must be. Surely he knows how badly you were aching for him? For him to fill you– whatever the manner may be.

You let out a whine before you can help yourself, frowning as Taehyung looks pleased with himself, confirming his knowledge of your prolonged pleasure.

"What's that? Did you say something?" he mocks, looking cruel and yet strikingly gorgeous as he smirks above you.

"God, you're irritating,” you huff, hips jerking up against his as he pulls at the band of your underwear, the elastic snapping back into the flesh of your hip. "Just fuck me already."

He tuts, clearly unimpressed by your impatience, "Now, where is the fun in that?"

Your eyes flutter shut as his fingers suddenly snake their way between your thighs. Mouth falling ajar, you grip his shoulders as he runs his middle finger against your clothed slit, trailing up and down your warmth. To think he was still dressed while he was touching you like this...

"No... I think I'll take my time with you," he says.

You mew against his hand, arousal forming against his long digits' ministrations. You have to hand it to him. Taehyung knows what he’s doing. The life of a bachelor has seemingly served him well.

You aren’t usually vocal in bed, but the way he’s purring words of filth to you, breath hot against the shell of your ear as he tells you how hot and slick your pretty pussy felt against his hand, has you gasping and sputtering, your own fingers wrapping around his wrist.

The fabric of your panties provides a friction that toys the line of pleasure and pain, making you thrust up to meet his motions, your humility slipping from you.

Taehyung watches you intently, cock growing hard under the constraints of his dress pants. You look better than he could've imagined, eyes watering and body shivering under his touch, his fingers soaking with your arousal. He can only imagine what you'd feel like with his fingers fully buried into you, rocking them against your velvety walls.

He lets out a groan of his own, turned on by the idea of you fucking yourself onto his fingers, whimpering out his name in ecstasy.

There’s this part of you that faintly recognizes that Taehyung has done this plenty of times before. Plenty of times with plenty of other lovers. But there is a different part of you, that part that bursts with light and hope, that reminds you that he was never married to those other ones. That his allegiance lies with you. And that thought, knowing that deep within you, he is yours, makes your jaw fall slack, pretty noises tumbling from your lips and your thighs clamping around him.

You were close, closer than you care to admit. Every touch against you is careful yet deliberate as he reads the signs of your body, the way it keens and arches into him, offering you words of encouragement as your climax finally hits.

"That's right. Good girl. Let go for me," Taehyung coos, eyes dark and focused on your writhing form.

You cry out into the familiar space of your shared room, head thrown back as you ride out the high, letting it wrack your body, send jolts throughout your veins.

You barely have time to catch your breath when he presses his mouth back onto yours, kiss still as eager as it was when you both first entered your home. You are alight with satisfaction as he pulls away to press a trail of kisses against your jaw.

"I want—f-fuck," you stutter as he finds your already hypersensitive clit once more, rolling his thumb over your now soaked panties in tantalizing circles, "want to make you feel good, too."

Admittedly, this fantasy had crossed your mind once or twice, brought on by the way he carried himself in a suit and the way his large fingers wrapped around the champagne glass; confident, collected, and entirely charming. Who are you to shy away from a man like him? He certainly has always been rather good-looking. 

He pauses his motions, pulling his hand back to sit on your waist. Your dress is of the finest, most delicate satin, and after tonight's activities, completely wrinkled. You can almost hear your stylist's cries of dismay. Whatever. You have a steamer. And why focus on the dress when it’s obvious the two of you are focused on what lies underneath it?

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." You nod, skin still burning from your past climax.

Helping you back up, Taehyung stands. You lick your lips as you sit back up on the edge of the bed, watching intently as he unbuckles his belt, audibly hissing as his pants fall to his ankles, cock visibly straining against the fabric of his underwear. Thank God you don’t have to stand. With the way your thighs still felt weak and how your husband looks like a goddamn Adonis towering above you? Your legs surely would give out underneath you if you rose.

Brows furrowed, Taehyung palms over himself briefly before pulling down the waistband of his underwear, his painfully hard member slapping against his torso.

Your eyes widened on instinct. While the last thing you wanted to do was help inflate Taehyung's already large ego, you were certainly impressed at his size; thick and girthy, his tip red and shining with precum.

He couldn't help but smirk, thoroughly pleased by the way you stared at him unabashedly, chest rising and falling heavily.

"Open up for me," he orders.

And who are you to deny a request from your dear husband?

Your pretty lips wrap themselves around his engorged tip, all remnants of lipstick long gone by now. Taehyung hisses, a hand finding the side of your jaw as you run your tongue against the underside of his cock.

"Fuck, you're so pretty," he grunts, fighting off the urge to grip the back of your head and fuck your throat. As much as he'd love your have you choking and drooling all over his cock – and boy would he – he lets you set your own pace, not wanting to overwhelm you.

It doesn't take long for you to sink your mouth further down, however, clearly set on making Taehyung feel as good as you could.

A low moan erupts from his throat, digits pressing into your jaw in request to take more of him in, which you happily oblige.

You had your eyes trained on him, completely obsessed with the way he panted through pink lips, hissing slightly every time your tongue rolled over his sensitive tip.

Lolling his head to a side, his eyes meet yours, gaze primal and wolfish as he watches the way you worked his cock.

"Doing so good, love. Doing so fucking good for me,” he murmurs.

You hum against his skin at the sound of the sudden pet name, an unfamiliar feeling fluttering in your belly. You push aside the feeling, focusing instead on the way he grunts at the new sensation you had just given him.

Giggling, you pull off his cock, opting instead to press a kiss against his leaking tip, making sure to hold his eyes as you run kitten licks against it.

"God, you're such a tease." He shakes his head in disbelief. 

He looks so good above you, shivering and cursing out praises on how good your mouth feels, how well you take his cock. Running your tongue along the length of his shaft, you become certain that this is a display you can’t imagine yourself ever getting tired of. But you have all the time in the world, right?

"Y/N,” he gasps suddenly, hips jerking towards your face. "Love, I'm gonna-- gonna cum."

"Cum in my mouth, please." Your voice was pleading and desperate. Taehyung had never heard such words spoken more sweetly. 

"Fuck's sake."

You let out a yelp in surprise as his fingers work their way through your hair, bringing your head back down onto his cock. You relax, though, when you feel the hot ropes of his cum hit the back of your throat, your hands finding purchase on his thighs as you do your best to swallow it all down.

Pulling yourself off him, you let out a small cough, eyes watering slightly as you hadn’t managed to prepare yourself with a breath before his release. His large palm runs across the top of your head as you caught your breath, expression flickering with something unfamiliar. Could it be... fondness? 

Your heart stammers at the thought as you stand, slowly stepping out of your dress, letting it drape off of your figure. Taehyung looks absolutely gobsmacked, pupils dark as he gazes at you, eyes unabashedly raking your body. He’s shameless. 

You both are. 

Slowly, you step towards him, fingers reaching out towards his shirt, carefully undoing the buttons as you gaze at each other, expressions unreadable. 

"Tae?” You ask innocently, blinking up at him. “Fuck me?" 

Your polite request makes Taehyung chuckle. 

"Please?" You bring your bottom lip between your teeth, eyes blinking up at him adoringly for good measure. You reach the last button, let his dress shirt drape open. He brushes it off himself, stands there for a few seconds just to let the way you’re ogling his toned chest go to his head. At least he’s good-looking. 

He sighs, probably contemplating some clever rebuttal, but eventually decides against it as his cock is already twitching back to life.

"Alright, love. Turn around. On your knees for me," He orders, making your stomach flip.

To your surprise, you are hardly in place when the warmth of his large hands finds the soft of your tummy, pressing you back into his chest as he pressed a peck to the back of your neck.

You squirm in his hold, whining as that same hand of his grabs hold of your breast, long digit rolling your nipple between their tips. You can’t help but press your ass back into him. His cock feels hot and heavy, pressing against the back of your thigh, making your pussy clench in anticipation. 

You want him.

You want him so bad that you don't know what to do with yourself, shuddering as his free hand runs along the side of your ass, leaving scorching hot trails on your skin wherever he kneads into your flesh. He's touching you everywhere – everywhere but where you need him the most, and the arousal that drips down your thigh mocks you.

"Dammit, please!" You exclaim, running out of patience.

"Please what?" He says, an eyebrow arched.

You shiver, committing the way his middle finger traced your pelvic bone to memory forever.

You puff out a frustrated breath, nearly at your wit's end. "Please fuck me, Tae."

Taehyung pauses, grip on your breast and hip tightening as he lets out a moan. You let one out yourself as you feel him readjust, cock pressing against your slick entrance.

"Fuck, you sound so pretty when you say my name," He grunts. "Okay, baby. I'll fuck you. Begging so nicely for my cock."

You let out a squeak as you're suddenly pushed down onto your hands, back arching as he pushes his fat cock inside your heavenly cunt. He's thick, so thick, that you instinctively grip the sheet underneath you, fingers curled around them tightly as if it means to hold onto your sanity.

Taehyung lets out a shaky breath, angling your hips up so that you could take more of him.

"You feel—feel so good," he admits above you, and suddenly you wish you could see him. See the way his bangs stick to his damp forehead—see the way his tongue swipes over his bottom lip wickedly.

You let that thought go, however, as he thrust into you, making your jaw fall slack and eyes flutter shut. Profanities roll off your tongue unabashedly, helpless under the way his thick member pulls out of you, only to slam back into you.

You weren't expecting this. The way he stretches you out further than anyone had before. Your pussy clenches around him, reveling in the sweet, sweet burn.

He digs into the flesh of your hips, holding you steady as you mew and cry out, pushing your hips back in time to his, trying your best to meet his movements.

"Tae... fuck, fuck, fuck—"

He was filling you to the brim. Filling you tight and deep.

God, the way he was panting behind you was music to your ears. His cock pulses every time you call out his name, voice muffled and buried as you had your head pressed into the mattress, hair messy and bouncing with every hard thrust.

"S'good! Fuck... so, ah, big..." you cry out.

You feel drunk. Intoxicated off this beautiful man and the way he makes you feel a way only he can.

You nearly let out a sob as the rough pads of Taehyung's fingertips suddenly reach around you and find your neglected clit, rolling light circles on the soft and swollen bundle of nerves skillfully.

You are a mess, whimpering and drooling into your expensive sheets, and he filled every inch of you, leaving no place undiscovered. Your high nears, stewing on low heat somewhere near the pit of your belly, waiting for a chance to erupt and wash all over you. Taehyung must be close to, you realize, as his thrusts began to slow down, slamming into you roughly as if chasing after his high.

"Gonna take this load? Huh? Gonna let me cum inside your pretty little pussy?" His voice is straining, as if trying to breathe evenly but merely moments from falling apart.

If only you could formulate an intelligent response, but instead, you are a blubbering wreck, thighs shaking as they threatened to give out underneath you. But somehow, Taehyung knew. He had you. Quicking his motions against your delicate pearl, he could tell you were close too, and he was going to make sure you got there.

Suddenly, you're crying out and convulsing, tears brimming at the ends of your eyes as you feel Taehyung empty into you, collapsing onto his hands as well.

You feel his hot breath against the back of your neck as he pants, breath growing more and more even as the two of you regain control of your bodies and minds.

Pulling out of you, he plops down beside you, and for a moment, the two of you hold each other's gazes, eyes speaking in ways words never could.

Finally, after what feels both like an eternity and just a moment, you work up the courage to say something, moving closer to him as you place a hand on his chest, cushioning your chin as you rested on top of it.  

"Psst," you beckon, voice hushed.

"Yeah?" His voice is husky and tired.

"I’m grateful, too."

"Huh?"

"I’m grateful for us, too."

Taehyung's gaze is soft, and it lingers on you for a second before the sides of his mouth curl up tenderly. He grins down at you, eyes drifting shut. You feel him squeeze you closer, pressing you against his skin. And then, you hear his breathing steady, see his lips part slightly. 

You lean into his chest, eyelids fluttering. “Thank you, Tae.”

Not unlike the many other mornings you have awoken in this bed, when you open your eyes as the morning sunlight streams through the windows, Taehyung is nowhere to be found. The sheets on his side of the bed are flipped aside, revealing that soft outline of his body from the night before left imprinted into the sheets, a dip in the mattress where he slept. You had fallen asleep all wrapped up in each other, tangled up like vines, but must have separated sometime during the night. Distantly, you register Taehyung’s voice outside, notice his phone missing from his bedside table. He must be on an early morning call. 

You check your phone for the time. Ten o’clock. 

A late morning call, then. 

Still basking in the afterglow of the night prior, you slowly inch your way out of bed, shivering as you pull the covers off you and scoot your legs around so they hang over the edge of the bed. You rub at your eyes until you faintly remember you did not take your makeup off last night, and when your hand comes away covered with black streaks and flecks of mascara, you wince to yourself. There goes five hundred dollars worth of a skincare routine. 

After washing yourself up and applying as many serums as you can to your skin, you wrap yourself up in one of his button-up shirts, the torso so wide that it drapes over you. The tips of your fingers peek out from the ends of the sleeves, and you cross your arms lightly over your chest as you make your way to the door, ready to entice your husband back to bed for round two. What? It’s Saturday. 

You peer around the door to find Taehyung standing a few feet away, facing away from you. He’s shirtless, and as his wife you have absolutely no problems ogling him, the toned curves of his back, the muscles in his arms. He’s always been a looker. You just finally have an excuse to look for yourself. 

You approach him quietly, not wanting to interrupt nor broadcast your sex life to anybody on the other side who may be listening. Already, the idea of crawling back in bed together sends goosebumps along your skin, makes you giddy with anticipation. You’re just about to tap him on the shoulder, lips curled upwards in suggestion, when he says—

“And my inheritance? That’s secured now, right? Because I said I would pretend to be in love with her in public—?”

And it is as if Medusa herself appeared in this room, turning you to stone as your heart thuds to the floor, a hollow, empty noise. 

You don’t hear the rest of Taehyung’s conversation. You don’t even hear the sound of your own heartbeat. This terrible, aching sound rings in your ears, silencing everything in its wake, drowning out even the sighs of your own breath. It is as if you have been frozen solid. As if you have been shot in the stomach. You stand there, feeling absolutely nothing, and all you can do is brace yourself for what is to come. Taehyung’s words were the knife but his next actions will be its removal, leaving in its wake an irreparable wound. 

He turns around, casual and cool, voice still hushed. As if you were still asleep. As if you hadn’t heard anything at all. But when he twists his body and sees you standing there, staring back up at him, lips parted in shock. 

“I’ll call you back,” he tells whoever was on the other side of the line, looking more panicked by the second. He opens his mouth so he can explain himself, but you don’t need him to. You’ve heard everything already. 

“I should have known,” you say, feeling angry and betrayed and sad all at once. “I should have known it was all an act.”

“Y/N, wait, let me explain—”

“What is there to tell me, Taehyung? What are you going to say? That you didn’t mean it? That you thought I wouldn’t find out? That last night was just a one-off?” You demand. The heat from your veins hasn’t left. Still, it simmers through your blood, burning you up from the inside out. “That you didn’t want to lie to me?”

“It’s not like that and you know it,” Taehyung says defensively, brows furrowed. “Just give me a chance to explain myself.”

“Explain yourself? How you pretended, every day and every night, just so you could get some more money in your bank account? So you could make sure you would get your father’s business when he died?”

Taehyung bites back easily. “Don’t act like you weren’t also faking it at some point. I know you were almost removed from your grandmother’s will.”

Your tongue is bitter at the mention of your grandmother. As if Taehyung ever even knew her. “My grandmother has nothing to do with this.”

“Really?” Taehyung challenges. “So you wanting to stay in her will was just a little bonus, right?”

“Don’t,” you say sharply. “It’s different.”

“Different how?” Taehyung spits. “Because right now, to me, it looks pretty similar to what I’ve done.”

“My grandmother died months ago,” you remind him. Her will is no longer the question. It has been written, settled, and executed. There was no reason for you to continue playing along once she took her last breath. No reason—unless you wanted to. “Meanwhile you’ve been keeping your inheritance a secret from me this entire time.”

“We made a deal,” Taehyung says. “A deal that said we would both act happy and pretend to be in love because we both had things we needed to worry about. Family things. Money things. You were a part of this, just like I was. You pretended, too.”

“Well, maybe I stopped pretending!” 

You can’t take it anymore. All this anger, all this emptiness, it’s been bubbling up inside you ever since you heard those first words come out of his mouth. It spills out of you all at once, an eruption from your lips, your heart’s doors bursting open. You have held his hand tightly in your own. You have pressed your lips to his. You have laid yourself bare in front of him. What is there left to protect? What part of you has not already been stained by him, by his touch, by the feeling of his fingers against your skin?

The hallway is silent, but you can hear your cry echo down the corridor. Hear the way it bounces along the walls before fading away. 

“Maybe I stopped pretending,” you repeat, softer this time. You blink and already can feel the streaks along your skin, the tears falling from your eyes. “Did you ever think about that?”

“Y/N, what are you talking about?” Taehyung looks like he’s in disbelief. Like he cannot believe the words you are saying to him. 

Well, that makes two of you. 

“Can’t you see, Tae? Can’t you tell?” You ask, the nickname falling from your lips before you can even help it. You must remind yourself to change that, later. “I’m in love with you.”

They are words you have never said to someone before. Not even your old boyfriends. Words that you always knew you would reserve for someone special. Someone who would touch your heart and make it their own, someone who would leave imprints of their fingers against your chest. Someone who would brighten you up from the inside out, leave you bursting with light. 

Ironic, that Taehyung has become that someone. When he is the one person you never thought could. 

When he has proven, time and time again, that you two just cannot mix. Oil and water. Pastel and acrylic. Satin and silk. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” you spit out quickly, before Taehyung has a chance to respond. “I know it doesn’t matter to you.”

“Y/N, yes it does,” Taehyung begins, desperate and pleading. “I know you heard what I said, but I swear, it stopped being an act for me, too. Things are different now, just like you said.”

“Don’t. Please.” You pull away as he reaches out towards you. Faintly, you remember that it is his shirt you are wearing. Remember that no matter what you do, he will always surround you. “Please, Tae.” You have nothing left. You can’t bear to look at him, but where else will you go? You cannot believe the things he’s said, the things he’s done, but where else would you go?

“I love you, too,” Taehyung says, and a part of you wants so badly to believe him. 

A part of you wants so badly to ingrain those words into your head, carve them into your heart, let him wrap his arms around you and promise that everything will be alright. But things are different now. Just like you said. You and Taehyung are not the same people you were six months ago. Or six weeks ago. Or even six minutes ago. You are helpless and he has proven that he does not care. 

“I have to go,” you say, looking away. You don’t think you could handle turning back to him again. “Please, Tae.”

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung says, and he reaches out once more but you are not there to meet him halfway. Were you ever?

“I know,” you whisper back.

You duck into your bedroom and pack a suitcase of everything you need. Being here is suffocating. Being with him is like setting yourself alight. 

Victoria has no questions when you show up at her door later that day, suitcase by your side and this ridiculous bottle of Merlot in your hands. You had picked it up on the way over. You sort of figured you might need it. 

“You don’t wanna talk about it, do you?” Victoria asks. 

“Tell me about your streaming service,” you hiccup in response.

Victoria is happy to oblige. She even tells you that she still hasn’t picked a CFO, and that the position would be open for you if you ever wished to take it. 

Funnily enough, what will become of you once your father retires and passes along the company is the furthest away from your thoughts. 

You remember being so worried about that. Being so worried that, once they married you off like every good daughter should be, you would be absorbed into your husband’s life, cut out of your family’s. Your father would choose a cousin, an uncle, or even a friend to take after the business, bestowing upon you a thoughtful inheritance but nothing more than that. All of those years of schooling, finance in college, your MBA soon after, would be wasted, just so you could hang on the arm of your husband for the rest of your life. 

It’s thoughtful of Victoria to think of you for the position. She knows just as well as anyone else that you would be an excellent fit. And if things were just a little bit different, you would be jumping at the offer. 

But your future career plans are on the backburner, along with the rest of your life. 

All you can really do, right now, at this very moment, is wait for things to change. As they always do. 

“Don’t you have an event tonight?” Victoria asks about three days into your stay. She’s given you her favorite (her words, not yours) guest bedroom and an enormous closet to match, despite you only coming over with a carry-on’s worth of clothes. 

You scoff to yourself. “Like I’d want to go to anything with him.”

“Have you even called your parents?” 

“No,” you say, not even caring about the repercussions. There’s no doubt in your mind that they’ll be ringing you soon. And when they do, maybe then you’ll finally work up the courage to tell them what really happened. Tell them that you can’t go back there. Not yet, at least. 

“I’m sorry that this happened to you,” Victoria says as she hands you a bowl of vegetable soup, homemade from a couple of days ago. You nod to yourself, sniffling as you curl into the couch cushions and wish they would absorb you whole. 

There’s no need to ask her what she means by ‘this’. Everything. From your engagement to the marriage, from those tabloids to the deal, from your grandmother’s death to now. It has all been unfair. Life is unfair. And while you’ve always known that, it has been particularly cruel to you as of late. 

Still, when you wake up sometimes, you can still feel him tracing over your skin. Feel his lips hovering over yours, breath fanning out over your cheeks. You turn over and expect to see him lying there, on the right side of the bed, sheets mussed as they cover his figure. You wake up and for a brief moment, for that split, split second, there is peace. And happiness. And love. 

And then there is nothing. 

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Me, too.”

Maybe he really does love you. Maybe things really did change. But you have always been a pragmatic person, always let your head guide you rather than your heart. The secret’s out. Taehyung had an inheritance he needed to secure. You were his path to doing so. Those things haven’t changed. No matter if his feelings did. 

“Hey, look at this,” Victoria says, brows furrowed as she holds out her phone in front of you, revealing a livestreamed interview from the event tonight. 

You peer over. 

It’s Taehyung. 

Of course it’s Taehyung. Who else would she be showing you?

He stands in a clean-cut gray coat, draping over his figure, black dress shirt and slacks underneath, belt wrapped neatly around his hips. He holds his hand up in a wave and smiles politely to the cameras, to the reporters, letting the flashes wash over him like waves in the ocean. 

“Mr. Kim! Mr. Kim!” Someone calls. “Where’s your wife?”

Oh, God.

Taehyung grimaces a little, pursing his lips. “My wife won’t be joining me tonight.”

“Can you tell us why?” They shout. 

“Sorry, no more questions. Thank you for asking though. She’s well,” he says, quickly ushering himself along, entering the venue so no more reporters can bombard him. When he disappears, the livestream immediately moves on to the next guest, but you hardly pay them any attention. 

“Huh,” Victoria says aloud. 

Indeed. Taehyung’s response strikes you as rather odd. Why would he tell the public that? Why not make up a lie, say you’re sick, or you’re overseas, or you’re just late? Why simply tell them that you won’t be there? Surely, Taehyung is just as aware of the consequences of arriving at an event without you as you are. There’s no doubt that his parents will be in contact with him soon, too. No doubt that this will leave a stain on his family. His image. It might even threaten his inheritance after all.

So why not lie?

You frown to yourself, nose scrunching up in confusion. You don’t like where this train of thought leads.

“You okay?” Victoria asks when she sees the bewildered expression on your face.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” you say. Just completely befuddled. It escapes you, why Taehyung wouldn’t just make up some sort of excuse as to reasoning behind your absence. Why he would even show up at the event at all. Certainly, going to the event without you is worse than not going at all. It prompts questions. It spreads rumors. 

Later that night, you get a call from your parents, demanding to know why you weren’t there with him. You say you got sick. You plead with them not to question anything. 

You wonder what happens next. You and Taehyung still have two more events this week. A dinner and a ball. What will you do then?

Taehyung goes solo for the dinner. You suppose you could have predicted that, considering his apparent willingness to arrive alone for the first event, too. He hasn’t made any efforts to contact you and for once, you’re glad for his silence. Not that you even know what he would say to you, anyway, but at least he isn’t begging you to come back to him. 

The sad truth is that if he did, if he got down on his knees right in front of you and willed you to come back home, you probably would. He has always been impossible to resist. Even when you first met him, when he sauntered up towards you and told you he was your dream come true. You didn’t know it then. But he was. He was everything you would ever want. 

Why would he lie? 

Why would he do that?

You can’t wrap your head around it. What is he getting out of it by telling the truth? By admitting to the paparazzi, to the reporters and the cameramen, that you won’t be there with him. That you will not be joining him. Nothing, certainly. His parents must be furious. His inheritance may be on the rocks. His image might tank. 

So then, why do it at all?

Could it… could it be?

Is it true?

You have loved Taehyung for a long time. Longer than you probably even care to admit. You have always held your head high at events, spoken loudly and without fear, but being with him made you feel safe. Secure. You would hold his hand and know, know that he was holding yours, too. It grounded you. It soothed your worries. 

Does he really love you back?

Taehyung smiles politely and laughs when he needs to at these events, but he doesn’t look the same. Even through the screen you can see those bags under his eyes, that spark that has faded. You hardly recognize him. He looks so lonely, without someone by his side. So distant. 

When you know the dinner has ended, you almost pick up the phone and call him. 

Almost. 

Instead, when the ball rolls around, you ask Victoria if she’s got a spare dress she can lend you.

 Kim Taehyung, for someone you have seen covered in paint splotches, wearing old college hoodies, and fresh out of a restless night’s sleep, cleans up pretty well. For a married man, at least. 

You wonder what the past few days must have been like for him. If they have been as empty as your own. Wonder what it was like, riding alone in a big black van to this hotel ballroom, no one to tease, no one to laugh with, no one to hold. No one to poke him awake if he accidentally fell asleep. No one to make sure he’s okay. 

Taehyung stands right outside of the entrance, waving politely to all of the paparazzi, smiling as the cameras flash, giving them the time of day for a moment before he heads inside and muscles his way through another event without you. 

Or so he thinks. 

You spot him just as he opens his mouth, ready to repeat those same lines all over again.

My wife won’t be joining me tonight. She’s well, though.

And maybe it’s just because you haven’t seen him in nearly a week. Maybe it’s just because he is about to lie to those reporters once more, ready to face whatever consequences come his way. 

Or maybe it’s just because you miss him. Miss him terribly, have been missing him terribly. Being away from him was necessary, but that didn’t make it any less unbearable. Not getting to hold his hand, see his smile, meet his eyes. You and Taehyung may not have always liked each other, but you saw him every day regardless. He became a constant in your life. Not an if, but a when. If everything went to shit, you always knew he would still be there. 

And there he is. 

“Wait! Taehyung!”

Taehyung’s eyes widen as he hears your voice, gaze darting around wildly, mouth parted in surprise. He looks around desperately, scanning the crowd, meeting the eyes of every single person in front of him until he finally looks to the left, sees you rushing up towards him, hiking up the skirt of your dress as your heels tap against the sidewalk. 

And when he spots you, sees you running up to him, his body relaxes, a weight lifted from his shoulders as he beams back at you, relieved and thankful and filled with joy, all at once. And you know, then. 

You know that everything will be okay. 

“Sorry I’m late,” you say sheepishly, cheeks burning as he looks at you, takes in every inch of you, breathes you in and lets you fill him up. 

Taehyung doesn’t respond. You reach out to hold his hand but he grabs your wrist and pulls you in, presses you against his body as he presses his hands against your cheeks, palms burning as they meet your skin, and he kisses you. In front of all these people, he kisses you. 

And goddamnit, you will kiss him back. 

It feels like lightning, like a thunderstorm, like the waves of the ocean are crashing against your heart. It feels like fire, like flames are licking at your veins, sending sparks through your blood. It feels like home. 

You and Taehyung ignore the shouts of reporters, the flashes of cameras, the honks of the cars on the other side of the road. When you part, he presses his forehead against yours and lets the tip of your nose meet his. And you smile. 

“Don’t be alone any longer, Mr. Kim,” you whisper, loud enough so only he can hear. 

“When I’m with you, I never am, Mrs. Kim,” he murmurs back. 

You wonder what those tabloids will be saying about you tomorrow. 

The rest of the night finds the two of you pretty much inseparable. You wrap yourself around his arm and for the first time in a long time, he presses his hand against the small of your back, keeping you close. Like he’d ever lose you again. 

One of your least favorite parts about attending balls used to be the dancing. As a young and eligible bachelorette, you would always have to lock hands with another, let him awkwardly guide you along to the music as you made the worst small talk imaginable, forcing laughter and smiles whenever he said something he thought was particularly funny. 

But, like so many others, things have changed. Things are different now. 

The waltz comes on and you and Taehyung are the first to reach the center of the ballroom floor, letting him rest his hand on your waist as you press yours on top of his shoulder. Let him twirl you around the room as the orchestra plays in the background, a soft, sweet, light little melody that carries you along. 

“I missed this,” you say softly. 

“I missed us,” Taehyung corrects. He pauses for a moment, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry for not telling you about my inheritance.”

“I’m sorry for storming out. I should have listened to you.” you respond easily. You both have plenty to apologize for. But night is darkest right before dawn. 

“I should have said something,” Taehyung says with a shake of his head. “But I was just so—so worried that something would go wrong. And I didn’t know how to explain how I felt about you. I acted in the beginning, too, but then things changed.”

“They always do,” you muse with a grin. 

“I couldn’t believe I had you,” Taehyung admits. “I mean, look at you. You’re gorgeous. And funny. And true.”

“Go on,” you tease, even though you do nothing to hide the smile inching its way across your face, the heating of your cheeks, the simmering of your skin. 

“Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.” Taehyung rolls his eyes. “I just—I felt something for you I couldn’t explain. I still can’t.”

You don’t have to prod any further. You know. Deep within your heart, you know. There is love blossoming in his to match the garden that has bloomed in your own. The flowers that have sprouted in the ashes. He has them, too. And when those petals open and the light streams in, he will know. He will know, too. 

“You make me crazy,” you tell him, whispering gently into his skin. “But I’m a better person when I’m with you. I know I am.”

“I meant what I said, that night,” Taehyung says. Makes you wonder which night he’s actually talking about. “That I’m happy that things have changed. That things happened the way they did. I’m grateful for us.”

“I am, too,” you say. And you are. 

You rest your head against his chest as you dance together, swaying back and forth to the beat of the drums, to the strums of the violins, all wrapped up together like ivy, like vines. Those, too, sit in that garden of yours. Keep you tethered to his side, keep him close to yours. He holds you in his arms and he smiles, because he knows, too. Knows that that garden in your heart will soon have a matching one in his. A mirror image of who you are. Who you’ve become. 

Things change. They always will. But so long as he is by your side, and so long as you are by his, you know. Everything will be okay. 

It's different, this time, when Taehyung presses you into the mattress. 

There is no rush. Because now you know for certain that all the time in the world is yours. He is yours forever. You are his.

The two of you are a mixture of tangled limbs and shared breaths, the feverish, irrepressible need to give yourself to each other nearly tangible. He breaks the kiss suddenly, and you’re about to break out in protest. That is, until you see him unbuttoning his shirt.

Inspired, you wiggle out of your own clothes, eyes locked on Taehyung's soft torso and the idea that you had married such a beautiful man, inside and out.

Looking back, you wonder if that was always inevitable. If you and Taehyung falling into each other had been written in the stars from day one, sealed as your fate from the moment he came up to you at that ball when you were teenagers. He was going to be a part of your life no matter what. Whether or not you ended up marrying him. But having him like this?

It makes it all worth it.

"Do you like what you see?" That old cocky smirk of his makes an appearance.

You raise a brow, choosing to omit a response as you unclasp your bra, letting it fall from your chest.

Taehyung swallows.

"Do you?" You tease.

His response comes in the form of bites down your necks and licks down your chest, stealing your breath from you. 

Your clothes are somewhere dispelled beside your passionate bodies, growing cold beside the way your two hot bodies warmed one another.

"You are so beautiful," Taehyung praises, fingers coming up to cup your breast, bringing it up to his mouth.

You mewl, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as his tongue toys with your pert bud, teeth grazing it ever so often just to hear the broken gasp that'd always follow. 

"And so sensitive too," he giggles, making you pout. His hands are gentle as if every touch means something. As if you mean something—no, everything—to him. And the most wonderful part is that he means everything to you, too. 

"Shut up." You roll your eyes playfully, gasping as his palm comes down the side of your thigh suddenly in warning. You bite down your swollen bottom lip at the gush of arousal that dampened your underwear in response.

"Watch your tone, love. Of both our positions, you are in the most compromising one." He reminds you. It isn't a threat, and while usually, that kind of tone would thrill you, you couldn't help but want his mouth back on yours already.

"You talk too much." You flop back onto the bed with a sigh. Taehyung watches with interest as your pretty tits bounce in consequence. Extending your hands out towards him, you give him a pouty look. "Just wanna kiss you."

"Is that all I am to you? Just a pair of lips for you to mack on? I've got news for you, sweetheart, there's a brain behind these ravishing good looks." He scoffs in feigned offense, sitting back on his heels.

You giggle.

It seems as though even during the most intimate of moments, Taehyung still found a way to be, well, Taehyung. At least that hasn’t changed. 

"Whatever, pretty boy. Why don't you come over here and put that mouth of yours to good use?" You purr, making his eyebrows raise in surprise.

"Oh? I don't remember you being this assertive when I was pounding you into the mattress last time."

“What, I can’t have a little fun as well?” You tease, grinning as you look up at him, raking your eyes over his figure. 

"Wanna have fun, love?," He murmurs into your ears, hands gripping either of your plush thighs. "Then spread those pretty legs for me, and I'll show you exactly how much fun you can have."

God, you love this man.

You oblige eagerly, breath quickening as he helped you press your knees by your chest, leaving the wet patch in your underwear on full display. 

"My pretty little wife." He sighs dreamily, making heat rush to your core.

Taehyung's cock stood loud and proud, a hot reminder of where the night would eventually lead to. Seriously, how did you get so lucky? You must've been a saint in a previous life, you decide right then. Or at least, the stars have chosen to be rather kind to you in this one.

"Gonna take these off," he mutters, mostly to himself, tugging the ruined fabric over your ass and down your legs, with your help, of course.

Despite your usual display of confidence, lying beneath your husband, spread out like this, has you feeling vulnerable and slightly insecure. But that insecurity vanishes, however, as he lets out a soft moan, fingers moving to spread your glossed lips apart.

"So fucking pretty, baby. Gonna make you feel so fucking good," he groans, leaning down to press his face near your most intimate part.

Pressing a tentatively lick against, his eyes flicker up to yourself, curious to see if you’re okay with him proceeding. And, well, it’s not like you’re going to say no, are you?

Embarrassingly, you rut against him, making him laugh as you drown in your own mortification.

"Need it that bad, huh?" He coos.

"Yes, please."

The rest of your plea is lost in a moan as Taehyung finds your clit, wrapping his pink lips around the sensitive muscle and giving it a generous suck. Your hands are in his hair before you can think to stop yourself, tugging at his scalp deliciously as his mouth makes its way with you.

Thank goodness for this apartment belonging to just the two of you as the noises that tumbled from your lips surely would've left a roommate blushing.

You're panting, begging for more even though you aren't sure how you'd even handle more. It comes as a delight and slight surprise as fingers suddenly slip inside, wasting no time to rub against your velvety smooth walls, curling themselves inside you.

"Fuck, Tae!" you cry out, eyes squeezing shut.

It was pure reflex. Up until now, you had been watching Taehyung intently, completely consumed by the way his mouth moves against you. How his tongue flicks against your needy clit cruelly. It just felt too fucking good.

You're so wet, positively dripping down his chin as he runs his hot muscle up and down the length of your pussy, devouring you like he hadn't eaten in months, and you were his first meal.

Taehyung’s nothing short of addicting, completely and utterly intoxicating, and you slip further and further to your demise with every lick he takes, every press of his tongue against your clit.

He has a hand pressed against the lower half of your torso, feeling the way you jerk and squirm as he makes a mess of you. You’re close and you know it, too, if not by the way you’re calling his name over and over again, then by the way your thighs tremble, hardly even strong enough to stay up.

"Let go for me, love. I've got you." He sounds so sweet, so angelic, despite how filthy what he was doing to you was.

His words are the push you need, and, like a rubber band that has been stretched past its limit, you finally snap, back arching off the bed as you come with a cry. White fills your vision, and your mind goes blank, only sounds of blissful static filling your ears.

His fingers hold up your quivering legs, mouth pressing kisses onto your pussy encouragingly until you simply can't bear it any longer, pushing his mouth away as you stutter out words of sensitivity and overstimulation.

“I’m going to have to request more of that throughout this marriage.” You manage to say once your vision and breath come back to you.

Grabbing one of your hands, Taehyung brings it to his mouth.

“All you need do is ask,” he replies, making you laugh as he presses a kiss to the back of your hand, always a gentleman

Not long after, you find yourself pressed against Taehyung, tongue running against his as he presses his hips into yours. He isn’t coy about his want for you, rolling his cock against your already sensitive center. Warm precum leaks onto your lower abdomen, and suddenly, all you can think about is having him inside you again.

“Taehyung?”

You don’t even need to ask. Hitching your leg around his thigh, he knows exactly what you’re seeking, lining up his leaking cock with your swollen entrance.

Pressing into you, he buries himself to the hilt, groaning out as your warmth envelopes him. You moan out so prettily for him, feeling tight and full with your first orgasm only minutes ago.

“You okay?” he hums, kissing your cheek.

You nod, ears warm at the intimacy of the moment. In many ways, this is nothing like your first time together. You are face to face, eye to eye, heart to heart. Between your bodies could be found more than just desire, but commitment. Devotion. Love. 

“I love you, Tae.” You gush, sighing out as he begins to rock into you.

He falters slightly at your confession but recovers quickly, intertwining his hand with yours and pressing it by your head.

Faintly, you realize. 

That was the first time you had ever told him that.

You look up at him, expecting some wide eyes or even a bit of a nervous tilt to his lips, but all you are met with is a glow. He beams down at you, and your heart swells. 

“I love you, too, Y/N,” he whispers, but you hear the words in your ears loud and clear.

Soft noises fill the room as the two of you become one—hearts synchronizing with one another in silent promise.

It was a promise unlike the one you had made to each other that day at the altar, for this one was real. This one was true.

You shutter with every thrust of his hips, your abused clit finding itself in the crossfire of Taehyung’s passionate motions.

Whimpering, you cling to him, overwhelmed and emotional, like your heart was about to burst. Taehyung lights a fire in you, sends lightning straight through your core. Every word, every smile, every kiss, every touch, they send shivers down your spine, tingles throughout your skin. It’s like you’re falling in love with him all over whenever you see him, whenever his deep brown eyes meet your own.

You remember being so afraid of love that you broke up with all your old boyfriends because of it. Because you couldn’t commit, because you were worried about your career, because they just didn’t give you that spark. But lying here pressed against him, against your husband, you aren’t afraid. Wrapped up around him, tangled up in him, you know. 

Between messy kisses and words of adoration, you find yourself growing closer and closer to your release. Brows furrowed and neck flushed, you come with a soft whimper of his name, coaxing his own orgasm out of him. He lets go inside you, painting you with his seed in a way that pleases you to no end.

Hand still in yours, he gives it a squeeze, pressing a kiss onto your damp chest, right over where your heart beats for him.

“I love you,” Taehyung says again when you meet his eyes, firmer this time, louder. Like he’s worried you didn’t believe him the first time. 

“I know,” you say with a giggle, the words going straight to your head—and your heart. 

Taehyung scowls. “What, no ‘I love you’ back? Is that what I’m hearing?”

“Well, only because you want one so badly,” you tease, pressing a quick kiss to his round button nose. “I love you, too, Tae. Always will.”

“I think I knew, then,” Taehyung says with a fond sigh, nostalgia overcoming his expression. “That first time we met. I knew you would be mine, one day.”

“You got lucky,” you scoff slightly. “But I’m glad things happened the way they did.”

“You’re my dream come true, Y/N,” he says. 

“And you are mine,” you murmur.

As the two of you drift off, all twisted up in each other, so mixed up you can’t figure out where you end and he begins, you think back to that night. That ball. 

“Who are you?” You ask, nose scrunched up in distaste. Before you stood a boy you had never met before, wearing shoes that were too big for him and a suit that was a touch too small. 

He grins at you, running a hand through his perfectly-styled hair fringe swiped neatly over his forehead, and he says, “your dream come true.”

And so it was. 

don’t forget to message me! ~ and don’t forget to message rose!

[chilumi-shipper]

When Mommy's Resting

Diluc x Fem!Reader

Warning: Smut, NSFW, Mommy Kink, Consensual Somnophilia, Sub Diluc, Dom Mommy Reader, Overstimulation, Oral Sex (Reader Receiving)

Summary: To most people, Diluc was a man of mystery, a strong, rich and handsome business man who seems to always be stoic, but within the space of your own home, he is just sensitive baby who likes getting you to ride his dick. He was obedient, until of course he was put under the influence of the Cavalry Captain.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

Diluc was done for the night, he sighed, it was a long day bartending at the tavern, he can't wait to just go home to you and cuddle up to mommy.

As he was cleaning up, he thought if you were still awake at this hour. 'Probably not, she did tell me that she has a lot of things to do with Cyrus and the others in the Adventurer's Guild, she must be tired.'

As he was wiping down the counter, he heard the door of the tavern open and close, and an unwanted guest stood right in front of him. The Cavalry Captain, Kaeya, who seems to wear a smirk quite different from his usual grin.

"Diluc, good you're still here." The blue haired man walked up to him, arms crossed with mischief painted on his feature.

"We're closed, better get going, Sir Kaeya." Diluc said with a rather tensed and irritated voice. But that only seemed to amuse the knight.

"Ohh, I see." The blue haired man still sat on a stool in front of his brother though. "Eager to see your Mommy back at the Dawn Winery?" Diluc froze up, looking at the former with a shocked expression that seemed to irk him even more.

"I d-don't know what you're talking about." Diluc stuttered, turning away from his brother and pretended to clean up the other parts of the counter.

The Cavalry Captain chuckled, "She told me." 'No, she wouldn't, my Y/N would never.' "Told me about what goes around you guys, pretty interesting. It makes me quite jealous, my flings aren't usually comfortable with that kind of relationship." He continued and Diluc's clenched his hand in frustration. You did tell him! And now that one eyed punk is gonna try to gt you from him.

He looked back at the smirking man and glared. "Don't get any ideas, bastard." He'll never let anyone steal you from him.

"Relax, brother. Although I am quite interested in that kind of relationship, I'm quite sure she doesn't like anyone but you." Kaeya laughed, "However, she did tell me another thing. You're a bit too obedient aren't you?" Diluc felt uncomfortable, sure when you tell him that he's a good boy, kiss his forehead and pat his head while you ride him, he feels so good about himself, other people telling him just makes him uneasy.

"This is between me and her, it's non of your business, Kaeya." He said in a serious tone. "I'd rather not talk about this." Diluc straightened up, finished up cleaning and walked away from his brother.

As he was about to leave though, the knight stopped him. "Don't you want to contribute more on that relationship, she seems to be the only one putting in actual effort." Kaeya stated to him. He smiled when Diluc stopped and sighed.

"Alright, what do you have in mind?"

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

He can't believe it, why is he doing this?

Did you think he was boring? Maybe you complained to Kaeya about him and his brother is just giving him a boost.

Yeah, maybe that's it.

Well, anyway, as he watched your sleeping figure, Diluc smiled a bit, you look so beautiful, like an angel, and now he's supposed to take you this way.

Being honest to himself, he is so excited! You two have always been so comfortable around each other, to the pint where he basically knows that you won't mind what he's doing right now, taking of your garments that didn't even cover much in the first place.

He loves seeing your naked body, you perfect boobs that he loves to suck on when you shove his face onto your chest, your skin with a few stretch marks that only he's been able to see, your plump thighs that you squeeze around his head whenever you order him to eat you out, and then, your pretty little cunt, just made for him and his cock, the juices you make are like a sweet tasty treat just for him.

Diluc can't wait to taste it again.

Gently spreading you're legs apart, he was met by your slightly wet pussy, he can practically feel his mouth watering with hunger for you. Diluc tested the waters buy liking your clit with the tip of his tongue, you didn't move. He felt his heartbeat increasing by the second. He was still afraid to wake you up, deep down, he wants to keep his title as your good boy despite him defiling you right now.

'Fuck it.' And he just shoves his face between your legs, lapping your juices and sucking on your clit. He can hear you let out a few whimpers, Diluc's never heard that before! Usually you're the one that always makes him moan and scream, this time he can actually hear you make lewd sounds! And boy does he love it, the noises you make irks him on even more.

He sucked even harder on your clit and that's when you let out a moan that just straight up went to his cock.

"D-Diluc?" He looked up and there you were, with tired eyes that looked so so cute. But he didn't stop sucking though and you kept moaning. "Ughh, baby.... Mhhhm, baby, what are you- Ohhh!" His tongue grazed your hole, which made you jump. And now you're holding his head and shoving it down even more, as you grind your cunt on his face. "Ohhh, that feels so good, Luc." You moaned out.

Diluc loves it, the way you just grind on him mouth, loves how much juices your giving him. He just really loves you.

And you came hard on his mouth, which he of course as a good boy, swallowed.

Your head fell back onto the bed. Tired from your post orgasm. You felt your Diluc suck a few more times to clean up your cunt before slipping beside you.

You rised up and open your arms for him, and he gladly welcomed himself into your warmth, laying his head between your boobies.

"What was that for, love?" You asked him. He felt his heart clench. Did you not like it? And now he's gonna lose his good boy privileges.

"You didn't feel good, Mommy?" He asked with a broken tone, looking up at you to see that you're already staring at him.

"Of course I did, silly!" You laughed a little, "I think I was just surprised, my baby boy, doing something so naughty." You booped his nose as he smiled a little.

When you told Kaeya about Diluc and your kinks and stuff, you knew he was gonna go to Diluc to embarrass and probably suggest something to him. But you never expected Kaeya to tell Diluc to eat you out in your sleep!

You did purposely do that so Diluc would have motivation for a little spice. And you got it, and boy did it feel amazing.

"But was I good?"

"You always are, baby."

With that, he nuzzled his face at your chest lovingly.

"But..."

His ears perked up. "It's not fair that Mommy's the only one to cum right?" You asked teasingly.

And then he felt it, the painfully hard cock still confined within his pants. You start to rub it with your leg.

You are gonna give him a lot tonight.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

"Ahhh... Mommy, please.... ughh." You stroked his messy red hair as you savagely went up and down on his cock, squeezing it so good with your delicious pussy walls.

And he let out a low grunt as he came once again, he's so tired from cumming so many times inside you already. But just looking at your face and down to where you two connect makes him hard all over again. It just feels too good to stop.

"That's right." You roll your hips around before slamming back down to take all of him. "Moan for me, baby. Tell Mommy what you want." You grabbed his hands and guide them to cup and fondle your boobs as you ride him.

He came so many times that there's only a little bit coming out when he hits his peak.

"P-please, make me cum inside you again." He said while holding back a few moans.

He lets out a growl after he came out for the last time and you felt his seed pour into your cunt that's already full of his cum.

Getting up from his dick, his and your cum starts to drip down your thighs.

You sat down between his legs and spread you thighs to show him your pussy stuffed full of your shared cum. "Oh, baby. Look at that, you came so much, huh?" You giggled as it dripped out of you.

"M-Mommy, please keep it inside." He whispered in a low voice, making you smile even more. Exhaustion was shown all over his features. You knew that he did feel better if you keep all his cum inside you every time you make him cum so many times.

You giggled again, "Alright, baby. Go to sleep, maybe we'll do this again tomorrow morning." He nodded before closing his eyes.

But before you can even lay next to him, his eyes opened up immediately.

"Why did you tell Kaeya?"

Oh, right. Hehe.

[itsallyscorner]

“Move the plans”

Pairing: Florence Pugh x actress!reader (platonic)

Summary: Florence tells you to cancel your plans when she ends up in New York.

Warnings: Nothing really bad. Mentions lactose intolerance? Idk if that’s sensitive to people. Probably some spelling errors.

A/n: Hello darlings! I’m back from my unannounced break. I decided to write a platonic Florence fic because she’s a sweetheart and I loved her as Yelena! Also for those who follow me, don’t worry, I will be working on a sequel to my Tom Holland “Sour” fic!! But for now, please enjoy this fic!😚💕

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

(Loml)

✧───── ･ ｡ﾟ★: *. ☽.* :★. ─────✧

You stood backstage in front of a mirror, looking at your appearance and making sure there were no wrinkles on the dress you wore. Your hairstylist was behind you, fluffing your hair and managing the stray baby hairs on your head. You were currently at NBC Studios in New York City, about to do an interview with the infamous, Jimmy Fallon. Tingles buzzed through your skin as you heard the cheers and music from the stage. Jimmy’s voice can be heard faintly backstage, only adding to your growing excitement.

The sound of heels clicking approached you, it took less than a second for you to feel the warm presence of Florence behind you. The both of you were starring in the upcoming Black Widow movie alongside Scarlett Johansson; after months of working together and spending days hanging out, you and Florence had become very close friends. She was, without a doubt, your favorite person in the world. Since the moment you met her, she had always been the most sweetest and caring person you’ve ever met—and you were proud to say you had her in your corner.

You met Flo’s eyes in the mirror and bright smiles were instantly on your faces. Turning around, you open your arms wide, and wrap them around her. Bear hugs were a must in your friendship with Flo, you both just loved receiving hugs from each other.

“Ahhh! I told you that dress would be perfect for tonight, you look stunning!” She squealed, tightening her arms around you. A day before Jimmy Fallon, you and Flo had been at your place with your stylist, picking out which dress you should wear for the interview. The dress was casual, but the color was so ever vibrant that it made the dress pop.

You pulled out the hug and looked at what she was wearing. Her gorgeous blonde hair was curled into loose locks and her dress was just as vibrant as yours. The pink of her dress and the orange (yellowish?) of yours complimented each other. Which coincidentally enough, was a parallel of your lovely friendship with Florence.

“Me? Flo, you look gorgeous! I’m so obsessed with this look!” You help her twirl, hyping her up as she showed off her outfit. After sneaking in a little mirror selfie and posting it onto Instagram, the two of you were given a five minute warning from one of the crew members. You and Flo were moved to stand behind the curtain, waiting for your cues to walk onto the stage.

While the two of you were getting mic’d up, Florence leaned closer to you.

“Can I be completely honest with you?” She mumbled, her stare remaining on the curtain before her. Your brow raises in curiosity as your head slightly turns to look at her.

“Of course, hun. What’s up?” You ask, your attention on her. She sighs and leans even closer so only you can hear her.

“I feel like I’m about to shit my pants.” She admits, swallowing nervously. Your mouth gapes, “Did you have iced coffee too?”

Flo’s face scrunches up in confusion, “N-no! That was me telling you I was nervous! Did you have iced coffee?” She fully turns to look at you and judging by the look of guilt plastered across your face, you did in fact have iced coffee.

“Maybe?” You answer, though it came out more like a question. Florence rolls her eyes at you.

“(Y/n), how many times do you have to be reminded that you’re lactose intolerant?” She scolded you.

You scoff, holding a hand up at her, “Trust me, I’m reminded every time I sit on a toilet.” You shake your head, trying to refocus the conversation.

“This isn’t about my poor digestive system—why are you nervous?”

She sighs, “I don’t know why I’m so nervous, I’m used to doing interviews and stuff. But I haven’t been on Jimmy Fallon, and there’s an audience out there and I don’t want to mess up or accidentally spoil the movie.”

You place a reassuring hand on her shoulder, “You may be British, but you’re not Tom Holland. You won’t spoil anything.” You start. She quickly shoots you a look that screams, “you’re not helping”. You make a gesture physically telling her that you’re getting to the point.

“You’re going to be fine! I mean you did Jimmy Kimmel right? This shouldn’t be that different, it’s the same thing—just different studios, in different states, and different Jimmy’s.” You point out. She nods along as you continue, “Plus, I’m gonna be up there with you. You won’t be alone.”

With the help of your reassurance and witty little comments, Florence felt her anxiousness simmer down. They weren’t completely gone but the fact that you were gonna be up there together made her relax more. Being part of Marvel had its pros and cons. Sure, the movies are spectacular and the actors are outstanding. Though when it comes to doing promo for said movies, it can be quite stressful. It’s a known fact that Marvel and it’s executives can be quite strict when it comes to interviews with anyone involved in the making of their films—their strictness made sense, although for first time MCU members, it took some getting used to.

Florence smiles at you, “Thank you.”

You playfully nudge her shoulder with yours, “Don’t worry about it.” You say with a kind smile.

The wholesome moment was interrupted by one of the stagehands telling you and Florence that the two of you were on in 15 seconds.

“Our guests tonight are making their big MCU debut in the new Black Widow film, please welcome (Y/n) (L/n) and Florence Pugh!”

⚘

“So in the movie, there’s three of you guys—where’s the other one?” Jimmy asked, motioning his hand to the small space between you and Flo.

“She’s at home I believe.” Florence answered, glancing at you. “She’s busy doing stuff, you know—adult things.” She added.

You took the opportunity to make a joke and said, “Yet here we are promoting her movie.” You roll your eyes playfully. The crowd bursts out laughing, along with Jimmy, who smacked his desk.

“You know, we deserve a raise for this.” Flo considers, going along with your joke. She slightly snorts and nudges your arm with her elbow. “We could take Scarlett’s check and just split it in half for ourselves.”

“Problem solved.” You shrugged, high fiving her.

Another round of laughs fill the room as Jimmy says, “So you’re both taking Scarlett’s money?”

Jokingly, you nod in approval, “By the end of this interview? Definitely.”

Dropping the bit, you shake your head with a grin on your face. “I’m kidding! I’m only joking, I wouldn’t do that to her, even if I were forced to.”

Jimmy moves on as a picture of you, Florence, and Scarlett pops up on the screen. The picture had been posted on your Instagram and was taken while the three of you were filming in between takes. You were taking the selfie while Scarlett and Florence were poking their heads out from behind you making funny faces.

“I can’t imagine how exciting it is to be on a Marvel set, and to even work with one of the first ever heroes in the MCU—that must be insane!” Jimmy exclaims, motioning to another picture of the three of you.

“It’s unbelievable. To work alongside Scarlett and to follow this kind of path that she’s paved in the MCU is an honor. She really was like our older sister behind the scenes, because she was always guiding us and taking care of everyone. She’s the best.” Florence responded while you nodded in agreement.

“I watched the movie last night and one of the things I enjoyed the most was the dynamic the three of you had. You guys were like actual siblings.” Jimmy mentioned, motioning between you and Flo.

Florence giggled before squeezing you into a tight hug, “Yeah, she’s my big sister.” You smiled beamingly, patting her cheek before she let go.

“No, really! She’s like my actual younger sister.” You tell the audience, who “awed” at the hug you both shared. “We spent months on this movie and we spent every single day with each other. By the middle of production, we were basically roommates.”

“Roommates?” Jimmy questioned, leaning his elbows on his desk.

“Because I was always at her house.” Florence answered in a ‘duh’ tone. “I’ve actually grown an attachment to (Y/n), she’s like my comfort blanket. So I need to have her with me at all times. If she’s not with me, I just won’t leave the house.”

“Speaking of your attachment to (Y/n), there’s this video of you that you apparently sent her?” Jimmy gestured at you, “And you posted it on your Instagram and now the whole internet is obsessed with it.”

“Yup, that’s the one.” You confirmed.

“I know there’s probably some people who haven’t seen it, so here’s the video.” The video of Florence popped up on the screen and began to play.

(This fic was based on this TikTok😭)

Jimmy looked at you and Florence in amusement, “Can we get some context?”

Florence waved her hand at the screen and said, “As you can all see, I’m very persistent.”

“This wasn’t your first time sending her these kinds of videos?” Jimmy asked. You shook your head, a feign look of annoyance on your face.

“No, she does this all the time.”

“In my defense, I was unexpectedly flying out to New York for a project. I knew I was gonna be in the city for a few days, so I decided to call (Y/n) and make the most of my trip.” Flo defended herself, slightly pouting.

You leaned your head on her shoulder, “To be fair, it was also our first time seeing each other since we wrapped Black Widow, and we really missed each other.”

“(Y/n), did you have to move any plans?” Jimmy turns to you. Florence does the same.

“You know what, you never told me if you had plans or not.” She squints her eyes at you. Your arms crossed while your body slowly sunk into the couch.

You pretend to fix your lipstick, quickly muttering, “I might’ve moved some plans around.”

Florence’s mouth gapes in shock, her entire body freezing. She grips onto your shoulder, “Wait, you actually moved plans for me?”

“I might’ve rescheduled a lunch with someone, but that doesn’t really matter.” You replied, trying to move on from the topic. Jimmy pointed at you, a giant grin on his face, “You actually moved plans for Florence!”

Florence’s mouth was still wide in shock, “I can’t believe you actually moved plans for me—(Y/n)!” She whined.

“I missed seeing you, so of course I had to move them.” You bashfully explained, the corners of your lips turning upwards. Florence pulled you into a hug.

“Gosh, you really do love me!” She exclaimed.

“I really do!” You said, your arms wrapping around her as well.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

🏷 Tags:

*if there’s a line through your url, Tumblr won’t let me tag you :(*

Marvel cast/Avengers x reader tags ↴

↪︎ @ximaginx @lozzypoz321 @sunwardsss @pokemonbong @pjokotlcmarvel201 @whoslili @marvel-is-a-mood @blckyungblood @astroponyo @universemarvel @imthebadguyyy @roseke @this-is-gg @httpscarletwitch @msminutes @cristin-rjd @swords-are-cool @melaninfalconbucky @deamus-liv @elvish-sky @catsandbooksandstuff @ellajoy419 @moonlight-babe99 @teti-menchon0604 @bestillmystuckyheart @captainwans @mischiefmanaged144 @marvelfan2300 @hello-yoi

General tags (besties) ↴

↪︎ @bucksmotel @just-here-to-escape-from-reality @agustdowney @thegirlwiththediary @rqmanoff @sesamepancakes @stardustofreading @alyssathesoftie @ifyouknewhowmiserylovedme @kaitieskidmore1 @6r4cie @bi-lmg07 @pogueslandia

[barakittens517]

Part VIII: The Memory

Summary: In which the consequences commence.

PT VII: The Truth

Words: 3,809

Warnings: mention of (brief) physical abuse

Pairing: Morpheus x gender neutral reader

Notes: getting closer to finishing this makes me so happy n sad at the same time :') fair warning- these last parts are gonna be longer (and hopefully updated sooner) cause i love y'all!!

Tag List: @ponyboys-sunsets @i-am-not-a-raccoon-anymore @memento-mora @freedomsofdream

Lucienne is waist-high in a mix of open books and papers in the palace library. She doesn’t even notice the two of you walk in, until Matthew caws from his perch on one of the higher shelves. She looks surprised to see you again, even more so to see the dream lord reach for your hand once more. 

You focus your gaze on the raven, wondering briefly if he is one of Morpheus’ creations. When he tilts his head to look at you, you look away. Not taking chances on avian suicide. 

“Lucienne, I- we need your help,” Morpheus says, and you can see his librarian nod in response. 

“Of course, my lord. How may I be of assistance?” 

Oh, boy. You do not envy trying to explain this situation to anyone. Morpheus pauses for a moment before answering. 

“Ellis is… they’re one of my creations. A companion.” Lucienne raises her eyebrows. “But something is wrong. I am hoping perhaps you could find an answer.”

“What seems to be the issue, my lord?” She eyes you skeptically. You’re used to it, in a sense. The general population is not a fan of those who cannot maintain eye contact- one begins to look rather guilty that way. 

You watch for a moment as Morpheus visibly struggles to find the right words, and decide to take one for the team. 

“I can kill people,” you answer. Lucienne’s expression does not change, but Matthew caws softly, as if to say what the fuck?

“If I make eye contact,” you explain further, “People kill themselves. Kind of, um… religious guilt, I guess. Or regular guilt, really.”

“And you do this… on purpose?” Lucienne asks. She glances down to one of the books on the stack to her left and begins flipping through it. 

You shrug, mostly because the answer lately has been yes but it’s not like you’re a stone-cold serial killer. You’re not the Corinthian.

“Um… well, I didn’t really know I could, I guess? For a while? But it’s getting worse, I think.” You let go of Morpheus’ hand and begin fidgeting with one of the rings on your finger. 

“I did not make them this way,” Morpheus adds. He steps closer to Lucienne and lowers his voice, although you still hear him. “They left… unfinished.” 

So now you’re a broken, incomplete creation? Christ, what next? Your warranty expired fifty years ago? 

Lucienne looks puzzled, and you can tell she’d rather have this conversation without you. You’ll admit it is awkward, but you want the truth as badly as anyone else in the room. 

Matthew is the first to break the silence, swooping down to the table in front of you. “You don’t look unfinished to me,” he says. 

You can’t help laughing. “Thank you, I guess.” 

“That certainly narrows down the list of suspects,” Lucienne comments. She’s grabbed a second book now and has started writing on one of the blank papers. She stops after a moment and looks up at you, frowning. “This is going to take some time.”

“How long?” Morpheus asks. The concern is crystal-clear. 

Lucienne sighs. “That depends. In the meantime…” She nods in your direction. Morpheus turns to his raven. 

“Matthew, would you take Ellis to a guest room? I will be up shortly.” He turns back around, preoccupied with Lucienne’s notes. They’ve started speaking in hushed tones, and you feel incredibly out of place standing in the background. 

The raven, thankfully, takes it all in stride. “No problem, boss.” He flies to the library door and waits for you to open it. “I never thought I’d miss having hands,” he jokes, and you smile. 

You follow Matthew down the hallway to a staircase off to the side. The second floor is a long hall filled with closed doors. You shake off the thought of the orphanage dormitory. Matthew stops at the room farthest down the hall. 

“I’m pretty sure this is it,” he announces. “It’s been a while since we’ve had guests.” 

You open the door to reveal a darkened room. The light switch to your right ignites several gas lamps that illuminate the walls, covered in landscape paintings and framed in ornate metals. A giant, four-poster bed takes up a large portion of the room. There’s a stone fireplace built into the wall across from the bed. 

“This is… nice,” you decide, unsure of what reaction is appropriate here.

The curtains on the far wall are covered in a thick layer of dust, and opening them envelops you in a swirling, hazy cloud. After a brief coughing fit, you’re able to see what they had been hiding- tall glass doors that lead to a balcony overlooking an edge of the castle. 

After watching the sunset in Fiddler’s Green, you were a little worried nightfall would just be dark. After all, nights were the hardest in the waking world without a roof over your head. But even the clearest sky in the country could not compare to the view from your room. 

Billions of stars twinkle from above in more colors than you’d thought possible. A wide swath of the sky is an opalescent white, and the stars that peek through are foggy and blurred. Even without the sun, you can still see to the far edge of the city. 

“Pretty cool, huh?” Matthew asks. He’s made the railing his personal perch, and the brightest star light brings out the iridescence of his feathers.

“Definitely not a bad view,” you agree. You sit in silence for a moment, taking in the cool night air. “How long have you been here?” you ask. 

“Not long, I guess. Long enough to know it’s not a bad gig,” he answers. You nod. “You’ve been here, what, a day maybe?” he asks. 

“Something like that,” you sigh, perching your elbows on the marble railing. 

“Dream’s not a bad guy… I mean, for being an Endless, he’s probably one of the best,” Matthew says. “Have you met his siblings?” 

You wrinkle your nose at the idea of Morpheus having a family. He doesn’t really seem like the family type. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Death is nice,” Matthew comments, “But the others… Yeah, it’s probably better you don’t know ‘em. Desire’s a whole load of trouble, and Despair isn’t far behind.”

As much as you appreciate the raven’s attempt at hospitality, you don’t really want to talk about the Endless right now. After all, you’ve just witnessed one of their lifetimes, and you can’t imagine anyone envying that. 

Matthew can tell something’s off- even a regular raven could tell you that. He opts to tell you about the people he’s met from the waking world, hoping you’ll feel comfortable enough to share some of your background in return. 

You keep it light and (mostly) sweet, glossing over the Marwoods and instead expressing how much you loved the children. You skip right over the orphanage to your meeting the Corinthian, and somehow manage to make light of the fact that three people died along the way. 

Matthew is kind enough to fill in the gaps as far as where Rose Walker actually was, and how Fiddler’s Green got to the convention. You want to ask how Fiddler’s would know anything about you, but you don’t. 

Instead, you choose to talk about Morpheus. After all, your first meeting was not a great one. Morpheus was understandably thoughtless after destroying a prized creation, and you were convinced of your imminent destruction. 

Matthew was just happy to see Fiddler’s Green again. It had felt a lot like herding cats, trying to get all of the rogue dreams back home. The metaphor makes you laugh, and you fall into a pleasant, yet thoughtful silence. 

Nothing had truly felt real after you met the Corinthian, not until this very moment. The thought is sobering, and you turn to the raven once more.

“Do you think they’re going to find an answer?” 

Matthew sits for a moment. “I don’t know,” he replies quietly. “Lucienne’s a freakin’ genius, and Dream, well… He’s stubborn. One way or another, he’s not gonna give up.” 

You cringe at the thought of the dream lord being so determined to fix you. What if it isn’t even worth it? 

“What if I just… get stuck like this?” you ask. For once, you’re grateful you can’t make eye contact. It also helps that Matthew is a bird, and not a human being with facial expressions. 

“There’s gotta be a solution,” Matthew replies. “And if there isn’t, I would bet my life savings on Morpheus making one. Well, if I still had a life savings. You know how it is.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Morpheus’ voice rumbles from the room. Matthew caws in surprise and immediately hops from the railing. 

“Ellis and I were just talking about, uh, the waking world,” the raven says nervously. 

“Matthew has been good company,” you add, and you can see Morpheus give his raven a knowing look. Matthew ruffles his feathers and looks away.

“I’m glad to hear it,” he replies. “Matthew, I believe Lucienne has some raspberries saved for you in the library.” 

Matthew caws. “You had me at raspberries, boss. Good luck Ellis!” he calls as he flies off the balcony. 

You turn and lean against the railing, crossing your arms in front of you. “That didn’t take long.”

Morpheus smiles faintly. “Well, Lucienne is still finishing up on some profiles in the library. I had an idea that may work, but I need you for it.” 

You shrug. “I guess I’m game for it. There’s not much of a choice, huh?” 

“You always have a choice,” Morpheus replies, frowning. 

“Okay, then yes.” 

He nods and motions for you to follow him back into the guest room. It appears substantially brighter (and cleaner), and you can see the fireplace has been lit, casting weak shadows on the wall. 

The dream lord takes a seat on the edge of the bed. You stand, crossing your arms once more. For some reason, he looks as anxious as you feel. 

“So what’s your idea?” you ask. 

“Your memories,” Morpheus answers. “You haven’t had many dreams. But you have visited past memories. I am curious how much of them are hidden, subconsciously.”

“How would I-you… well, we. How would we get to them?” 

Morpheus takes a small cloth bag from his coat. “You’ve been dreaming them. I believe we may be able to find them there.”

“So what, I just sleep?” you ask. “‘Cause that’s not… I mean, I don’t really sleep. But-”

“I am the god of dreams, little one,” he interrupts. “And my sand will inspire sleep. From there, the search will begin.” 

You’re more than mildly uncomfortable at the idea of wandering through your own memories, much less with Morpheus at your side. You assume he has the means to keep you safe, but you’d rather not have him bear witness to your past. 

Morpheus knows this, and it’s easy to pick up on your anxieties- now that he knows what you are, and what your life has looked like, he can read you more or less like an open book. 

“You won’t be alone, Ellis,” he says, “And I am not one to pass judgment on your life. It is my own fault you had to fend for yourself.” 

“It wasn’t.. I mean, you didn’t have a choice,” you reply. “It’s fine.” It does not feel fine, but what else are you supposed to say? 

“In any case, it’s best we do this now. For as many resources as Lucienne has at her disposal, I’m not sure what answers she’s able to find. Whoever did this remains a threat to all I’ve created.” 

You nod and uncross your arms, moving to sit next to the dream lord on the edge of the bed. “So what, you just… sprinkle it?” you ask. He smiles, and you can feel your heartbeat increase- embarrassingly so. 

In the next moment, you’re asleep. It’s a memory of your first night at the Marwood home- you’d recognize their dilapidated farmhouse anywhere. You’re standing in the front yard, by the row of ash trees lining the dirt road to the property. 

Your heart aches upon hearing the children playing in the backyard. You would do anything to see David again, to see Eden smiling and laughing like she used to. You have to remind yourself that you’re on a mission, although Morpheus is nowhere to be found. 

Regardless, you begin walking down the lane. He’s bound to catch up at some point, right? Just as you reach the main road, you hear hoofbeats pounding the dirt ahead of you. Your stomach sinks at the sight of him. Saul. 

He must be three sheets to the wind already, riding at breakneck speed. What an idiot. Part of you hopes he’ll fall before he reaches you, but no dice. 

“What the hell are you doing?” he yells, pulling his horse up in front of you. The poor creature is covered in sweat and foaming at the bit. 

“I don’t know,” you answer, which is the truth. You’re not quite sure how the memory thing works. Can you get hurt? Can you hurt anyone else?

“Well you’re not fuckin’ leaving,” he growls, leaning over and grabbing you by the arm. 

“I can walk just fine,” you spit back, but he won’t let go. You start to panic. Without Morpheus, you really don’t have much control over the situation. And as much as you hate to admit it, you’ve always been terrified of Saul. 

“Oh, can you now? You think you can keep up with me?” He nudges his horse to a trot, and you trip over your feet while still trying to wrench your arm from his vice-like grip. 

“Saul, please don’t do this,” you plead. “I wasn’t going anywhere, okay? I’ll come back. I’ll walk back with you, right now.” 

He laughs. “No, no, this’ll be much faster. Maybe then you’ll learn not to test your limits around me.” 

Just before he’s able to nudge the horse into a full gallop, both rider and mount disappear. You fall roughly to the dirt, skinning your elbows in the process. Morpheus is next to you in an instant. He looks angry. 

“I’m fine,” you say quickly, standing and brushing the dirt from your jeans. 

“No,” he disagrees, “I should have been here.”  

You flinch when he reaches for your arms, carefully inspecting the damage. Just like before, they’re healed in an instant. You’re so overwhelmed with gratitude to be rescued from such a godawful memory, you wrap your arms around the dream lord. 

He pulls you even closer, pressing his lips gently to the top of your head. “I am sorry, little one,” he murmurs before pulling away. “Lucienne interrupted me. She believes our answers can be found sometime before the orphanage.”

“That was, what, in the past? How do we go back?” you ask. 

Morpheus keeps an arm around you and points to the Marwood house. “We go through that door.” 

Your stomach twists. “Are you sure? I mean, is that the only option?” 

He nods. “Yes. You’re safe with me. I promise.” He offers you his arm. You take it, pushing the fear farther down to your stomach.  

Morpheus opens the door to the Marwood’s house, but stops you before you can walk through. From over his shoulder, you can see the roof of the orphanage. You feel sick. 

“I will not let anything happen to you,” he swears, “But I do not know what we will find.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t know either,” you joke. Morpheus smiles, but you can see he doesn’t quite mean it. 

“Ellis,” he starts again, and then stops. “Stay close, alright?” You nod, and reach to lace your fingers through his. 

Without another word, you both step through the doorway. You’re transported to the street in front of the orphanage that leads to town. To your right, you can see Ms. Jude tending the flowers that decorate the window boxes at the front of the brick mansion. Panic overtakes any rational thought.

“Let’s go,” you say quickly, and make a beeline for the rest of town. 

“Ellis?” you hear her call out, but you don’t turn around, praying that she thinks you’re just a case of mistaken identity. What would you even say to her? In less than a year, she’ll find you a terrible home. And a handful of years down the road, you will be the reason she dies. 

Once you’re farther down the road, you have time to gather your thoughts without the threat of a panic attack. “What are we even looking for?” you ask, although it comes out rather harsh. Morpheus frowns. 

“Someone with a very unusual ability,” he answers. Boy, that narrows it down. “Do you remember much of the town?” he asks. 

Your reconstructed memories lack stability, and the people walking past you look more like shitty NPCs than real humans. Some of the buildings phase in and out of existence, reappearing slightly more authentic as you focus. 

You spent somewhere around two months in London before Ms. Jude found you. You wrack your brain for any memory of that first day, and the buildings adapt around you to the shreds of memory you find. 

You had been dressed simply, in a white button down shirt and jeans. Both were almost beyond repair now, splattered with mud and fraying around the edges. Ms. Jude had found you by the bakery, hunched over a stale loaf of bread. 

Your clothes hung loose over your frame, and she quickly offered her shawl. “What are you doing out in the cold this early, love?” she had asked, and you shrugged. You don’t remember having- much less using- your voice. 

She helped you to stand and told you that she’d get you something that would “stick to your bones”. You remember her joking about skeletons in broad daylight. She had let you sit in her little carriage until you warmed up a bit before asking more questions. 

“What’s your name?” 

“Ellis,” Your voice creaked.

“Alright, Ellis, well… I’m glad I found you. Do you know where your family is?” 

You shake your head. Ms. Jude frowns. 

“What were you doing out there? Haven’t you got someone looking for you?” 

You shake your head again. You can tell she’s getting frustrated. You remember being so grateful for her kindness, and yet so terrified of any human interaction. 

“Have you run away?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. The last thing the orphanage needed was to be associated with harboring criminals. You shrug. She sighs. “You’re not very helpful, Ellis.”

“Does she know where you came from?” Morpheus interrupts, and you realize you’re standing in front of the bakery. Ms. Jude is sitting motionless in the carriage. 

“I didn’t tell her, at the time,” you reply. Your head is starting to feel heavy, and the whole world is starting to feel off. 

Morpheus walks over to speak with her. Curiously, she points east, to the shadowy buildings your memory hasn’t been able to render correctly. You pick out some of her words, something about a man named Ezra. You vaguely remember her warning to stay away from a certain part of town, from that man. 

You slump to the curb before you’re able to hear anything else. That name…

Ms. Jude must be on to something, because your thoughts are beginning to slip through your consciousness like grains of sand. You can’t hang on to any memories, and Christ, your head is heavy as it falls into your hands.

It takes a moment to realize Morpheus is next to you, one arm wrapped protectively around you. “Are you alright?” he asks, but he sounds far away. “Ellis,” he repeats, and you realize you haven’t answered him. 

“‘ ‘M fine,” you slur, trying to physically shake the sand out of your brain. Morpheus frowns.

“This was a bad idea,” he says. “We should go back. I’m sure Lucienne-” 

“No,” you interrupt angrily. You’re finally able to conjure a memory, and you’ll be damned if the dream lord ruins it for you. 

“Ezra Lilin,” you hear the Corinthian announce with a smile. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” 

You’re standing next to the nightmare in a darkened room. Tapestries hang on the wall illustrating various tarot cards and constellations. Your first instinct is to run, but you vaguely remember Rin had offered to help you. 

“We need each other,” he had said. “Can’t make you worse than you already are, yeah?” 

The man Rin is referring to is much less imposing than you’d come to expect. He’s short, with straight black hair sticking up all over like bedhead. He looks a mess, actually. He’s crouched over a table in the corner, and his face is covered in something like a mask. 

“Nightmare,” Ezra greets warmly, shaking hands with Rin over the table. They begin talking, but you’re distracted by the shards of mirror hanging on the wall. Through the scratched glass triangles, you can see… yourself. 

And gods, what a doozy. You’re wearing a black coat- much like Morpheus’, you now realize- but that’s not what catches your attention. 

Your face. It’s little more than a skull, skin stretched taught over eye sockets. So this is what the dream lord had meant by “unfinished”.

You look horrifying, and it doesn’t end there. You glance down and realize you’re missing an arm, and your right hand is little more than bone sticking out of the fabric of your shirt. It’s a fucking miracle you made it anywhere like this. 

“Do not fuck this up,” you hear the Corinthian threaten, and turn to see Ezra eyeing you. 

He smiles, and you want to throw up. You would, if you had the internal organs for it. 

“I have yet to disappoint,” Ezra says. 

The memory cuts away, and you find yourself standing with Morpheus outside of an unsuspecting corner shop. Dark curtains block any view of the inside, and both the door and windows are covered in iron bars.

Your whole body is screaming to get the fuck out of here.

“I don’t like it here,” you manage to croak before collapsing. 

Morpheus’ catches you in his arms, and you’re met with the brief deja vu of having been there before. The dream lord has caught you twice now, unable to handle the weight of your own existence.

Morpheus himself would have been over the moon to have you this close once more, were it not for such terrifically awful circumstances.

He just wants you safe, and now his promises cannot be guaranteed.

You’ve found the “someone” you’ve been looking for. 

Unfortunately, Ezra Lillin has found you. 

[sunkissedpages]

instead of you [part fourteen]

pairing: [best friend’s brother] tom holland x college!reader

summary: you didn’t expect to spend your summer pretending to be your best friend’s girlfriend- then again, you didn’t expect to fall for your best friend’s brother, either.

warnings: swearing, alcohol consumption

word count: 2.6k

series masterlist

“Just that you’re not technically a chef yet,” Tom explained defensively. “You’re not certified.”

“A chef doesn’t need a piece of paper to call themselves a chef,” Leo countered. “Anyone can be a chef. But don’t tell the WAC I said that.”

“Yeah, Tom haven’t you ever seen Ratatouille?” you teased.

“Great movie,” Leo added. “Sam, great job on your dough,” he reiterated.

Sam stuck his tongue out at his brother across the table who rolled his eyes in response as Leo picked up his ball of dough and rolled it in his hands.

“Tom, yours is still a little tough. Keep working on it.”

He nodded and took his dough back to continue kneading it. You noticed his jaw clenched subtly in frustration, but he didn’t say anything else. You watched as he rolled the pasta dough with a little more force, maybe a little too much.

Leo checked yours next and gave you similar feedback to Tom’s, even though Sam had helped you with yours. You didn’t want to think about what kind of feedback you would have gotten on your own.

Your dough was still flaking apart when you went back to working on it, and you tried desperately to hold it together with little success. Sam had left your side to help his mom so you were on your own.

At least Tom was also struggling. You felt a little better knowing he was miserable too.

You were starting to sweat with effort, you were so out of shape that even cooking had you catching your breath. You had thought this was going to be fun, but instead you were having flashbacks to high school P.E. class.

Leo made his way down the rest of the table and checked everyone else’s dough before circling back to you and Tom. He took over for Tom and instructed Sam to finish kneading yours so that he could move on with the lesson. It was embarrassing to be singled out, but Sam assured you it wasn’t your fault. He wasn’t making much progress with yours either.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with yours,” Sam whispered to you.

“I probably did it wrong,” you hissed back.

“I watched you do it, you did it the same way as everyone else.”

“Then why is it being like this?”

“Sometimes food has a mind of its own,” Leo interjected, making you realize the entire class had been listening to you and Sam’s back and forth. “This is good enough, though. We can set it aside with the other balls of dough to let them rest while we make the fillings.”

You and Tom set your sad pasta balls on the counter with the others before moving to the sink to rinse your hands.

“I think they’ll still taste good,” Tom said thoughtfully as he offered the bottle of soap to you and pumped some into your hands.

“I hope so.”

“It’s pasta, it’s almost impossible to fuck it up.”

“Yet somehow we still managed to.”

“Some would say it’s talent,” he said and shrugged.

You bumped his shoulder with your own as you fought over the water stream. You managed to stick your hands in first and Tom put his above yours only for you to shove them away.

“Hey!”

“You’re completely ruining the purpose of washing my hands!”

“I have soap on my hands, you have soap on your hands, what's the issue?”

“And you’re washing off your germs and they’re going on my hands now!”

“Fine, fine, I’ll wait my turn,” he seceded and let you finish washing your hands before he rinsed off his own.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Making the fillings for the pasta was a much simpler process than making the dough. All you had to do was mix certain ingredients together. It didn’t matter what order you added them, if you whisked fast or slow, the only important thing was that everything made it into the bowl one way or another.

You worked in pairs for this step. Sam mixed together the pesto filling while you did the parmesan-truffle one.

“This is different than the pesto I make,” he said, looking at the mixture in his bowl.

You frowned. “But I like your pesto.”

“It’ll still be good, baby,” he assured you with a kiss to the forehead. “Don’t worry.”

When the fillings were done it was time to revisit the balls of dough and roll them into pasta. Sam explained it to you like rolling Play-Doh, but it was far more difficult in your opinion. Play-Doh was nowhere near as stubborn as this. The pasta dough somehow retained tension, and would bounce back every time you tried to stretch it.

Sam ended up having to help you and Tom because both of you were starting at a disadvantage with your fucked up dough.

“I never want to hear you say I have it easier than you ever again,” Sam warned as he folded your strands of dough into raviolis.

The class had moved on to the final step, shaping and filling the noodles, but you had already tapped out. Sam was done with his portion before you had even finished one so he had taken over for you.

“I’m sorry for saying that,” you said, remembering all the times you had teased him for stressing out over his ‘soufflé final’ or ‘crepe labs’. “I would much rather be writing a paper right now.”

He shrugged. “Everyone has their strengths.”

“I’m starting to think that Ratatouille movie was bullshit,” you groaned.

“How ironic,” Tom snorted across from you.

He was really starting to get on your nerves. But you let his comment go, not allowing your temper to get the better of you. He was still Sam’s family, even if they had a... complicated relationship.

When the class finally settled in the dining room of the restaurant to eat you were sweaty, sore, and exhausted. You could feel your skin sticking to the leather seat, and you felt severely underdressed. Back in the kitchen you hadn’t been so self-conscious. But now you couldn’t stop thinking about your appearance.

The atmosphere was much more sophisticated. The lights were dim, and soft music played in the background. All of the other guests were following an unspoken black-tie dress code while the fifteen of you were still wearing your disposable aprons, only now they were covered in flour and egg yolk.

And to make it worse-

“Smile!”

Nikki held up her phone and motioned for you and Sam to scoot your chairs closer together. You took a deep breath and complied, leaning your head against your fake boyfriend’s and managing a grin. You really didn’t want this moment to be immortalized, but you didn’t want to be difficult either.

The camera flashed once, then again. Sam wrapped a hand around your waist and pulled your body against his, pressing a kiss to your cheek for another picture. You scrunched up your face as the flash went off, the tickle of his breath against your skin and the feather-light touch of his lips making you squeeze your eyes shut.

“That’s a good one!” Nikki complimented, even though you were sure it wasn’t as flattering as she was making it out to be.

The pasta was served with a glass of red wine for everyone. Sam was right, the pesto was different from his, but it was still good. It was no match for his recipe, but the handmade pasta did give it a few bonus points. You were sure you hadn’t gotten any of the noodles you made because all of the ones on your plate were perfect. It didn’t feel fair that you got to enjoy somebody else’s hard work while they got your shitty excuse of a ravioli.

But as the wine dwindled from your glass the negative thoughts began to ebb away too. Your muscles, though still sore, relaxed slightly and you rested your head on Sam’s shoulder as everyone else finished their meals around you. The conversation carried on without your contribution. Your social battery had died hours ago, but you were content to listen to the Hollands chat with other students at the table.

You weren’t a huge fan of wine, but the one served with dinner was palatable, and to be honest you weren’t one to turn down complimentary alcohol anyway. It tasted more expensive than anything you had ever drank, like the equivalent of velvet on your tongue. You finished your glass and the rest of Harry’s.

-

The next few days in Florence passed in a similar fashion. You ate a lot of carbs, drank a lot of alcohol and let the business of the itinerary overwhelm you. It was getting tiring, living in an act. Trailing along behind the Hollands like a dog, worn on Sam’s arm like an accessory.

You had known what you were getting into, and you were trying your best to enjoy the experiences- because who the fuck knows when you’ll ever get to go on such a nice vacation again, but pretending to be in love with your best friend was a harder feat than you had thought.

It felt like being in a school play. Every move and phrase had to be intentional. You tread the lines of your relationship with rehearsed expertise. And you had to watch what you said, because everyone’s eyes were on you. At least that’s what it felt like.

Sam’s parents were easy. They fully bought into your lie, seeing what they wanted to. They usually left you to your own devices, too. His brothers were the ones who needed convincing. Not even Harry, though. Tom was the problem. Tom was always the problem.

You were in Rome now, walking back to the hotel from the Colosseum. Sam had his arm slung around your shoulders and was talking his twin brother’s ear off about the Gladiators and inaccuracies in films about Ancient Rome.

You didn’t think you’d seen him this excited the entire trip. It was cute, the way he talked with his hands and looked off into the distance whenever he was really engaged in something. Harry was also cute. He was trying his best to keep up with Sam, nodding his head at all the right points, asking questions when there was a pause in conversation.

“Yeah, gladiators fucking unionized,” Sam explained. “They put their lives on the line all the time, ya know? Might as well get benefits.”

“If I was a gladiator I’d join their union,” you said, adding to the conversation for the first time in a while.

“There were women gladiators too, babe! You totally could’ve been one.”

You laughed. “You remember my season on the intramural dodgeball team? I wouldn’t last a day. But I appreciate the thought, Sammy.”

You had dinner in the restaurant attached to the hotel lobby. Nikki passed around her Canon for everyone to look through the pictures from the day while a bottle of limoncello was passed around the table.

You’d scarfed down your pasta and passed on dessert in favor of another shot of limoncello. Rookie mistake.

In the past the sugary drink had always tasted like cough syrup to you, but this batch tasted like straight-up lemonade. You were tipsy, bordering on drunk, but nowhere near blacked. Nikki and Dom turned in around shot three, leaving the tab open for the four of you. Sam went upstairs next, having gone too hard too fast on the limoncello (he was on shot five when his parents went back to their room).

Then it was just You, Harry, and Tom. You told Sam you’d join him in a bit after the pianist played a couple more songs. In all honesty, the music reminded you of Sam. Back at school you could always find Sam in the music hall if he wasn’t in the culinary building. You’d always hear him playing as soon as you walked through the double doors. You could always tell it was him at the keys by the way the playing sounded. He was self-taught, but still a genius in your mind. He didn’t need any formal training to make beautiful music, and that’s what you loved about it.

When he moved out of the dorms and into an apartment he bought a keyboard, and you’d spend nights together in his room illegally pirating sheet music for him to learn new songs. He’d play whatever you requested, and if he didn’t know how to play it he’d teach himself.

The pianist in the restaurant played with a little more expertise. The notes sounded refined, perfected. Sam always told you that perfect music was restrained music, that real music had flaws, that a song should sound a little different every time it was played.

After an encore of Beethoven the man at the piano stood from his bench and took a bow, passing his hat around the room to collect tips. Tom dropped a bill into the hat and you did as well, handing it back to the man afterwards. He dumped the contents of the hat into a briefcase and closed the lid of the piano, thanking everyone in the audience for their donations.

“Well, I think I’m going to head up now,” Harry said, yawning for emphasis. “We still have to get up at the ass crack of dawn even though we’ll all probably be hungover.”

“Speak for yourself,” Tom said cockily, then turned to you. “One more shot?”

The bottle of limoncello was almost empty anyway. Might as well finish it off, it’d be a shame to let it go to waste, right?

“Hit me.”

“God, you’re both going to be so fucked tomorrow,” Harry groaned.

“We’ll be fine,” Tom insisted, rolling his eyes at his younger brother.

“Good night, Harry,” you sang, waving at him as he walked off.

“Yeah whatever.”

Tom wasted no time pouring you both a shot of what was left of the limoncello. The restaurant was beginning to clear out so he worked fast, filling the glasses up to the marked line. You both took one and clinked them together before throwing them back.

You winced at the burning sensation in the back of your throat and put the glass back on the table, searching for something to chase the shot with. Your eyes fell to Tom, lingering on his cheeks, his lips, both pink from the alcohol or something else. You flicked your gaze down to his neck, his collarbone that was peeking out from the neckline of his shirt. You thought about how it would feel to kiss him there, to run your tongue over a love bite you’d given him.

You forced your gaze back to his eyes, hoping he hadn’t caught you staring. You had to act uninterested, you couldn’t let on to- but he was staring back. His eyes were intense, and almost impossible to read in the darkness of the room. You knew you should look away, knew you had to keep up appearances, but you couldn’t.

Later you’d blame it on the alcohol, but in that moment you knew the limoncello wasn’t what was making your head spin, or your what was making your vision cloudy.

You were about to leave the table, about to rush to the elevator and back to Sam but then suddenly Tom was kissing you. He cradled your head in his hand and tilted your chin up to meet his lips. It wasn’t desperate or messy like most drunk kisses were. Instead, it was delicate. You swore you could feel every line of his lips against yours, feel his heartbeat through his hands on your cheek.

It was only for a second, not enough time for you to react or reciprocate and then he was pulling away, eyes wide with panic.

“Please don’t tell Sam.”

logging off before i get yelled at but lmk what you think i always appreciate feedback!!

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[iliveiloveiwrite]

I wonder what it’s like to be loved by you // Benedict Bridgerton

Summary: You’ve loved him for as long as you can remember. Is this the season where he finally realises?

A/N: I LOVE BENEDICT. I love him so much. What do I have to do to get a Benedict? Title is from Shawn Mendes - Wonder. I had so much fun writing this fic, I can’t wait to write more for the Bridgerton fandom! I truly hope you all like it, let me know what you think please?

Pairing: Benedict Bridgerton x Fem!Reader

Warnings: swearing, mentions of food and drink, fluff, pining, mutual pining, dancing, balls, obliviousness, friends to lovers, she/her pronouns, a lot of history - I am a historian after all and this is the regency era.

Word count: 4.8k

Lady Danbury never spared any expense on the balls she held every season. She knew full well that many a match could be made that night so there was not only pressure from the ton, but also a responsibility that this ball must outdo all others thrown before – by herself and other matriarchs in society.

A feat she always managed to achieve, the elder thinks to herself as she watches your eyes widen upon entering the ornately decorated room. Looking you up and down, she approves of your outfit – a dark blue dress punctuated with silver jewellery, hair twisted into an updo with only a few strands hanging loose to frame your face. From her spot across the ballroom, Lady Danbury wonders how you hadn’t married yet.

As the band strikes up, Lady Danbury walks into the fray, greeting her guests with a smile. All the while, she keeps a trained eye on you, wondering who on earth had captured your heart but had not noticed.

-------------

No matter how hard he tried, the charcoal would not wash from his fingers. Having scrubbed and scrubbed at his hands, Benedict could only offer you a smile of apology as you not only noted his lateness but the state of his hands.

“It’s very fortunate that you are a talented artist,” You comment with a teasing smile.

Benedict reaches for your hand, dropping a kiss to the back of it before answering. “I class myself as very fortunate to have a friend like you who understands how easy it is to get lost in a sketch or a painting.”

You roll your eyes, careful not to let anyone else but Benedict see your act of impropriety. He smirks, unable to help himself.

“You’re a shameful flatterer, Benedict.”

“Some might even call me a ‘rake’,” He replies, his tone teasing.

“I shall save that for when you’ve really annoyed me.��

He laughs; a loud chuckle that draws the attention of those closest to you. Most notably, Benedict’s mother, Violet Bridgerton and Lady Danbury.

Benedict clears his throat; cheeks flushed not only from the attention but from the knowledge that his mother would soon be making her way over to him. He adored his mother; was grateful for her every day, but he could happily admit he could live without the meddling in his love life. He grabs your gloved hand once more; kissing the back of it in parting before asking, “Save me a dance on your card?”

“Always,” You answer, watching his back as he stalks away. Benedict narrowly avoids being collared by his mother, an act to which you find yourself smiling at.

With thoughts of Benedict in mind, you wander around the outskirts of the ballroom, your dark blue skirts swishing pleasantly under foot. You pause only to grab a lemonade from the table, sipping happily at the cold drink.

You catch sight of the brunette that had stolen your heart dancing with Penelope Featherington and though you know there is no romance there, your heart is unable to stop the hurt that lashes through it. Schooling your face into a mask of polite delight, you force yourself to turn away from the sight of the man you had so readily given your heart to dancing with someone else.

“How long have you been in love with my brother?” A raspy voice asks from behind you.

Your lemonade splashes slightly as you turn to face your interrogator. “Eloise!” You laugh, smiling too wide to be comfortable, “Whatever do you mean?”

Eloise’s shrewd blue eyes narrow slightly as she takes in your dismissal. She waves her hand in the general direction of Benedict though you knew exactly where he was – could feel his location thrumming in your veins.

“Don’t play coy, (Y/N). It doesn’t become you. Now, how long have you been in love with Benedict?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? How long had you loved Benedict? Thinking back on it, you’re sure that you’ve always loved him. Your family had been good friends with the Bridgerton family for as long as you could remember. Your mother was always having tea with Violet and you were always thrust upon the eight siblings without much worry. Your friendship with Benedict had started in earnest when you had complimented his art skills, bringing up how you liked to draw too. From there, a close friendship was forged.

By your twentieth year on this earth, you realised that your feelings for the second Bridgerton were no longer platonic… that you craved something more. Falling for Benedict Bridgerton felt inevitable almost; that your heart was destined to be his whether he knew it or not.

Sighing heavily, you see no point in lying to the second eldest Bridgerton girl. “For as long as I can remember,” You admit, rushing to add on, “But he doesn’t know so please don’t tell him!”

Eloise’s eyes widen at your confession, not only shocked that you readily admitted your feelings for her elder brother, but for how long you have harboured them. “Is that why you have not yet married?” She demands, “Because you loved him?”

Biting your lip, you nod. “It wouldn’t be fair to my husband. Their wife in love with another man – it doesn’t exactly set stable foundations for a long, prosperous marriage and…”

“And…” Eloise prompts, her innate curiosity getting the better of her. If her mother could hear her now, she would surely receive a scolding.

You ball your hands into fists before letting them drop to your sides; letting them hang there like the constant hope you have for Benedict.

“And I still hope he’ll notice I’m here. That I have been here all along,” You voice cracks on the admission causing a pang of upset to flash through Eloise. She’d reach out to comfort you, but it would only draw attention from the many mothers circling and no doubt, Lady Whistledown.

“(Y/N)…” Eloise begins but you hold a single hand up to stop her before she starts. With a strained smile, you reassure her. “It’s fine, Eloise. I accept it with every season that passes that it is unlikely he shall ever return my feelings.”

“Then he is a fool,” Eloise states plaining, sending a glare in the direction of her beloved brother. She had no qualms admitting that Benedict was indeed her favourite sibling, but he had his moments where he vexed her beyond belief.

“Who is a fool?” A voice questions to the right of you. Benedict.

Freezing in place, you cast a helpless look at Eloise, begging her silently to take control of this situation. Eloise smiles and nods imperceptibly. She turns towards her brother, hooking her arm through yours as she declares, “The men that have not offered their hand to (Y/N) yet. They’re all fools, aren’t they dear brother.”

Benedict casts his gaze towards you; his eyes scanning your face for what, he does not know. “Fools,” He agrees quietly though he is heard perfectly over the music. “Would you care to dance?” He asks, wanting you to himself for a little while. As much as he loved his younger sister, she was a keen observer, and he wasn’t ready for her to figure out his feelings just yet. Not when he hadn’t admitted them to you.

Nodding your head, you take his outstretched hand, bidding goodbye to Eloise for now. The brunette shakes her head as the both of you walk away. Oblivious, she thinks to herself, completely oblivious.

As the music strikes up once more, it becomes obvious that the next dance is a waltz, requiring the closeness of your partner. It was only years ago that this dance had scandalised the ton for its closeness – now, it was required at every ball, many married couples savouring the intimacy.

Benedict’s hand settles on the small of your back as his other grips your hand. Your hand rests comfortably on his shoulder as he begins to lead you through the steps you have known since your youth.

Music around you fades as do the other couples. The only two people in the room are Benedict and yourself. The feel of his hand on your back and the look in his eyes; it’s enough to have you accept your fate then and there. It’s enough for you to admit that you have been ruined for any and all men; finding yourself in love with the man who holds you so tenderly and has always held you in high regard. Is this it? You ask yourself, is this what it feels like to be loved by him? To feel like the only one in the world. If it is, you’ll take it with open hands.

Your eyes do not leave his as Benedict leads you through the rises and falls of the dance. His hand remains a steady presence on your lower back; the feeling just enough to distract you from the crowd now watching you and instead, leading you to wonder what his hands would feel like elsewhere on your body.

As the music falls into another song; this one more upbeat, Benedict drops his hands, letting you free. He hadn’t wanted to; had wanted to pull you from the ballroom, to confess the feelings that have haunted him for years and to ask you to be his for better or for worse.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he bows and smiles, reaches for your hand to kiss it and then lets himself breathe as he turns and walks away.

-------------

Dear Reader,

Though there is much to report from Lady Danbury’s ball last night – the fashion, the food, the décor – This Author wants to focus on one moment in particular.

Now, Dear Reader, whilst you may wonder the importance of such a moment, remember that it is one’s job to observe all. That is why I want to bring attention to Mr. Benedict Bridgerton who found himself extremely popular last night, dancing with many eligible women and delighting them with his talents.

However, Dear Reader, this is not the moment I want to focus on.

No. Instead, I want to bring attention to the heart most likely suffering in silence as Mr. Bridgerton continues to charm the ton.

As you all know, I am not one to beat around the proverbial bush and hide identities, but for the sake of the woman who has found herself in love with the second eldest Bridgerton for as long she can remember, I shall endeavour to keep her name a secret.

Know, however, that This Author’s sympathies lie with you.

To love another unrequitedly is a dear shame.

----------

The gossip sheet is scrunched to a ball in your hands. It’s all you can do to keep the tears from falling down your face. As if you didn’t know your love was unrequited; as if you didn’t know you had all but doomed yourself to being a spinster as you wait for a man who did not know you loved him.

Lady Whistledown knew your secret, and your identity. As a result, the whole ton knew your secret but whatever morals the author possesses, she had not revealed your identity.

Summoning the carriage, you ask to be taken to Bridgerton House where you can speak to Eloise in confidence and ask for her advice on what she might do. Deep down, you had to know whether Benedict had read the paper too.

It doesn’t take long for Eloise to find you in the tea room; a cup of tea in your hands but readily ignored as you chew on the inside of your cheek. Her brown hair tied up in her usual bun, her eyes hold the pity you didn’t want to see or hear as of this moment.

“I didn’t know she was listening, I swear,” Eloise promises, sitting by your side and reaching for your hand.

“I know,” You comfort, “You would never tell a soul.”

“At least she didn’t reveal your identity,” Eloise chirps, trying to find a silver lining.

“Yet she has revealed my secret to the entirety of London society,” You sigh. Removing your hand from Eloise’s, you press your palm to your forehead, feeling overwhelmingly tired and desperate for the day to be over already. “Does he know?”

Eloise chews on her bottom lip, deciding whether to answer you. “He has read it,” She admits,  but rushes to add, “He doesn’t know it’s you! He doesn’t have a clue really. He’s angrier at himself for not noticing anything was amiss.”

“I don’t know what to do,” You whisper, feeling helpless.

“For now,” Eloise states, “We do nothing.”

---------

Your heels sink into the soft carpet as you wander down the stairs, pausing only to check you have everything. Your mind remains elsewhere as you check your bag out of habit, the conversation with Eloise, the latest gossip sheet, your feelings for Benedict. They circle around your mind, leaving you dizzy in their wake as you try to make sense of them all, try to find your next step in and amongst the mess.

“(Y/N),” Benedict greets, hurrying down the final few stairs, pleasantly surprised, “What are you doing here? I didn’t know you were visiting.”

“I came to drop in on Eloise. I wanted to thank her for last night; she was an ear when I needed someone to listen.”

“Is it anything I can help with?” He asks, voice taking on a concerned note as he reaches out for you.

You shake your head, squeezing his hand in return. “For now, everything is okay.”

Benedict clears his throat. “I’m glad to hear it, but please come to me next time. I want to help if I can.”

“I will,” You promise, your eyes now scanning over his fine clothes. “Where are you off to?”

“An art exhibition at Somerset House. They’re showing some Holbein’s from the Royal collection.”

“Holbein’s?” You ask, shocked at the name falling from Benedict’s mouth.

He nods, just as excited. It was a rare thing indeed to have Holbein’s on display; they were usually kept in whatever royal residence they found themselves in; hidden away from the public eye. Art was the very foundation of your friendship; having seen so many of his sketches as a young boy and watching them develop into surer lines and confident strokes. Benedict was an exceptionally talented artist – something he would say about yourself. Benedict was the only person to see such work; the watercolours in your sketchpad leaving him breathless as you bring life to the inanimate.

“Would you like to join me?” He asks before he can talk himself out of it. He had barely seen you all season; you had closed in yourself, as if accepting a fate that you did not want. Benedict would do what he could to ensure your happiness for a little bit longer.

“Unchaperoned?”

A faint blush rises on Benedict’s cheeks as he realises what he has asked of you. “I shall ask Eloise to accompany us,” He suggests, turning to face the direction in which you had just come, “Did she mention any plans to you?”

You shake your head to which Benedict leases a sigh of relief. “I’ll go ask her now. I’m sure she won’t mind… much.”

Laughing quietly, you wait patiently in the entryway of Bridgerton House. The house in London so often felt like a second home to you; spending so much of childhood summers here when your mother would take tea with the Bridgerton matriarch. As you grew into your teens, you would begin to visit the house with just your maid, calling on the family for social niceties. The friendship with Benedict and Eloise only solidified your standing in the close family unit.

Eloise’s voice brings you back to the present. She walks down the stairs, accompanied by her brother. Taking one look at you, waiting patiently for the both of them, Eloise gets a mischievous look in her eye. It isn’t a look that leaves you in comfort, but rather leaves you wondering just what she has planned for the art exhibition.  

“Eloise has so graciously accepted to join us,” Benedict announces, sounding rather pleased with himself.

Eloise smiles: a smile that sets Benedict’s nerves on edge. He would owe her for this, that much he knew. “I would be more than happy to accompany you, brother.”

Benedict resists the urge to groan; he’s in deep shit for this.

“Thank you, Eloise,” You murmur with a smile. Something in Eloise softens at your tone as if she would be unable to deny you this time with Benedict when it was their mother’s mission to see him married off this very season.

“Of course,” Eloise allows, glancing between you and Benedict – noting the longing in both sets of eyes. She shakes her head, gesturing to the door and where the carriages waits just beyond it. “Shall we?”

--------

“He wasn’t a handsome monarch, was he?” Eloise murmurs quietly, staring up at the grand portrait of the fearsome king who preferred executing his wives rather than loving them.

The walls of Somerset House have become dedicated to the eyes of the past. Past monarchs and relatives decorate the walls; their eyes following each attendant, as if curious to see how society is progressing less than three hundred years after the death of the artist.

Benedict chuckles; the very sound raising goosebumps across your skin. You barely repress the shiver the sound elicits. Trying your best to listen as the siblings argue about the reign of this particular monarch – the pros and the cons to what he did for the very country he ruled over for decades.

“Oh!” Eloise gasps, interrupting the argument and loosening her grip on your arm, she waves frantically at Penelope Featherington. “Would you mind terribly if I go say hello?”

“Not at all,” You laugh.

“You’re sure you’ll be okay with Benedict?”

The man in question scoffs, rolling his eyes at his little sister. “Off with you,” He dismisses, “I’ll escort (Y/N) – someone who actually appreciates the art.”

Eloise laughs as she turns away, but you do not miss the wink she sends in your direction. It hits you all at once; her mischievous look before you all left the house. She had concocted this plan in her head; accepting to accompany you as a rouse to get you and Benedict alone.

You didn’t know whether to appreciate her genius or hide her favourite book.

Jumping at the sound of someone clearing their throat, you focus your attention on Benedict. He watches you with an amused look, and it’s then that you realise that he has stood beside you waiting with his arm out for a minute or so whilst you glared after his younger sister. Taking his arm, you rid yourself of any thoughts of violence against Eloise. Instead, focusing on the man beside you.

“How are you?” You ask, hand resting gently on Benedict’s forearm.

“Do you mean in general or after today’s publication?”

“Both, I suppose.”

“In general, I am quite well. I have a wonderful lady on my arm, and I am in the presence of excellent art work. However, after today’s publication, I must admit I am rather angry.”

“Oh?” You sound, trying hard not to let his words affect you so much but they rattle around your mind on repeat, committing themselves where they will last for an eternity.

“I’ve never been the focus of the gossip paper and now after one ball, I am. I don’t think I like the attention.”

“I don’t believe that for one second, Benedict Bridgerton.”

He pauses, smiling widely down at you. His eyes light up with the smile and your heart begins to pound at the sight of it. “Alright, I do like the attention,” He concedes, “But what I don’t like are the looks I’m getting from all mothers.”

“Why?”

“They all look like I’m about to break their daughter’s heart.”

“I’m sure you’re just imagining things,” You reassure, tightening your grip on his arm.

“I don’t think I am,” He states, nodding politely at Lady Whitelaw who in turn glares at the younger man. He turns his gaze to you as if to say, see?

You turn your face away from him, trying your best to hide the smile and laugh that threatens to break free. “You’re laughing at me, aren’t you?” Benedict guesses, a smile in his own voice.

“I’m not,” You promise, schooling your face into a mask of indifference, focusing on the closest sketch to you. A graphite sketch of Anne Boleyn; marking her beauty only years before her death.

“You are,” Benedict argues, standing beside you, admiring the same sketch. Throwing him a knowing smile, you turn your attentions to rest of the exhibition, unable to hide your awe at just what is being shown to the public.

The art is incredible; your watercolours barely compare to what is being shown in Somerset House. He would disagree in a heartbeat, but Benedict could come close to producing something of this calibre. He had shown his portraits of his mother and brothers; Anthony making the perfect candidate for a painting.

You come to a natural stop in front of a portrait of a young women. A young queen, in fact. This particular queen had never got to reign in the manner that she was capable, dying after giving birth the king’s heir. His one true love, the king had called her after he death.

“She’s beautiful,” You whisper, admiring not only the artistry but also the focus on the painting.

Benedict watches you admiring the portrait painted so carefully by Holbein. Though the portrait is indeed beautiful, Benedict finds himself agreeing that they do not hold a candle to you. As he watches you lift a single hand, trying to dampen the urge to run your fingers over the brush strokes, he thinks to himself that there would be no artist on this earth that would be so talented to capture your beauty.

His breath comes faster; his heart rate increases. He recognises the symptoms; he’s only experienced such signs before. He had been eighteen then; barely a man but man enough to accept that he had fallen in love with his best friend. Years later, here he was, experiencing such feelings once more. Once more, he wonders what it would be like to be loved by you. He cannot help but hope that the mystery woman in the society papers is you.

-------

Dear Reader,

It seems that Mr. Benedict Bridgerton reads my paper!

He was overheard at the Somerset House Holbein exhibition, complaining to Miss (Y/N) (Y/L/N) about my last column in which I criticised his treatment of the lady in love with him.

All I have to say on the matter is this:

Mr. Bridgerton, for every complaint you offer, you break her heart further. Stop now before you do irreparable damage.

-----

“What does she mean ‘break her heart further’? I’ve been trying to figure out who it is so I can put a stop to it!”

“It doesn’t matter whether you know who it is, Benedict,” You argue, placing your teacup on the table, “But rather the fact that you unknowingly hurt whoever it is that is in love with you.”

“Do my feelings not matter?” He demands, throwing the damned paper onto the table. Benedict runs a hand through his hair, sighing in frustration. “I’m sorry,” He apologises, “I should not have taken that tone with you. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“You’re forgiven,” You laugh, “I’ve heard you say a lot worse.”

He smiles though it doesn’t reach his eyes. Leaning forward on your chair, you wring your hands together, working up the nerve. “What feelings haven’t they taken into account?”

“Lady Whistledown,” He spits the name with derision, “Hasn’t taken into account that I may not have noticed someone in love with me because I am in love with someone myself.”

It’s as if the chair is pulled out from under you; your stomach dips and flips as the world crashes around you and Benedict is none the wiser. He’s none the wiser to the palpable shift that has taken place. Instead, he’s sat down across from, looking utterly defeated.

“Does she know?” You ask after a moment of silence, using the time to pull yourself back together, to compile it all and put it away for later.

Benedict shakes his head; eyes sad as he watches you. “Why haven’t you told her?” You ask, unable to stop the questions now they’re on the tip of your tongue.

“I suppose for the same reason she hasn’t told me. Fear maybe?”

“Fear of what? I’ve never known you to be afraid of anything.”

“Fear of rejection. Fear of humiliation. Fear of ruining a friendship,” He lists off, counting the reasons on his fingers, holding them up for you to see.

“Have you thought about telling her?”

“All the time,” He answers honestly, and you wonder whether the crack your heart makes was audible to the whole of the ton.

“Do you plan on telling them?”

“Eventually.”

You take a deep breath, staring at the teacup instead of him, readying yourself to offer up your broken heart. To confess that the two most recent society papers have been about you; have shown your heart to the whole of London.

“It’s me,” You confess quietly, voice no louder than a whisper but he hears you all the same.

Benedict’s head whips towards you. Had this been another situation, it would have been funny, but the look on his face… “What?” He whispers, shocked.

“It’s me,” You announce; louder this time, ready to lay your heart out on the floor for him to break entirely. “It’s me, Benedict. Lady Whistledown must have overheard Eloise and myself talking at Lady Danbury’s ball the other night. She had caught me watching you dance and asked me outright. I couldn’t deny it. I’ve been in love with you for years, Benedict. For as long as I can remember.”

“For as long as you can remember?”

You nod, wringing your hands together once more. “I didn’t realise until I turned twenty, just what my feelings meant. I think I’ve always been in love with you, Benedict.”

Benedict remains silent; eyes wide, hands slack as they rest on his thighs. He looks like he doesn't believe the very words leaving your mouth; as if he is unworthy of the love you offer him so willingly. 

“Say something, please,” You plead, “I know it isn’t proper for the woman to announce her feelings for the man, but I couldn’t keep it a secret any longer. Not when it is the focus for Lady Whistledown to sell more copies of her paper.”

“I didn’t know,” He whispers after a prolonged silence.

“You weren’t to know. You don’t have to feel the same, Benedict.”

“I do as it happens.”

“What?”

“I do feel the same,” Benedict clarifies, standing from his chair, “I’ve loved you since I was eighteen.”

You sniffle slightly; emotional from hearing the words you have longed to hear for years. The words that have haunted your dreams; had you rushing from sleep, so you didn’t let yourself believe an alternate reality.

“You do?”

Benedict nods, “I do. I love you very much.”

“I love you too,” You reply, standing from your chair, reaching for him – not wanting anymore space between the two of you.

He dips his head, pausing mere millimetres away from your lips. The question burns in his eyes; desperate to know whether he can kiss you after so long waiting. Your nod is barely imperceptible but it’s nod, nonetheless.

Slowly, almost wanting to savour every moment, Benedict presses his lips to yours. Reaching up, you haul him closer, wanting to feel every inch of him pressed against you after having waited so long, after having dreamed of this moment for too long.

He tastes like tea and his hands bring to life the butterflies in your stomach as they wander the path of your back, settling on your lower back, dipping you slightly. Benedict groans softly at the feel of you lined up against him. If he had known heaven was this close, he would not have waited this long.

Benedict breaks the kiss; not out of need of air, but to stop himself from taking this too far when you feel like heaven pressed against him. You smile widely, kissing his jaw lovingly before starting to laugh lightly. Benedict’s hands on your waist tighten possessively as he joins you in laughter.

Briefly, he wonders whether this is what it feels like to be loved by you.

********

Bridgerton Taglist: @heloisedaphnebrightmore​ @dreaming-about-fanfictions​ @now-its-time-for-a-breakdown​

[boldlyvoid]

36 Questions to Fall in Love

Summary: When Derek bets Spencer that he cant make someone fall in love with him in a week, he doesn’t expect Spencer to marry the girl the next day

warnings: strangers to lovers, blind dates, betting, talks of: drug use, drug addiction, abusive marriages, rape, sexual assault, abuse, attempted murder, mass shootings, parental death, love confessions, elopements, opposite of slow burn

word count: 8K

A/N: this is based on a request I received a while back about this article

Derek was a betting man, to say the least. He knew Spencer was from Vegas, he also knew Emily couldn’t say no to a challenge and that Rossi had enough money to burn. Betting at work was the best way to have fun when he worked there, and now he can’t stop.

“I’m not saying con a woman into loving you, I’m saying let us find a girl and let’s see if she can fall in love with you, take a week off from work and just spend time wooing her, and in a week, me or Emily will hit on her, if she turns us down for you, then you’ve won.”

Derek explained it like it was simple, and yet the mere thought of being set up with someone was horrifyingly nerve-wracking. But he got Spencer to agree… unbeknown to him that he had another bet going on the side.

You see earlier that day he was invited to Penelope’s apartment, her younger sister was moving in for a little while and they needed a big strong man to help move the boxes. And like Penelope, Y/N was really chatty and overly friendly really fast. It was like he’s always known Y/N Garcia.

She explained to Derek how hard it was in California to find good men who want someone to love them, she’s tired of guys thinking she comes on too fast, she wants someone who wants to settle and have kids and be a dad. Not a Vain narcissist who only cares about what the city can offer him.

“The last guy I went on a date with literally ran when I mentioned I read a New York Times article about 36 questions to make you fall in love… I just want a person to love? Is that really so hard?”

A lightbulb goes off in Derek’s mind, and Penelope almost reads it.

“Spencer.” They both reply with the same cheeky grin.

“I bet you, you could be as insane as you say you are and he’d still be in love with you by the end of the week.” Derek teases, and the way she smiles shows just how interested she is.

—

Woo her.

The words have rattled around in his brain every second of every moment since Derek said he found a girl for him.

She was free on Saturday, all Spencer had to do was tell Derek where she should meet him and all Penelope had to do was not mention to Spencer that she had a sister, it was up to Y/N when Spencer learned that fact.

She’s already there at the restaurant when he arrives, he’s not sure what he was expecting when Derek said he found the perfect girl but it wasn’t this. He was thinking it was going to be a joke, that either no one would show or Derek was hooking him up with some hot blonde who was way out of his league.

She was beautiful in a nice dress, her makeup was stunning and she looked so content sitting there, waiting for him. Starring her ice water with a straw, she wasn’t paying any attention to the room, she barely knew he was there.

“Hi?” He said softly, not wanting to startle her.

“Hi,” she beamed up at him, that same unsure look on her face. Neither of them was expecting anything from the other, but they were pleasantly surprised.

“Spencer Reid,” he says, actually extending a hand to shake her’s because it’s the chivalrous thing to do.

She reaches out her hand, watching him take it and kiss her knuckle softly, she’s so surprised. “Oh, um, Y/N Garcia,” she whispers the name and his eyes go wide.

“Garcia?” He panics a little, sitting down in the booth and facing her as her face drops at his reaction.

“Did he not tell you I’m Penelope’s sister? I knew Derek was up to something,” she looked like it was all too good to be true, upset almost.

“He didn’t, he probably wanted you to tell me, I mean this all so we can get to know each other,” Spencer shrugs it off, interested in seeing why Derek picked her of all people.

“I guess,” she smiled again, “so what do you do?”

“I work with Penelope, I specialize more in psycho-linguistics and geographical profiling.”

She nods in approval, “I’m a high school English teacher.”

Spencer laughs lightly, “what’s that like?”

“Interesting to say the least, especially in California. Every kid there wants to be on TikTok, no one cares about reading any of the books I ask them too,” she just shakes her head. “I’m worried about the next generation.”

“Me too, it’s almost alarming how many kids are unsubs,” he agrees. She’s so easy to talk to, he’s suddenly not nervous anymore and the waiter is coming to take their order.

He never even opened the menu, “what looks good?” He asks Y/N, nervous and she can tell.

“I think I’m going to have the lobster, let’s go all out?” She shrugged again, both of them feeling more adventurous than normal.

“I’ll have that as well,” Spencer smiled, keeping eye contact with only her as she handed the menus back to him.

They ordered sides and appetizers, stuffed mushrooms and fresh bread, it was amazing. They traded small facts about each other, Spencer noticed a lot of Penelope’s quirks in her, she was very friendly and kind and funny. She loved to tease him and make him laugh, his stomach hurt by the time their lobsters came out.

“I’ve never done this before,” she admits, putting on her bib and holding the claw cracker in one hand.

“Neither have I, but I think it’s fairly simple you just need to apply the correct amount of pressure,” he demonstrates by picking up the crustacean and cracking it at its weakest point before twisting it open.

He’s surprised he did it, so is she as she copies is movements and struggles a bit. “You got it, come on,” he encourages her as she squeezed so hard her hands shake but the shell does eventually crack.

She smiles like she just won the science fair, overly proud as they stare at each other. Enamoured already by just how cute the other was.

“So, what do you do for fun outside being a fed?” She teases between bites.

“I like to spend my time finding new things, I tend to go to the same spots often but I’m always looking for new places. I like the theatre, the old cemetery is nice, I’m excited for the new phantasmagoria to open this fall,” he explains all his interests as he cracks away at his dinner. “I just like to try and appreciate what’s out there, after everything I see.”

“That’s really nice, I’ve always wanted to go to a phantasmagoria actually, science magic is the best kind of magic,” she says it like it’s nothing, almost embarrassed by the interest.

“Me too, I love magic,” Spencer lights up, “I can actually do some magic, hold on.”

He digs his NA chip out of his pocket, showing it to her quickly before making it disappear and reappear behind her ear and she was so smitten, “how the heck?” She asked as she reached for her own ear, shocked at the fact he could do it.

“Do you always keep a coin on you for that?”

He thinks about it for a second, not knowing if he should tell her or not. “No, I keep this on me for support.”

He places it on the table, she picks it up instead and inspects it carefully, “2 years is a really long time, I’m really proud of you.”

He feels like he falls in love with her in that moment, she places the chip back in his hand and smiles, “it’s not easy to admit nor recover from, it’s something you should be really proud of Spencer.”

“Thank you,” he blushes, “um, is there anything else you want to know about me?”

She bites the inside of her lip as she thinks, “actually I was reading an article the other day that said there are a list of personal questions you can ask someone and by the end of all of them you should be in love with the person.”

He thought it was a good opportunity to take a sip of water, upon hearing the word love he realizes it was a mistake. He chokes lightly, coughing as he puts the glass back down and apologizes.

“Love?” He repeats the word.

“I’m going to be real honest here Spencer, I don’t date to get my heartbroken, I date to find my life partner so if you’re not interested in marriage or kids one day tell me now,” she’s very stern about it and he can tell she’s gotten her hopes up and heart broken before.

“I want that too, I just didn’t expect you to be so upfront about it,” he’s honest, because clearly that’s what she wants from him. “What was on the question list?”

“Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?” She asks, remembering the questions easily.

“Wow,” he takes a moment to think about it, “alive or dead?”

“Sure, why not,” she shrugs.

“Probably biological Eve,” he comes to the decision rather quickly. “I’ve always been fascinated with the fact all humans can be traced back to one single women. I’m sure she was amazing, it must have been so interesting being the first women on earth.”

“That is the coolest answer anyone has ever given me,” she smiles, “I think I’d be boring and have dinner with Julia Roberts.”

“She’s a very talented actress,” he smiles, recognizing the name from Penelope’s movie nights. “Um, I have an eidetic memory, do you have the list I can just read it once and then we can spit it back and forth easily.”

She looks at him with wide eyes and a growing smile, “yeah hold on.” She takes out her cellphone and pulls up the article before handing it to him.

He reads it quickly and then hands it right back, she was amazed, surely it was a joke? “Would I like to be famous?” He repeats the next question to himself.

“No,” he’s very certain. “I’ve had some encounters with psychopaths who think they are my biggest fans, perfect match or my only rival, and it’s not fun. I’m sure being adored is lovely, but I don’t like the attention if it’s not from a good place.”

“So you want praise but you don’t want a stalker?” She dumbs it down slightly with a smile, “I definitely don’t want to be famous because I don’t like other peoples opinions about me.”

“That’s incredibly fair.”

“Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say?” She asks the next one.

“If it’s for work or my mother, yes,” he answers it completely honestly. “I prefer not to make phone calls, so when I have to make them I typically spend the day before panicking.”

She smiles, “well, if you ever need someone to call tech support and pretend to be you, I am really good on the phone.”

“Like Penelope?”

She nods, “we spent a lot of time talking on the phone when she moved to Virginia for your team.”

“That must have been really hard, I’m surprised she hasn’t mentioned you yet?”

“I’m not really her sister,” she smiles, “I wish I was. I met her during a really abusive relationship and I didn’t feel close to my parents anymore, so my old name didn’t feel right either. Penelope and her brothers were the closest thing I had to family, so I took their name after my divorce.”

“That’s beautiful,” his smile is so soft, she wonders if he feels the same about Penelope.

“What do you consider a perfect day?” She moves on before she can pry into his personal life further, just to pry into his personal life further— in another direction.

“Nobody dies.”

“Even the bad guys?” She squints as she asks it, wondering if that was an appropriate topic for the first date.

“I’m not a fan of the prison system, and I’m really not a very big fan of suicide by cop, let alone lethal injection,” he explained. “Just because you’re a murderer or a psychopath doesn’t mean you have to die too, there is rehabilitation and a way to keep them sane and alive while keeping people safe. I just hate when people die.”

“Me too,” her smile is sad, “my perfect day would be having my parents back, I’d like to show them my degree and go out for ice cream and give them another hug.”

“We should have our perfect days back to back,” his voice is low, he was nervous to say it. “Cause then once you bring them back, I stop people from dying and they can stay forever.”

He sees her heartbreak as the tears well in her eyes, “that would be nice.”

“Um,” he clears his throat and then takes a sip of water. “When was the last time you sang to yourself, or someone else?”

“I was singing in the car on the way here,” she smiles with a sniffle, “I sing a lot actually. I’m always humming or tapping as well, if my mind is wandering then it has to make some kind of noise.”

“What is your favourite thing to hum?” He can’t stop himself from asking it, “I personally do the muppets, duh duh nanana, manamanah.”

She laughs again, and a tear slips out as her eyes close. She hurries to wipe it away, “I often find myself doing the teletubbies song, you know; ‘Tinky-Winky, Dipsy,’” she sings the words before humming the tune to match.

“That’s a good one too,” Spencer is really enthusiastic suddenly, the way he would be with Penelope. He was really comfortable. “If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?”

“Mind, because that’s how you keep a good body. If I can keep the strength and willpower to get up in the mornings and go to work and remember why I love being alive, I’ll be young forever,” she answers like it’s rehearsed.

“I was going to say I’d want my mind too, but the way you said it is a lot more elegant,” he teases. “My mom has Alzheimer's, you were honest about wanting kids and you should know that's genetic. I can also pass on schizophrenia and any other mental illness, like depression, bipolar disorder and most definitely anxiety—

“Spencer,” she reaches across the table for his hand, “breathe, that’s not scary to me. My grandma had it too, I’m not optimal gene-wise either.”

He takes a deep breath, “Sorry.”

“It makes you real to react like that, I don’t mind seeing that side of you. Fake strong men and men who compensate are the worst, in my opinion.”

“Mine too,” he agrees. “I am an anxious worrier, I barely sleep, I’m terrified of the dark, I have PTSD nightmares about my short stay in prison, and I cry a lot when I’m alone.”

“It was a mistake clearly? The prison stay, that is.”

“Yeah,” he nods, moving to the next question. “Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?”

She laughs through her nose at the switch topic change, “well until I was 19 I thought my husband was going to kill me, then I thought maybe it would be myself, now I’m content dying in my sleep when I'm old.”

“It is ever-changing,” he agrees. “I have died before.”

“What did it feel like?”

She doesn’t ask how, she knows he was sober, she knows he’s been to prison, she knows he’s an agent. It wasn’t a surprise. Penelope even almost died once before, it was an unfortunate part of the job.

“Warm.”

“Like soothing warm, like drinking a hot chocolate, or that uncomfortable warm like being in a hot car?”

“Like a hug.”

Her lips purse, she hums a bit. “Yeah, my answer stays the same.”

“Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.”

“You like to learn,” she smiles again. “You enjoy the mysteries and the horribleness of the world because it keeps you grounded. You love your mom.”

“We love Penelope, our hearts have similar scars, life has been mean to us for no reason,” he adds 3 more for good measure.

“What are you grateful for in life?” She asks the next question.

“I’ve never said this before,” he prefaces, “but found family. If it wasn’t for my team, no matter who was coming and going over the years, anyone who has had my back. Anyone who loves me in any capacity. That’s what I’m grateful for.”

“We’re not even through the first set of questions and I can see why everyone loves you,” she admits. Moving far too fast, doing exactly what Derek wanted from her.

To scare him and see if he still stays.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Spencer stops the questions, “I can’t continue if I can’t tell you this.”

“Yeah, what’s wrong?”

“Derek and Emily bet me $20 that I couldn’t get someone to fall in love with me, he wanted to set this up and then hit on you in a week and see if you picked me over him, and it feels like a really shitty thing to do to you. It’s making me feel like you’re an object more than a person and I feel really bad about it.”

She just laughs and he has no idea why. “He bet me that I could be as insane as I am with most of my dates and you’d still want to stay with me after a week.”

“You’re not mad?” He worries, by passing her words and the implications of it all.

“No, did you truly mean how you feel?”

“Yes…”

“Then I accept your apology, you’re really kind Spencer. I believe you when you speak, I trust you,” she explains her reasoning and he settles once more. “You’re the most real man I’ve ever met, I think.”

“Thank you,” he smiles again, reaching out for her hand once more, “do you want to finish these questions?”

“Not really,” she smirks, “I think they were wrong about all 35 of them making you fall in love with someone.”

“How so?”

“It only took me 9.”

It’s so absurd they start to laugh, making eye contact, they feel delirious. His hand in hers, she squeezes it lightly and he never wants to let it go.

“Do you want to get out of here?”

“Sure, did you drive?” She asks.

“No, I walked over.”

She gets up from the table and takes his hand once more, “well, are we going to mine or yours?”

“Are you living with Penelope?”

“Yours it is then,” she teases, bumping his shoulder. This was going to be fun.

Spencer pays for their meal and meets her out front, he gets in her passenger seat and gives her the directions. “Do you want to finish the questions on the drive?” He asks.

“Hmm, well, 11 is a long one, if you want to start telling me your life story in graphic detail? Or we can jump to 12 and you can tell me what super ability you’d like to wake up with?”

“Have you ever watched star trek?”

She’s not expecting that, it makes her take a double-take, she laughs lightly, “Yeah, why?”

“Deanna Troi can sense peoples emotions, I think that would really help with my job,” he explains it easily. “And in times like this.”

“I can just tell you,” she offers, pulling into his apartment complex, she can tell why he walked.

“You don’t have to yet, let it simmer,” he smiles softly, he’s not ready for her to make a decision like loving him when she really doesn’t know everything yet. “Come inside?”

She nods, getting out and taking his hand again for the walk inside. His house is green, and it makes sense. There are door wooden bookshelves and the distant smell of old books and spilled coffee, it’s dusty and old and very Spencer.

“Can I tell you some of my story?” She asks as she kicks her shoes off.

“Absolutely,” he follows her lead, “do you want anything, wine, water?”

“Wine would be nice,” she smiles, following him to the kitchen, “you know my favourite place to talk to someone is in the kitchen.”

“Why?”

“It's the heart of the house,” she smiles slightly, “that's what my mom used to say. This is where all the love happens.”

He loves her and he knows it already, she makes him happy and calm and if she’s in the heart of his house she might as well know all of his own heart.

“I was born in Vegas,” Spencer admits, pushing his life story past his lips before she can stop him or else he wouldn’t.

“My mom was a professor, my dad is an attorney, I have always been really smart and not so athletic, I enjoy chess and reading and I had big thick glasses as a child. My mom participated in a murder and my dad covered it up and that ruined their marriage but they blamed it on her schizophrenia when he left. And then I was left to raise her when she was supposed to be raising me. I cared for her until I turned 13, I left her during the weeks and my aunt would make sure she was okay and I would travel back and forth from CalTech and Vegas on the weekends.”

She can see the exhaustion on his face at just remembering it.

“I got my licence at 16, and then I took her car and it was easier. When I was 18 I put her in a sanatarium and sold her house and took a road trip with my friend to Virginia to go to the academy. He didn’t like it after a week and asked me to go with him to New Orleans and I didn’t— I met my mentor and joined the BAU instead. I was kidnapped and drugged by a man with DID… I died and then his personality switched and Tobias brought me back. I had an addiction to Dilaudid for a few months after, then I got sober after visiting Ethan in New Orleans.”

“Was he good to you?”

“Wonderful,” he smiles, “he was my shoulder to cry on for a long time and I didn’t realize how much I needed him in my recovery until we got a case and I had a reason to see him. I missed a plane and ignored my friends to just be with him. He’s the reason I got clean, not anything else… he told me that I was too special to hate myself, and he was right.”

“He was,” she smiles. “He sounds lovely.”

“And then, the first time I saw my mom after putting her in the sanatarium was because she told parts of our case to a man who lost his daughter, and he did a lot of messed up stuff… like he shot my co-worker. She was another special person to me—“

“I’m so sorry.”

He smiles, “she lived, don’t worry. I loved Elle, she was amazing but the bureau didn’t see that. She was a broken toy to them, we all become one eventually. I miss her a lot.”

She walks into his space and wraps her arms around him, giving him a hug as he rests against the counter, she makes no attempt to move back. Holding him in the heart of the house, close to her own. He holds her back just as tight.

“Maeve, she was another person I loved who got shot, she died. I see her sometimes when I sleep, she visits me when I’m in the most need. I’ll always love her, but she’s gone. The only other woman who claims to have loved me was a psychopath who is dead now too, she framed me for murder, had me drugged, kidnapped my mother and the list goes on and it’s not pretty. In prison she had a lot of bad things happen to me, I have scars that will never heal and a part of me was lost but I’m okay now.”

They have a moment of silence in the middle of their stories, she absorbs it while preparing her own, rubbing his back as her cheek stays pressed to his chest.

“I was born in California, my parents were high school sweethearts, they made me at prom. Learned that from the scrapbooks,” she laughs against his chest, “they were great and then they died when I was 14, it was a mass shooting at a mall, and I went to a foster home. I married the oldest son in the home after he groomed me for a few years… I met Penelope when I was 20 and she helped me get divorced and back on my feet and her brothers protected me.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry you relate to loss.”

“It's the one thing that unites us all, really,” Spencer’s voice is barely a whisper. “When you think about it, we’re all born and we all die, the only difference is how we fill the middle.”

They never get to that bottle of wine he mentioned, she pulls back and asks the next question as she drags him to his bedroom. “If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know?”

“If I get to have kids.”

She drags him into the room and closes the door, “that was going to be my answer.”

“Is there something that you've dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven't you done it?” He asks as she starts to take her clothes off.

“Sleep beside the love of my life.”

“I’ve never woken up beside the love of my life,” he replies with a soft smile and follows suit, getting undressed down to their underwear before climbing in bed.

“Greatest accomplishment?” She asks as they settle in, laying her cheek on his chest once more.

He takes a moment to think of everything he’s done that has been good, and one really stands out. “there was a case a few years back, we found a bunch of kids who went missing and returned them to their families and gave answers to the families of children who didn’t make it. Days like that feel like a reward.”

“Getting divorced,” she pushes the words out quickly.

“Most valued friendship?” He asks, knowing she doesn’t need to explain herself.

“Penelope.”

“Derek.”

“Most treasured memory?”

“When JJ placed her son in my arms and told me I was his godfather,” his voice is hushed and she knows it’s because he doesn’t want to cry. “It's the closest I’ve gotten to being a father so far.”

“I got an end of the year present when I was first starting out, this girl told me that I was the reason she enjoyed reading again and it was the reason I started teaching, I’ll never forget her. Tammy Brownlee, she graduated in 2009 and we’ve been Facebook friends ever since.”

“Most terrible memory?”

“My parents dying.”

“You’d think mine would be dying right?” He asked, she nodded against his chest, “it was actually being held down by 3 men, getting a sock shoved in my mouth while they beat me.”

She kissed his chest softly, “I’m sorry, I know that feeling. Mind you, he was only 1 man, it’s not a good feeling.”

“If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living?”

“If it’s definite; not like a chance or a cancer statistic, if it’s like this is the day you die no ifs and's or butts, then I’d just continue as normal and have 1 really awesome day right before,” she smiles against him. “Make the most of it all.”

“If I was dying a year today, I’d ask you to marry me.”

“Already?” She laughs, thinking he’s kidding.

“You want a nice husband and a kid? I will be good for you as long as I know you, and I’ll have as many kids as you want me to help you make.”

She’s silent as she thinks about it. “What does friendship mean to you?”

“Someone who is there for you even when they don’t want to be, even when it’s hard,” Spencer whispers, thinking about his friends.

“It means hacking the government and voiding a marriage and changing someone's name so they can escape,” Y/N whispers. “don’t tell the feds she did that too.”

“What roles do love and affection play in your life?”

“I crave it and hardly receive it, but I give it out like it’s a sample at costco,” she snickers at the example she gave. “It’s something that people have always admired about me and yet it’s also the thing that scares people away. When I love, I love hard and it’s full and annoying and you will feel suffocated sometimes, but just tell me when and I’ll back off.”

“I don’t know how to ask for what I need,” Spencer whispers. “But I need someone to love me like that.”

“The next one is to alternate 5 good things about each other,” she rests her chin on her hand as she looks up at his face in the darkness, “soft.”

He pauses for a moment, bypassing the easiest one and saying pretty, instead, he says; “you’re honest.”

“You’re very caring,” she replies.

“You see beauty in the world still.”

She smiles at that one, “you make the world beautiful.”

“You are beautiful.”

“And you’re handsome, that’s my 4th,” she keeps track in her head.

“You’re true, to your heart, your promises, everything.”

“And you’re real, you see the world for what it is and you don’t try to change it for the better. You want to make it manageable,” her explanation is the longest one yet. “Was your childhood happy, and do you feel close with your family still?”

“I write to my mom every single day and I drop the notes off weekly, and no,” he doesn’t want to cry, but he feels like he might again. “It was liveable, I made it.”

“Mine was happy until I was 14, then I was alone, I have 1 living aunt and she is strange but I get a card from her every Christmas,” Y/N adds. “I’d like to think your lack of love and my need to fill the world with what I miss from my parents will make a really good family dynamic.”

“Me too.”

“How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?” She asks, “I think I know already, but it’s the next one.”

“She hit me a few years ago because I made her take some medicine, she hit me once when I was a kid too…” he whispers them so that they stay a secret, if they can’t be heard else where then they don’t exist in his mind. “She was a wonderful mother but the worst memories stick out the most now. She’s forgetting everything and all I can remember is how hard it’s been on me, like a bad son.”

“My mom was my best friend, and I still talk to her every day, I bring her and my dad around with me in my necklace,” she pulls the chain on her neck and shows him the little jar. “Mom, Dad, this is Spencer. Spencer, this is my mom and dad.”

He holds it in his hand and tips it gently, “nice to meet you.”

“The next one is weird,” she changed the topic again.

“Make three true "we" statements each. For instance, "We are both in this room feeling…" Spencer says it verbatim. “We are both feeling understood.”

“We are both hopeful.”

“We are both falling in love,” Spencer ends the feelings with the most prominent one.

“We are,” she agrees with another smile.

“Finish this,” he insists on moving forward, “I wish I had someone I could share…”

“The rest of my life with,” she whispers this time. “If we become besties, what’s something I should know?”

“I think I’ve told you all the important stuff so far,” Spencer thinks hard, pausing for a moment. “My butt is ticklish?”

It makes her giggle, “that is a good one. My sides and the bottom of my feet are ticklish too.”

“Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you've just met,” Spencer reads the question back from memory, “don’t be afraid to be too honest.”

“I like that you know how I feel but I hate that you’ve been hurt. I like how you listen to me, and I really like how comfortable you make me feel. I’m almost naked in your bed right now and I know you’d never, ever hurt me, and I haven’t felt that in a really long time.”

“I like that you are indulging me in the dream of becoming a husband and a dad one day… most people say it’ll happen but they never picture it. No one has ever said yeah id have your kids. I like that you know what you want and you’re actively looking for it.”

She moves up so she can hold his face in her hands, “only 7 more. Is it working?”

He nods, “my most embarrassing moment is the time I had a wet dream on the work jet.”

She laughs and then covers her mouth in panic, “I’m sorry that’s not funny.”

“It is, it’s fine,” he smiles. “I was dreaming about kissing this actress we helped, she actually did kiss me in the pool, so I guess it was bound to happen.”

She leans in and presses her lips against his, holding his cheeks in her hands his wrap around her waist as he holds her there. She peppers smaller kisses to his lips before pulling back, “we both cried in front of each other already today, so next question.”

“Tell me what you like about me already?”

Her hands trail his chest and down towards his boxers, he’s hard again from just kissing and she smirks, “this is promising.”

His hand on her back unclips her bra, “I love boobs, not even going to lie. They are my weakness.”

She pushes the straps down and tosses her bra aside, pressing her naked chest against his, she moves on. “What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?”

“Being called insane, saying I'm seeing things, or acting crazy, those are things I don’t like to be told because they make my anxiety worse.”

“Noted,” she smiles. “I talk to myself a lot so get ready for that.”

“Okay,” he smiles, she’s way too easy to be real.

“I don’t want to mention my last husband from here on out, I think if I get married again I will never tell anyone I have a first husband,” she’s firm in her words.

“Technically, Y/N Garcia has never had a husband,” he reminds her.

Her face lights up at the realization, “you’re right.”

“If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven't you told them yet?” Spencer asks.

“I regret not screaming at my ex before I disappeared but I wanted to live.”

He hums, understanding how it feels. “There isn’t anyone in specific I’ve wanted to tell this to, but I wanted to kill people when I was in prison. It made me really angry being in there and I let myself dream about killing people who hurt me and then I almost did kill someone.”

“Remember what you said about bad guys?” She whispers a helpful tip, “even the worst people deserve to have a chance at life. And you’re not hardly as bad as the worst people you’ve met.”

“You’re right,” he agrees. “Thank you.”

“This place burns down, what’s one thing you’d run back inside for? Outside of people and animals…” she asks the 3rd last question.

“The book Maeve gave me.”

“The girlfriend who died?” She confirms, and he nods. “If my place with Penelope burned down, I just want my necklace and I don’t take it off that often.”

“The next question is interesting,” Spencer thinks about it, “Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing, and why?”

“I’m glad I wasn’t at the mall with my parents, if I saw them get shot it would hurt more,” she whispers. “I’m sorry you had to see Maeve die like that.”

“In a way, I’m glad I saw Maeve get shot, otherwise I wouldn’t have believed it. She never felt real to me and then she was dead…”

She just hums, “Share a personal problem and ask your partner's advice on how he or she might handle it,” she whispers the last question.

“Also, ask your partner to reflect to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen,” Spencer adds in the second half.

“I need to find a place to stay now that I’m here, I don’t want to keep living with Penelope. As much as I love her, I want my own place,” Y/N admits.

“I think I’m in love with this girl that I just met and I don’t know if it’s too soon to ask her to look for a house with me?” Spencer pretends to sigh, “she’s super cool and I think we’d make some nice kids. I would love some advice.”

“Has she told you she loves you yet?” She teases.

Spencer shakes his head. “I love you, Y/N.”

“I love you, too, Spencer,” she replies, leaning in one more time to kiss him.

It’s deeper this time, she breathes him in and rests her forehead against his as she breathes between them.

“How did that work?” She whispers, truly amazed at how easy it was.

He shrugs, “it’s a good questionnaire.”

“You were really honest, your heart is really pure and I would like to get to know you more, but I feel like I know everything?” She shakes her head while she talks, overthinking all the things she has learned, “I don’t even know what could be left?”

“My birthday is October 28th?” He whispers, “we have a lot to discover yet.”

—

When she doesn’t come home in the morning, Penelope knows she’s at Reid’s house. She just doesn’t expect to walk in and find them naked in Reid’s bed, out cold and cuddled together with their clothes all over the room.

It looks like something happened. If only she knew the truth.

“Oh my god?” Penelope’s voice wakes them up and Spencer scrambles to make sure they are covered by his blankets.

“What are you doing here?” Y/N shouts as she wakes up.

“I came to see if you were okay. I expected one of you to be on the couch, I didn’t think it went this good?”

“We just slept in the same bed, I promise,” Spencer turned bright red as he panicked, “we just got to know each other and talked all night, in what we normally sleep in.”

“Uh-huh,” Penelope smirks, “so I take it the 36 questions worked?”

“Perhaps,” Y/N smirks back at her sister.

“Do you use it on many people?”

“No one has made it past the first question,” she smiles at him instead, kissing his cheek as Penelope watches.

“That’s my queue to go, um… yeah, wow, I didn’t see this happening so fast,” Penelope is shocked but in the best way.

She leaves just as fast as she arrived and Y/N settles back into Spencer the second she closes the bedroom door. “You know, if she’s not going to believe us we might as well do it? If you accidentally get me pregnant then we can move fast and no one will question it.”

He laughs, “accidentally, is the key word there.”

“My parents made me at prom after crushing on each other for 2 years… I think knowing each other for 2 days isn’t the weirdest way to start a family?”

“Honestly,” Spencer lets out a sigh and her happy mood drops to a more serious one. “I was a little worried that we’d wake up this morning and you’d change your mind.”

“Why?”

“In the heat of the moment, learning everything about each other and saying I love you was really exhilarating, but I have a hard time believing it,” he admits, “not many people mean it, or stay around after they tell me they love me.”

She cuddles back into the crook of his neck and holds him as tightly as possible, wrapping a leg around him for optimal coverage, “I am staying right here, because I love you, Spencer.”

“Okay,” he whispers. Sounding like he still doesn’t believe it.

“I love you because you’re honest, you want what I want and you’re truly kind. You’re friends with my sister, you’re smart, you would make a great dad, you won't hurt me, you are really nice to cuddle with, and I know you mean it when you say you love me because it’s not a word you use lightly.”

“Are you my girlfriend now?” He wonders aloud, “cause if you really want to have a kid, I have my mom's old wedding ring in my closet, and I would rather be married to you before we do that?”

“Okay,” she whispers, tears welling in her eyes as she hides her face in his neck, “the courthouse is literally just down the road?”

“We can get breakfast together after?” Spencer adds, rubbing her back as they plan, he wasn’t scared anymore.

“Penelope will kill me if she’s not there, can we have her as our witness?” Y/N finally sits up to look at him, pulling away to sit on the bed, still shirtless.

His smile while he tries to keep eye contact with her is so funny, she giggles a little as she hides her nipples behind her palms and cups her boobs.

“I’m pretty sure she’s still in my living room,” Spencer giggles, “Penelope!?”

She comes back in then, “yes?”

“We’re going to the courthouse to get married, wanna come?” Y/N asks with an embarrassed smile.

“Yes!” She cheers, “I’ll go get you a dress!”

And then she’s off again, this time actually leaving Spencer’s apartment. “What if we don’t tell Derek, and let him hit on me next week anyway?

“Then you can say ‘sorry I have a husband,’ and he’ll body slam me to the floor,” Spencer laughs nervously, “the whole team is going to be so pissed they missed my wedding…”

She frowns, “send out a mass text, tell them to meet us at the court house, it’s their day off right?”

“You’re right,” he smiles.

This was going to be interesting.

—

Walking out of the courthouse, hand in hand, she’s in a white dress, he’s in a suit he’d probably wear to work, Penelope is crying and the whole team is waiting outside for them.

At the bottom of the courthouse steps, they all clap and cheer, throwing rice at them like an old movie, Spencer’s smiling so hard his cheeks are burning. Y/N introduces herself to everyone, hugged over and over by everyone she should have met 15 years ago.

Derek is tapping his foot, waiting for Spencer to come and hug him, “what the fuck?” He asks as Spencer steps into his space, wrapping his arms around him and shaking his back and forth.

“Nice try, I’ll give you $20 as a thank you,” Spencer teases as he pulls away. “She is perfect.”

JJ and Will are busy talking to Y/N when he turns around, Mike and Henry not far behind them. Spencer walks over and wraps Henry up in his arms, the kid was growing way too fast, Spencer loved him so much it hurt sometimes.

“Y/N, this is my godson,” Spencer introduces them, “Henry, this is Y/N.”

She gives him a big hug too, “do you have any cousins, Henry?”

“No, but I was 8 when Michael was born,” he smiles, “and I’m getting old enough to be a good babysitter?”

Spencer laughed, messing up Henry’s hair quickly with a smile, “I’m sure by the time you’re a cousin you’ll be great.”

They take a group photo outside, Spencer and Y/N in the middle, everyone was smiling. It was the first time all of them had been in a photo together, the entirety of Spencer’s found family. Now they were Y/N’s too.

She hyphenated her last name, Y/N Garcia-Reid, and their kids would share the same one. He was not only about became a father thanks to Y/N, but Penelope would also become an Aunt once more. It was like a gift that kept on giving, seeing Spencer and Y/N create a little family of their own.

—

She cried her eyes out when she met Diana. She wasn’t expecting to be so emotional, but then Diana was lucid and very welcoming and sweet.

“It’s going to be a pleasure having you as my daughter,” Diana smiles, thinking it was just a nice thing to say.

Y/N cries and holds her so tight Diana almost can’t breathe but she lets her hold her as long as she needs to, “thank you.”

“You’re welcome?”

“I haven’t had someone to call mom since I was 14,” Y/N whispers, “if that’s okay?”

Diana hugs her just a little too tight in response, “you can call me mom whenever you want.”

“Just until you become a grandma,” she whispers again as she pulls back and Diana’s attention snaps to Spencer.

“Are you trying?”

He nods, “we want kids, we’re not getting any younger.”

Diana wraps him up in a hug and he almost falls off his chair at the sheer force of it, she was so happy for him. She knew this was all he’s ever wanted; because he would be good at it, he had all this love in his heart, and he wanted to show his father how easy it is to stay.

“You’re going to be a great dad, Spencer,” she holds his cheeks as she pulls away, “I’m proud of you.”

He cried. It’s all he’s wanted from her, and now he has everything right here in this room.

—

When they find out they’re pregnant after the first try, it’s really funny to them. It was all working so well, it was a little too much for them at first. They were looking for a house, she was looking for a permanent teaching job but Spencer convinced her to wait until after the baby is born to go back.

They name her Morgan Garcia-Reid as a thank you for Derek’s little bet, and before she’s even 6 months old they’re pregnant again. By the time they have 4 kids under 5 they take a break and just enjoy their little family.

To think Derek gave them 7 days to fall in love… and then they lived happily ever after.

taglist: @g0lden-cth @doctorspenceryeet @samuel-de-champagne-problems @reiding-recs @ssavanessa22 @spookyspence @shemarmooresfedora @spencers-dria@reidsfish @manuosorioh @mochionly @jswessie187 @k-k0129 @calm-and-doctor @blanchardsbk

[lubdubsworld]

A Tale Untold. ( Jungkook x Oc)

Historical Au! General Jungkook! x Princess Oc!

Warnings : Non con/ Dub con, Manipulation, violence.

Rated 18+

Summary : The King of Elvyra is proud of his empire and of his perfect family. But the truth behind his ascension, is a tale that remains untold.

“The palace is so beautifully maintained your Majesty. Truly, such opulent splendor …..” The envoy from the neighboring Kingdom stood slack jawed in the Grand Hall, staring around at the gleaming trophies, mounted shields and gold embossed portraits that decorated the walls.

The brocade curtains had been left open, tied together with silk braided ropes with jeweled hangings, the light from the late afternoon sun setting the whole place aglow. On ornate tables scattered across the large room, stood little treasures and trinkets that had been taken as bounty from successful military campaigns against smaller, weaker Kingdoms.

All of it a testament to the unchallenged power wielded by General Jeon Jungkook, the King of Elvyra. He was not like the other monarchs. He still commanded his army personally despite wearing the title of King.

Jeon Jungkook, who stood to my left, with his arm wrapped around my waist in a possessive grip that was just shy of painful.

“ You must thank my beautiful queen for that, I’m afraid, Sir Cha. She has been much occupied with setting the Hall and the Palace to rights after my ascension, and her efforts have paid off. Have they not, princess?” Jungkook whispered, turning around to brush soft lips against my ear and I felt physically sick.

The last endearment was a sneer. And insult. A reminder of what I was : a captive.

“Yes, my King.” I said softly, keeping my tone level. I wouldn’t dare act up in front of guests, because Jungkook’s punishments would be cruel and merciless. He would keep my sister away from me, or worse, he would forbid me from spending time with our oldest son.

Jihwan was only seven, but already he was being trained as the heir, spending hours on the training fields with his father and it took endless hours of begging and servicing Jungkook in his bed and out of it, for me to be allowed a scant few hours with the boy.

Jungkook drilled into his head the importance of power, the need to instill fear in his subordinates, raising him to be just as ruthless and cruel as he himself was and I had only those few stolen hours to speak to my son about the values that I had grown up with. My heart ached when I remembered the kind of monarch my own father had been : a kind, gentle man who loved his Kingdom. And my elder brother had been raised with morals , compassion and justice in his veins, only for Jeon Jungkook and his barbaric army to invade our home and destroy it all.

“Your beauty outshines all of this, my Queen.” A man simpered next to me and Jungkook’s eyes narrowed at him. I swallowed. Jungkook didn’t like others looking at what was his.

“The story of your ascension to the throne here, we would love to hear of it.” One of the women said and my breath caught in my lungs, Memories flooded my head, traumatizing and painful. My skin went hot and then icy cold and my husband laughed next to me.

“It was quite simple. I was offered the throne and the lovely daughter of the Kingdom, in return for saving them from ruin, was it not, my dear?”

Liar.

“I.. Yes.”

“Ruin? Was your kingdom is trouble, my Queen?” the woman asked.

~~~~~~

No. We were rich and thriving. Everyone was treated equal here. My parents ruled with a heart of gold and everyone was well fed and joyful. We held festivals every month, celebrated life and never deemed ill will to anyone else. We loved each other. The commonfolk dined with the royals in the courtyards and the King himself drank at the cavern down in the village. The oldest prince, my brother, he played with the boys in the village, taught them how to wield the sword and the bow and arrow and my sister and I… we spent our days in the meadows…. Making daisy chains and stealing kisses from the stable boys.

~~~~~

“ They were in desperate need of firm leadership. My father in law, may he rest in peace….he had a weak heart that gave out soon after our alliance. Her brother followed soon after leaving me no choice but to take over.” Jungkook’s voice held a note of genuine sympathy and I felt sick to my stomach.

~~~~~~~~

The sight of my father, kneeling in front of his throne, shackled and in chains. My mother on her knees, begging for mercy and Jungkook’s men held a dagger to her throat. My brother standing in front of me and my sister, arms spread wide as he stared right at General Jeon, refusing to kneel.

“What you’re doing goes against every law on earth, Jeon. The moment you attack a foe when he has his back turned you reveal yourself to be a coward.”

And Jungkook had laughed, loud and uncaring.

“And if I stab him through the heart when he’s right in front of me? What does that reveal?”

It had happened in a flash, the quick movement of his wrist, the flash of silver as he drew his weapon and then the sickening squelch of the blade as it sunk through skin and flesh. The hot wetness of my brother’s blood as it splattered all over my face, the dawning horror as I realized that he had run the sword right through my brother’s heart and the endless screams from my mother and sister as my brother died right in front of our eyes.

I had stood there, too stunned to scream watching the boy who had taught me how to walk bleeding to death in front of me and when I had looked up, Jungkook’s eyes had been trained on mine.

“Bring her here” He had said firmly, pointing right at me and my entire world had exploded in agony. I screamed in protest as his men grabbed me by the arm, yanking me forward with such force that my legs gave out, dragging over the rough stone floors as they pulled me to stand in front of the man who had invaded our home without remorse.

“General Jeon….” My father’s voice came from behind me , soft and yet firm. I could hear the grief and pain in the syllables, and I wondered how much my father must be aching at this moment. He had loved my brother with his whole heart “ We’ve offered to surrender, offered you the throne. Please. Spare my daughters and my wife. There is a summer palace at the edge of the kingdom . We will retire there and live our lives out in exile. Please… don’t hurt them. They are too young to understand what you’re doing.”

One of the men standing next to Jungkook stepped forward and I glanced at him, my eyes widening when I saw his face. He looked like an angel, pristine and flawless. And his gaze was trained on my sister . I felt my heart began to pound as he began making his way over to her.

“No!! No… Aline!!” I screamed and Jungkook’s hand shot out gripping my jaw and forcing my mouth closed.

“Hold your tongue, woman.” He whispered. “ My patience wears thin.” He glanced at my father and the smirk on his face grew bigger. “ I think that would be such a pity, your highness. A face like your daughter’s … it doesn’t belong in exile. It belongs on the throne…. does it not, princess?”

“Your daughters are beautiful , majesty. They deserve to have handsome, brave husbands, do they not?” the man who had gone to my sister called out, his fingers curled around her arm as he dragged her to the front and I felt my heart crack in two as Aline burst into loud, miserable tears.

“Lulu…. Lulu make him stop… tell him to let me go…” She whimpered , punching fruitless against the soldier’s armored chest and the man seemed amused as he stared at her.

“Please…she’s too young…” I begged, staring at Jungkook beseechingly. “ She’s only sixteen summers old… Please don’t hurt her…”

“Sixteen isn’t a child. She is old enough to bear one herself.” The man holding her snapped angrily and I stiffened.

“A fair enough point, Taehyung- ah…” Jungkook laughed “ but we’re not barbarians. Let her go for now.”

“What?” Taehyung growled. “ No. I want her. Jungkook I’ve never taken anything from any of the countless kingdoms we’ve ravaged but I want her.” He shook my sister like she was ragged doll and Aline looked catatonic with terror.

“Please , let her go, she’s shaking…” I begged , trying to yank my arms away from the men holding me and Jungkook growled.

“Shut your mouth or your father dies.” He snarled and I was too stricken, too distracted to register what he had said, too focused on my baby sister to listen.

“please Jungkook, don’t do this… She’s young and she’s scared….”

Jungkook’s snarl of rage made me go white as a sheet and I watched in horror as he pointed straight at my father with the sword that still dripped with my brother’s life blood.

“ Get rid of the old fool.” He roared and my heart ripped straight in two.

“NO!!!!!!!”

My loud cry did nothing to deter the men holding my father who showed not a moment of hesitation, raising their sword.

“Remember who you are, Iseul!!” My father said loudly and I turned my face away, closing my eyes as the sickening sound of the blade coming down rang through the place, my mother’s howl of agony following shortly after. I stared at the floor, going limp in the arms of the men holding me up, my body numb and throbbing in disbelief.

“Now look what you made me do.” Jungkook snapped. “ I was going to let the poor fool live, somewhere in the dungeons with your mother but your complete and utter disregard for my authority….it fills me with rage, Iseul.” He snapped.

I couldn’t breathe, my lungs constricting. They were dead. My father and brother, the only two men who had protected me and my sister all our lives, they were both dead. This man. No, not a man. A monster.

This cruel, heartless monster had butchered them in front of my eyes.

“Look at me.” He said suddenly, stepping in front of me.

I didn’t respond, keeping my gaze trained on the floor and his hand shot out, gripping my chin and forcing me to look up at him.

“Look at me.” He said firmly. “ Come morning we will be wed. I will be your husband. You will belong to me. You will give me strong heirs and all of your wants and needs will be mine to fulfill. Do you understand what that means, Iseul?” He demanded.

I choked on a sob.

“Jungkook we need to get rid of the bodies. Give them a proper funeral at least.” Another man stepped out of the shadows and Jungkook sighed.

“Yes, hyung. Taehyung-ah… Why don’t we take our new brides to our chambers?” He smirked, “ I could do with some stress relief now that the hard part of this whole thing is done.”

“Took you long enough. Come here my pretty doll…” Taehyung grinned, dragging Aline away and I whimpered, stumbling to try and follow but Jungkook’s arm came around my waist squeezing tight.

“That’s her husband now. Think of it that way and it will hurt less. Your sister is married to a man who will love her , protect her and cherish her. He will give her nice strong children. What more do you want for her?”

I exhaled shakily, turning to him.

“ What do you know of love, you monster?” I whispered.

Jungkook hummed.

“Then how about this, my princess. Let me teach you what I know of pleasure, and you can teach me all about love.”

It was a lesson that I never forgot. A painful, humiliating excruciating lesson in his bed where he stripped of my clothes, my dignity and the last shreds of my honour.

I stared at the ceiling as he lay over me, the large expanse of his chest pinning me to the mattress, the slick drag of his member inside me making me ache and throb, his lips, pressing kisses against my throat.

“you smell like a flower garden, my angel. So pure and precious. Made for me, I see….” He whispered, hips pushing up against mine as he ducked into me with long, rough strokes.

I stayed still staring into nothing and he pinched my nipple, twisting the buds till I whimpered.

“Please…”

“please what?” He whispered, resting his forehead against mine, forcing me to stare into doe eyes that seemed to glitter like the clear sky on a spring night. What a beautiful monster.

“Please stop…” I whispered.

“Stop…” He laughed cruelly. He pulled out fully before slamming back in with more force. Pain lanced up my body. “ Now why would I do that?”

“Hurts…” I whispered, exhausted. My hands lay limp and tired next to my head, throbbing from trying to punch him countless times to no avail.

“Poor little love. It hurts because you aren’t used to it. I will do this often and well and soon, your body will know that I belong inside you. And then you will beg me to make it last longer… not stop.”

I closed my eyes, staring into my mind. Remember who you are? I didn’t even know who I was anymore.

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

“Of course, it was a pity that the royal blood came to an end that way. But some things can’t be helped.” Jungkook said firmly, arm still wrapped around me in a vice like grip. I glanced at the sun as it dipped lower in the sky. Was Jihwan done with the training? I wanted to see him. To hold him and remind myself that there was still some goodness in the world.

“But under your rule, the kingdom has thrived, your Majesty. So it was all for the best.” The man said brightly and Jungkook chuckled.

“That is true. Would you like to view the training grounds now?”

“If, I maybe excused?” I asked softly and Jungkook frowned.

“Is something the matter?”

“I feel a little unwell…” I said softly and the look on his face darkened.

But he didn’t protest, merely dipping his head lightly.

“Jihwan is in the west wing. He’s working on his scribing skills. You may visit him for a while and after our guests retire, I will fetch you from him.”

I bowed respectfully.

“Thank you, my King.”

~~~~~~~~

“Mother!!!” Jihwan’s loud cry rang through the hallway as he came barreling into my arms. I caught him too my chest, eyes stinging because soon he would be too old for me to hug and kiss and caress.

“My darling child, I’ve missed you..” I whispered.

“You saw me last night at dinner…” He laughed.

“And that is entirely too long ago.” I brushed the hair of his face. “ did you eat your meals? Have you been keeping yourself safe?”

He nodded eagerly.

“Auntie Aline and Uncle Tae bought me a new dagger.”

I felt my heart drop. A dagger?

“Darling, please be safe…Is it too sharp?”

“A little. But Uncle Tae told me I’m old enough to learn how to use it to fight.”

I closed my eyes, willing my self not to scream in frustration.

“Alright. But now unless your father is there to watch you, alright?” I whispered.

He nodded.

“Yes, mother. Mother…. “ He hesitated. “ Do Auntie Aline and Uncle Tae love each other?”

I blinked.

“What?”

“She looks so sad, sometimes.”

I bit my lips, willing myself to smile. Unlike me , my sister didn’t know how to put on an act. She had always been a delicate child and the trauma of our parents death and Taehyung’s cruelty had taken a toll on her. She was deeply depressed but her husband didn’t care. All Taehyung cared for was her body and the two sturdy sons she had borne him, a third child on the way.

“Of course darling. You do know, Han and Jiwoo are going to have a younger sibling soon? She must be tired from growing the baby inside her.”

“Will I have a sibling too?” He asked innocently and I opened my mouth to refute the idea when a shadow fell over us.

“Would you like one, my brave little tiger?” Jungkook’s voice rang over us and I stiffened.

“No.” I said swiftly, “ He enjoys having all of mama’s attention, don’t you darling?”

Jihwan wrinkled his nose.

“I don’t know. A little sister would feel nice.”

Jungkook hummed.

“I like the idea of that. If you give me a daughter then we can have her betrothed to Han at birth.” He said casually and I felt sick.

“Jihwan, you must go back to your lessons, now. Your mother and I will see you at dinner.” Jungkook said softly and I flinched when Jungkook gripped my shoulders tugging me away from my boy. Everyday Jihwan looked less and less upset at leaving me and I wondered if one day he would begin welcoming my departure.

Jungkook didn’t say a word, turning me around and leading me gently to the opposite wing, where our bedchamber lay. It was a path I traipsed a million times in the seven years we’d been married and yet, it felt just as unbearable as it had back then.

The sight of the King made the maids and footmen scramble away in a panic and I swallowed as he opened the large engraved doors , prompting me to go in. I stepped in only to have him press against my back at once. I stayed still, letting him untie the strings of my train, before moving to undo the button of my gown. He stopped halfway through.

“This is tedious. Strip for me and get on the bed.”

I didn’t move. What did he want? Surely he wouldn’t be thinking of humoring my son? The idea of bearing more children for him was abhorrent to me. I wanted to cry. But I did as he said, carefully stripping out of all my clothes ,m placing them in a neat pile, on the table nearby before moving to climb into the bed for him. Jungkook moved into sit against the headboard, before grabbing my wrists and pulling me to his lap.

“Look at me.” Jungkook said, once I sat straddling his thick thighs, the curve of my bottom resting against the hardness of his arousal. “ I was right, wasn’t I?”

I stared at him as his hands came up to pinch both of my nipples at the same time, playing with the hardened numbs till I began squirming on his hard length.

“ You were made for this weren’t you? To be my queen and my wife? Such a perfect mother too. I was right to choose you, wasn’t I?”

I stared at him, the handsome face that I wanted to hate., But it was hard. He had given me Jihwan. He had let me keep my sister at arm’s length. He had let my mother live out her years in the palace, although the grief had killed her two years ago. It could be worse, I told myself, lifting and moving to line the tip of his member against my body and sinking down on him. It could be so much worse.

“Fuck…yes. Just like that angel….” He gripped my waist, bucking up into me and my body caved, now used to the intrusion.

“Yes…” I choked out, when his thumb moved to press against my center, rubbing circles.

“I was right….I’m always right . Your body knows I belong inside you.”

He pulled me close, arms a vice around my body and I choked as he fucked into me .

“Say it… “ He demanded and I closed my eyes, sorrow and helplessness welling into tears and brimming over my eyes onto his shoulders and down his back. But Just as I was used to him inside me, Jungkook was used to the tears soaking him whenever we did this.

“Don’t stop.” I breathed.

The King after all was always right.

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

Author's Note : Would you guys like another part? But please tell me what you thought !!

[kpopaeipathy]

Relax (Eun Woo Oneshot)

Pairing: Guard! EunWoo x Royal! Reader (gender-neutral)

Genre: Fluff, maybe slightly angst

Word count: 1,987

No warnings

Summary: When Eun Woo wants to protect you, but you just want him to relax and enjoy.

A/N: This was inspired by this prompt.

The mountains that surrounded the city reflected the colors of the sky more clearly, as if they were its own starless, self-lit expanse, lacking only by the hardy winter trees. Looking at them brought a feeling of peace and tranquility, protection even, because no one would dare tarnish such beauty. But it was not the splendor that prevented the invaders.

The few who tried to cross them quickly understood the dangers that probed the ground covered with frozen water in crystalline form. A sound at the wrong time would cause the crime to be covered by the cold, deadly hands of the natural shield of that small royal town.

The entire realm, in fact, was devastatingly beautiful and intimidating, hidden between mountains and valleys, protected by nature more than by guards and armies. They didn't need to get unstuck much to deter invaders and thieves. Never, in all its grand history, had the kingdom of Hanian been so threatened as to demand extra protection from any royal or its subjects.

Therefore, the citizens of Etherna, the royal city, did not understand the gravity of the situation and continued to offer their grandiose balls and banquets, to which the royal family could not refuse to participate, as the flaunting would be more dangerous than the possible invaders.

Also, there was the fact that this city was the most protected and the most difficult to enter or leave. Which in itself was a danger, as escape was unlikely. Even so, they were all gathered in the magnanimous gardens of Lady Khmer's mansion, dancing to flutes and violins.

"Would it kill you to relax?" you provoked your personal guard.

Since before you left the palace, Eun Woo had been alert, rigid, ready to attack anyone who got in your way (which almost happened when one of the guests who had already arrived at the dance drunk bumped into you and fell in front of you). Cha Eun Woo was the best guard in all of Hanian, assigned to you to protect the sole heir to the throne, but the fact that he was inordinately good bothered you a little, mostly because you would do anything to see a smile on his perfectly shaped lips.

“Probably,” he responded to your teasing, still scanning his surroundings as if searching for some hidden killer. “Likely it would kill you too. That's rather the point."

You smiled. Eun Woo's acid humor and straightforward responses were the traits you liked best about him. Of course, you also appreciated the symmetrical face and satin skin, with eyes so expressive they made up for the constant serious and focused countenance. The body was also not to be thrown away, with defined muscles and prepared for any battle.

“I'll risk it,” you said, drawing the guard's gaze to you, and held out a hand. “Dance with me.”

Eun Woo frowned and didn't move, noting the gloved hand in front of him.

Before he even opened his mouth to respond, you already knew what the words would be, so you just spoke before him: "It's an order."

A deep sigh was the only clue to the tormented state of your personal guard, as he remained serious and alert as he gave in to your request and took your hand to lead you onto the dance floor.

The smile on your lips deepened when you saw Eun Woo sigh once more at the scandalized looks of the other guests. It wasn't the first time you decided to shock royalty by dancing with your personal guard. In fact, that was your most common rebellious act and you didn't understand how the nobles and burghers weren't used to it yet.

“Look at me,” you ordered as Eun Woo's dark orbs scanned the hall on your first lap of the track.

He didn't sigh this time, just looked into your eyes and stayed that way for the rest of the time. The muscles were still stiff under your hands, a clear indication that he was still prepared to jump in front of an arrow to defend you.

“I'm not going to tell you to relax,” you stated, realizing that your words had exactly the opposite effect.

That was your best-known trick, at least between the two of you. After so many years as monarch and personal guard, you and Eun Woo had forged a kind of friendship that no one in the realm understood. Sometimes even you didn't understand. However, you came to appreciate the man in front of you so much that you used every resource in your power to make him relax and have fun whenever you could. Eun Woo never complained, not even to his companions, who often blurted out near you that Eun Woo had already commented on appreciating your dedication to his mental health.

He had never questioned you either. From the first time you had tried to make him relax, Eun Woo had accepted your orders like any other, as if your every word mattered. Until this moment, of course...

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, his husky voice invading your senses and raising the hairs on the back of your neck.

"I don't like to see you so stiffened."

"I have a duty here, Your Highness." Despite the firm tone of voice, you could feel that he was dancing calmly, as you intended. “If anything happens to you because I was careless for a minute…”

“Nothing will happen,” you interrupted him. “We are in the most protected kingdom in the world, in the most difficult city to penetrate. I have the best guard ever.”

“None of this is a guarantee…”

“If someone breaks a plate somewhere, you will stop your steps, put me behind your back, and verify who was responsible so you can kill or forgive. If a hum invades the melody that surrounds us, you will scan the surroundings with those deep eyes and find the reason to decide whether to hide me or continue dancing.”

"Your Highness..."

“I'm well protected,” you wouldn't let him speak and stiffen again. After all the turmoil your kingdom was going through, you and Eun Woo, as well as everyone in the royal family, deserved that night's rest. "I have you so I'm fine."

He sighed again, this time more softly. And for a split second, you saw the corners of his beautiful lips move upwards as if they were trying to smile.

“You overestimate me,” he said, causing you to snap back to reality and stop dreaming of a completely relaxed Cha Eun Woo.

“No, I'm a realist. It's different,” you replied, still smiling.

You were silent again, enjoying the last chords of the waltz that lulled you. Eun Woo was by far the best dance partner you've ever had and the fact that you talked and interacted in those few minutes made it the dance you'd most enjoyed in your entire life.

When you left the dance floor and returned to the secluded and sheltered corner you were at before, you treasured that night even more, as it was the first time Eun Woo had held your hands together for so long after the dance. He only released you when you were stopped and alone again.

“Your Highness,” he called softly, drawing your eyes to the perfect face that didn't even resemble that of a royal guard. "I appreciate your concern and I admit that perhaps I overreacted tonight."

Even though your eyes widened at the unexpected words, you managed to control yourself in time to joke and say, "Perhaps?"

This time, contrary to everything you knew and recognized about Cha Eun Woo, the smile rehearsed on the dance floor actually appeared on the guard's face, reaching his dark eyes, which thinned as they smiled along with his lips. Your heart raced in such a way that you thought you were having a cardiac arrhythmia.

"As I was saying," he continued, keeping the corners of his lips raised and your heart pounding, "I may have overreacted tonight, but I need to ask you not to distract me again."

“What? Why?" You didn't understand. You even won a smile with your endeavor, how could he not want you to do that again?

"I cannot lose you."

Frustrated, you took a deep breath and huffed, clenching your hands into fists before you began gesturing as you said, "I already told you, I know I'm well protected..."

"You'll always be," it was Eun Woo's turn to interrupt you, "that's not the point."

"Then what is?" you asked, moving closer to him when you noticed the smile leaving that face you cherished so much. "Why can't you just have a little fun with me?"

“But I have fun with you all the time…”

“Eun Woo…”

“Your Highness,” he spoke pointedly, cutting off any argument that began with his name that would make him keep silent if you ordered him to. "I wouldn't forgive myself."

“What are you talking about?" you asked, furrowing your brow.

Again, he sighed. Then, once again contradicting your expectations and shocking anyone who looked at you, including yourself, he placed his hands on your shoulders to stop the advance you kept making towards him. But he kept you close enough that the whispered words that came out of his mouth could only be heard by you.

“I can, yes, pay close attention to my surroundings and protect you faster than any other royal guard, but even I have my limits, and having you in my arms, looking at the smile that paints your face, is a very powerful distraction.” Once again, your eyes widened at the words. “At any other day, any other time,” he continued, “I wouldn't mind not resisting you. But we are facing a unique threat, an enemy that knows how to penetrate our defenses that should be impenetrable. I can't afford the distraction. If I lose you, I won't forgive myself.”

That was definitely the longest speech that Cha Eun Woo had given you in all your years together. Not only because there were so many words, but also because there was still so much he was saying between the lines. And it was everything you've dreamed of hearing since setting eyes on that perfect-in-every-way guard.

You knew you could never ask for more from him than that, knew you could never get what you really wanted from him because it wouldn't be fair for you not to be able to give it back. Your eyes filled with tears at the realization that you couldn't respond to unspoken words. Your lips trembled with the force you took to hold back the answer that was on the tip of your tongue. You loved him. With all your might. Nor would you forgive yourself if you lost him.

So you understood and accepted his argument, nodding once firmly so that he could see that you were agreeing without saying anything. Eun Woo watched your face and opened his eyes a little wider than usual, in his own expression of surprise, before reluctantly releasing your shoulders and taking two steps away.

“I promise not to distract you anymore,” you finally managed to say.

"Thank you," he muttered, looking away from you and taking in his surroundings.

Once again, you looked at the icy mountains that surrounded the city and wished that protection was enough to bring peace to Eun Woo's mind and body, you prayed to any of the gods that the threat would be neutralized so that your guard could relax in your arms again.

You smiled then, looking back at Eun Woo, who once again had the mask of concentration and seriousness on his face.

"But can't we even take a walk in the gardens?"

"Sure," he responded to your teasing, "I can put a target in your head too if you like."

The acid humor was still the man's best feature.

[firefly-in-darkness]

Lost and Found.

Pairing → Geralt of Rivia x Reader

Characters → Ciri, Jaskier, Priscilla, Yennefer (mentioned)

Summary → Geralt left with Yennefer for months.

Word Count → 5k

AFG Square Fill → Geralt @anyfandomgoesbingo

Warnings → 18+. Angst, heartache, jealousy, swearing, happy ending

Betas → @wonder-cole // all mistakes are my own.

A/N →  Well this ended up being a longer story than I expected… I’ve only written for Geralt / The Witcher fandom once before and will have used content from the series, the books and the games as I have watched, read and played everything based on our ashen haired babe

The tavern was full of locals that had escaped from the cold night air. Farmworkers caked in mud with a distinct stench of sweat, merchants drowned their sorrows or celebrated their successes. A shadowy corner for the gamblers prayed for their Gwent decks to fare better than their opponents. There were even some families gathered by the large fire with bowls of broth and torn pieces of bread.

You had taken a seat at an empty table, slightly out of sight from the group you were meant to be with. You weren’t ready to be confronted with that situation until you had at least two tankards worth of ale in your system. In all fairness, you had debated about coming here in the first place, but it was Cirilla’s twenty-first birthday, and you would have felt awful if you hadn’t shown your face, even for the briefest of moments to wish her well.

It had absolutely nothing to do with avoiding a certain witcher, nothing at all.

A few years ago, Ciri marched into a small school on the outskirts of Rochdale, a quaint town in Velen, and stated that she wanted to continue her studies. Even if it was only for a few days a month. When her family visited. The matron was sceptical at first, not knowing who this child was or where she had come from but when Ciri produced a large coin purse, there were no qualms of fitting her into the roster of students.

You took Ciri under your wing the moment she’d stepped into your classroom. Ciri’s love for history and mythology strengthened the bond between you. Many evenings were spent talking about the world and all its wonder. And particularly, the monsters that lurked in the darkness.

In the space of a few weeks, you learnt a lot about Ciri and her adoptive parent. She confided in you about her hardships of trying to find Geralt. He was someone that her grandmother had told her to go to when Cintra fell to the Nilfgaardians. Your heart had clenched at the thought of such a sweet young girl wandering this world alone, with no family and in search of someone that she did not truly know existed.

It was one evening when Ciri unravelled the rope attached to her horse outside the school, waiting for Geralt to arrive, that you first met him. While you loaded the saddlebags with books, the sound of hoofs on the cobblestones caught your attention, and a majestic mare appeared from the side of the stone wall with a man astride her. He silently nodded to Ciri, no further expression or acknowledgement was made.

It looked as if there were no more than fifteen years between Geralt and Ciri, and he was not what you had expected. You had envisioned an older man, a farmer or merchant perhaps, with a family of his own. Not this handsome man, in a black cape, luscious white hair that curled over his shoulders.

He had caught you off guard, enamoured as you watched him dismount the horse. Your bodies almost touched in the tight space between you both. You stared at his chest, the wolf head medallion indicating his occupation. A Witcher. He towered over you; amber eyes glared down as you froze to the spot. Your legs felt like lead as you were held in his gaze. He should have frightened you, a slayer of monsters but, regardless of his stoic appearance, his presence provided a sense of calm.

The first grunt that he expelled went unheard, you snapped out of it when he did it a second time and shifted from his path so he could collect the books from Ciri. You could have sworn that, even though he seemed gruff, a small smirk twitched at your flustered state.

“See you next week Miss,” Ciri called after you as you lifted yourself into the saddle and gave her a small wave.

The awkwardness heated your cheeks and your mind spiralled at the way you’d reacted to Geralt. You had never frozen in front of a parent or guardian before. A cough brought you to your senses and a groan rumbled through you unexpectedly as you turned to him, eyes wide with embarrassment and a wish for the ground to swallow you whole.

You waited for Geralt to say something, but no words followed, and he seemed to be in just a flustered state as yourself, but you tried to shake that thought. There was no way a man like him would ever think of a teacher in any way other than a guardian should.

Ciri popped from around Geralt’s horse, a mischievous look on her face, “He’s trying to ask you if you’d like to join us for dinner or would like company back to your lodgings.”

You smiled to yourself at the fond memory, the sound of music and laughter lifted your spirit in the small tavern. Until you glanced to the side; the seat beside you was empty, and its presence was a reminder of what you had lost. 

What had happened between you and Geralt was a friendship that had developed into secret sparks of lust. But your burning flame of love was extinguished the moment you saw him with Yennefer. After two years of tiptoeing around friendship and the late night trysts, you’d lost him to the most beautiful and powerful woman of the continent.

Your heart ached when you caught several glimpses of Geralt throughout the evening; either talking to the innkeeper or with Ciri and Jaskier as they attempted to get him to dance. He hadn’t seen you yet, you were sure of it, and you hadn’t made your presence known to anyone either. As much as you wanted to keep it that way, you would have to see Ciri at some point and that time came sooner than you expected as your eyes met across the tavern and she ran towards you.

In a flash of light, she teleported to your table and wrapped her arms around you. You would never get used to that. You returned the hug, clinging onto her as tightly as you could because it was likely this would be the last time, you would see her.

Nobody knew about your job offer at Oxenfurt Academy, that you were strongly considering the move to Redania, bags packed and ready at the door. It was what you needed, a fresh start. Plus, you knew that the matron was going to start looking at reducing the staff numbers after the drop in births in the town so you might as well get out before you were penniless.

You let Ciri go and caught another arrival to your side; Jaskier. His beaming smile was infectious, and he made you giggle as he dramatically bowed to you. Geralt was behind him, no expression on his face and not that you dared to look at him properly in fear for how much it would hurt you to do so. 

Completely unaware of the awkward tension that was filling the space between you and your former secret lover, Jaskier instantly took a seat opposite you and tipped his tankard upside down, “Oh Geralt, it looks like it’s your round!” 

Geralt grunted and left the three of you on your own. You relaxed ever so slightly as you watched him walk away and turned your attention to the birthday girl, woman.

“Oh, Y/N, it has been a while, three months at least!” Ciri said as she clasped your hands in hers.

“It has indeed, I heard from many merchants about your birthday celebrations, and I had to make sure at once that I was here to join in!” You beamed at her and shuffled along the wooden bench for her to join, “How long are you staying in town for this time?”

“I’m not sure, it depends on Geralt as always.” Ciri shrugged.

Priscilla, a beautiful blonde bard that caught Jaskier’s attention many moons ago in Novigrad, appeared at this side and pulled him away to perform a duet on the makeshift stage. In her excitement, Ciri jumped out and followed them. Even though they didn’t notice you had stayed behind, you didn’t mind and chuckled at their antics as they coaxed the patrons to gather around.

“Guess this is for you then.” Geralt slid into the seat opposite and gestured to the tankard, the foam spilling over the edge as you took it from him.

You were sure he could hear your heart thumping in your chest, choosing to give a small smile and a nod as you sipped the ale. The bittersweet melody filled the room, and it took you back to another time. To one where Geralt held you in his arms and filled you with so much hope for a future together.

It was your first visit to the Skellige Isles, and you loved every second that you spent with Crach an Craite and his clan, celebrating his daughter, Cerys, becoming Queen. You had been surprised when Geralt had asked you to accompany him, thinking that he’d ask Yennefer or Ciri to join him, but you didn’t let the moment pass you by; it was the first time you’d been on a ship and travelled the seas, let alone attended a coronation.

The banquet hall was full to the brim of Jarls and their clans from the many islands that formed Skellige. Enormous amounts of food were laid out on the tables and wine was on a never-ending supply. The revelry continued long into the night, you and Geralt clapping and laughing along to the guests dancing the Cèilidh.

You brought the goblet to your lips, now stained red from the wine, and sipped slowly as you felt the alcohol taking effect. Warmth filled your cheeks and you felt like you were floating with Geralt at your side, his arm securely around your waist.

“Drink up, because we are going up there any minute.” Geralt whispered in your ear.

Once more, Geralt had surprised you, thinking he’d never do such a thing and proving you wrong in an instant. Or, just, maybe, you shouldn’t believe everything that Yennefer tells you. He whisked you up into his arms and you skipped into the throng of bouncing and twirling dancers.

After a few stumbles and the odd miss turn, you found the rhythm and began to enjoy yourself. It was like you were in your own little world with Geralt. Your heart was beating so fast you thought it might burst from your chest. Together, you rounded the dance floor, twirling between other people and joining them for the group segments of the dance before returning to Geralt to skip through a human archway.

The music hit its end, you and Geralt both collapsing onto a bench, still giggling through the pain of being out of breath. He leant forward, his hand firmly on the nape of your neck, and pressed his lips to yours. You kissed him back with no inhibitions.

Your fingertips skimmed along your bottom lip, the memory of Geralt’s kiss still lingering there. After all this time, the memory had you brimming with hope and desire, or maybe it was the ale that was clouding your judgement. Without a second thought, you turned towards Geralt to find that he was looking straight at you, and he was too slow to hide his staring. You choked out a laugh as his eyes went wide and his cheeks tinged pink. Never in a million years did you think you’d see the witcher blush.

“I’m sorry but your face.” You giggled into your palm, swaying from side to side and clutching your belly. “So-sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” He tried to sound angry, but his smirk betrayed him.

Your fit of laughter tapered off and allowed you to regain your composure. The awkward silence filling the space between you once more as you resigned to not pursuing the conversation. A wave across the room caught your eye, Ciri beckoning you over but as you turned to stand, Geralt placed his hand atop yours on the table.

He hardly touched you, and you were staring at his hand, uncertain as to what he was doing. You lifted your head to find his softened gaze and immediately dropped back into your seat, nodding for him to say whatever it was that was on his mind.

“What were you thinking?” He whispered.

“When?” Your brow furrowed, the weight of Geralt’s hand growing as he relaxed.

“Just now. It looked like you were daydreaming.” He asked.

Your heart raced; you were silly to think he wouldn’t notice. He notices everything, and you couldn’t lie to him, he would catch you out, even if you were good at it. Stalling for time, you picked up your empty tankard and tried to catch the remaining droplets for some courage.

“If you really must know,” You paused, waiting for him to shut the conversation down but he didn’t and you felt the heat rising up your neck, “Erm, well, I was thinking about when we danced at Cerys’ ascension.”

Geralt smiled, a full beaming one, one that was like the moment he pulled away from your kiss all those years ago. It hit you with a force, and you couldn’t hold back all the feelings that you had packed away when he left with Yennefer not even a few months ago.

He didn’t say anything, just smiled and then sipped his ale. You weren’t sure what was happening and why he was looking at you like that. As if he was happy that you still thought of him fondly. Before you could question him, Ciri was at your side and tugging at your arm to join her, exclaiming that there would be dancing. You unfurled her hand from its grip and shook your head.

“I’m sorry Ciri, but I have to go now.” You gave her a sad smile as you stepped out from the table and pressed a light kiss to her cheek, “I hope you enjoy the rest of your celebrations little sparrow.”

Ciri’s face softened at the old nickname, “Thank you, do you need someone to walk you home.”

You chose to ignore the glare that Ciri was giving Geralt as you pulled the cloak around your shoulders. Geralt wouldn’t fall for her tricks but she was stubborn and from the huff and scrape of the chair, you knew she had gotten her way.

“Ready?” Geralt asked and you nodded, following him through the door into the night.

It was freezing, the air bit into the exposed skin of your cheeks and neck. Suddenly Geralt was in front of you, pulling the hood over your head and bringing it tighter around you.

“There’s a storm coming, you don’t want to catch a cold.” He explained.

You were dumbfounded at his care and the way he weaved an arm across your shoulders, guiding you back to your cottage. Unable to do or say anything more than put one foot in front of the other, or thereabouts, in your slightly merry state.

Geralt was warm, and smelt of ale, sandalwood, and leather. You were unable to stop yourself from sinking further into his hold, relishing the moment. Even if it meant that your heart would shatter once you reached your home, and the loss of his warmth would bring tears.

Silence remained between you, yet this time it was comfortable. It was as if this is where you were meant to be; walking side by side in a small town, surrounded by the multitude of stars and nothing but the beating of your hearts.

The cobbled path wound around various shops and cottages, culminating in the town square. It was empty, a distinct comparison to when you visited earlier in the morning to see if the visiting merchants had anything new or different to sell.

“Would you have liked to dance?” Geralt whispered, if the square was alive with the traders and merchants, you wouldn’t have heard him, but it was clear in the open air.

“I’m sorry?” You uncurled from his hold and stood in front of him, looking up at his glowing eyes.

“Back there, did I stop you?” He asked with a neutral expression that you had long ago realised was a mask to hide his true feelings.

“No,” you shook your head and wrapped your arms around yourself, “I did think it was time to leave though.”

“Because you were daydreaming about me?” Geralt asked, a lopsided smile on his lips as you continued down the path.

“Yes, because I was getting caught up in our past.” You ducked away from his sight, “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“I was thinking about the same thing, well more specifically what happened afterwards.” Geralt stopped at the gate to your cottage, “And I think you were too.”

You looked up at him, knowing you couldn’t lie, with a sad smile “You know I was Geralt. Don’t play games with your thinking. Thank you for walking me home.”

Geralt’s words rushed out, “Can I come in?”

Once again, Geralt was full of surprises, he’d never invited himself round and usually, he would just enter without question. Then you thought of how different things were now that you had gone your separate ways. When he chose to be with her.

“What would Yennefer think?” You asked, the jealousy not missing from your tone no matter how hard you tried to be nonchalant.

“Yennefer is not my master.” He grunted, “Why are we even talking about her?”

“Because you left with her. That day.” You bit down on your lip in a hope of tears not making an appearance. “I didn’t realise you had feelings for her until Jaskier mentioned the djinn and the wish you granted.”

“That fuckin’ bard.” He growled, “I do not have feelings for Yennefer, my wish was about you, but it didn’t work. You didn’t want me near you.”

You recoiled at his tone, “excuse me? You’re the one that left in a carriage to god knows where for months without a single word.”

“I left a letter.” Geralt pushed through the cottage door and gestured his hands towards the candles dotted around the cottage, causing a flame to ignite at their wicks.

You followed him into your bedroom and watched as he pulled at the drawer that you’d put aside for him many moons ago, and atop his tunics was a piece of folded paper. You stared at the letter, now in Geralt’s hand. 

It had been too painful to open the drawer, you hadn’t been in it since he left. It had taunted you enough just by being there, a reminder of you welcoming him into your home. Let alone being able to feel the fabric or take in his scent, it would have filled your heart with more pain.

“As it’s still in the drawer, I’m guessing you didn’t find it.” Geralt sighed, placing it down on the furniture and leaning back against, folding his arms. “And that explains why you didn’t turn up the other night.”

“I didn’t, why would I have gone in there?” You whispered as you began preparing the fireplace, anything to keep you busy.

He mumbled, “Because you sleep in my tunics when I’m away.”

“Okay, and what about the other night?” You questioned as the flames caught on the logs, “Where was I supposed to meet you?

At the lack of response, you turned to look at Geralt and he was scowling at something behind you, the trunk at the door and a collection of bags. You watched him taking in the rest of your home. There were no ornaments or trinkets on the walls, no books on the shelves or stacks of parchment dotted around. It was all packed away, ready for you to leave.

“Are you going somewhere?” He asked, the neutral appearance back on his features.

“Yes.” you nodded.

“For how long?” His arms dropped from their hold on his chest.

“For as long as I have a job.” You stated.

“Where?” Geralt was quiet and looking down at the floor.

“Oxenfurt Academy.”

His head snapped up, amber eyes glinting in the dim light of your cottage, “Why are you going to Redania?”

“Because I have nothing else here.” You shrugged as a tear fell from your cheek, you knew that not saying goodbye was hard, but this seemed a lot harder.

“What about Ciri? Or Jaskier? Priscilla?” Geralt asked, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he waited for your answer.

“I’m sure I’ll see them again. Ciri and I will likely cross paths if she pursues her education, and I’m sure she’d track me down the second she finds out about me leaving. I already made a promise to Jaskier that I’d see Priscilla’s shows wherever I am.” Before Geralt interrupted, you sat on the edge of your bed and continued, “He doesn’t know, it was an old promise, and you know what I’m like when it comes to those.”

Geralt silently moved across the room and sat beside you, taking your hand in his, “What about me?” 

You shook your head, “I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Geralt looked at you, a softness in his eyes, “So, Oxenfurt Academy?”

You were unable to look at him, ashamed of deciding to leave in haste and without talking to him about it at least once, “Yes, I leave in a couple of weeks.”

“I’ll follow you anywhere.” He promised and before you could counter him, he continued, “I asked you to meet me at the docks because I wanted to give you this.” 

Geralt opened a pouch attached to his hip and pulled out a delicate silver chain. He held it out so you could see the side profile of a wolf’s head with an amber gem for the eye. You weren’t sure what to say as you marvelled at the beautiful gift, lifting your hair away from your neck for Geralt to clip it in place.

“Thank you, it’s beautiful.” You whispered.

Your fingers glided along the chain and you held the wolf away from your chest, twisting it in the glow of the candles. A stray tear fell down your cheek but Geralt caught it with the pad of his thumb. You leant into his warm touch, his calloused palm a welcome feeling that you had long missed. Geralt lifted your face and pressed his forehead to yours before he softly kissed you.

The kiss was tentative at first, light pecks making way for harder pushes and pulls, swipes of tongue until your arms were wrapped around Geralt’s neck. You adjusted until you were straddling his lap. Geralt pulled at the lacing of your tunic until it loosened around your shoulders and exposed more of your chest. 

He brought his lips to yours again, the kiss was more heated than before. Tongues swiped and teeth nibbled along each other’s lips with him pulling your body into a tight hold, his erection hardening and pushing against your core. 

At the spark of pleasure, you pulled away in shock and lifted your body from him. You held the tunic in place and backed away, sitting further down the bed from him, his head hanging down as you tried to make sense of why you pulled away and were still protecting yourself when it was clear that he wanted you.

“I’m sorry Geralt, I- for the longest time, I thought you were with Yennefer, I-” You sobbed, hand cupping your mouth as you let the emotions flow freely.

You felt the bed dip and you turned to find Geralt laying back against the pillows, an arm open in waiting. You scooted up the bed and curled into his side, sinking into his warmth, and being soothed by the fingertips that swirled up and down your arm in nonsensical patterns.

“As I said before, I will follow you anywhere that you go.” He murmured and pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

With the tears no longer falling, you tipped your head up to look at Geralt to find his eyes closed. You rested your head onto his shoulder and began to trace the shape of the medallion on his chest, sleep finally taking you to the world of dreams as raindrops began to patter on the roof.

A new home: it was on a quiet street quite close to Oxenfurt academy, only a twenty-minute stroll until you were in the hustle and bustle of the city. It was a lot busier than you had prepared for, especially compared to your small town of Rochdale. 

Your colleagues had told you that you’d been lucky to find the lodgings in the area and for such a good rental rate too. The ground floor consisted of a kitchen and seating area and the upstairs hosted two bedrooms. It was just the right size for you, but you hadn’t fully unpacked yet. Satchels half-emptied and trunks open but still full to the brim with trinkets and books.

You were settled in the chair by the fireplace, the warm embers glowing as you read the book in your lap. It wasn’t late but your eyes were feeling heavy after the most hectic month of moving to the city and settling into your new role at the academy. 

A knock at the door made you jump; the book fell to the floor with a thud. Tentatively, you approached the entrance to your home and glanced through the frosted pane in the wooden door but could only make out two figures. Ciri and Geralt stood before you, your mouth dropped agape as their arrival was unexpected and you weren’t sure what to say.

“Surprise! I’ve enrolled at Oxenfurt Academy.” Ciri laughed and wrapped her arms around you.

You held her close and rested your chin on her shoulder, looking over at Geralt, shock and happiness coursing through you. In the dim light of the torches that lined the street, his mouth twitched into a smirk. Your heart fluttered and you couldn’t wait to have his arms wrapped around you once more.

“I cannot believe it; I wish you’d let me know beforehand so I could have prepared for your visit.” You beckoned them into the warmth of your new lodgings, picked up the fallen book and attempted to tidy away the pots and pans on the table.

“Oh, come on Y/N, it’s only us, I’ll start making a pot of tea.” Ciri headed over to the stove and filled the kettle.

Geralt entered your home, he filled the space with his height and broad shoulders, the atmosphere was tense, and you weren’t sure what to do. It had been a while since you last spoke to him; the morning after he returned and discovered you were moving away.

“Hello,” you squeaked, unable to keep the excitement from your tone, “erm- how long are you staying? Where are you staying?”

“Ciri mentioned you had spare beds.” Geralt murmured. “If that’s okay with you?”

“Yes, of course, right this way.” The steps creaked underfoot as you both ascended the staircase, and your nerves began to bubble as you felt his eyes on your back. You opened the first door to the spare room with two single frames and a small chest of drawers, “sorry it’s not much. My bedroom is just down the hall and there is a bath in there.”

Geralt placed a couple of satchels on the bed and removed his armoured plate. You couldn’t help the way you stared at him in the tunic and the dark hair across the exposed part of his chest. He pulled out a small bag from a satchel pocket and turned back to you with a small smile.

“I-We brought your favourite biscuits from Rochdale.”

The stutter did not go unnoticed, but you did not react to it, instead offered a smile and a whispered thank you as Geralt placed the bag into your outstretched hand. Instantly, you opened it and raised it to your face to inhale the sweet scent of the treat.

“This will go lovely with the tea, we should-.” You gestured back to the stairs and spun on your heel.

“Wait,” Geralt huffed and caught the crook of your arm to turn you to face him, “I should have done something else when you answered the door.”

A frown etched on your features until his hand cupped your cheek and you caught the way his amber eyes glowed as they flicked down to your lips. Your mouth parted and your eyes fluttered closed as you slowly edged towards one another, meeting in the middle in a soft kiss.

Your body tingled in Geralt’s hold, as your lips melted into his chapped ones. Knees grew weak as he invaded all your senses. It was as if he knew and wrapped an arm around your waist, holding you flush to his hard chest.

Both of you pulled away for air, his fiery gaze drank you in and sent a wave of pleasure through your body. He claimed your mouth once more with hunger, your hands carded through his ashen locks, and you tugged him closer still. Geralt lifted you into his arms and carried you to your bedroom.

Too consumed in your reunion and that Geralt had kept his promise to follow you anywhere, neither of you heard the door close behind Ciri’s hasty exit.

The tea and biscuits were long forgotten.

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