#it’s just he wouldn’t be how he is in the prison cell later

[bluewithpurplepolkadots]

Honestly keep seeing that post where Ozai getting taken down by having his bending taken is pathetic because Zuko would at least be able to take people out with his swords but like it… also made Ozai physically flop which was clearly outside his control. His body was just not having it.

It was kind of like when Zuko’s body violently reacted to him finally doing something good (releasing Appa) after years of selfishness: so idk I think Zuko would be in the same boat as his father at least immediately afterwards.

I think anyone would be affected honestly. Hell it’s quite possible if say Aang gave Sokka bending the same thing would happen because it’s just such a large change to their inner chi.

It only gets to ‘Ozai is pathetic’ levels when he’s in the prison after some time to recover and he doesn’t even stand or look up. Zuko wouldn’t be like that. He’d be raging and demanding his release bending or not. Or escaped already.

[meiieiri]

𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐭𝐚 [gojo satoru]

synopsis: you got married to gojo satoru at the edge of a frozen lake in summer.

pairing: gojo satoru x f!reader

warnings/tags: heavy angst, a love that’s TOO LITTLE TOO LATE if one can even call that a tag, unrequited love (kinda).

Marriage is a golden ring on a chain whose beginning is a single glance between two unsuspecting souls that ends with eternity.

Twelve years. You’ve loved him through twelve springs. It’s bittersweet to think how a person could give another their youth for free. But then again, the only things that you truly keep are the things you give away. That’s just life, isn’t it? And besides, you take a step towards the blue peony littered aisle with a wistful smile on your face as you picture a certain arctic-haired man standing at the other end, when it comes to matters of the heart, keeping ledgers of the love you give and the love you receive is a futile effort.

You should probably put that in your vows later. But ah, what did it matter? Satoru’s probably just gonna wing it later, arguing that expressions of love should be light-hearted and candid much like the love you share.

“Y/N-chan~!” He steps in front of you, his tall form towering over you as he catches you by the student lounge’s vending machine. Shoko smirks behind you, pulling Suguru ahead of you to leave the two of you alone. She nudges you forward and you cast her a betrayed look to which she only replies with an innocent shrug. It’s common knowledge to everyone in Tokyo Jujutsu High how you feel about the Gojo clan’s illustrious little starlet.

Well, it was common knowledge to everyone except Satoru Gojo.

And you don’t know if you find that comforting or saddening.

Comforting that he wouldn’t find out about your feelings from someone else, though you’re still working up the courage to fess up, you wholeheartedly believe that this is something he should hear from you and you alone. Saddening that maybe the reason he’s been all blissfully ignorant of how your breath becomes shallow whenever he’s around you is he’s actually already aware of your feelings towards him and he’s only deflecting it.

“We’ll go ahead, Y/N,” Shoko says in a sing-song voice, taking your cursed tool from you. “Come see me if you have any injuries!”

“But if it’s a broken heart, she probably can’t fix it,” Suguru chimes in, winking at Satoru as if to say: ‘Go talk to her.’ before turning to follow his girlfriend.

A hush falls between you and Satoru, unspoken words swirling around the two of you like a symphony of longing. Both of you seem to be saying the same thing:

Should I tell her?

Should I tell him?

What would she say?

Would he leave?

If the truth is meant to set you free, then he is your jailer. Why is he content with never uttering those words aloud? Why are you so eager to stay in the hedge maze of your mind, seeking his shadow at every corner? This was a tiring game of hide and seek.

But Satoru is completely fine with letting it drag on if it meant he’d never risk losing you.

And you were fine with that too. You were fine being a prisoner to your truth as long as he was with you in this jail cell. You were fine.

Whatever fine means.

“Wanna go to the arcade?” Satoru looks at you with a shimmering bittersweet look in his eyes.

You smile and a breathy laugh falls from your lips causing his face to light up even more.

“That depends, you gonna let me win?”

“Never.”

“Y/N! There you are.”

You turn around to see an older Shoko, her youthful bob cut having outgrown its juvenile flare. She looks out of breath, she must have run around the venue looking for you and judging from the way she keeps glancing at her watch, and the exasperated look she was throwing your way at the sight of you still in your silk robe, you needed to get moving.

But your feet remain planted in the middle of the empty aisle, your gaze trained on the arch.

“You feeling okay?” Shoko asks, her hand finding yours in a tender display of solidarity. “It’s okay to be nervous, you know.”

You flash her a reassuring smile. “Yeah, I know. Just…deep in thought.”

“Yeah.”

Weddings are always so beautiful, you think to yourself as Shoko steps back giving you some space as you contemplate the day ahead. Your fingers trace one of the satin linens adorning the trellises much like your heart traces the contours of a love too delicate to verbalize, too powerful to ignore. Your gaze dances over the elegant arrangements of blue, white and gray, the scent of grapefruit-quince adorning the air, mixing with the scent of peonies, jasmines and white musk.

Everything here speaks of the imminent union of two souls finding their way to each other. And how comforting it is to know that no matter where you wander, all paths inevitably lead to Satoru Gojo. And you have your drunk cartographer heart to thank for that.

“He loves you,” Shoko finally says, catching your wrist to bring you over to the gazebo to get touched up.

“…I know.”

You look back at the empty aisle, with all but one question in your mind.

What happens when simply knowing is no longer enough?

“Do you believe in love at first sight or should I walk by again with my sunglasses off?”

You nearly choke on your yogurt drink when you see yet another stunningly familiar light blue sticky note on your desk. Satoru fucking Gojo is going to be the death of you one day. Your touch grazes over the hastily scribbled note, a small smile playing at your lips as you take out a white pad of sticky notes from your school bag. After collecting your thoughts, you decide to play along with his little game, your heart fluttering when you realize that this back and forth could actually be considered flirting.

“There’s no such thing as love at first sight. And sorry, pretty boys like you aren’t exactly my type.”

Satoru finds the white sticky note plastered on his stool in Jujutsu Tech’s science lab. Despite the playful jab in your reply, Satoru is hyperfixated on the fact that you just called him pretty. Did you really mean it? He bites the inside of his cheek being careful not to grin too much in fear of Suguru catching wind of what’s happening — the strongest sorcerer of this generation being caught off-guard by his little crush? Detestable!

“You think I’m pretty? ;) I knew it.”

Shoko looks at you funnily, you’re practically red as a tomato with how you’re fuming from the ears and sputtering about how ridiculous Satoru is being. “He’s just so…so…!”

“You really should work on finishing your sentences now~”

You are interrupted at the sight Satoru practically hopping down the steps leading to the training field with a convenience store bag tucked under his arm and you sigh exasperatedly, turning away as if he was a bug that’s hovering over your ear that you really shouldn’t be paying attention to. All of his six foot two form plops down next to you and you jump when he presses a cold ice cream bar to your cheek.

“You’re awfully generous today, Satoru,” you smirk, accepting and lifting the ice cream bar in silent gratitude, suppressing the blush creeping onto your cheeks.

Satoru blushes himself, his hand coming up to rub the back of his head as a comfortable silence falls between the two of you. Shit, say something, Satoru thinks to himself. Was he being too obvious? Did you somehow piece it together now that he has feelings for you?

In his internal dilemma, Satoru settles for undermining the deliberate gesture.

“I only needed two more stickers to get this really neat toy,” Satoru explains, reaching into the convenience store bag and pulling out his new tamagotchi. “Pretty worth it, I would say. The one I saw in Akihabara is being sold for 7500 yen, but that’s the angelgotch variety, so I kinda get the whole roadside robbery thing.”

Of course, he steered the conversation elsewhere. You’re not even surprised at this point that he’ll always only stay at the surface when he treads these long drawn out conversations with you, too afraid to say anything more — do anything more — than what was necessary as your friend.

Keyword: friend.

He had no obligation to you other than being your friend. And you don’t blame him. You’re not angry at him that he’s only willing to stay in shallow water with you, it’s just…

“Hey, I have to go, Yaga’s calling me.” Satoru casually interrupts your train of heartbroken thoughts, but you do not miss the unease in his voice, he almost sounds sorry that he has to bail again.

But you already send him off with a reluctant thumbs up. As you look at his retreating form, he stops for a bit at the stone tori gate, his head bowed in thought, you don’t know why you held your breath. He reaches into his pocket, but thinks better of it, and he paces two hesitant steps forward.

Then, he looks back to meet your eyes from afar.

And his heart clenches in a mixture of affection and exasperation when you are the first to blushingly look away.

The ten feet separating the two of you is very reminiscent of how you began: running in opposite directions to outdo the other in your competition to see who can act that they care less, placing more distance between your flustered hearts. Satoru gazes at you as if he’s seen the divine incarnated into a single beautiful being. He wipes a tear from his eye, sniffing momentarily, watching you gracefully float down the aisle with an equally smitten expression on your features.

Clutching the bouquet in your hands, you don’t break eye contact and everything seems to unfold like a motion picture before your very eyes, your and Satoru’s life together in vivid cinematography: your first dance later tonight, your first trip out of the country together for your honeymoon, your first time, your first year, your first child. Everything. You’ve imagined Satoru to be your first in everything. And as you make your way to the aisle, tears glistening in both your orbs, you stop to meet in the middle, the two of you standing on fate’s edge together.

He casts you a look, and you offer him a melancholic smile.

This was it.

…

…

…

…

The doors open and his bride arrives, and you move to the side, taking your place next to Shoko, painfully leaving the space you and Satoru briefly shared, a space that was never meant for you in the first place.

Which begs the question again: what happens when knowing is no longer enough?

Or is it…the two of you never knew at all how the other felt?

No, you and Shoko watch as Satoru stares at you from his peripheral, his heart fragmenting into irreparable pieces at each step his bride makes towards him.

Should I tell her?

Should I tell him?

What would she say?

Would he leave?

The answer is clear now. He wouldn’t have left. Things were just left unsaid, never admitted — the words that you longed to hear from one another never fell from your lips. Not once in the twelve years you secretly held him in your heart. And thus, fate then decreed that love is for the brave, and not for cowardly souls like you and Satoru Gojo.

And with whatever strength you have left, uncaring if this would cause you to look scandalous: a bridesmaid going after the groom, you mouth the words: “I love you.”

A pained smile appears on his lips, an allegory to the goofy grins he used to flash you when you two were young, and he nods, tears in his eyes.

This was twelve years too late. But it’s better than never.

“I knew it.”

[delugyu]

cold, cursed city (part 1)

summary: You wish your best friend would just leave your budding relationship alone.

pairings: beomgyu x fem!reader, soobin x fem!reader

word count: 25.1k

tags: angst, smut (MDNI), best friend and roommate!beomgyu, reader has a crush on soobin, chaewon is reader’s other bestie, so much possessiveness and jealousy, beomgyu is extremely clingy, manipulation, lying, arguments, a lot of crying, guilt

smut tags: multiple smut scenes lol (2 in this part), switch!gyu, switch!reader, guided & mutual masturbation, dry humping, praise, little bit of degradation, nipple play, very desperate gyu, fingering, overstimulation, oral (f rec), dacryphilia?, pet names (angel, pretty girl, baby, etc)

notes: finally releasing this monster from its prison cell (my google docs). been working on this for a month because whiny possessive best friend gyu has been haunting me every day… anyway i hope u guys enjoy, and lmk what u think!

You hated the walk back to your apartment in the winter. It’s always so cold, and certain paths are always so icy. But you have no choice, and you’re fortunate enough that your job is only a ten minute walk away. It’s snowing today, though, hard enough to make you take each step with caution.

The wind whips across your face, making you squint to protect your eyes. You make it all of two minutes before giving up and going into the nearest public establishment you walk by, which happens to be your city’s library. You catch your breath as soon as you enter the building, taking off your jacket and folding it in your arms. You walk around slowly, looking for a comfortable chair to rest on. It’s unsurprisingly very quiet in the building. All you can hear is people typing on keyboards and hushed conversations every now and then. Everyone looks busy here.

You find a secluded area in the back corner of the library with three lounge chairs. You rush to take a seat there, letting out a sigh of relief as you sink into it. It’s right next to a heater, too. The yellow lights are soft and warm above you. You look out the window, watching the snow rage on. Now that you’re able to see clearly, you notice how there’s a good four inches on the ground. There’s a few people passing by here and there, but the streets are mostly empty. Even the cars are few and far between.

You fish your phone out of the pocket of your abandoned jacket to call Beomgyu. He should probably know that you’ll be back later than usual. By the looks of it, you could be waiting in this library for another hour.

“Hiii,” he says. You can hear his smile in his voice, and it makes you light up.

“Hi Gyu. Did you see the storm outside?” you ask, voice hushed so as to not disturb anyone. You don’t think he had work today, so you wouldn’t be surprised if he stayed home all day, unaware of the weather.

“Yeah, we’re supposed to get six inches or something. Are you on your way back?”

You groan, “I was, but the wind is ridiculous right now. I had to take shelter in some library.”

He laughs at you. “Should I pick you up?”

“I don’t think you should be driving right now honestly,” you answer.

“It’s gonna get dark if you wait it out though,” he reasons. “I’ll pick you up, I don’t mind.” You hear the jingle of his car keys when he grabs them.

“No, don’t, you can just pick me up once all the roads are safe,” you offer instead. “You know you’re not a good enough driver to handle this weather.”

“Wow. I’m gonna drive through it just to prove I can now,” he says.

“Then the next time I see your face will be in some news article explaining the crash,” you snide.

“No, it’ll be an article about all the sick wheelies and 360s I did despite the storm.”

“Yeah right,” you laugh. “How are you even gonna do that with your shitbox?” You realize you’ve been talking a little loud when you see someone’s head whip over at you. You sink into your seat in mild embarrassment.

“I’m so good I could figure out a way to make this car fly.” You roll your eyes even though he can’t see it.

“Oh I’m sure,” you say. “Alright, I’ll call you back when you can pick me up. I’m just gonna chill here ‘til then.”

“Okay. Hope they plow the roads so my shitty driving doesn’t kill us,” he says, and you know he’s doing that stupid sarcastic pout.

“You’re such a drama queen,” you reply.

“You love it.”

“I guess I wouldn’t put up with it for so long if I didn’t.” You take another look out the window to check the weather. The wind calmed down a little, but not enough to go back out. Plus, you’re comfortable right now. “Well, I’ll see you, Gyu.”

“See ya.”

As soon as the call ends, you relax further into the lounge chair. Your posture is horrid, with your back being more on the seat than it is on the back of the chair, but you can’t bring yourself to care. Work was awful today: your boss scolded you about missing paperwork, a potential partnership with another company fell through, and your coworker wouldn’t stop talking about her family problems on your lunch break. Thank God tomorrow’s Friday.

You’re scrolling through Instagram when you notice a tall figure coming into your field of vision from over your phone screen. You look up and realize he’s coming closer to you. Your eyes widen for a second in panic, and you scramble to straighten your back out and look more presentable. You worry that perhaps this is a worker about to kick you out. Why? You don’t know. Maybe you’re about to find out.

You look innocently up at the man as he finishes crossing the few steps it takes to reach you. You try to ignore how cute he is. And tall. And sexy. And really, really tall—did you say tall? He’s so attractive and so your type.

“Hey, I’m sorry, could I sit here?” he ends up asking. He points to the chair furthest from you, since you took the right-most chair of the three. You’re a little stunned for a second, then you remember you have to talk.

“Yeah, of course,” you say, nodding quickly.

“Thank you. All the tables were taken,” he explains quietly, putting a bag down beside his chair.

“I know, it’s weird to see a library so full,” you say. He takes his laptop out of his bag and opens it on his lap. You think you might be watching him too closely, so you snap your head in another direction. There really is no empty table, you note as you look at all the people in the library.

“Normally it’s not. It must be because of the weather,” the man explains. You look back at him when he speaks, and a small smile finds its way onto your face when you see his bunny-like features. You’re never the type to ogle at someone like this, but he’s seriously so pretty. You can’t help it.

“I mean, I’m only in here because of the weather, so I believe it,” you say. The man smiles. You swoon.

“Makes sense. I’d remember if I’d seen you before.”

You tilt your head. “Why?”

The man looks down at his laptop, as if he can’t look you in the eye when he speaks next. “Ah, no reason. I-I’m normally good with faces.”

He’s adorable. You figure this is how you can pass time until the storm is over.

“So you come here a lot?” you ask. You hope you’re not annoying him with all the conversation, but he seems happy to respond.

“I do my work here pretty much every day. I like it better than doing it from my home,” he answers.

“Oh wow, you work remotely?”

“Yep, and I get to choose my hours too. It’s a perk of the job.” He starts typing something on his laptop. You watch his diligent fingers fly across the keyboard. He has big hands. Your head is reeling a little.

“I wish my job was like that,” you say. “Well, I’ll let you work now. I don’t want to distract you.” You relax back into your chair, not realizing how close you’ve been leaning in during the conversation.

“No, I honestly like the conversation! It makes the time go by faster,” he rushes to say. You perk back up and can’t control how you beam. You’d be lying if you said that wasn’t exactly what you wanted to hear.

“I’ll make sure to keep talking in that case,” you giggle. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Soobin,” he introduces, looking into your eyes kindly.

You tell him your name. “Nice to meet you,” you say.

“Nice to meet you too.”

“So, what exactly do you do for work?” you ask. You’re surprised at how well he can focus on the conversation and on his work. It’s impossible for you to multitask like that.

“I do software engineering for an insurance company. We just finished a major project a couple days ago, so there’s not a ton to do for the rest of the week.”

“Damn, sounds like there’s money in that.”

He laughs, “I guess so.”

“My job’s a lot less interesting than that,” you start, going on to explain your position, then about the mess of today at work, and your conversation with Soobin flows from anything to everything until you remember that Beomgyu’s waiting to pick you up. You look out the window to monitor the weather. It looks like the snow has long since stopped. The streets are plowed, only illuminated by the streetlights since it’s gotten so dark. You find yourself disappointed to have to cut the evening so short.

“Are you leaving already?” Soobin asks.

“Yeah, my friend’s gonna pick me up.” When you unlock your phone, you find that Beomgyu’s already texted you a couple times. You also find that it’s been an hour and a half since you last called him. Holy shit, the time really did fly. You open his messages to read what he sent.

[Beomgyu] are u readyyyyy

[Beomgyu] ANSWER ME WHERED U GO

You call him, and he picks up after only the first ring.

“Finally,” he said. “You had me thinking you started going back on your own or something and died.”

“Pfft, you think so lowly of my survival skills,” you respond. “You should head out now before I lose any beauty sleep.”

“Oh, we can’t have that,” he jokes. You hear him grab his stuff and shut the door behind him. “I hate parallel parking so just wait for me in front of the building, I’ll pull up.”

“Okay. Thanks, Gyu~” you say sweetly.

“Mhm, see you,” he says.

“See you.”

The drive is only a few minutes. You should probably head out front now. You look back to Soobin.

“Hey, thanks for the conversation,” you say. “Made my shitty day a little better.”

“Same here,” Soobin agrees. He watches you put on your coat, getting ready to leave. You don’t think he has it in him to make the next move, so you do it instead.

“You know, it would be a shame if I had to leave right now without your number…” You blush as you say it, looking off meekly for just a second, then back to him to see him giggling. (You? Make him? Giggle? Fucking score!!!)

He motions for your phone with his hand. You can’t wipe the grin off your face as you open a new contact page. You watch him insert his information.

“Let’s meet again soon,” he suggests when he hands his phone back to you.

You nod. “I’ll be in contact,” you say and wave your phone in your hand. Perhaps you’ll be making more stops to the library now.

You seem to exit the library at the same time Beomgyu arrives. You get into his car quickly to avoid the cold weather, shivering once you enter the car.

“Why isn’t your heater on?” you ask, fiddling with the buttons on the dash to turn on the heat.

“My heater barely works. It won’t even kick in before we get back home,” he explains, shutting the heat off again. You make a face at him.

“Then drive, I’m freezing,” you insist.

“I’m on it boss.” He gives you a salute.

His music plays quietly in the background of the ride. He has a nice taste in music, the type fitting for night drives.

“What’d you do today?” you ask him.

“Play League,” he says. You laugh at him, and he looks away from the road for a second to smile at you. “What do you want for dinner?”

“Why do you always make me decide?” you complain.

“Cause I don’t know what I want.”

“I don’t know what you want either, you always reject my choices.”

It’s a short drive to your apartment complex, so you arrive quickly. You rush to get inside once Beomgyu’s car is parked. The moment you open the door to your apartment, you fall flat onto the couch. You don’t care how your face digs into the cushion, it just feels nice to alleviate the day’s stress.

Beomgyu follows behind not long after. “Damn, you ran here,” he remarks. He stays at the door for a minute, probably putting all his stuff away, before he approaches you. You feel him taking your boots off your feet, which you forgot to do in your haste.

“Thanks,” you murmur into the couch cushion.

“You’re welcome.” He leaves you for a moment to put your shoes on the shoe rack by the door. When he comes back to you, he’s sliding your jacket off your arms. He folds it sloppily and plops it on the coffee table.

You turn your head so it’s facing him instead of being pressed into the couch. “What’d you decide for dinner?” you ask him.

He laughs. “Wasn’t that your job?”

“No.” You sit up with great effort. He sits on the other side of the couch and extends his legs out. You freak out when he rests his feet on you. “Nasty!!”

“I got socks on!” he exclaims in defense. You slap his feet away until he gives up and tucks his legs into his body.

“What time is it?” you ask.

Beomgyu checks his phone. “Seven.”

“I’m too tired to cook anything,” you say.

“I think we have leftovers we can just heat up,” he says, then gets up to look in the fridge and make sure. He holds a container out to you. “You want?”

Looks good enough. “Yeah,” you answer. He closes the fridge and grabs two plates.

“I’m so nice, cooking for you,” he says, portioning the food between your plates. “How long do I nuke it for?”

“Try two minutes.”

The rest of the night follows like any other: you eat dinner with Beomgyu, you watch a little TV, you get ready for bed, then you sleep. You hope a certain tall, attractive man visits you in your dreams tonight.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

When you walk back home from work the next day, it’s considerably better in terms of weather. Your eyes linger on the library as you pass it by, and your hand twitches around your phone. Soobin still hasn’t texted you. You’re a little disappointed, honestly. Every notification you received throughout the day made you light up, thinking it might be him. You might just put your pride aside and text him yourself at this point. You even think about walking back and waiting in the library for him, but then you’d just look weird.

When you get back home, Beomgyu isn’t there. His work schedule is so inconsistent, you never know when to expect him. He’s not a 9-5 worker like you, so you suppose that’s where the difference in flexibility comes in.

You lean against the kitchen counter and find Soobin’s contact on your phone. You open a new conversation with him, excited to talk again. You don’t think too much about your messages before you send them.

Hiiii

It’s the girl from the library

You shut your phone off after, not expecting an answer for a while. You turn on your playlist and busy yourself with getting undressed, wiping off your makeup, and showering. You go back to the kitchen once you’re finished to figure out what you’re gonna make yourself for dinner. As you’re gathering a list of ingredients in your head, your phone vibrates on the counter. You grin as you rush to look at the messages, making sure not to open the chat immediately though.

[Soobin] Hi! I’m glad you didn’t forget about me

You find yourself giggling at the message. You’ll respond in a few minutes, not wanting to seem desperate by opening it right away. You pass the time by taking out some ingredients for the meal you’ll make tonight. As you wait for your veggies to steam, you decide that now you can answer Soobin.

Forget you? How could I?

Hehehe

Wyd??

You’re in a very chipper mood, swaying around as you stir your vegetables and decide they’ve softened enough. You hum the tune of a song while you add noodles into a pot of boiling water. Your phone buzzes when you’re in the middle of making the sauce, so you try to hasten your movements. You finish pouring everything in, giving it a quick stir and making sure the heat is on low before running to your phone.

[Soobin] Drinking and watching TV lol

[Soobin] How about you?

You take a picture of your stovetop, sending your work in progress to him.

Working on my culinary creations

You’re done making your meal when he replies to that.

[Soobin] Looks yummy

You laugh and open your camera, taking a picture to send of the plated meal. You type your response immediately, not caring about waiting a few minutes between anymore.

Tastes decent

It seems he doesn’t care to wait to respond to you either, cause his next text is immediate.

[Soobin] Woah five stars

Your conversation fizzles out not long after, but you feel satisfied with it. Even as you clean your dishes, your smile doesn’t leave your face. You almost forgot how exciting it is to have a crush.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

The next time you see Soobin is Monday after work at the library. You offered to hang out with him as he works, and he seemed more than happy to accept. He even asked for your coffee order so that he could bring you a cup. You need the caffeine after such a tiring day at work, you don’t care if it keeps you up until midnight. The coffee’s still hot, but not scalding, when you arrive. You take a seat in the same chair you sat in when you first met.

“Thank you for the coffee,” you say, using the disposable cup to warm your hands. Your face still burns from how cold the walk here was.

“Of course,” he replies. “How was work today?”

You shrug. “Not much to do. I almost fell asleep at my desk. What’s on your agenda for the day?”

You pretend to understand the techy language he spews back at you when he answers. You take a sip of your coffee, humming in appreciation at the taste.

“Where do you get your coffee from? This place does it so good,” you ask, trying to look at the cup for a logo.

“Actually, I get it from a cat cafe near where I live,” he answers. You gasp and look at him in awe.

“What?! Is it new? How have I never heard of it?” You always wanted to go to a cat cafe. Their delicious coffee is just a bonus.

“I don’t think it’s new, but it’s kind of secluded, and the sign is small, so it’s easy to miss.”

“You have to bring me sometime,” you insist.

“Noted,” he laughs.

It gets quiet when Soobin starts focusing on his work, which you don’t mind. You look around the library, taking in the atmosphere. Soobin was right, there are way less people here today than there were on the night of the storm. The library is warm and nice and never loses power, so it’s not a bad place to turn to, you suppose.

You turn on your phone and find a text notification from Beomgyu. You open it.

[Beomgyu] are u on ur way back

You usually tell him when you won’t be back after work, but you guess you forgot to this time. It’s reasonable for him to ask, since you’d be back home by now on a regular day. You explain yourself in a text message back.

No lol

I’m out with somebody rn

I’ll be back for dinner

[Beomgyu] nooo don’t make me cook

You snicker at his response.

Okay I’ll pick up something on my way back

[Beomgyu] muahahaha yessss

[Beomgyu] who are u with?

You think for a moment on how to answer the question. You don’t want to tell Beomgyu about a guy you’re only just starting to see. He’ll flood you with questions that you don’t want to deal with if this ends up going nowhere.

A friend you don’t know lol

You put your phone down when Soobin starts talking to you again. It’s so easy to sink into conversation with him. You find yourself asking most of the questions, liking his eagerness to explain little things about himself. You talk about yourself here and there too.

Time flies yet again, and you realize that you should be heading back home now. You remember promising Beomgyu to pick up dinner on the way back, but you’re not sure where to go. You look over at Soobin.

“Do you know any good spots for food nearby? I still gotta grab dinner,” you ask.

“Yeah, there’s a restaurant that does really good fried chicken, it’s not too far from here,” he answers, then tells you the name of the place. You commit it to memory. You’re about to thank him before he starts up again, “I’ll come with you. I haven't eaten much today.” He starts logging off and shutting down his laptop. You’re so excited at the prospect that you don’t turn him down, even though it means Beomgyu will have to wait a little longer for his food.

The walk to the restaurant is quick and filled with small talk. You get him to laugh hard at one of your jokes, and it feels better than scratching a winning ticket. At the restaurant, you sit across from him in a comfortable booth.

“This one is really good,” Soobin says, pointing to one of the options on the menu. You purse your lips and nod.

“Sounds interesting,” you say. “Normally I go for spicy chicken though.”

“The sauce is so good on it. At least try some of mine,” he insists.

The waiter comes and you order your food. As you wait for it to arrive, you figure you should ask Beomgyu what he wants from here. You send him the link to the menu online.

Lmk what you want

[Beomgyu] omgggg that place looks so good

You feel even happier with your choice to go here now. Hopefully Beomgyu won’t feel bad that you ate without him. You don’t linger on the worry, though, not when Soobin starts telling you about how his first job was at a restaurant that reminds him of this one. You lean into your palm, staring at his handsome face with a dopey smile. Maybe it’s just you, but today just feels like more proof that there’s a lot of potential between you two.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

Visiting Soobin at the library becomes a common post-work habit for you. You see him another three times in the next week. There’s something about him that won’t let your heart sit still, fluttering at each little thought of the man.

Your coworkers noticed you had some more pep in your step, and you wonder if having a crush is really giving you a glow. You were just excited to get out of work and go to the library. Even Beomgyu says something when you get back home.

“Someone looks happy,” he says from the couch as you walk into your apartment. You didn’t notice how hard you were still cheesing until he mentioned it. You take off your shoes and jacket.

“Maybe a little,” you giggle. Beomgyu follows you when you walk into your room. It’s normal for him to accompany you while you get unready. He sits on your bed, and you sit at your vanity.

“What are you so smiley for?” he asks. You guess your happiness is contagious, cause when you look at him through your mirror, he’s smiling too.

“Oh, nothing…” you say, building up the anticipation. Truthfully, ever since you left Soobin today, you were planning on how you should tell Beomgyu about him. You’re excited; you haven’t had a real relationship since high school, and you feel it coming up on you now. Any day now, you’ll get the courage to ask him out. Everything has been friendly so far, but you can feel the undertone of romance behind it all.

“What? Tell me!” he exclaims. He walks over to you, standing right by you as you clean your face. “Did you get a promotion?”

You laugh, “I wish.”

“Then what?” he asks. “Is it your new friend?” You shrug and sigh girlishly. You see his smile falter a little in the mirror.

He stops guessing and just watches you take off your makeup. He stays stood next to you, entertaining himself with the little trinkets on your vanity. His silence is a little weird, but you don’t break it with conversation either.

You finish taking care of your face and get up to pull some comfier clothes from your dresser. You throw them on your bed and look over at Beomgyu. He takes the hint and turns to the wall so that you can take off your work clothes.

“Did you see the group chat?” he asks as you slide a loose shirt on. You hum in confirmation. Your friend group is planning to go out together to a nice bar tomorrow night. You even mentioned it to Soobin, gauging his reaction to see if he’d potentially come. “Did you wanna go?”

Something in your heart urges you to spill your secret now. You want to try to sound casual about it, even though you feel like you could talk on and on about Soobin. You don’t let yourself pause too long, deciding to just speak without thinking too much about it.

“Yeah, I’m thinking I’ll invite the guy I’ve been talking to recently,” you say. You’re not prepared for how Beomgyu whips his head around and looks at you like you said something insane. You finish pulling up your sweatpants quickly, but you don’t think he even notices.

“What?! What guy you’re talking to?” he asks, and you’re taken aback by how appalled he sounds.

You put your hands up. “Woah. Chill.”

“No. What are you talking about??” he pushes.

“I’ve already been talking to him for like, two weeks, it’s fine.” You figure he must be upset because he’s cautious of you being with men you barely know. That’s fair, you’re weary when your girl friends bring up new men sometimes too.

He’s quiet for a moment, and you think he’s dropped the case until he starts back up, “Is this the same person you’ve been seeing after work?”

“Yeah, he’s a really nice guy,” you answer.

“You said you were with a friend.” There’s something accusatory in his voice. You tense up as defensiveness flows through you.

“Because I was?” you say incredulously.

“Don’t tell me that’s why you came home so smitten today. I had a feeling.” He looks at you like he’s disgusted, but you can’t figure out why. It’s not like you did something wrong.

“You’re not happy for me?” you ask. He looks away and huffs out a laugh. His arms are crossed over his chest, and you’re baffled as to why he’s taking so much offense to this.

“No, I don’t know this guy,” he says.

“That’s why I’d be bringing him tomorrow.”

“Why? It’s just supposed to be us.” You sit on your bed, and he doesn’t follow. He doesn’t even move from the spot he’s standing.

“Just give him a chance. I think you guys could be friends,” you suggest.

“Fat fucking chance. No way,” he refuses. Now you’re getting upset, cause why the hell can’t he at least try to hang out with the guy you just said you’re interested in? As your best friend, he should be in full support of you finding love.

“Well, I’ll talk to the others about it and see what they think.” You pull your blankets up and go on your phone, not paying Beomgyu any more attention. You hear him scoff and leave the room.

You lay on your side and replay the argument in your head. Did you bring it up wrong? Maybe you introduced the idea at the wrong moment. Maybe Beomgyu had a bad day, and he’s just lashing out at you. He never does that though, why would he start now? You’re so frustrated. You wish you knew why Beomgyu cares so much.

Whenever you see him with girls, you don’t make a big deal. You help him with what little gestures to do to make her feel special. You always give him advice. His relationships never last, though, and he hasn’t seen anyone since you two moved together over a year ago.

Throughout the three years you and Beomgyu have been friends, you haven’t dated a single person. You guess you were wrong to assume that he’d be happy to see you finally do so. Did he want you to tell him sooner? It’s only been a couple weeks, though. That’s pretty soon.

You regret saying anything now. Beomgyu might not even go to the get-together if you ruined his mood that much. Maybe you shouldn’t go. All your friends might get pissed at you the way Beomgyu did. You don’t know what the right way is to introduce Soobin.

You throw an arm over your eyes and scowl at yourself. Why are you wallowing in self-pity? Beomgyu had no right to react like that! He forgets that you can do whatever you want with your life!

The smaller voice in your head reminds you that Beomgyu has always been a good friend to you. He rarely gets upset at you, and whenever he has, he was within his right. But this time? Really? Was it justified? You almost groan in frustration. You don’t know. All you know is that you’re in dire need of talking to another girl now. You unlock your phone and open your chat with Chaewon.

Heyyy you’re going to the bar with us tomorrow right??

[Chaewon] YES!!!!

You smile at her response. You love her bubbliness. It’s impossible to feel sad when you’re talking to her.

Thank god

We should get ready together at your place

I’ll just head there right after work

You hope she takes up your offer. It would be a huge stress relief for you. It would also be a good time to gauge her reaction on Soobin, as well as her thoughts on Beomgyu’s reaction. Debriefing life—even the bad moments—is never dull with her. It’s like she always knows what to say, and she’s always got what you need to hear.

A smaller part of this is motivated by the urge to avoid another argument with Beomgyu tomorrow. If he ends up coming, great. If he doesn’t, hopefully it won’t weigh on your mind so much. You don’t want to ruin your mood right before hanging out with all your friends.

[Chaewon] Omg yes please

[Chaewon] I have the cutest dress for you

You giggle and kick your feet in the air. Maybe you should ditch Soobin and let Chaewon carry you on her arm tomorrow night instead. She’s your hero right now.

I literally love you

[Chaewon] I LOVE YOU MORE

[Chaewon] IM SO EXCITED

ME TOO!!!!

Your shoulders feel less heavy after that. You shut your phone off and let out a sigh of relief. You find yourself excited for tomorrow to come now.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

Luckily for you, your work day passes quickly. You speed walk the whole way to Chaewon’s place, not wanting to waste a single moment. You’re excited for tonight, thankful that everyone said they’d be able to come. You try to push back the worry that Beomgyu might not go.

You’re out of breath when you knock on Chaewon’s door. She doesn’t leave you waiting long, swinging it open with a squeal and hugging you immediately.

“How are you?” she asks as she ushers you in and shuts the door. She takes your jacket for you as you slide off your shoes. She hangs it on a cute little coat rack.

“I’m good now that I’m with you!” you say, beaming. She takes your hand and drags you to her bedroom.

“Let’s not waste any time, we gotta look hot before the hour’s up!” In her bedroom, she already has two small bins of makeup products on the floor. She gives you her makeup mirror and uses a smaller handheld one for herself.

“Oh, I already did my makeup,” you say, trying to hand the mirror back to her. She raises an eyebrow at you.

“You mean your work makeup?”

“What’s wrong with it?” you ask, looking in the mirror to check it. Looks fine to you.

“It’s cute, but it’s so modest. You need to look sexy,” she responds. You nod and point at her like she made a great argument.

“You’re right, let me see what you got in these,” you say as you dig through her bins. You pull out the palettes and glosses that intrigue you. She also picks some products out for you, telling you how good they’d look on you. You grab a few of your own products from your purse.

As you both start applying, you think back to Soobin. You wonder how he’ll react seeing you in non-work attire. You bite back a smile at the thought. You still have to ask Chaewon about bringing him, though. You hope that Soobin kept his schedule free for this, but also that he won’t be disappointed if you don’t end up inviting him in the case that Chaewon thinks you shouldn’t.

“I got a surprise announcement,” you start, immediately grabbing Chaewon’s attention. She looks at you with wide eyes.

“I’m scared. Please don’t be pregnant,” she says.

“Well, there’s this guy…” You can’t even finish your sentence before Chaewon starts screaming. You burst out laughing, and she smacks the ground in amusement.

“Okay, okay, tell me more,” she pries once she calms down.

“His name is Soobin. He’s really cute, but also so hot. Like, Chaewon. I swear. I was drooling when I first saw him.” Her jaw is dropped open as she hears that.

“How'd you meet?” she asks.

“We met at the library a week ago and have been talking every day since,” you explain. “And girl… he does tech for an insurance company. That sounds like money to me.”

“Bring me to his mansion when you get married,” she jokes.

“Oh for sure. Imagine though,” you say.

“That’s so good for you. I could actually cry for you. You needed this.”

“Right?! See, at least you get it.”

“I mean, who wouldn’t? He sounds so good.” You pause doing your makeup to give her a pointed look. You emit an exaggerated groan and lean your head back.

“Don’t get me started,” you say.

“Well now I have to hear.”

“When I brought it up to Beomgyu, he completely freaked out. I mentioned bringing Soobin with me tonight and he just lost it.”

Chaewon scoffs. “Screw him, I wanna meet the guy! Who cares what Beomgyu thinks?!”

“I care, I don’t want him to be pissed at me,” you say, and Chaewon frowns.

“He’s just mad cause you’ll be getting it and he’ll be watching from the sidelines,” she says. You push at her shoulder and she laughs.

“You should try to set him up with someone so he gets off my ass,” you suggest, only half-joking.

“As if he’ll ever look at someone besides you.” You tilt your head upon hearing that response, not knowing what she means. She senses your confusion and continues, “I’m pretty sure he likes you.”

You rush to deny the claim, but your heart picks up in some weird sense of panic and shock. “That’s not it at all,” you say. You shake your hand frantically in denial.

“Keep telling yourself that. Why else would he freak out like that?” she asks.

“Oh my gosh… I’m not even hearing this one out,” you dismiss, locking this conversation away to never think about it again. “So, you think I should tell Soobin to come?”

“Yes! One million percent. I have got to see this handsome stranger,” she answers.

“Okay, I’ll text him once I’m done with this.”

“I haven’t been this excited in so long!” Chaewon squeals. Honestly? You either.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

The moment you find your friends’ table at the bar, you notice Beomgyu’s absence. Your heart sits heavy in your chest upon realizing that. Chaewon grabs your hand, and you wonder if you were wearing your guilt on your face. Her reminded presence is reassuring. You sit next to her at the table and greet all your friends.

“Did anyone pregame?” Aeri asks. “Cause I totally did.”

“Girl, I hope you Ubered here then,” Chaewon says.

“I drank a little, but only enough to feel a buzz,” Julie answers.

“Ayy,” Aeri cheers while high-fiving Julie.

“Meanwhile we were too busy scrambling into these dresses to think about drinking,” you say, pointing between yourself and Chaewon.

“You look hot, it was worth it,” Julie says.

“Is Beomgyu not coming?” Yeonjun asks, looking at you.

“I’m not sure. I thought he was,” you answer.

“He better,” Julie says. “The whole group hasn’t gotten together in so long!”

“Speaking of, there’s gonna be an addition to the group tonight,” Chaewon announces, shimmying her shoulders and looking at you. You roll your eyes at her with a fond smile.

“I asked this guy I’m seeing to come by tonight,” you inform, and the table erupts at the news.

“When’s he coming? I’ll give you my brutally honest opinion after seeing him,” Aeri says.

“Oh, you’ll love him,” you say. “Don’t flirt too hard, I can’t have you stealing him from me.”

“So a little flirting is okay?” she jokes. You lean over the table to swat her shoulder.

“He kinda gives shy vibes, so don’t be surprised if he’s not as energetic as us,” you say.

“Let’s just get him super drunk then,” Yeonjun suggests. The table bursts into a chorus of ‘yeahhhh’s.

“Oh hey, look who came,” Chaewon says, putting a hand on your shoulder and pointing her chin to Beomgyu walking towards your table. You hope your smile doesn’t look forced and awkward, but it feels it as he comes closer. Your eyes dart from Chaewon, to your other friends, to your hands on the table, then back to Beomgyu. Your heart pounds in fear that Beomgyu might still be mad at you. He wouldn’t come if he was that upset still, right?

He sits next to Yeonjun, and you’re holding your breath as you gauge the look on his face. He looks… happy. You release your breath slowly. He holds no anger in his eyes when he meets your gaze. A weight lifts from your shoulders.

Yeonjun slaps a hand onto Beomgyu’s shoulder. “Finally!” he exclaims.

“Hey, you think I’d miss a chance to drink with you guys?” Beomgyu responds.

“Okay, let’s get started. Should we each just open our own tab?” Julie asks.

“Yeah, that works,” you answer.

“Wait, I have no money, who wants to be my sugar mommy for the night,” Aeri says.

“You can put yours on mine,” Chaewon offers. Aeri wraps her arms around her for a quick hug in thanks.

“I will pay you back in double when I get my next paycheck,” Aeri promises.

“Ahh come on, don’t worry about that, let’s just have fun,” she responds. Chaewon pulls you up with her to go over to the bartender. Aeri follows along with the two of you. The other three probably split off on their own to figure out their orders.

The three of you take a shot for good luck first, then you work on your own drinks. You’re all giggling as you head back to your table with your drinks. Beomgyu and Yeonjun are back with their own beers, and Julie is nowhere to be seen.

“You think Julie’s drunk already?” Aeri asks the table.

“Oh, she’s been drunk. When she says she’s a little buzzed, that means she’s fucking wasted,” Chaewon says. Everyone laughs because it’s true.

You don’t know how much time passes where you guys just catch up on life and joke around, but at some point you feel your phone vibrate from a text notification. It’s Soobin.

[Soobin] I’ll be there in a minute! Please wait for me at the front so I can find you

“Guys, I gotta go grab Soobin, I’ll be right back,” you say. Everyone’s still caught up in conversation and doesn’t pay much mind to your announcement—everyone except Beomgyu. His eyebrows are upturned, eyes wide as they follow you when you stand.

You pat his head. “I’ll be back,” you reassure.

You don’t wait long by the bar door. Soobin finds you as soon as he walks in, greeting you with a hug. It takes your breath away for a second. It’s fleeting, and it’s over before you know it, but it makes your heart race.

“How have you been?” he asks. You’re standing so close that you have to bend your neck to look up at him.

“Good, better now that you’re here,” you say. He turns his head away to laugh. It’s unbearably cute. You have to stop yourself from squeezing his face in your hands.

“Do your friends know I’m coming?”

“Of course,” you answer. “They can’t wait.”

“Oh gosh,” he says, following you as you lead him to your table. It seems like Julie came back in the time you were gone, cause everyone’s there when you get back. All the girls squeal upon seeing Soobin. You give them a knowing grin.

“Hey man, what’s up?” Yeonjun greets. “Sit, sit.” He motions to the chairs on the opposite side of the table from him. You sit next to Julie, and Soobin sits next to you. Right across from you is Beomgyu. You tighten your lips when you see him looking off as if uninterested. You pray he can be amicable.

“Yeah, so, this is the boy,” you say.

“I’m Soobin,” he introduces with an air of awkwardness. It endears you.

The next few minutes are filled with your friends getting to know Soobin. They make good conversation, and Soobin responds well. Yeonjun even grabs a drink for Soobin at some point—“Be careful, he’s got plans to get you super drunk,” Julie joked—and it seems to loosen him up a bit. You just can’t help but notice how quiet Beomgyu is, though.

“I’m gonna grab another drink,” you announce, patting Soobin’s back as you get up.

You seat yourself on a barstool, tapping your fingers against the bar as you wait for the bartender to come to you. You hum along to the song playing.

“Hello again,” the bartender greets. You shoot your head up and smile. “Same as before?” You’re surprised he remembers your order when there’s so many people here tonight. You guess he’s just good at his job.

“Yes, please,” you say. You go back to humming and tapping to the beat of whatever song the bar is playing. You look back at your table for a second. Everyone looks like they’re enjoying themselves. It makes you happy to see your friends get along with Soobin.

You check your phone for any important messages, but all you received was a bunch of meaningless notifications from various apps. You shove your phone into your purse so you stop looking at it. You’re here to socialize.

A hand lands on your shoulder, prompting you to look back. You were expecting it to be Soobin, but you’re not surprised when you see that it’s Beomgyu. You give him a smile as he takes the stool next to you. You look back at the bartender, and Beomgyu looks behind the two of you at the rest of the people here. Beomgyu’s arm stays slumped around you.

When your drink is handed off to you, you turn your full attention to your friend. “What’s up?” you ask. You swivel your seat so you can face him directly, forcing his arm off you. He leans into the bar, getting—probably too—comfortable.

“I just wanted to see you,” he answers.

“How’s your night going?” You take a sip of your drink, licking your lips after. His eyes follow the movement.

“Alright, I guess,” he says. He looks out to the crowd again.

“You should go dance,” you suggest.

He shakes his head. “I only like dancing with you.”

“Isn’t that sweet,” you tease. He matches your smile before stealing your drink and taking a sip from it. “Oh my god, you and your big ass gulps, all the time,” you reprimand jokingly.

“I barely drank any of it,” he defends with a pout. You laugh and pat his head to summon his lips back upward. It works immediately, of course.

“How’s everyone doing at the table?” you ask.

He shrugs. “They’re having a good time. Soobin talks a lot.” Soobin wasn’t talking that much when you were at the table, so you’re surprised to hear that. Maybe the alcohol started really coursing through his system in the short time you were gone.

“That’s good,” you respond.

“Are you going home with him?” he asks, looking at you with big round eyes. Usually Beomgyu mellows down and laughs a lot when he drinks, but this time he’s a little different.

“With Soobin?” you clarify. He nods. “Probably not. I don’t think so.”

“Good,” Beomgyu says quickly. You laugh.

“Why good?”

“Don’t want him stealing you from me.”

“You’re such a child,” you chuckle. He holds your hand over the table when you let go of your glass. It’s not abnormal for him to be touchy with you, so you don’t question it. He brings your interlocked hands up to his face and leans into them. His face feels warm on the back of your hand.

“Let me know when you wanna head to ours,” Beomgyu says. He’s being cute right now, you can’t help it when you let go of his hand so you can poke his nose. He beams at you.

“Let’s go back to the table,” you say, grabbing your drink and getting out of your seat.

“No, stay here with me.” He’s so needy. You look him up and down, assessing him.

“How much did you drink?” you ask. You swear he only had a couple beers. He ushers you back into your seat with a gentle hand on your hip. “Gyu, I can’t just leave Soobin for the rest of the night.”

“He’s having fun. Don’t mind him.”

“I brought him here though,” you reason.

He sighs, and his eyes lose their sparkle. He turns his head so he’s not facing you anymore. “Fine,” he says.

“You can’t seriously be upset with me for this?”

He still doesn’t look at you. “I’m not.”

You bite your tongue and decide to leave it at that, even though you know he’s lying. He’s jealous for no reason; it’s not like you’re going to abandon your best friend all because you might have a man in your life. Soobin and you aren’t even anything more than friends right now. You wish you could talk some sense into him, but you don’t want to do that in public.

Beomgyu will wallow alone for the rest of the night if you leave him now. The choice is on you: abandon Soobin at the table, or abandon Beomgyu right here. It’s not like there’s a correct option.

You look at your table. Soobin’s intently listening to Yeonjun as he rambles on about something, while the girls seem to be in a conversation of their own. Does Soobin need you right now? He seems like he’s holding his own. Your eyes fall back to the boy that definitely does.

“Beomgyu,” you call, shaking his shoulder so he’ll look at you. He does. “Let’s go home.” His smile returns immediately.

You already start thinking of what excuse you’ll text Soobin later.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

You wake up feeling suffocated by both the tight dress you’re still wearing and by half of Beomgyu’s body weight being sprawled on top of you. Curse him for insisting on watching a movie with you last night—not only is he crushing you now, but your laptop fell off the bed sometime during the night. He better pray it survived the landing. Neither of you even finished the damn movie.

You push him off of you, not caring how hard you do it because of how much of a heavy sleeper he is after he drinks. You sit up and look at yourself in your mirror. Your makeup’s a little smudged, but you don’t look totally crazy. You let yourself wake up for a minute more before sliding off the bed to check on your laptop. The screen lights up with the title card of the movie you watched. Phew. You close the device and stuff it back in the drawer of your nightstand.

You change into comfier clothes and wipe away the mess on your face. You carry on with your morning routine as usual, then lounge on the couch as you wait for Beomgyu to wake up.

The first thing you see on your phone is Soobin’s response to your text from last night. You ended up telling him that Beomgyu wasn’t feeling well, and you had to take him home. That’s not a lie, is it? Beomgyu was definitely not going to be okay if you carried on the night without him. You shake the thought and open Soobin’s text.

[Soobin] Don’t worry about it :) I had a feeling something happened

You didn’t doubt that he’d be understanding. He really is a good person.

You pass the day alongside Beomgyu once he wakes up, hanging with him in his room for most of the day. He plays his games while you go on your phone. You make dinner for the two of you, and Beomgyu cleans the dishes.

You watch him scrub at your plates from your spot at the table. You want to ask him about Soobin, but you’re nervous about him reacting poorly. You don’t want to argue again.

Beomgyu couldn’t be that immature about it though, right? If you just ask him for his opinion on Soobin, it’s not like he can really take offense to that. You’re genuinely curious, and you obviously want his approval on the guy you’re talking to. You bite the bullet and just go for it.

“So, what’d you think of Soobin?” you ask. You’re eager to hear his review, albeit a little nervous. He gives a short laugh in distaste, and your brows scrunch in confusion. “Did you not like him?”

He shuts off the sink and dries his hands after cleaning the last dish, then leans his back on the counter and stares at you with an unreadable expression, which is weird because you can normally tell exactly what he’s thinking.

When he finally responds, his face is just as indecipherable. “I don’t think he’s the right guy for you.”

“Why?” You’re genuinely curious. Maybe you’re wearing rose-tinted glasses, and Beomgyu could see something that you couldn’t.

He sighs, “He was just… giving me bad vibes.”

“How come?” you ask.

“Just a feeling,” he explains. You groan. What a non-answer.

“Well, I think he’s super charming.” He scrunches up his face like you said something disgusting. “Stop being like that,” you scold.

“I can’t help it. It’s gross,” he says.

“Yeah okay. I didn’t say it was gross when I was helping you get a new girl every week,” you mention.

“That was years ago!” Beomgyu whines.

“Still happened.”

“That’s not a fair comparison,” he complains. “And it wasn’t every week.”

“So it’s wrong when I find one guy I like and want to be with?” you question. He groans and crosses his arms.

“Why do you even need a boyfriend right now?” he retorts. “What’s wrong with what we have?”

You pause. What the hell is he on about? Having a friend is very different from having a boyfriend. He’s completely serious, too; his face is stone.

“Um, nothing? I don’t know what that has to do with this…” you answer, unsure. He sighs and makes his way over to you, but never gives you a response.

He picks up your hand and helps you out of your chair. Is this seriously where he’s gonna end the conversation? No, you want a real answer. You’re only being left with more and more questions.

“Don’t bring me back to your room, I want to talk about this,” you say.

“There’s no point,” he responds. He might be right, but you still want to know why he’s acting like this. You take your hand back from his grasp.

“Why don’t you like Soobin?” you ask, more demanding now. You harden your stare on him, but he’s not budging. You cross your arms as you wait for an answer. “Well?”

“Why does the reason matter so much?” he asks back.

“Beomgyu, what the fuck are you saying? Why are you being so secretive?” Anger starts filling your words, you can’t help it. It’s not fair for him to shit on Soobin nonstop without telling you why. If something happened that made him form this opinion, then you want to know.

“Calm down,” he says, and it only serves to upset you further. Before you can bark at him, he continues, “I just don’t think you need to be seeing anyone right now.”

“Why?” you demand.

“Cause you have me!” he exclaims like it’s obvious.

“That’s different!”

“It doesn’t have to be,” he says. You tilt your head and look at him incredulously.

“What does that even mean?” you groan.

“What do you want from him? I can give it to you instead,” he pleads. Something’s changing in the air of this conversation, something you’ve been pushing to the back of your mind for your own sanity. Chaewon’s words from yesterday rattle in the cage you mentally locked them in. You push them back, not letting them escape. That’s an impossible and crazy thought.

“Stuff that best friends don’t do with each other,” you answer plainly.

“Why not? We can. Nothing has to change,” he says.

Your head is spinning and you want to sit down. You rub your temples and close your eyes. Everything in your mind is flying by too fast for you to make sense of it. Beomgyu holds one of your shoulders, and you back away instantly.

“I think I’m gonna spend the night at Chaewon’s,” you say, defeated. You feel a serious headache coming on.

“Don’t, please,” he begs. “I’ll talk, I promise.” His eyes are watery now, and it only fuels your stress more. How did you manage to make him cry? What is going on?

“I need to collect my thoughts.” You just want to get out of this now. Beomgyu was right: this conversation was pointless. Now you’re left with more confusion than you know how to deal with.

He quickly gets on his knees in front of you, big eyes pleading to you, hands clasped over his heart. He’s going too far for this right now.

“What is wrong with you?!” you exclaim, half-frightened at the sight of your best friend acting so different in front of you. “What in the world has gotten into you?!”

You try backing away, but he wails immediately and stops you. “No!” he yelps, clinging onto your legs to keep you from moving any further. He leans his tear-soaked face onto your thigh. His skin is warm against yours, and you suddenly regret wearing such tiny shorts. You try moving away again, but your back hits the kitchen counter, and you realize you’re cornered.

“I was here first,” Beomgyu says with conviction, like that justifies his whole argument, like you’ll stop seeing Soobin just because of that.

“Can we talk about this like adults?” you ask. He looks up at you with those watery wide eyes, and you can’t help but feel your heart ache a little. You soothe him with your touch, running a hand through his hair and down his face, collecting his tears. He leans into your touch and wears the most pitiful frown you’ve ever seen.

“Please,” he begs quietly. “You don’t need anyone else, you have me.”

“Gyu, get up,” you say, trying to keep your voice authoritative but gentle.

He doesn’t, of course. “Tell me what to do,” he insists instead.

“I just did.”

He scowls at that and nips at the flesh of your thigh. You jolt in surprise and pull his head back by his hair. He winces in pain for a second, then looks up at you like a puppy.

“Behave,” you warn, and he smiles like he’s getting what he wants.

“I will, I’ll be good, tell me what to do,” he pleads again. He looks delirious off of this. It twists your stomach and makes you release your hold on his hair. He immediately goes back to your thighs, licking a short stripe up it, reaching the hem of your shorts. You gasp as your legs twitch, and he looks up at you with a grin.

“I can’t be doing this,” you say, and Beomgyu rolls his eyes in annoyance. You get another nip to the thigh, harsher this time. “Enough with that,” you tell him, swatting at his head.

“So you get a boyfriend and suddenly I can’t be close to you anymore?” he spits bitterly, angrier now. He stands back up, crowding you with his proximity. You hate how you immediately feel like you have less power. A part of you wants him back on his knees.

“We are still close.”

He scoffs at that. “Yeah right. It’ll be different now and you know it.”

“Well now it’s gonna different, since you put on that whole fucking show!” you argue, swinging an arm out in disbelief.

His brows are drawn together, and he looks at you furiously. “I can’t just sit back and watch another man have you in whatever way he pleases.”

“We’re friends, Beomgyu! That’s it!” you exclaim. You don’t bother correcting his assumption about Soobin ‘having’ you. “No amount of confessions is gonna erase Soobin from my life just like that.”

He clenches his jaw and stares at you silently for a few long seconds. The tension is so palpable and thick, you don’t even dare to breathe. He grabs your wrist and brings you down the hall, into your room. He lays you on your bed with a gentleness that doesn’t match the anger on his face. You know where this is going, you’re not stupid. You should stop this. You need to stop this.

Words get caught in your throat. You should speak, you should yell at him. You should shove him away and put him in his place. This is too far, too much.

You don’t stop him when he crawls onto the bed with you. You don’t stop him when you see the hunger in his eyes as he scans your frame. You wouldn’t stop him no matter what he does right now, your guilty conscience snides.

Your core clenches when Beomgyu brings himself down to hover over you. He remains wordless, just examining your every feature. You’re scared you’ll give away too much and let him in on your desire, but a darker part of your mind hopes that he catches it. Fire builds in your stomach as the moment drags on.

“Tell me what to do,” he whispers. He’s so close that you feel his breath on your face. You stay quiet. He traces up your jaw with the tip of his nose, smiling when your breathing stutters.

He pulls away a bit, just enough to stare at where your hips almost meet. You’d just have to push forward a few inches to close the gap, but you hold back. His hand finds your hip, thumb rubbing you comfortingly.

“Tell me what you need,” he tries again. You bite back a whimper at the deepness of his voice. He laughs at how you still don’t respond. “You this quiet with Soobin too?”

That pisses you off and brings you out of your haze. “No, I give him whatever he wants.” It’s a lie, but you mostly say it to piss him off, and clearly you’ve struck a nerve judging by how he grits his teeth.

“I’m trying to be good for you,” Beomgyu says. He grips onto your waist tight. “I’m showing you I’d do anything for you.”

“Soobin does that just fine,” you say pointedly. Neither of you are amused, and the moment is laced with venom from both sides now.

You gasp when Beomgyu suddenly takes your thighs and pulls them up toward your body, exposing your clothed pussy to him. You try to shut your legs, but Beomgyu’s hold is too strong and doesn’t budge. He smirks when his eyes land on the damp spot over your core.

“Does Soobin make you soak through your shorts like this too?” he taunts. Before you can even think of a smart reply, he’s bending you even further, bringing your knees to the sides of your head. He has you folded firmly in half, and it feels so demeaning, but it makes you so wet. He laughs at the sight of you, slack-jawed and speechless.

You’re fully-clothed but feel so exposed. Your heart is beating erratically. You’re starting to shake from how worked up you are; you ache for him to do something.

“No, he doesn’t, does he?” he continues, and you whine. “You can pretend all you want that he’s the man of your dreams, but you know he’ll never compare to me. Isn’t that right?”

You don’t respond to that. You’re too far gone in your lust to trust yourself to talk; you’ll end up saying something you regret. Beomgyu finally releases his grip on your legs, and you feel all your arousal leaking out of you as soon as your hips fall back on the bed.

“You don’t wanna tell me what to do? That’s fine. I can read you like a book. I know what you want,” Beomgyu says before grabbing your hand and placing it over your cunt. You immediately grind into it, losing yourself in the stimulation. He smiles deliriously at the sight, running his hands soothingly up your sides. “That’s it, now you’ve got it. Now you’re being good.”

One of his hands leaves you, the other helping to keep your legs spread. When you focus your attention back on him, you see him pulling his dick out and stroking himself. He spits in his hand before wrapping it around his length again, and you moan at the sight. He looks delicious.

His eyes are wild as they try to take in every part of you. It’s hard to keep yours open, but you want to watch him as much as you can. Something like this can never happen again, so you need to take it in.

You work your hand faster over yourself when you see him tug at his length with more fervor. His mouth drops open when he moans. He looks so pretty, making a mess out of himself. The sight is addicting, him panting and kneeling over you. You never thought about him like this before, but now thoughts this lewd will plague you.

“Gyu,” you whine, trying to find the perfect rhythm to get yourself off, but you need more. He senses your urgency and gets his hand off his dick in favor of grabbing your wrist. He plunges your hand past your shorts and panties, guiding it to your core. You gasp at how crude the action is. He bites his lip as he takes your two middle fingers and forces them into your fluttering hole. You moan at the intrusion, which was made so easy thanks to how embarrassingly wet you are. The slick sounds of your cunt fill the air, loud and filthy.

Beomgyu wraps his hand around your wrist again to control your movements, pacing the way you fuck yourself. It feels so scandalous and so hot, you find yourself getting worked up quickly. He makes you fuck yourself with vigor, and the way your palm meets your clit with each thrust has your mouth falling open. You stay in the rhythm he set even as he pulls away to fuck his fist again. His grunts and moans are shameless, and they’re like music to your ears.

“Fuck, you’re so dirty, you’re a dream,” he rambles, clearly teetering on the edge. He squeezes the meat of your thigh, then your hips, then palms your ass. “Are you gonna cum, my angel? Are you gonna let me see how pretty you look when you fall apart?”

“Yes, please,” you answer breathlessly, back arching into the feeling. Beomgyu bites down his smirk and runs his hand down the outside of your thigh.

“Wanna see it so bad, fucking dreamed of this.” You can feel the mattress shake from how hard he’s fucking his fist. His grip is bruising on your thigh, and he moans when he feels you jolt in pleasure. “Yeah, keep fucking yourself like that. So perfect.”

You moan out as you finally cum, clenching down on your fingers and throwing your head back as the sensation takes over you. You hear him whine, and it makes you tighten even more around your fingers, dying to hear it again.

“So good, so good for me,” Beomgyu praises in a shaky voice. You can tell his high is approaching. “Look so b-beautiful.”

“Cum for me, Gyu, let go,” you urge, making him moan out again. You slip your fingers out of your cunt but keep your hand over it, fingers ghosting over your clit as you watch Beomgyu lose himself. The slight overstimulation is delicious, and you bite your lip to keep yourself from whimpering at the feeling.

“Have I been good to you?” Beomgyu asks, out of breath as he squeezes the base of his cock. He strokes himself slowly once he regains his composure.

“So good, felt so nice,” you answer, feeling blissful after your orgasm.

“Yeah? Better than Soobin?” he asks, increasing his speed again. You can’t even scold him before his motor mouth starts running again. “Could fuck that little pussy so much better than him. Make you feel so good. Make you forget about him.”

He pushes your shirt up with his free hand, and before you can even react to that, he’s pushing up your bra too. “Oh my god, Beomgyu!” you exclaim, pulling your hand from your pussy to cover your tits. Beomgyu yanks your arm away and brings your fingers to his mouth. You stare at him in shock as he sucks your juices from your digits, diligently swirling his tongue around them. He’s moaning around your fingers, and a second later he’s spilling his load onto your stomach and breasts. Your mouth drops open. He’s got a lot of nerve doing all that; unfortunately for you, it was the hottest thing you have ever seen.

He takes your hand out of his mouth once he’s cleaned your fingers off, whimpering as he rides out the last of his high. He looks down hungrily at your body, taking in the ropes of his cum splayed on your skin. Like the horny freak he is, he sticks his fingers in the mess and smears it all over your torso.

“Gross,” you laugh. He ignores that. He tugs at your nipples with his cum-coated fingers. You yelp at the sensation, and he coos at you. He does it again, and again, until he’s had enough of his fun. He stares into your eyes, and you wish you could crawl away from his heated gaze, it’s that intense. His thumbs return to tease your nipples, but he doesn’t pull his eyes away from your own.

“You’re mine. Never see him again,” Beomgyu declares like it’s final.

“We’re meeting tomorrow,” you respond. He pinches your nipple harshly for that.

“Why? Cancel. Just stay with me,” he offers instead. You try to get up onto your elbows, but Beomgyu pushes you back down against the bed. He continues absentmindedly playing with your tits. He’s practically sitting in your lap to do so.

“…Can you wipe your cum off of me?” you ask, ignoring the conversation at hand.

“But I’m having so much fun.” He pouts. He’s cute like this.

“I let you have enough fun today,” you say with no real bite. He sighs like it will kill him to do so before getting off the bed and leaving for the bathroom. He comes back a minute later with a wet towel, and it’s peacefully quiet as he wipes you down.

“He’s not even really my boyfriend, you know,” you mention, watching his focused face as he rids you of the mess he made.

“Sure,” he laughs bitterly. “Tell him that.”

“We never made anything official,” you say.

“Then why’s he parading around telling everyone how you’re his girl?” Beomgyu asks, giving you a hard stare. You pull your bra and shirt back down once he finishes cleaning you, trying to feel a little more decent. He throws the used towel on the floor and crawls in bed next to you.

You perk up at that. “He is? How do you know?”

He stares straight ahead instead of at you. “You don’t gotta sound so excited.”

“I’m just curious,” you defend.

“Right,” he says, not believing you. “Yesterday at the bar he said it. Multiple times.” Did he? You hold in your gasps and squeals and suppress the urge to kick your feet. Maybe you were too drunk to remember, or maybe Soobin was saying it while you were away from the table. Or maybe Beomgyu’s just psychotic and putting words in Soobin’s mouth.

“Wow,” you say as nonchalantly as you can.

A few silent moments pass where you find yourself filling the time by trying to ignore Beomgyu’s stare on you. He turned to his side at some point and seems to find you to be the most interesting thing in the room. You try to focus on your nails, the walls of your room, your disorganized vanity, but nothing lifts his stare from you. You give in and turn your head to him, raising an eyebrow in question.

“Well?” you prompt.

“What now?” he asks.

“Now… you get out of my room,” you say, holding eye contact and keeping your expression still. His face falters immediately.

“Are you joking?” he asks incredulously, backing away from you with a scoff, propping himself up on his elbows.

“This shouldn’t have happened, Gyu,” you say with a sigh. You know it hurts him—it hurts you, too—but you can’t do this while you’re seeing Soobin. You’ve already crossed the line.

Beomgyu is silent and unmoving. After a minute, it becomes clear he’s not leaving. You don’t know if it’s out of stubbornness or desperation. He lays back down and curls himself into you, tucking his face in your neck and holding you tight.

“Beomgyu,” you warn, but to no avail. He stays there and nuzzles further into you, and you’re so pathetic that you just let him. A stronger woman than you would have put her foot down, but that kind of power doesn’t find you in this moment.

Another long minute passes, consisting of you staring straight at the ceiling, listening to your combined breathing. You think of how Soobin would feel if he found out about this. How are you going to look him in the eye tomorrow? Do you tell him about this? Is it wrong to keep it a secret?

You try to pull away from Beomgyu, but he doesn’t let you move. “Please, Beom—“

“Stop,” he murmurs, putting his hand over your mouth just long enough to get you to stop talking. “Let me have this one night. He gets you every other time.”

You can’t help but feel a little aggravated at that. “Because he’s the one I’m seeing! This is wrong!”

“What’s wrong is you looking for other men when I’m right here,” he says with finality. When you don’t respond, he continues, “So let’s just go to sleep.”

You decide to let him win this time, telling yourself that this will never happen again. Sleep doesn’t find you easily with the guilt eating you alive, but it does feel kind of nice to have Beomgyu hugging you like this again.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

When you wake up, Beomgyu’s already gone. You let out a sigh of relief. You feel bad for not wanting to see him, but you know that last night changed things. There’s a conversation that needs to be had that you’re not sure you’re ready for.

You sit up and stretch, then check the time and notice that it’s already nearly 10. Your eyes go wide, horrified—you’re supposed to see Soobin at 10! You have less than twenty minutes to get ready!

You leap out of bed and run to your closet, looking for a cute dress to throw on cause you have no time to curate an outfit. Once you have the dress selected, you hold it in front of you in the mirror. The fabric is super soft and looks casual enough while still being pretty. The light color of it looks great on you, too.

You don’t have enough time to linger on your options, so you go with it. You fold the dress and run to the bathroom to finish freshening up and getting ready. You need to take the quickest shower of your life.

You’re rushing out the door once everything’s complete, cursing at yourself as you check the time. It’s already ten minutes past. You shoot him a text as you scramble down your apartment’s stairs.

Hey! I’m gonna be a bit late, leaving now

Forgot to set an alarm, my bad

Wait for meeee

You shove your phone in your jacket pocket and speed walk down the street. You’re lucky enough to live near the heart of the city, so everything is at walking distance. You’re halfway to the cafe when you feel your phone buzz with a response.

[Soobin] No worries. I’m waiting :)

[Soobin] Gives your coffee some time to cool down

You smile at the response. Of course he already bought your coffee. Of course he memorized your order. It’s Soobin, he’s the most thoughtful guy you’ve ever known. Your phone buzzes with another text notification. This time it’s Beomgyu.

[Beomgyu] omg where’d you go i got stuff for breakfast!!!

Your heart squeezes at the prospect. You rush to type out your responses.

I said I was meeting Soobin today

I’m sorry

Brunch?

You slow down your walking, finding yourself nearing the destination too quickly. You just want to get Beomgyu’s response before seeing Soobin. Your phone buzzes when he replies.

[Beomgyu] hmm.. ok brunch

You don’t find yourself excited, though. You guys do things like this all the time, but now you’re just nervous. It makes your stomach churn with anxiety. You know things have changed. Even if he acts like nothing happened, you both know something did.

You shove your phone into your pocket when you arrive at the cute little cat cafe. You wipe the sweat off your palms before opening the door. You try collecting yourself before looking for Soobin, who’s sitting at a small table near the front of the shop. You smile when you see him, but it’s only half-genuine; the other half of your mind is busy trying to push down your worries about Beomgyu.

You seat yourself across from Soobin, who smiles widely and fully-genuinely at you. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” you apologize. “Thank you for the coffee.”

His smile stays on his face as he watches you grab the cup and feel for its temperature. “It should be good to drink now,” he says. “I had company, the cats were coming to me.”

You laugh before taking a sip of your coffee. It’s the best thing in the world, you’re grateful he got it in advance for you. The hot drink eases your mind a bit. You look around the cafe until you spot a cat. It’s a fluffy black and white one, perusing around lazily.

“That one is so mean, don’t pet it,” Soobin says, following your gaze. He brings your attention to a different cat with a pointed finger. “The orange one sunbathing there is the best.”

“Oh yeah? You’re an orange cat fan?” you ask.

“I think you’d like that one,” he says. As if the cat could hear that, it gets up and starts walking toward you.

“Look at you, cat whisperer,” you joke. The way his face scrunches when he laughs makes your heart flutter. The orange cat brushes up against your legs when it finds you, and you immediately coo at it. “Hello, sweetie! Can I pet you?” you say, bringing down your hand for it to accept. The cat rubs its head against you, and you pet it lovingly.

“So you’re more of a cat person?” he asks. You look up from the cat to pay attention to him.

“I like all animals,” you say.

“What’s your favorite?”

You think for a second. “Should I say bunnies because you look like one?” you giggle.

“That’s a good answer,” he laughs with you.

“What would have been a bad answer?”

He looks up in thought and leans his face on his palm. “Maybe a mole or something?”

“Hey, I like moles,” you say.

“You like all animals.”

“What a good listener.”

“It’d be a little sad if I forgot something you said just a minute ago,” he responds.

“Men are like that,” you joke. You feel your phone buzzing with a call notification. “Sorry, let me check this.”

Why the hell is Beomgyu calling you?! You told him you were with—you roll your eyes. That’s why he’s calling you. He’s so petty and childish. You shove your phone back in your pocket.

“No one important?” Soobin asks.

“It’s Beomgyu,” you answer.

“Ah, you should answer then,” he reasons.

“I’m sure it can wait,” you dismiss.

“I need to go to the bathroom anyway, you can call while I go.” He smiles as he gets up.

You don’t really want to, but as you watch him walk away, you’re stuck sitting alone with nothing better to do. With a sigh, you unlock your phone and open your messages with Beomgyu.

What’s up

His response is immediate.

[Beomgyu] when are u coming back

You hold your head and groan at his antics. It’s been ten minutes and he’s acting like you’ve been gone ten days.

Whenever we’re done

Maybe an hour

He calls you again. Reluctantly, you answer. “What?”

“I just wanted to talk,” he says.

“No, you just want my attention. It’s one hour, I think you’ll live.”

“I think I won’t,” he counters. So annoying. You find yourself laughing for some reason, though. You see Soobin coming back, and you quickly fix your posture and tuck your hair back. That was fast.

“I gotta go,” you say abruptly. Beomgyu doesn’t get a word in before you hang up. He texts you his final words instead.

[Beomgyu] UR SO MEAN

Soobin sits back down in front of you. “What’d he say?”

“A whole lot of nothing,” you answer.

Soobin laughs. “Is that usual for him?”

“Always,” you groan.

After a moment, Soobin finds a new topic. “So what kept you up so late that you slept in so much?”

You freeze at the question. You have all of one second to decide if you’re going to spill the truth, or if you’re about to lie to his face. It would be the right thing to do to be honest with him…

“Beomgyu and I were hanging out,” you decide on saying. It’s technically true, but it feels like a cover-up rolling off your tongue.

You try to reason with yourself. You didn’t have sex. You got yourself off, with your own hand, and you didn’t touch him at all. The most he did was a little titty touching… so what? That’s so high school. It doesn’t even count.

You wonder if it would fool Soobin, cause it’s not fooling you.

“Oh, must’ve been fun then,” Soobin says. “Hopefully you can catch up on some sleep tonight.”

He’s so kind. You feel so gross. You don’t deserve him. Your smile doesn’t meet your eyes.

“You got any other plans for the day?” Soobin asks.

“I’m doing brunch with Beomgyu after this,” you answer.

“Wow, you spend a lot of time with him,” he comments. You don’t know why you feel a little offended at that.

“Yeah, we’ve been best friends since our senior year of high school. We moved to the city together, so we’re roommates.”

“Must be nice. I came here alone, so it was a little hard at first,” Soobin says.

“How so?” You’re honestly glad to shift the questions towards him for a bit. You like learning about him, and you hate how you always seem to end up talking about Beomgyu.

“I’m really shy, so making friends took a long time,” Soobin answers. “I’ve been here a few years now, though, so I made a decent community.”

“That’s nice. What’d you think of my friends on Friday?” you ask. “I heard you get chatty when you drink.”

He laughs and scratches his neck shyly. “Your friends were nice. I don’t think Beomgyu was very interested in talking to me though.”

You conceal your groan. Why does it keep coming back to Beomgyu?! You wish last night never happened so you could feel normal about this conversation. Even then, though, it wouldn’t erase how Beomgyu acted before that.

“Yeah, I don’t know, I’m sorry. Must’ve caught him on a bad day,” you excuse.

“Maybe. He seemed fine talking to you, though…” he mumbles, and you can tell that it’s bothering him. Now you really feel like shit. Any attempt you make to comfort him would be a lie after what you let happen between you two.

You grab Soobin’s hand, making his head pop up from where he was looking down all sullenly. “Thank you for coming that night. It means a lot that you met my friends,” you say. That puts a smile back on his face.

“Guess I gotta introduce you to mine now,” he says.

“I’d love that!”

“I’ll plan a day. How busy are you this month?” he asks.

“Not super,” you answer. You go on to ask about his friends, listening to him as diligently as you can while ignoring your phone buzzing in your pocket with text after text. You can guess who they’re from.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

The moment you get back home, you find Beomgyu already near the door waiting. He lights up, but you’re not amused.

“That texting and calling shit needs to stop,” you say, looking him dead in the eye.

He pouts and points at the table. “I made us food. It was gonna get cold.” You look at the table. He set up the dishes all cute, with plates of meats and pancakes in the middle alongside a bowl of berries. You sigh.

“We could’ve made it together when I came back,” you mention, but the fight leaves your voice. You wish you weren’t so endeared by him. You’re so weak, it makes you curse at yourself in your head. You sit at the table and pile some food onto your plate. He sits across from you and does the same.

You’re not sure what to talk about. You feel your skin heating up as you remember what happened the last time you were with Beomgyu. He must be thinking about it too. Maybe arguing about Soobin would be better than dealing with the awkwardness you feel right now.

You take a quick glance at him. He’s smiling and swaying around as he chomps down on his food. If he notices your discomfort, you’re glad he doesn’t say anything. You try to focus on your food instead of him as much as you can.

Usually Beomgyu is the only person you feel like you can do anything around, but right now you’re second guessing every little thing you do. Did you stare at him too long? Should you not check your phone right now? Where should you be looking? Does he know you’re overthinking this right now?

“I hope this is better than whatever you just did with Soobin,” he says, breaking the silence. You stop eating for a second to give him a disapproving glare. That’s one way to cut through your thoughts.

“You need to stop being so jealous,” you say. His neediness is being turned up to 100, and you don’t know how to deal with it. Whatever he thinks he’s doing is only going to drive you away from him.

“Well, I have to fight for your attention now,” he explains. You roll your eyes.

“No you don’t, I still spend most of my time with you.” It’s ridiculous that he thinks you’d just drop him like that. You literally live with him, you can’t avoid him. His insecurities are getting the best of him, and it’s changing your relationship with him.

“But soon you’ll spend it all with him, and I’ll have no one,” he says like he can see it all already. Gosh, seriously? His brows are upturned and the slightest frown mars his face. Why must he try to break your heart?

“Where’d you get that idea? I’m not going anywhere. You’ll always be the most important person in my life,” you reassure him. He looks down like he can’t stand to make eye contact anymore. His shoulders slump.

“I just have to make sure you don’t forget me,” he mutters. He keeps his eyes down. You sigh.

“I won't forget you. Can’t you just trust me? I’m telling you you’ll always be my number one. What more do you want to hear?” you ask.

He meets your eyes again. They still look sad. His lack of response puzzles you; he always has so much to say. You stay staring at each other for what feels like an eternity, until you pull your gaze away, unable to handle it.

You know you’re not in the wrong here. It’s not abandonment to just see another guy. He looked so pitiful, though. It would’ve hurt less to see him get angry and yell at you. He can’t really help how he feels, and you suppose it is a big change. What does he want you to do, though? Well, stop seeing Soobin. But you’re not going to do that.

You go to your room without another word, needing to leave his presence. It murks your mind and leaves you unable to think clearly. You text Chaewon to come over when she’s free. You just need to get your mind off of whatever’s developing between you and Beomgyu.

When her knock sounds at your door hours later, you run to open it, excited to finally talk to someone who won’t give you a headache. She holds up a grocery bag full of your favorite snacks, smiling ear to ear. You make a mental note to splurge for her next birthday; she always treats you so well.

You usher her to the couch and offer her a drink. She turns on the television and finds something to play in the background. Once you’re both situated, you open one of the snack bags and throw a blanket over the two of you.

“What did you do this weekend?” you ask her.

She doesn’t look away from the television when she answers, “Julie and I went to a spa.”

“Oh my god, and you didn’t invite me?!” you say in faux offense, although you definitely would have liked to go.

She laughs and points at the bag of food in your lap. “I made up for it with those.”

“You still owe me a day out,” you joke.

“I know, I’m thinking we’ll go to an amusement park in the spring. You down?” she asks.

“Oh, for sure,” you confirm. You go quiet for a bit, captured by the show Chaewon put on. The two of you make your own commentary on the characters and their decisions. You share looks when something crazy happens, and burst out laughing when Chaewon’s prediction about one of the plot lines comes true.

This is the stress relief you needed. You already feel lighter and happier. Good thing you asked Chaewon to come over. During a commercial break, Chaewon turns to you.

“Okay, I have to ask, how are things with Soobin?” Chaewon asks. The question doesn’t irk you, partially because it’s not Beomgyu asking it, but mostly because Chaewon put you in a better mood.

“It’s going good with him,” you say. You look down the hall to make sure Beomgyu’s door is shut. Talking to Chaewon about this might actually clear things up for you. She always has good advice.

“Tell me more,” she prompts, leaning in with a grin.

“Well, we went to a cafe today”—Chaewon cuts you off with a delighted ooooo—“and it went really well. He wants me to meet his friends next.”

Chaewon gasps. “You’re halfway into boyfriend territory now!”

Ugh. “About that…” you start.

“Uh oh,” Chaewon lets out.

“I really, really like Soobin, it’s just”—you shut up immediately once you hear Beomgyu’s door open. There’s no way he heard you, not unless he was intentionally listening in, and if he did, is he ballsy enough to come out and argue with you now? With Chaewon right here? You hold your breath.

He walks into the kitchen, and you let yourself breathe again. You watch him carefully. He opens the fridge. It’s a little early for dinner, so he’s probably just looking for a drink or a snack.

“Hey! Talk to me about that sexy tall man!” Chaewon says, bringing your attention back to her. You laugh nervously.

“Let’s talk about you, actually,” you say in attempt to shift the conversation. “How was your spa day with Julie?”

“We had fun, but it was nothing more important than Soobin updates!” she assures. She’s talking so loud, you flinch thinking about Beomgyu listening in.

“I don’t think we should talk about him right now,” you say, eyeing Beomgyu’s figure in the kitchen. You release your breath when you notice he’s still distracted in his search through the fridge.

“Girl… what,” Chaewon deadpans, following your gaze. She looks back at you, brows scrunched. You share a glance, and she puts two and two together. “You’re kidding me.”

“Please,” you whisper.

“He is so ridiculous,” Chaewon complains, shaking her head in disapproval.

“I know, but I can’t talk about it right now. Later, please,” you continue in a hushed voice. Beomgyu settles on an energy drink, closing the fridge and advancing toward the two of you. You pray Chaewon drops it.

“Hey Chaewon. Whatcha guys up to?” he asks as he lingers by where you sit on the couch. You look to Chaewon with pleading eyes. Hers are unamused and disappointed.

“Just talking,” she answers, her voice lacking any emotion. Beomgyu nods.

“Cool. What’s on TV?” he asks.

“Some crime show Chaewon likes,” you respond. It’s quiet for a minute, and you’re trying not to feel antsy. Beomgyu definitely didn’t hear your conversation about Soobin, but you can’t shake the reaction Chaewon had. You were just about to tell her how Beomgyu’s been acting, but now the conversation will have to wait.

When Beomgyu takes a seat next to you, you know that you won’t be able to talk to Chaewon about Soobin until the next time you see her. He puts his arm on the couch behind you and gets himself comfortable. It’s not like you’re going to ask him to leave, so you just lean into his side. You might as well make use of his warmth.

The three of you watch a couple more episodes of Chaewon’s show, and after some time your anxiety leaves you. It feels like a normal hang out, not like you’re in between your best friend you just got intimate with and your other best friend who has no clue.

“Are you having dinner here?” you ask Chaewon. She shakes her head.

“I think I’m gonna head out now, actually. I’ve got a few things to do,” she says. She gets off the couch. “But you need to come over tomorrow, ‘kay?” She points at you. You already know it’s because she wants to finish the conversation you started before Beomgyu came in. It must’ve been pestering her mind.

“I will,” you say. You get up from the couch to hug her. “Thanks for coming over.” You walk with her to your door.

“Love you, see you tomorrow!” she exclaims, waving.

“Love you too!!” You wave back.

Once Chaewon’s out the door, you return to Beomgyu on the couch. You lean your head on the armrest and fold your legs so they’re not resting on Beomgyu.

“I don’t wanna go to work tomorrow,” you complain. He laughs.

“When do you ever?” he asks.

“Fridays, cause there’s donuts,” you answer. He tugs on your legs to pull you closer to him. Your shirt rolls up a bit as he drags you down the couch, but he fixes it for you.

“Call out sick or something,” he suggests.

You groan, “I only get, like, seven sick days.”

“You should skip and we should go to the shopping center.” You hit his chest with your knee at his offer. He smiles down at you.

“The difference in maturity levels between us is crazy,” you say.

“I keep you young,” he jokes.

“Bitch, we’re the same age.” You hit his chest again.

Your phone buzzes on the table in front of you, but before you can sit up to check the notification, Beomgyu flips the device so it’s facing down.

“Who texted me?” you ask.

“No one,” he answers. “What do you want for dinner?”

You hum in thought. “I’m not really hungry honestly. I filled up on Chaewon’s snacks.”

“Same.” It falls silent, so you grab your phone and finally check your notifications.

“You liar, you said no one texted me,” you say, reading your text notification from Soobin.

He wears a mischievous smile. “Oops. Must’ve read it wrong.”

“Yeah right,” you say. You open your phone, going to respond to Soobin until Beomgyu takes your phone from your hands. “Hey!”

He shuts off your phone and puts it in the pocket of his sweatpants. “Talk to me instead of going on your phone.” You scowl at him, who looks back at you with a teasing grin. Asshole.

“Give me back my phone,” you order, hand reaching out for him to place it in. Instead, he takes you by the hand and drags you into his lap, laughing when you yelp.

“Why don’t you take it?” he offers, looking down at his pelvis.

“I’m not digging in your pants to get my phone back,” you say.

“Will you dig in my pants for other reasons?” He wiggles his eyebrows. You bite down your smile and smack his arm.

“You wish, freak.”

He snickers, running his hands up your arms. “I do wish.”

You’re acutely aware of the tension starting to build in the room, and you can’t deny how you’re getting excited in the heat of the moment. This is innocent enough, right? You’re just being playful with each other. Just because you’re starting to feel a little worked up doesn’t mean you’ll act on it.

You move your hand slowly down his chest, traveling down his torso, making your way down to the pocket of his sweatpants. He stares at you with big dumb eyes, and you hold back your laughter. You pry open his pocket, sliding your hand in and retrieving your phone, letting the weight of it drag across his thigh as you pull it out from the fabric.

“Got it,” you whisper, a winning smile on your face. You throw your phone behind you on the couch. You don’t know why you don’t move from your position, though. Maybe it’s the satisfaction you feel at watching his mouth fall just the tiniest bit open at your actions.

His hands grab your waist, thumbs lifting up your shirt just the tiniest bit, revealing a sliver of your stomach. He brings you forward on his lap, moving you even closer to him, and your eyes widen when you feel his half-hard length beneath you.

“Gyu?” you say, searching his eyes. He looks drunk off this moment, and he doesn’t bother to hide his lust. It’s evident all over his face, from his lidded eyes to his bitten lip. “Maybe we should”—

“Do you wanna ride me like this?” he interrupts, hands moving to your hips so he can guide them into a slow grind. You gasp at the sensation, not realizing how aroused you’d gotten. You feel him hardening below you the more you sway your hips over him. You feel dizzy.

You drop your head in his neck and let out a shaky exhale, letting him control your movements. God, this is so wrong. You’re doing this again? You’re really bad at keeping your own promises. But fuck, when your clit catches on the head of his cock, even through all the clothes, it feels like heaven. You can’t even think about how you should stop.

He slides your hair to one side of your neck and kisses the side he bared. “Good girl,” he praises, keeping your hips in a slow rhythm that has your brain malfunctioning. You whine, and your thighs twitch and tighten around him.

Beomgyu’s rock hard now, and you wish he didn’t feel so sinfully good. He presses his hips further up against you, and the added pressure makes you moan out before you can hold it back. He laughs and scatters wet kisses onto your neck.

“Look at you,” he says, voice so low it makes you shiver. “Pretty little thing getting herself off on my lap, creaming her pants for me. Cute girl.” He hastens your rhythm for you and holds you down tighter against him. You gasp and cling onto his shirt.

“Gyu, Gyu, please,” you stammer, feeling your high approaching.

“I know, sweet girl.” He matches your rhythm with his own hips now, making your toes curl.

“I’m gonna cum,” you breathe out, moving yourself even faster over him, losing yourself as you chase your orgasm.

“Yes, fuck, cum for me, I need to see it,” he insists, watching you spasm and shake over him. He moans out at the sight, and the sound is what brings you over the edge. You feel his dick twitch as you ride out your high, and you realize he came in his pants too. The thought makes your head spin.

You slow down as you begin to come down, holding his face in your hands. You wear a dopey smile, and he looks just as fucked out. You’d like to ruin him one day, to see him beg for pleasure and get more than what he can take. He has a pretty face for things like that.

Your hips still over him completely, and Beomgyu connects his mouth to your jaw. He sucks on your skin there, and you push his head away. “No marks,” you tell him. He nods quickly and goes back to licking and kissing and sucking your skin.

He trails his kisses down to your neck, lapping at every inch of skin he has access to. He’s messy with his tongue, coating you in his saliva. It’s so filthy, but it has your core pulsing again. You don’t know why he has this effect on you.

You jolt when you feel his teeth on your neck, biting down and sucking hard. It makes your hips push forward, and he moans against you. You’re not too far gone to let him get away with that, at least.

“Are you serious?” you scold, pulling Beomgyu away by his hair. He kisses your cheek, just barely missing your lips. You gasp, flustered.

“Sorry,” he apologizes quickly, breathlessly. He lays you down on the couch and lifts up your shirt and bra. He decides to connect his mouth to what he reveals there instead. He swirls his tongue around your nipple and sucks, squeezing and fondling your other tit with a hungry hand. You whine out when he just barely scrapes his teeth against the bud, fueling the heat in your core. He switches sides so that he can suck your other breast, delivering wet kisses to it.

His free hand travels up your thigh and stops just inches from your cunt. He swipes his thumb lazily over your inner thigh, so close you can feel it ghost your center. It’s getting you desperate for relief. You close your thighs around his hand, and it brings him right to your core. He moans against your chest at the collision. You wonder if he can feel your wetness through your thin pajama pants.

He rubs his hand against your cunt, moving slow enough to keep you wanting more. He detaches his mouth from you and stares at how your hips gyrate against him. He bites his lip and presses his fingertips harder against you, teasing your entrance through your clothes.

“Oh my god,” you moan, throwing your head back.

“Fuck, let me finger you,” he insists, bringing a thumb to your clit. Your head is spinning from the pleasure. “I need to, I’ve got to feel you.” You feel his bulge on your thigh, heavy and hard. You cry out. You feel your moral ground starting to slip.

“Take off my pants,” you instruct. “Just those.”

He rushes to follow through. Your pants are on the floor in an instant, and his hand is right back on you. He drops his head into your neck when he feels you this time.

“You’re drenched,” he moans. He runs his index finger through your folds over the cloth, so soaked through that he can feel the outline of your pussy perfectly. He pushes his index finger just barely into your hole, watching your panties scrunch up into it.

“Gyu!” you yelp.

“Let me, let me, let me,” he pleads, jamming his finger just a touch further. Your hands wrap around his arm, needing purchase on something. “You want to cum so bad, right? You want to feel good?”

“What do you want?” you ask back.

“To make you take whatever I give,” he answers. Your entrance flutters over his finger at that. “So let me take these off,” he says, pulling his hand away to snap your waistband.

You feel your sanity leave you. You need that pressure back in your cunt. His eyes are dark and blown out. He pulls your panties down just barely, letting them sit below your hip bones, your center still covered. He’s agonizingly slow as he pulls further and further, not daring to reveal your cunt until you say so.

“You’re driving me crazy,” Beomgyu whispers.

He’s the one driving you crazy. Your mind is completely fogged over. You’ve been turned into some kind of lust-drunk whore, seeing as you can’t focus on anything but him if you tried.

“Take them off,” you finally give in. You pulse and ache where you need him most. Beomgyu wastes no time when he pulls your panties off and away, and the first thing he does is hold your legs wide open and stare at your pussy.

“So perfect and slutty for me,” he says in his deep voice. “Gonna make this little pussy all mine.”

You whine at his words, thighs twitching and trying to close. You need him to do something, you need him to fill you. Your hole clenches over nothing, the emptiness starting to kill you. Beomgyu bites his lip and watches as your arousal leaks from you.

“You’re so cute, maybe I should just keep you like this,” he muses, laughing when you cry out and shake your head. “No? But I love watching this sweet cunt leak for me. You’re dripping like a whore.”

You arch your back, push your hips out, do anything you can, but he still doesn’t relieve you. You try to bring your own hand down to your pussy, but Beomgyu grabs it and pushes it back against the couch by your head.

“Please touch me!” you plead, desperate beyond belief. You might even start crying.

“Aww, my baby needs me,” he coos, soothing his hands up your thighs. “My pretty girl needs me, only me.” Finally, his fingers find your clit. You melt into the feeling, sighing in relief. Your hips twitch closer to his hand, making sure he won’t leave.

“Thank you,” you moan. Beomgyu holds your face with his free hand, staring into your teary eyes.

“Don’t cry, I’ll give you what you need,” he says, voice soft. He dips a finger into your cunt, stopping once he’s knuckle-deep. He fucks his finger into you slowly, and you sigh at the relief. He watches his finger sink into you, humming in pleasure when he sees how it collects your wetness.

His actions pull soft moans from your mouth, but you can’t bring yourself to conceal them. It’s not like you need to be embarrassed anyway, seeing how much Beomgyu loves your reactions. You get sick of his slow pace after a while, trying to ride his finger faster.

“More?” he asks. He inserts a second finger into you. The stretch feels like heaven, you crave to be stuffed by him.

“Yes! I need it,” you exclaim. He picks up the pace a little. “Thank you, thank you..!” He laughs a little and leans down to kiss your forehead.

“You’re so nice to me right now,” he notes with a smile, fucking you faster on his fingers in appreciation. “This is how you should always be.” You pay no mind to the wet squelches your pussy makes as he pistons into you. Your stomach muscles clench as you feel yourself getting closer.

He starts curling his fingers inside of you, and it doesn’t take him long to find what he’s looking for. You arch your back and yelp at the sensation of him pressing against the spongy part inside of you. He grins and keeps thrusting against that spot, watching your reactions with amused eyes. His head moves down between your thighs, biting and sucking at all the flesh his mouth can find, then wraps his lips around your clit once he grows tired of marking you.

“Ah! Gyu! That’s—mmh,” you sputter, rolling your hips up into the feeling. It’s so much. He pushes his fingers into you harder, deeper, with more purpose. He toys with your clit using his tongue, swiping and flicking it while he sucks. You’re right there and he knows it, doubling his efforts.

The pleasure takes you under, and you cum with a cry. Your hands find purchase in his hair, tugging at the strands. It makes him moan, and the vibrations fuel your orgasm. He’s hungry for it, fingers coaxing as much of your cum as he can get out of you. He doesn’t give up his pace even as you start to come down, fog clearing from your mind.

“That’s enough,” you say, trying to push his head away. His mouth leaves you for all of one second before he latches himself back on. “Beomgyu, I already—fuck!” He sucks harder now and hooks his fingers harshly into you to rub right against a spot that has you seeing stars. He only pulls his fingers out long enough to push a third one in, pressing right back where he was.

You gasp, pulling his hair again, needing something to keep you in reality cause you feel like you’re about to slip. You shake and twitch with overstimulation, but Beomgyu doesn’t care. It’s like he hasn’t gotten his fill yet. He’s careless with how he breaks you, paying no mind to your body’s limits.

Your orgasm builds up and hits you quickly thanks to Beomgyu’s determination. Your thighs clamp around his face, but that doesn’t stop him. You whine and mewl as Beomgyu feasts on your arousal. Your poor pussy clenches hard around his three fingers, so much he can’t even thrust them anymore, so he curls his fingers rapidly inside you instead. Your cum pools out of you and onto his hand, your juices dripping out of you uncontrollably.

He pulls away, panting, staring at your pussy. He licks a stripe up it, then goes back down to circle his tongue around your entrance. You whimper and push his head away. He meets your eyes, and his dark gaze softens when he sees your teary ones.

“Can’t you just take a little more?” he asks. His eyes don’t leave yours as he nibbles and sucks on your thigh. You shake your head and push his face away again. With a pout, he rises back up so his face is hovering over yours. You don’t know why fondness overcomes you when you’re staring at him, but the feeling isn’t entirely unwelcome.

“You’re so good,” you say, cupping his face and giggling. He leans his face into your neck, and you can feel his shy smile form against your skin. He comes back up with stars in his eyes.

You want to kiss him, and the thought scares you because you’ve never wanted that before. The feeling is so overpowering that you have to look away. You try to find interest in the wall, but Beomgyu’s movement makes you turn your head back to him. He leans back to admire you.

He smirks at the sight of your thighs, prompting you to look down at them too. Your eyes widen in horror at all the marks he sucked onto them. He pats your leg with a happy grin on his face. “No more short skirts around him,” he says. What a little shit.

“Beomgyu!” you scold. Dignity finds you and forces you to sit up and reach for your clothes on the floor. Before you can grab anything, Beomgyu’s placing you in his lap and holding your face much too close to his. His hips jut up into yours, and you gasp upon feeling his erection. Of course he’s hard again.

“I still need you,” he whines. “Please, don’t go yet.” You pull your face away from him, so he takes your hand and presses a kiss to your palm. His puppy eyes are so sweet and pitiful, you have no choice but to stay. One sad look from him is all it takes for him to get whatever he wants from you. You’re weak.

“I-I’m still sensitive,” you say as he grinds into you. He grips your hips hard, keeping you in place so you have no choice but to take it. You can already see your juices on his sweatpants, leaving a damp mark right over his cock.

“Yeah?” he asks, half-breathless. It’s like he’s not even listening to you, too focused on humping you like a bitch in heat.

“Yes, slow down.” He drops his head on your shoulder and pants heavily, not slowing down at all. You’re buzzing in overstimulation, legs twitching uncontrollably. His hands are shameless as they try to grab at every part of you. He squeezes your hips, your waist, your tits. His tongue is warm on your skin as it trails up to your ear, where he bites down and sucks.

He pushes himself further against you, giving you no space and no chance to leave. He wraps his arms around you and pistons his hips like he’s actually fucking you.

You gasp, “G-Gyu! Stop being bad!” You tug his hair, forcing his head back. His mouth drops open, and he stares at you through lidded eyes. Lust has possessed him, and your words only fuel him.

“Then punish me,” he says. You pull his hair harder, forcing his head back as far as you can, and suck on his neck. He moans louder than you’ve ever heard from him before, and his hips stutter in their rhythm. His hands keep you pressed against him as close as you can get. You moan when you feel his dick twitch through his clothes. For a second, you wonder how it would feel inside of you, but you shove that thought to the back of your mind.

You detach yourself from his throat and watch his face twist up from the pleasure. You look down to see the cum stains on his pants, giggling at the sight. Your hips jerk, and he gasps at the sensation.

Your eyes land on the mark you sucked into his neck. It’s darker than the ones he plastered all over your thighs. You want to feel ashamed or appalled for leaving that on him, but all you feel is some sort of satisfaction. You let your body fall limp against him, sinking into his hold and laying your head on his chest. His hands run to soothe you, brushing through your hair and rubbing your back.

You avoid asking questions. You avoid talking at all. You don’t want to know what this is or what it means, you just want to bask in the afterglow of whatever this is. The unpacking part of this will be a problem for future you.

Even if you hate yourself for this tomorrow, you can’t think of anything better than Beomgyu’s embrace on you now. You’ve already crossed so many lines with him, adding a few more won’t hurt. You find yourself wondering what things you’d like to do with Beomgyu next.

You lean back to stare at his face. His smile is blissful and lazy. You can’t pull your eyes from his lips. Even in the middle of winter, they still look so soft. You wonder what it would feel like to run your tongue over them, or how they would feel wrapped around your fingers. Would they be carnal and unforgiving against your own, or would his lips find yours in a sweet, gentle kiss?

You feel his hand on the back of your head. He’s pulling you closer, and you panic. You tilt your head so that your lips find his jaw instead of his mouth. You pull away after planting a little kiss there. Your gaze flits down his face for just a few seconds before you lean in to place another kiss on his jaw, a little higher than the last, lingering a little longer.

“A real one now,” he requests, eyes pleading and hands resting on your neck. You peck his nose, then his cheek, then his other cheek. He holds your face still and whispers your name. You share the most intense stare you’ve felt in your life.

You close the gap and let your lips touch for just one second. It’s soft and simple, and it’s enough to satisfy your curiosity, but Beomgyu has to come back for more. His lips feel so nice, they were made to be kissed. His fingers dig into your hair, desperate, clinging to you as if you’ll slip away from him. His kiss is hungry, like he wants to consume you, like he’s trying to find a way to your soul through your mouth.

You use both your hands on his chest to push him away, and when you succeed, you stare at him with wide eyes. You’re trying to get your breathing back under control. His face is flushed.

“Please, you can’t go back to Soobin after that,” he begs. The fragile glass holding this moment together breaks, and your sense crashes back over you immediately. Shit, you forgot about Soobin. How could you have forgotten about Soobin?!

You pull yourself out of his lap and stare at your best friend with horrified, blown-out eyes. What the fuck? What did you just do? You have to tell Soobin, you have no choice now. Next time you see him, you’re going to spill everything that’s happened with you and Beomgyu. This isn’t right. This isn’t fair to him.

“Gyu… I’m so, so sorry,” you apologize getting off the couch slowly, putting on your clothes. How do you save this? How do you stop yourself from breaking both Soobin’s trust and Beomgyu’s heart? There has to be a way to salvage this. There has to be a way to make this okay.

“Why?” He shoots up, holding your arms so you stay. “Why would you be sorry?” He shakes his head like he’s not understanding, but his eyes tell you that he knows. He knows you’re going to try to stop this again. What will he do to prevent you this time?

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” you whisper. You can’t even look him in the eye.

His disappointment only shows for a second before it’s overcome by need. A need to stop you from leaving, a need to show you that he’s yours, a need to prove himself to you—you know it all already, it’s happened so many times before. You can’t give in. Not again. Not after you let him get this far. If you allow this, what else will you let him do?

His hands are shaking as they cup your face. When you meet his eyes, you see tears already falling from them. You hate it. You hate it so much, how you’re always the cause of them. You’re always finding new spots to put your knife, slower ways to kill him. You know it by now; you know he’ll be hurt, but you do it time and time again, and you never learn your lesson.

This time it will change. This time you have to mean it.

“Stop making this so hard…” you say, hushed, as you wipe his tears from his face.

“I can’t leave you alone,” he insists. “You don’t get it. It’ll kill me.” He turns his face to kiss your palm. You try to pull your hand away, but he catches your arm and brings your wrist to his mouth, kissing you gently over your pulse point.

Why does your heart race? Why does your breath catch? He keeps finding new ways to fluster and confuse you, and all this just to make sure you don’t leave him for Soobin. You don’t know what’s more pathetic: the fact that he keeps doing this, or the fact that it keeps working.

You smooth your hand down his neck and rest it on his shoulder. “Just go to sleep,” you tell him softly.

“Come with me. Don’t make me go to bed alone after this.” He looks so cute and hopeful, you almost give in. You tighten your lips and place a parting pat on his chest.

“Good night,” you say before walking to your bedroom. He must know better than to follow, because he doesn’t. You try to ignore how your bed suddenly feels so big and empty.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

“Tell me everything, girl,” Chaewon says as soon as you settle onto her bed with her. You rushed over to her place after work, needing to debrief her on whatever has been going on between you and Beomgyu.

“First promise me that you won’t hate me,” you start.

“Oh, this is how I know it’s gonna be good,” she chuckles.

“Promise me!” you repeat, clutching onto her legs and locking eyes with her.

“I promise!” You lean back and let out a dramatic sigh, preparing yourself for your recap of all the events. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.

“So, remember the day we went to the bar, how you said you think Beomgyu might like me?” you ask. She nods. “I think you might’ve been right. Things have been getting weird.”

“I literally fucking knew it, I knew he must’ve been on some shit,” she says, looking excited to hear more. “Continue.”

“Well…” you trail off, feeling your stomach knot up in fear of actually saying what happened out loud. “Oh my Godddd, I can’t.” You hide your face in your hands.

Chaewon pushes your hands down and shakes you by the wrists. “Tell me!”

You take a deep breath. “Okay, so. At the bar, Beomgyu came up to me and was like are you leaving with Soobin? And I was like no, and he was so happy about that. But then he got really upset when I wanted to go back to the table with Soobin. Literally so upset that I ended up going back home with him cause he was gonna sulk all night otherwise.”

“Oh my fucking God, Aeri and I were literally joking about that being the reason why you left. That’s crazy,” Chaewon says.

“The next day, I asked him for his opinion on Soobin, and he got all pissed at me for some reason,” you continue.

“It’s cause he likes you!” Chaewon chimes in, rising up and screeching with the adrenaline of the conversation.

“Well then it gets crazy. He starts talking about how our friendship is enough, I don’t need a man, and I’m like huh? I don’t even remember everything he said, but it was so weird, and he started offering himself up to me basically.”

“What?!”

“Yeah. Like, I’ll do whatever you want, literally like that,” you explain.

“Girl.” You share a glance.

“Just wait. It gets worse,” you say.

“Don’t tell me you fucked.”

“Just wait!” you repeat. “So I tell him I’m gonna head to your place to clear my mind, and—I can’t make this up—he drops to his knees and starts crying actual tears. And then it gets kinda horny?”

Chaewon busts out laughing and claps her hands. “How’d I know?”

“He’s biting and licking my thigh, and I’m still trying to talk some sense into him, but some demon ends up possessing me and he takes me to my bed, and we don’t fuck but we… yeah.”

Chaewon covers her mouth in shock. She’s speechless, and you let the first half of the story ruminate in silence for a few long seconds. You tighten your lips and nod like you’re disappointed too.

“When we finish, I tell him that this is never happening again, and that he needs to leave my room, but he doesn’t. He insists on sleeping in my bed with me because Soobin gets me every other night, which is not true, but I let him have it anyway.”

“You need to put your foot down. He’s crazy,” Chaewon says.

“There’s more,” you respond. “Also, that night, he told me that Soobin apparently said we’re together or something at the bar? Is that true?”

Chaewon scrunches up her face. “No? I don’t think he said that.”

You groan, “Beomgyu is literally driving himself crazy. Anyway, the next day I literally start hating myself so bad because I wake up and have to see Soobin immediately”—Chaewon gasps—“Yeah. And the whole time I’m thinking, do I tell him? Should he know? And, oh my God, Beomgyu would not stop blowing up my phone during our date.”

“I would have to fight him, that’s so annoying,” Chaewon comments.

“It was! He didn’t even need anything either, he just wanted my attention. I didn’t end up telling Soobin anything cause I was scared. When I got home, Beomgyu and I ate and he was like I hope this is better than what you did with Soobin.”

“Girl, beat his ass,” Chaewon says.

“Stop,” you laugh, pushing her shoulder. “We argue again, and then I ask you to come over. Then you know what happens when you’re there. When you leave, though, the demons get to me again and I get even freakier with Beomgyu.”

Chaewon looks at you in horror and shock.

“Yeah. So when it ends, I tell him that this won’t happen again. He gets all sad and cries again, and says all this heartbreaking, confusing shit. So no matter what I do, I feel like I’m hurting someone.”

“Can I be honest? He’s one hundred percent manipulating you,” she says. You flinch a bit at that. Manipulating you? That’s a little far.

“I wouldn’t say that,” you refute. “He just ignores all our friendship’s boundaries.” Beomgyu has touched you in ways that friends shouldn’t. He’s declared things to you that friends shouldn’t. He’s begged to you and drove himself to tears, he’s gotten in his head with insecurities about you, he’s done too many things that a friend would never do that you just can’t ignore.

Chaewon places her hand over your own. That’s how you know she’s about to get serious. You like talking about this with her because she can be fun, but she can also be mature about things and give good advice. Plus, at least with her, you don’t have to worry about not being heard.

“Listen,” she starts. “He cries to you because he knows you’ll give in. He brings up his devotion to you because it makes you feel like you owe him. It’s not about professing his emotions, it’s about doing whatever it takes to keep you closest to him.”

Your brain is struggling to fit all the pieces together. It’s not adding up or making sense to you. Maybe to an outside source like Chaewon, it looks a little bad, but you know Beomgyu better than that. You always have been influenced by him. Right now is no different. He doesn’t want to control you, you think. He just wants his best friend.

“He’s not evil, Chaewon, he’s just being annoying,” you say. She sighs and goes quiet for a second. You can tell she’s carefully formulating her response.

“He’s being selfish. He can’t stand to see you choose another man over him.” That much you know. He’s admitted to that.

“Then wouldn’t I be selfish too? Letting him do things with me while I’m talking to Soobin,” you ask, looking off to the side. When you say it like that, guilt pours over you. If Beomgyu’s being selfish, then you’ve been obscenely greedy. That’s not a far cry from the truth, though, and it may even be the actuality of the situation after all. You won’t defend yourself from that claim.

“The thing is, you wouldn’t be doing any of this if Beomgyu wasn’t messing with your head,” Chaewon reasons. “Would you have let him touch you if he never cried to you that night?”

You think back to your first intimate moment with Beomgyu. You definitely wanted it. The second time too. You ponder Chaewon’s words. If he never fell to his knees, begging you to stay, what would have happened? If he skipped the tears and the pity party and just took you straight to your room to fuck, would you have been okay with it then?

Probably not, you think. But how relevant is that? You can’t separate Beomgyu’s emotions from his actions. He felt like he was losing you, and that’s why he did everything. Everything that happened after was from the heat of the moment, an act of desperation.

Maybe it’s his utter devotion that turns you on, maybe that’s what keeps you from denying him. Seeing a man so desperate that he’d shed tears for you, perhaps it’s what makes you lose control. When Beomgyu’s on his knees, looking up at you with painfully honest eyes, promising you that he’ll be good, any woman in your position would fold.

What if it wasn’t Beomgyu? What if it was Soobin instead? Would you still give in? You try to picture it. You look into Soobin’s eyes and feel his fingers on your thighs. You try to make yourself burn up more, but you don’t feel much.

Okay, picture it more, maybe. He’s got you spread on your mattress, begging you for just one touch. He kisses your stomach, and his tears fall off his cheek and onto your skin. His tongue is warm and wanting, exploring further down your body until he bites down on your waistband. You tense up, needing more. You grab his hair tight. He looks up at you and you almost shriek, horror and humiliation crashing over you. He’s not Soobin at all. He’s Beomgyu.

Chaewon’s voice cuts through your thoughts to ask you another question, “Do you feel like you can’t leave him?”

“I’d never leave him,” you answer. You didn’t even have to think about it. She sighs.

“At some point, you have to realize that this is going beyond keeping a friend around,” Chaewon says. “He won’t let you go out with Soobin in peace. He argues with you whenever you mention him. He touches you to get your mind off of him.”

You don’t try to refute that. Should you just accept defeat? You could go home and surrender to Beomgyu. You could promise to never look at Soobin again, and he’d finally get what he wants without a fight. You’d live the rest of your life not knowing whether you’ve got the love of your life standing right beside you or waiting out in the world somewhere.

“He’s giving you no choice. He’s doing it on purpose.” Chaewon picks up your hands, lacing them with her own. “You have to start standing your ground with him. No more letting him control your life.” Her hands give a firm, reassuring squeeze to yours.

You nod. “You’re right.” She smiles.

“Okay. Bring it here,” she says, pulling you into a hug. The second your head lands on her shoulder, you start crying. You didn’t even know you had to cry. She rubs her hand down your back, letting you use her as an outlet.

“What happens if I can’t, and nothing changes?” you sob. You feel helpless in your own life. Nothing you do will change what Beomgyu does or erase what you have done.

“Then you leave,” she answers simply. You tense up at the idea. Do you have it in you? You’re not nearly brave enough. “You come stay with me for however long you need. I promise.”

“How will I look at Soobin after this?” You should save everyone a whole lot of trouble and just call things off with him. The thought makes you feel sick, though. You don’t want to leave Soobin. You have a real connection with him. Beomgyu’s just getting in the way of it, fogging up your mind at every chance he gets.

Chaewon pulls you out of her embrace so she can look you in the eye. Her hands stay on your shoulders, firm and reassuring. “Stop beating yourself up. You made a mistake, but you’re not the biggest one at blame here.”

You wish that was true. You blame your lack of spine, your inability to keep your conscience clear, and your willingness to lie to save face. You look down at your lap in shame. If Beomgyu’s an asshole, then you’re perfect for him. You’re not as good as you’d like to think.

Chaewon calls your name to bring your attention back to her. “Soobin isn’t even your boyfriend. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Well, that’s true. You sniffle.

“Won’t he hate me now?” you ask.

“He has no right. As long as there’s no label, you two aren’t exclusive. Sure, things are a lot more complicated now, but you’re not a bad person for anything you did,” she says. You nod slowly. Her words help you so much. You would have gone crazy without her.

Maybe you should take her advice: leave Beomgyu and stay with her, at least until you can make up your mind. You can’t do that to him, though. He’d fall apart. It would honestly be hard for you, too.

“Thanks, Chaewon,” you say. You flop down onto the bed, letting your body sink into her mattress. “I’m so exhausted after that.”

“A good cry will do that to you,” Chaewon laughs. She lays down beside you and rests her arm over your waist. You pull yourself closer to her until you’re laying on her chest. You throw a leg over her, getting comfortable.

“Let’s order pizza,” you suggest.

“Yesss, and watch more of my show,” Chaewon adds. She picks up her phone and searches for a good pizza place that can deliver to her. As she does that, your phone screen lights up to signal that Beomgyu’s calling you.

“Oh my God,” you say, holding your phone up for Chaewon to see.

Chaewon smirks and shakes her head. “We summoned him.”

You sit up as you answer the call. “Hi Gyu, what’s up?”

“Not much, just wondering if you’re gonna be here for dinner?” he answers.

“No, I’m getting pizza.” Beomgyu hums on the other end, and it’s quiet for a few seconds.

“Are you with Soobin right now?” he asks. You’re displeased but unsurprised at his question.

“I’m with Chaewon,” you say flatly. Chaewon leans closer to you and points at your phone.

“Let me talk to him,” she whispers, fury in her eyes. You shake your head. You absolutely cannot let that fight happen.

“Oh. Are you sleeping over there?” Beomgyu asks. Chaewon nods with wide eyes, like you’d be crazy if you said no.

“I might, yeah,” you answer.

“Alright. Tell her I said hi. Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’ll be back after work.”

“Yay, have fun with Chaewon then! Bye~” he sings.

“See you.” You hang up and turn to Chaewon. “Did you order the pizza?”

“It’s on its way,” she confirms with a grin.

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

You take a deep breath before you enter your apartment. You’re nervous to face Beomgyu again. Not knowing how he’s going to act is worrying you, because you don’t know if you’re going to walk in and get a normal night with your best friend, or more confusing confessions that toe the line between friendliness and something greater.

You don’t see him when you come in, so you wonder if he’s working. That would make your night less stressful. That proves to be wishful thinking, though, when shut the fridge after grabbing a drink and see Beomgyu walking into the kitchen. He greets you with a sweet call of your name.

You smile at him, but it doesn’t meet your eyes. After your conversation with Chaewon yesterday, the only thing that’s been lingering on your mind is how to finally put your foot down. Do you wait for him to try something to have that conversation? He’s going to be offended no matter when you say it, so maybe you should just get it over with. You don’t know.

“How was work?” he asks.

You shrug. “It was kind of a long day.” Not for any work related reasons, but you don’t tell him that part. Standing in the kitchen with him feels awkward now, even though it never used to before. You just can’t stop thinking about him in unfriendly ways, be it from his kiss or from his confessions.

You realize that these thoughts will only pester you worse and worse the longer you ignore the topic with Beomgyu. He’s talking about what he did at work today, but you’re barely listening. Your eyes linger on his lips as he speaks. You follow the movement of his hands as he rambles, thinking about how those slender fingers felt inside of you.

God, stop! This is why you should have never done anything with him. At this rate, you’ll never be able to have a normal conversation with him again. Your heart starts beating faster. You need to let him know that you need space. Fuck, why did you let it get this far? His sad eyes flicker in the back of your mind already.

Beomgyu moves to the couch, probably expecting you to follow him and turn on the television. Your feet stay planted where they are, watching him with careful eyes. He looks back at you when he realizes you didn’t trail behind him, staring at you expectantly.

You force yourself to move, walking slowly into the room with him. You sit on the couch, leaving a considerable amount of space between the two of you.

Now’s the time. Speak up, you have to. Don’t worry about his feelings. Think about Soobin. Do this for him—better yet, do this for yourself. Prove that you have it in you.

“Beomgyu,” you say. He furrows his brows, seeming confused at your serious tone. “We can’t do this anymore. I’m serious.” You steady your breathing as you look him straight in the eye.

“What do you mean?” he’s quick to ask. You know he’s not dumb enough to not understand what you meant. He grabs your hand to hold it, and you let him have it for a few seconds before you pull away.

“I mean, no more playing with each other. No touching, or kissing, or anything we wouldn’t normally do.” You’re anxious as hell, but you feel strong for once, and it’s nerve-wracking yet empowering. You’re setting your boundaries. No more reckless decisions that leave you regretting everything the next day.

Beomgyu rolls his eyes. “Why, cause Soobin said so?”

“No, because I said so,” you correct. He tilts his head as a frown starts to form on his face. You remind yourself that you can’t let him win. You remind yourself of everything that Chaewon said. Beomgyu will do anything he can to win, and you can’t let that happen.

He’s quiet for a moment, unnerving you. You know that he’s coming up with his pleas now. You have to cut him off before he can get anything out.

“You’re my best friend. I don’t want to lose you because of some dumb decision we made,” you say, hoping he’ll understand, but the sadness in his eyes only grows at that. He drops his head onto your shoulder and hugs you. Oh lord. You hug him back with a heavy exhale.

“What am I supposed to do? Watch you be happy with someone that’s not me?” he murmurs into your neck. You lean out of the hug so that you can look him in the eye. He needs to know you’re not breaking this time.

“Yes. It’s either that or we argue like we have been everyday.” It’s about time that he stops sulking at every mention of Soobin.

“Then I’ll take the arguments. I’ll take you yelling at me and hitting me, I don’t care. I just can’t take you being with him,” he says.

“I’d never do that,” you refute, sick at the idea of hurting him. “You have to listen to me. Let me see this out with Soobin. I want to at least give him a chance without you intervening.”

He sighs with a heavy heart. Is he going to let you win? That easy?

“Did Chaewon tell you to do this?” he asks. You drop your jaw in shock. He’s got some nerve asking that.

“That doesn’t matter, the only thing that does is that I told you we have to stop, and you need to listen.” You can’t believe he’s bringing Chaewon into this. He’s out of his mind if he thinks you’re going to let him blame her.

Beomgyu deflates into the couch and looks down at the floor. You ignore how your heart clenches. You can’t comfort him, that would be his window for turning this situation around. He has to know you mean this, so you walk away, going to your room and shutting the door.

You lean your back against the door and zone out, staring at the wall. Don’t think about how Beomgyu feels. Don’t think about how you might have ruined your friendship.

What do you do now? Will he want to talk to you anymore? Maybe you should have let him plead his case a little. He’s insecure, he can’t help it. You slide down the door until you’re sitting down.

You have to stop making excuses for him. He’s an adult, it’s time he acts like it. Chaewon’s right, you can’t keep giving him what he wants, and putting your foot down and hurting his feelings was the only way he was going to learn.

That’s what you’ve been doing, you suppose, but this time you mean it, and you hope he knows it. You’re going to have to put in more effort into resisting the urge to comfort him. If he keeps making things hard for you, you’ll have to start ignoring and avoiding him. The thought scares you.

You don’t want to think about this anymore. You wish you didn’t have to do this, but you had no choice. Your thoughts about him were driving you crazy, and you had to put a stop to it before they could get even worse. Not to mention how guilty you’d feel hanging out with Soobin if you continued letting Beomgyu have his way with you.

You open your phone and go to your chat with Soobin and type a quick message.

Hey

You just want to reassure yourself that you made the right choice. Hurting Beomgyu’s feelings can’t be for naught. You don’t expect Soobin to respond so fast, but he does.

[Soobin] Wow I was just thinking about you lol

[Soobin] Hi

Your heart skips a beat as you read his texts. He thinks about you?

Oh really? About what?

[Soobin] I wanted to see you again

You bite your lip and a smile grows on your face. See? Wasn’t this worth making Beomgyu a little sad? Wasn’t it a fair trade off? He’ll be okay, surely. And eventually, you might even stop feeling guilty for doing it, too.

You deserve to be able to talk with Soobin without your conscience barking at you. This is what had to happen. You’ll feel better about this when everything all works out in the end.

How about tomorrow?

[Soobin] I’d love that

Yayyyy

Finally something not shitty about my day

[Soobin] What happened?

You groan. Where do you even start?

Argument with my friend

[Soobin] Beomgyu?

Yep…

[Soobin] Well I’m glad I could make you happy for a minute then :)

You find yourself giggling at his message.

You’re cute

[Soobin] Thank you

[Soobin] You too

You almost squeal when you read that. He’s so shy when it comes to flirting, but when he does it, it never fails to give you butterflies. You imagine him blushing as he sent it, feeling a little hesitant to be so bold. What an endearing guy.

Finally, you feel like you can end the night on a decent note. You feel better now that you’ve got something to look forward to with Soobin. You don’t let yourself think about Beomgyu anymore tonight, not wanting to sink down that rabbit hole.

I’m gonna go to sleep, thanks for cheering me up hehe

And for everything that you do

Good night

[Soobin] Sleep well

[Soobin] Dream of me

Your heart flutters. Your fingers race across the keyboard.

Fingers crossed

──── ──── ──── ──── ────

The air around you and Soobin feels so much lighter now that guilt doesn’t have you in its claws. You ended whatever you had going on with Beomgyu, and now you can focus more on Soobin. Your heart holds an open invitation for Soobin to occupy, you’re just waiting for the feelings to further bloom.

It’s unfortunate how early it gets dark out, but you don’t let it ruin your day. You bask in the glow of the streetlights as you and Soobin walk to the park.

“I used to come here all the time with my sister and nephew,” he says. You find a gazebo to sit under. From here, you have a perfect view of the frozen-over lake ahead of you. “We’d play tag with him, but we’d have to run super slow to give him a fair chance.”

You can see that image clearly in your mind, and it makes you smile at how cute it is. Soobin being such a family man is so charming to you. He has such marriage potential. You’re getting ahead of yourself, though.

“This seems like a good place to bring a kid. So much space to play,” you comment, looking out at the park. The grass doesn’t look so alive right now, and all the trees are bare, but it must be nice in the summertime. Even now, there’s something beautiful about it.

“Yeah, it makes me think about having kids of my own to run around in these fields.” The idea of a mini Soobin playing here makes you chuckle. He’d definitely have well-behaved kids. He would be a good dad.

“You want to stay here when you raise a family?” you ask.

“I think so. There’s a lot this place has in store. I’m a little attached to it,” he laughs. You wonder if you’ll think of the city so fondly one day too. You’ve only been here for a little over a year.

“Really? What’s the best thing in this city, then?” you ask and smile at him.

He looks at you for a long second, then lets out a little laugh. His cheeks are red when he looks back out at the lake. “I don’t know…”

You giggle, swooning over him yet again. “What about your hometown? What was it like there?”

“It was nice. I lived in a small area. I miss it sometimes, but I don’t think I’d go back. I think I mostly miss being a child,” he answers.

“I can relate to that,” you say. “Life’s harder now.” You think about the past week in particular and all the chaos with Beomgyu. Teenage you would never have imagined getting tangled up in something like this, especially not involving him.

“Things like this are good, though,” Soobin adds, smiling at you. “Things with you.” Your face heats up. He’s getting so flirty and brave.

“Same for me,” you say. “It’s good with you.” You spend a few quiet seconds admiring his face, letting the butterflies flutter wildly within you.

“I think it’s been long enough for me to ask this,” Soobin starts. Your body tenses in anticipation. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

Oh god. The butterflies halt and replace their happy fluttering with silent dread. All of your effort is going into maintaining a neutral composition. You don’t want to let your internal dilemma show. Your heart is going haywire, like it’s trying to beat right out of your chest. You don’t blame it for trying to run away; a part of you wishes you could too.

“Can we wait a little longer?” you ask meekly. You fear hurting his feelings, but you simply need more time. This is not how you imagined this moment would go. You wish you could scream yes and jump into his arms, but things have gotten muddy in the past week. You need to sort everything out with Beomgyu first. If this is going to happen, you need to make sure it comes from a place of one hundred percent certainty. You can’t be exclusive with Soobin with Beomgyu lingering in the back of your mind.

If Soobin’s trying to mask his disappointment, he’s failing. Your heart drops. Is this where he leaves you? No—you’re not ready for that either. If he gets up right now, you’re ready to cling onto his jacket and beg him not to go. You don’t know what you just did. You messed up. You should’ve just said yes.

“I’ll wait however long you need,” he ends up saying. He stays right where he is. You sigh in relief and hug him. He lets out a noise of surprise, but is quick to hug you back.

“Thank you. I’m sorry. Things are just…” you trail off as you pull away from him. He brushes your hair out of your face. “…Confusing right now.”

“Is there someone else?” he asks.

You gulp. “Kind of. It’s… Beomgyu.”

“Oh, right. He doesn’t like me.”

You frown. “I don’t know why.”

“You really value his opinion,” he notes.

“It’s not only that…” you say, looking down at your hands fidgeting in your lap. Soobin lifts your head back up with a gentle hand. He smiles when your eyes meet.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to explain. I’m ready whenever you are,” he reassures. He leans in to place a peck on your cheek. You heat up wildly.

“You should probably know, though,” you urge.

“No,” he insists. “Honestly, I don’t want to know. I’m just happy I get you to myself every time that I do.”

A weight lifts itself from your shoulders. You feel like you can breathe again. You’re lucky that Soobin is so understanding, and even luckier that he’s willing to wait for you to figure your own things out. He doesn’t owe you that, but you’re endlessly appreciative that he gives it to you anyway.

You lean into Soobin’s side and look out at the scenery in front of you. The two of you fall back into conversation, and you find yourself feeling sad when it’s time to go.

As you hug him goodbye, you feel inclined to just never let go. You feel so comfortable in his embrace. You insist on meeting up again over the weekend, and he puts up no fight in accepting. Gosh, he makes your heart race. Things are finally feeling good again.

notes: yayyyy what do we think?? chapter 2’s already at 7.6k and i’m estimating it’ll get up to ~17k-20k, but we shall see. i’m excited to hear ur thoughts, so feel free to leave feedback! 🤍

© delugyu 2025, do not translate or reupload

[mecub]

It is past 1am and I am thinking about @somerandomdudelmao’s Marble Sky, and this lightly bonked my writers block on the head for long enough that I wrote a little thing.

The world is green. Green, bleeding from the lights and from his insides and from the space where—

—

Ward wakes up shaking, crumpled on the floor like an old paper someone couldn’t be bothered to throw away. 

The world. Is green. Green and pretty, green with plants and vines, but for a moment something inside of him screams like something’s clamped over his mouth and his blood is burning and—

But it’s not green like that. Here, the green isn’t the immediate threat. The threat is one of them, bigger than him and probably put there to make sure he doesn’t try to escape.

“Oh. You aren’t dead,” the alien says.

That’s… not reassuring. But also not the threat he’d been expecting?

“Are you by any chance one of the talking ones?”

Something is wrong. Everything is blurry, and when he goes to rub his eyes, he finds gauze and okay, that. That is going to be a problem for later. Once he’s safe. Once he can let panic overwhelm him without the lack of attention putting him at risk of—

“I am,” he says.

“Cool. So they found another civilization to destroy. Hungry?”

Them. Like this alien, this alien who looks so much like them, doesn’t trust them. 

It’s ridiculous, but at this point? Ward just wishes he could’ve just been thrown in a normal prison cell. Just one normal, reasonable thing that made sense would’ve been nice. And yet, he’s sitting in vegetable prison with someone who might be an ally but is also probably very much not anyone Ward can trust. How does someone even end up in vegetable prison?

“What’s with all these greens?” he asks, because he can’t just demand answers. “Are you in jail for being the only vegetarian here or something?”

Good ole sarcasm. A great way to be eaten by aliens! Hey, maybe they consider humans a vegetable.

“You’re radiating negative energy at me.”

No shit. “Wanna guess why?”

“Hey, I’m not with those— Wait!”

Uh oh.

“You said greens! You know what color is?”

Um?

“You must have eyes!” And then the alien moves towards him, without a second thought, like they know anything he does, running away or fighting or yelling for help, won’t do anything. Ward flinches away from their outstretched hand. 

(An outstretched hand, moving towards his neck, slicing him open like the specimen he was. An outstretched hand, with his blood on it, and he couldn’t move couldn’t fight it couldn’t—)

“Yes. So?” he snaps.

“Can I touch you?”

“Wh— No.” No.

“Please,” the alien says, “I won’t hurt you. I swear.”

Ward… could try saying no again. He could try to move away, try to talk about this, try to save himself from whatever’s going to happen. He wants to, he really wants to.

But. Sculptor didn’t listen, didn’t care, he just cut into him with a smile. And this one is larger than him, and they said they wouldn’t hurt him, they swore it, they asked for a favor, they look desperate, so maybe, maybe he’ll be safe. Maybe this will keep the alien from dropping whatever this act of an ally is.

The world is green, and Ward reaches out a hand and says, “Here. Happy?”

And the alien reaches out a hand and— 

And lightly touches his. Gently. 

—

The world is green. And in the middle of it is someone who looks a lot like him.

[nelo0wesker]

Prison Break part 4!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

@violetmuses @thesizzler @yeahnohoneybye

Armando x reader

——————-

Armando wakes up hearing the sound of beeping. He turns his head, his eyes hurting how bright it is, making him close them again until he can adjust to the brightness of the room. He turns his head and pauses seeing you asleep. An oxygen mask over your mouth. He tries to get out of his bed to get to you but quickly realizes he cuffed to the bed.

“She’s recovering,” Mike tells him, sitting in a chair next to his son's bed. He gets out of his seat walking towards him. “She nearly didn’t make it but she’s fighting right now. She’s recovering”. Armando turns to her. He was so relieved that she was recovering. He tries to hand over to her quickly forgetting he was cuffed.

“Sorry it’s protocol.” Mike tells him watching the look Armando had toward you. “You’ll be doing a lot of time in jail. I’ll try and work on your sentence for her… and for you” he tells him really wanting to be in his life. “I'll be here for you now, okay.” Mike says and turns to her. “Both of you… I’ve paid for her and your medical bills. I’ll try and support both of you”

Armando turns to his father. His eyes had a look of weakness in them but he didn’t say anything but just gulps and nods. He didn’t want to show weakness to his father. “Has she woken up yet?” Armando finally asks to speak for the first time since he woke up. Mike shook his head no. “No the doctors says she’ll wake soon but you’ll be in prison by the time she wakes up”

Armando looks at you sadly, not caring he’s going to prison. “Is she going to prison?” He questions him looking up at Mike. Mike looks at him and then her. “No… we didn’t find any evidence that she was a part of the cartel except her being there” he tells him and Armando breathes out a sigh of relief hearing that. “She was just there. She didn’t do anything” he lied to him not wanting Mike to know Y/N was a criminal. He was trying to protect her. “She was just a bystander… she wasn’t part of any of the cartel plans” Armando tells Mike seriously

—————-

Y/N wakes up a couple days later turning her head. She opens her eyes and then immediately closes them to the bright light. The hospital walls were to white making it bright in her eyes. She turns her head seeing Mike.

Mike gets up seeing her awake. “Finally awake. You took a big hit from Isabel” Mike tells her, watching her movement. Seeing that she’s looking around him for someone most likely Armando. “He’s not here… he’s in prison” he tells her and her eyes are waters hearing that. “Prison? How many years!?” She asks him to cry. “It hasn’t been decided yet” he tells her knowing Armando will be there for a long time but he’ll try and shorten his sentence.

“Am I going to jail?” She questions him and he shakes his head no. “There wasn’t any evidence of you working with the cartel. You were just a bystander… in the files it’s speculated that Isabel used you to control Armando but that’s just a theory. The department isn’t sure” Mike tells her and she nods her head not saying anything. “Will I be able to visit him?” She questions him. “Not now but later when he’s able to have visitors. You just rest for now. Armando wouldn’t want you to harm yourself when you're healing. That bullet nearly killed you” he tells her forcing her to lay down. “I’ll tell him your awake but just don’t do anything to hurt yourself alright” he tells her and she nods resting her head

————-

Armando's head shots up hearing his cell being banged by one of the prison guards' batons.

“Aretas, you have a visitor” the guard warns him going to the door of the room and leaving. A few seconds later Mike walks into the room and goes up to Armando’s cell. He stops looking at his son. “How are you doing?” Mike questions him while waiting for his answer. “Well paying my debt” Armando replies and then sighs not looking at his father. “It’s a big one”.

“Opportunity may have presented itself for you to pay down some of that debt. You interested?” Mike questions Armando. Armando just stares at his father for a few seconds. All he could think about was if he did this. He’ll get closer to getting out and seeing you. “I’m in” Armando replies, watching his father smile and nod.

Mike looks at his son and smiles “She’s doing great. The bullet missed her spine. She’s moving around but she misses you a lot. Always asks about you when I come back” he tells him and Armando smiles hearing that. He’s happy she’s doing alright. “When will she be able to visit?” He questions him. “I’m working on that. It’s taking time but I’m working on it. Everyone doesn’t want to take the chance of her bringing in something cause she is so close to you” Mike tells him and Armando's smile goes away and he nods understanding. “Tell her that I’m doing well”. Mike nods at this and leaves. Noticing how Armando wasn’t gonna open to him.

[dc418writes]

✨Pairing✨: felon!Ari Levinsonxblack!reader

Summary🪄: Surprisingly, you’re Ari’s first stop when he gets out of prison

🚨: 18+ NO MINORS!! Ari (first and foremost because hello☝🏾lol), angst, talks of prison, allusion to violence (male-male), allusion to childhood trauma, a few bad language words, unprotected happy adult fun times (everyone please be safe!)

A/N🎤: Hi! So this is my entry for the Cum Together Extravaganza created by the amazing, talented, wonderful, whore-mone inducing @stargazingfangirl18 and @labella420 lol, and I hope everyone enjoys☺️! *This idea is loosely based off Nicolas Cage’s character from Con Air (if you know you know✨)

*DISCLAIMER!: although visual was created by me via Canva, I DO NOT CLAIM OWNERSHIP of pictures used as they were all found via Pinterest*

Prompt: Pining + Running into each other after a long time apart + Frantic Kisses

His heavy boots stop just a foot or two away from the familiar steps he’d climbed plenty of times before. A mix of emotions swirling through his brain causing a tightness in his chest.

He shouldn’t be here.

Not after he’d all but physically pushed you out the visitation room that day. A common tactic of self sabotage he developed over the years, along with his way of trying to protect you from the eventual hurt he knew he’d put you through.

You were so angelic that day. Your natural glow competing with the sun outside shining through the window against your soft skin seemingly made of gold. Brown eyes full of worry, yet still holding that sparkle Ari had never experienced from anyone before. This wasn’t a place for you to be. A place that would soon tarnish your purity - so white the freshest snow, having fallen directly from the sky above, seemed dirty.

“You’re hurt,” you stated wanting so badly to reach out and try to do something for the blue and purple bruise on his cheek. To clean the dried blood around the stitch in his right eyebrow, but you keep your hands to yourself following the strict “no touching” rule.

He only shrugged. Clearly uncaring of whatever happened, but there was also a dimness to his spirit.

Since your first meeting, you could tell there was something hidden behind the walls he’d built. Sense a complicated past before he felt comfortable enough to tell you some of what he’d gone through. However this was different. Past the point of reverting back to the old Ari that was known as a troubled, aloof hermit, it’s almost as if this was a completely different man.

“I uh wanted to bring you cookies, but the officer said no,” you started again, trying to change the subject since Ari wouldn’t tell you what happened. “Something about possible contraband smuggling? As if I could sneak something in a small cookie. Plus it’s me of all people! Where would I even get-,”

“Don’t come back here,” he finally spoke in that gruff voice. It takes you back at first, lightly chuckling to yourself thinking he was joking. His serious eyes - somewhat dark and with new adjoining bags from his lack of sleep - tell you otherwise quickly causing a furrow to your brows.

“Wha-What do you mean-?”

“You don’t need to be waiting for me. Just…leave.”

“B-But I love you Ari.”

He shakes his head before standing to his feet. “We’re done,” he calls over his shoulder as he reaches the metal door. Whoever was in charge apparently heard him from the pad shining green to grant him entrance back to the waiting hall where another officer met him to reapply his cuffs and escort him to his cell.

All the while ignoring your cries of his name and how you pleaded for him to talk to you.

But later that night, staring at the discolored white ceiling as he lied in his top bunk on an uncomfortable, lumpy mattress, it’s all he could hear. Those same tears that ran down your cheeks now silently running down his.

“Fuck,” he silently curses to himself while his fingers pass through his almond strands as he turns away - now hyper aware of how strange he probably looked to your neighbors just standing in your yard. He should’ve just gone to the halfway house he’d been recommended from the transfer counselor.

Try to stay far from you and this part of town for that matter.

He was slowly realizing though, that the heart he thought was closed off desperately craved attention only you could give. Only wanted your warm touch and smile that soothed a childhood ache he’d long suppressed.

Just as he moves to descend your stone path, the front door creaks open to staccato taps on your wooden porch. There’s a continuous clink of metal followed by excited barks as the black dachshund runs down the steps and around Ari’s feet.

“Barry! You can’t run-”

Beautiful as a painting in a museum, there you stood in your cut off jean shorts and some older looking shirt. Your hair much shorter than the last time he saw you eight years ago, but the pixie cut only brought more attention to your gorgeous face and adorable cheeks.

Other than that, it’s as if you hadn’t aged a day.

“A-Ari?,” you stammer stepping further out onto your porch.

He has to clear his throat to get rid of the nerves blocking his words from escaping. “I…I’m sorry for just showin’ up like this. Would’ve called, but when they gave me my phone back it was dead.”

“So..you’re out?”

“Yea,” he softly smiles. You don’t return it though looking as if you’d seen a ghost while staying planted on the top step. Even Barry had returned back to your side, circling a couple times until he felt comfortable enough to lie down. “This was a mistake. Clearly she doesn’t want you here.”

“I’ll uh leave then,” Ari says nervously scratching the back of his neck after a long - and awkward enough - moment of silence between you two. “I didn’t mean to bother-”

Before he can finish, you’re running down the steps - not caring of the dirt and grass on your bare feet. He’s prepared for your deserved anger, whether that be yelling, shoves, or even punches. Instead, your fists clasp the front of his shirt as you pull him down to meet your lips.

After years apart his hands still automatically find their usual place on your body bringing you closer. Ari’s right on the side of your neck, tilting your chin however he needed to gain the access to your mouth he missed, while his left dragged from your hip to the middle of your back holding you to him.

Your moan hitting him in a deep, long ignored place that has him embarrassed like a teenage boy how fast his blood runs southward.

The need for air has you both begrudgingly parting, while your foreheads stay connected. “I’m sorry..for everything,” he whispers letting his thumb graze along your petal soft bottom lip. It’s as if he thinks you’ll break he’s so gentle - like it’s a fragile piece of artwork he dared touch.

"I didn't-"

"Shh," you reply leaning up to peck his lips once more. "Later."

-

Your lips barely separate journeying the short distance from your front door to your bedroom. Both of them red and swollen, yet neither of you attempt to stop as your back hits the light blue comforter - fluffy and soft as a cloud.

His hands grip your thighs curling along his sides, yet fail to move where you need them most making you whimper as his mouth slides to your neck. Taking matters into your own hands, you pull his shirt over his muscled back - silently giggling to yourself and filling with a sense of pride hearing his pleasured groan as your nails rake against his warm skin.

They’re set for his buckle next, but Ari’s quick to use his rougher and stronger ones to pin on either side of your head. “Ari please,” you whine eagerly trying to grind your hips so your soaking core can get some type of relief. You know he’s desperate for something too briefly nudging the tent formed in front of his pants.

“I know, I know.” He unsuccessfully tries to kiss the pout from your lips. “I..I wanna take my time tonight. It’s been eight years sweetheart.”

The deprived and needy part of you wants to counter, urging him for the opposite since it’s been so long. Instead, you nod letting him completely take control.

Slowly, he helps remove your clothes before open mouth kisses and taps of his tongue flow down from your neck and across your heaving chest to your stomach. You moan arching your back to lift your breasts closer to his face when he returns there taking his time attacking one nipple with his tongue while the other is groped and plucked in his free hand.

By the time he finally reaches your waiting and wet core, it only takes one lick and your sweet release is covering his beard.

“S-Sorry,” you stammer feeling your skin heat even more from shame not wanting that to happen so quickly.

“Sorry?,” he softly chuckles before leaving a kiss on your mound. “That’s what’s supposed to happen.”

The sound nearly has you in tears knowing your Ari was back. The one you knew loved you just as much as you loved him.

Having had a taste after going so long without, he can’t wait for more switching between his skillful tongue and fingers until your juices flow again, His mouth attached to you; greedily slurping everything you could give him. Your fingers are seemingly locked in his hair as he rises enough to remove his pants. Grunting as he grabs the base - past the point of painfully hard - to direct himself inside you.

“Fuck,” he moans into your neck feeling you rapidly pulse around him. So warm and tight he has to restrain himself from taking you like a wild animal.

Not that you would mind.

“M’not gonna last baby.”

“Spose to happen,” you slur clutching around him urging him to move.

His hand tightly pinning your hip to the bed, his thrusts start slow yet hard before gaining speed the closer he feels. Simultaneously, your cries of his name get louder as well while his mouth and tongue move along your neck and earlobe.

“Shit, I feel you right there baby come on. Come with me.” You can’t comprehend anything with your brain in this foggy, love drunk state, yet somehow your body complies when his thumb finds your swollen and throbbing nub squirting against his skin and down to the sheets below. “Mm good girl.”

His final pumps have you filled until no more can stay. A small mix of both your releases leaking from your hole with every surge of his hips until he’s drained.

Exhausted, he carefully tries to pull out but your whines have him stopping. Softly smiling to himself while slowly lowering until he’s comfortably laying on top of you. “Calm down I’m here.”

Soon your even breaths fill his ears and he’s able to lie on his side - gently moving you with him- to completely take in the area surrounding him. His fingertips mindlessly tracing along your thigh as he reacquaints himself to your bedroom. It was fitting for you in every way, from the light yellow of the walls to the books lining the shelves he built for you long ago. Your few stuffed animals in a wicker basket in the corner as if they were prepared for bed themselves.

Ari notices one in particular - a white bunny with long ears and pink bows he bought you during a trip to the store one day - on your dresser next to a framed picture you must’ve secretly took. He appeared to be taking a break from something dressed in a gray tee, dark jeans, and work-boots with his utility belt on his hips. A bottle of water in his hand lifted to his lips as he looked off somewhere in the distance. Now that he thought about it, he was watching a bird peck the ground trying to find bugs or seeds to eat.

And he looked so peaceful. So calm for once in his tormented life. He had you to thank for that being kind and willing enough to share your light when he fought so hard against it.

In the bit of moonlight peeking through the blinds, he can make out ‘Home’ in the corner of the picture causing the slightest curl to his lips as he holds you closer.

“You kept putting up with me,” he quietly speaks pecking your temple. “So patient even after everything. Know I’m never leavin you again sweetheart. I’m home for good.”

[impactedfates]

helloo, jing yuan visiting dan heng/feng’s kid in the shackling prison? like the poor kid is scared terrified even considering they didnt get the best treatment there, but the general tries comforting them so yeah a platonic hurt/comfort scenerio

(kinda inspired by this amazing fanart: https://www.tumblr.com/gin-uzumaki/729265014524002304/the-general-was-vainly-searching-for-the-shadow )

A/N: Hello!! I'm assuming the kid is the reader? I've written it this way anyways haha. I decided this would be a prequel to this dan heng fic!! I hope that's alright anon :)) JY visiting the kid after finding out they got wrongfully imprisoned in the shackling prison

Genre/Trope: Platonic + Hurt/Comfort

Format: Fic (W.C: 1589)

Warnings: Wrongful Imprisonment // Hints at torture/abuse towards reader

Extra: Kid reader, so shorter then Jing Yuan // Uncle Jing Yuan :D

"Safe With Me" - Platonic Jing Yuan x Child! Reader

Everyday would be the same for you. The same routine, you would wake up to the sounds of Cloud Knights shaking you awake roughly, they’d reluctantly feed you before leaving you chained up. Hours later they’d come back again for lunch and again for dinner. Then you’d soon pass out for sleep. And more then once, would they come back in between to ensure you ‘learnt your lesson’. What they meant by that? You weren’t completely sure.

Every single day this would happen, and you wished with every fibre in your body that something would change. That you could leave. That the Cloud Knights, the same ones from each day, the ones that always came to merely ensure you wouldn’t die, yet with how your body was decorated in wounds and bruises, they didn’t seem to care that much anyways…you hoped that even so, they would let you go. But living for so long, having been forced to drink that rotten potion that stopped your ageing just to punish you with something you don’t even know about. You weren’t sure if the day you could finally see the sun once again would happen.

Footsteps could be heard, walking in your direction, different footsteps, not the ones from the Knights that would usually come. Unrecognisable footsteps, the door to your cell opened and a pair of gold eyes soon met your own eyes.

He slowly walked in, keeping a distance from you, yet even so you moved back instantly. Looking him up and down, although the strange man didn’t wear the usual uniform of the Cloud Knights, you had no reason to trust him, no reason at all.

What if he was here to hurt you?

What if he was here to shove the disgusting food in your mouth instead?

What if-

“Are you okay?”

You looked over to him, your eyes which have previously been shut tightly to braise for whatever he was planning opened slowly as you looked at him, still he kept his distance to not startle you.

“Are you okay?”

He repeats, a small smile on his lips before his eyes looked at the chains around your body, slightly glaring…but not at you. His eyes landed on your form, almost softening instantly. You shake your head at his question and ask one yourself.

“...W-who are you?”

“You can call me Jing Yuan…the…General of the Cloud Knights”

He did not fail to notice you flinching away from him as he spoke about his title, he raised his arms in surrender and slowly walked closer. Despite everything, despite being chained to one small area, you tried your best to move away from him, the chains clashing against each other as they stopped you from going any further.

“...I’m not going to hurt you, I promise…can you trust me?”

“H-how do I know y-you’re not lying”

“You can’t…so I’m asking you to please trust me…the Cloud Knights who did this to you have already been dealt with accordingly”

You looked away from him, slightly shaking. You didn’t want to trust him, you weren’t sure if he was telling the truth. But you knew that if you refused, if he was anything like the people who threw you in here, you’d get hurt more. So despite everything you nodded, and closed your eyes. Getting ready for whatever the white haired man had planned.

What you weren’t prepared for however, was the feeling of your arms, your body, your legs. To no longer feel strained due to the chains, the sounds of a key clicking and the sounds of metal echoing through the chamber as metal crashed into each other gently.

You opened your eyes and they widened a bit, seeing you have been freed from the chains, looking up. Jing Yuan stared back with a kind smile and keys in hand. He reached behind him and pulled something out, almost on instinct, you moved back and raised an arm to protect yourself, but nothing happened.

“It’s okay…I just want to offer you a proper hot meal…well snack maybe is the better term for this”

He speaks, gently pushing over a wooden steamer towards you before calmly moving back. Allowing you to slowly open the lid, letting the smell of xiaolongbao infiltrate your nose, your mouth watered, looking up at Jing Yuan unsure if you were even allowed to eat something like this. With a nod of his head, you quickly dug in.

The xiaolongbao was the right temperature, not hot enough to burn your mouth yet still warm. After you finished, you looked back up to Jing Yuan who stared back, his hands behind his back as he carefully watched you with gentle eyes.

“...May I come closer?”

He asked, tilting his head. You nodded slowly, still backing up to the wall and resting you back on the wall, he walked over slowly, picking up the wooden steamer and putting it away again. Before sitting next to you.

“...The Cloud Knights filled me in on what happened, but I have a feeling they didn’t tell me the full story…if you don’t mind looking into the past, will you tell me your side?”

You looked over to him and with a hesitant nod, you started telling him what happened. How when you saw your father getting banished away, you quickly ran elsewhere, how a Cloud Knight must’ve spotted you and chased you down. The next thing you knew was being forced in the chamber the two of you sat in currently and how you were chained up.

You even told him the mistreatment that occurred and the potion you were made to drink to stop yourself from ageing. You weren’t sure why you were made to drink the potion, perhaps it was because you would feel more pain with everything that happened. Whatever the case, you were in tears as you finished.

Jing Yuan instantly took note of this and was quick to gently clean away any tears. He wanted to hug you and comfort you, but he knew that with everything that you went through, you may not trust him. 

He understands.

He simply tried to comfort you in mere words, and eventually it worked. As you calmed down. Gripping onto the dirty cloth you were wearing you looked back at the man who had been the one who gave you the change you were looking for.

“...Mr General?”

“Yes?”

“...What’s going to happen now?”

You ask, looking at him. He hummed in response and stood up, offering a hand for you to take, which you did. Slowly standing up and using his arm as support as your legs still felt wobbly.

“First, I’m taking you to get cleaned up and a proper meal. I already gave you some xiaolongbao to eat, but I think you’d enjoy something more filling”

He starts, walking out of the chamber with you and out of the prison, the sun hitting your face instantly as you stepped outside the prison. You looked up, eyes squinting as the brightsun burned your eyes and yet, it was beautiful. Jing Yuan continued.

“Then, we’ll take a trip to the alchemy commission so they can figure out how to reverse the effects of the ageing potion you took. You’ll stay with me for a bit…until you’re ready to meet your dad…your dads reincarnation I should say”

He mumbles the last part, inaudible to you. Your eyes looked towards him as you thought about his words. Clinging onto his arm a bit tighter.

“...You promise you’re not like the mean guys who took me?”

“I promise, and those mean guys will get rightfully punished for their crimes…you’re safe with me don’t worry”

He nods, smiling down at you. And he did in fact keep his promise. He stayed true to his word, you got a set of new clothes and was able to eat a full meal. All paid for by the general (discounted due to his title) and the alchemy commission, in request to Jing Yuan, managed to make an antidote to have you age normally again. To continue growing up like any other kid.

.

.

.

.

.

One night when he was off from work, he came to see you. He couldn’t adopt you, he knew you’d need someone who’d be home more often than he could. But even so, even if he was only temporarily your guardian, he’s so happy to see you change for the better, to see a smile on your face more often than a frown or a scared one.

“How are you, little one?”

He called softly, standing next to you as you drew him, yourself and Yanqing. His smile softened even more as he saw this.

“I’m good!”

“That’s good”

“...Uncle Jing Yuan?”

“Yes?”

“...I think I’m ready to meet my dad now”

You spoke, looking up from the paper to him, Jing Yuan looked back and nodded, patting your head.

“Are you sure you’re ready?”

“Yes”

“Then get yourself packed up, and you can meet him tomorrow”

With a nod from both yourself and him, he helped you get ready to meet your father. You truly were safe with him for the time you spent with him, and now he’s entrusting that you’d be safe with your father.

With Dan Heng.

With the express.

And he hoped that as the years go on, you’ll continue to smile as you do. And if the time comes when Dan Heng needs a babysitter? You’ll always be welcome with him. You’ll always be safe with him.

Jing Yuan :D Love him sm, he'd honestly be such a good dad, have you seen how he is with Yanqing?? Father son duo istg. I decided to make the reader see Jing Yuan as their uncle cuz I think it was cute :>>

Feel like I missed some warnings, so if you catch anything I missed please tell me!! (I'm always worried if I miss warnings RAEIOFN)

[slytherinshua]

ꔠ 　BETWEEN THE LINES OF US 　( 나 캠든 )

genre royalty au , rebel au , forbidden love , rogue!kamden x princess!reader   cw kamden ends up in jail , some small injury mentions , swords and tyranny the good royalty stuff  wc 1403   request @planetkiimchi for kamden + a favour done in secret for the 3k event   note had so much trouble thinking of what to do for this fic but i am so happy with the result once i finally got my two braincells to work hehe   net @kstrucknet @chrimatanet

Kamden had been sitting in the stale jail cell for nearly 72 hours, only allowed one plain meal a day and a jug of water. It was a bitter retribution for his miscalculation three days ago. Thinking he could take on three trained palace guards was overshooting his luck. He was one of the best trained with a sword in the entire nation, but there was still little one sword could do against three, no matter how skilled the master. Still, he didn’t give up hope. His plan of attack was still in motion, and he had a team of other rebels to back him. He just needed to find a way out of the prison he had been thrown into. 

You had been keeping close contact with Kamden, giving him secret ways into the palace and aiding him with weapons or inside info. Having the crown princess on his side gave him an upper hand no one else was aware of. Not even the other members of his group knew of your involvement. You had sworn him to secrecy long ago for your own safety. Kamden was a man of his word, and he would always stay unfeignedly loyal to you.

It was as the clock struck one that Kamden heard the turn of a lock and the rusty door to the jail cells rattling open. He stood up, licking his dry lips and preparing himself for anything. He had overheard mention of torture tactics the king had recently imposed from some of the guards the night before. And, as one of the most wanted in the kingdom, he was sure he would be one of the first to discover what tactics they used. 

Though, he sincerely hoped he would somehow be able to avoid it. He had already sustained injuries from fighting that went untreated, and more would only weaken his condition. He needed to stay as strong as possible if he had any hope of his mission succeeding. You had put your faith in him. He wouldn’t let you down. 

The footsteps that followed the opening of the door were soft and tentative. Kamden furrowed his brow, trying to see along the dark corridor through the small square opening on his cell used for food. There was no way a guard would make so little sound. It had to be someone else. Sure enough, a few steps later, Kamden could see that it was you trodding carefully down the hall, key and bottle in hand. 

When you reached his cell, you held a finger to your lips, shushing him from saying anything. He watched you carefully as you slid the key into the lock and turned, opening the cell up. Once the door opened, the torchlight from the hallway shined over you both, and he could see you much more clearly. Dressed in delicately crafted red silk, elegant hands holding the rusted keys, perfectly placed hair and jewelry framing your face. You looked beautiful as always, and Kamden felt a pang of shame in his chest at failing days ago. He put you through more trouble than he had meant to.

“I’ve given the guards some of the strongest wine. They will be out for the next hour. Let’s get you out of here while we have the chance,” you whispered, a tentative smile on your face and an unmistakable glimmer of excitement hidden in your eyes. No matter the setback, you were always ready to get Kamden back on his feet. For a princess, you were surely fearless. 

From an early age you had recognized your father’s tyranny and hoped to put an end to it. But overthrowing the throne was easier said than done, and you would never be accepted as queen if you committed outright treason. Kamden was your secret weapon, able to execute a more rewarding plan of attack. If everything went as you hoped, by the next full moon, Kamden would be the one to sit on the throne, and you by his side.

But you still had a long way to go to get there, and there were many little steps to attend to before the grand finale. In the present moment, you took his roughened hand— littered with cuts and bruises— in your soft one, and led him carefully to the safety and privacy of your bed chambers. His wounds from the fight with the guards worried you. Normally, you would send him back to his hideout immediately, but you knew their medical supplies were running low. For your own peace of mind, you ran the risk of keeping him beside you for a bit longer. Tending to his injuries was the least you could do to thank him for every risk he was taking for you.

You first gave him a change of clothes, as his old ones were torn in multiple spots. You had him sit on the side of your bed while you got out supplies. He was uncharacteristically silent through it all, and you wondered what was on his mind. 

“I hope your stint in the cells wasn’t too miserable. Let us both hope everything goes accordingly next time. We can’t risk another setback,” you muttered, tearing a piece of fabric to wrap some of his cuts with.

“What about the rest of your team? Have Siyun and Jiho received the supplies I sent? What about little Seungmo?” you smiled as you asked. Although none of the team knew of your involvement, you had garnered quite a lot of affection for them. Especially the younger ones. You saw potential in them— the warrior’s spark present in their eyes. Ambition for change in their every move. “Kamden? You haven’t said anything.”

The rogue hesitated, “I am nervous to make too much noise while confined behind these walls. You never know who could be listening,” he whispered. You nodded, making your way over to him again. 

“My chambers are far away from the great hall. Everyone is partying and inebriated. We are in no danger— I bought us at least half an hour,” you told him, cupping his cheek. His glance faltered, finding its way to the floor with a withering spirit. 

“I trust you. I just don’t want to put you in more danger. You’ve already done more than I could have ever asked of you,” he said quietly.

“And I will continue to do more. You need my help as much as I need yours. We are equal, Kamden. Don’t act any different just because I am royalty,” you said earnestly, brushing your thumb across one of the small cuts marring his perfect face.

“If you get hurt in the process of us succeeding, the entire nation will know. People will care. But if I—”

“If you get hurt, I will care. And I do care. You are injured right now. Let me at least patch you up before you leave. I may not see you again until the full moon…” your reprove started strong, but your voice faltered towards the end. The risks of your mission flashing through your mind once again. The chances of disaster happening, of it all going wrong, of Kamden not making it. You shook your head, clearing the thoughts from your mind. With the limited time you had, you had to stay focused on the task at hand. Worrying about the risks would only distract you further. 

You knelt in front of Kamden, inspecting the worst of his injuries on his stomach and arms. He was silent, letting you clean and wrap them up how you liked. Your words clouded in his head as you worked. He knew there was something between you two. Affection, chemistry, teamwork— love, perhaps. He had never stopped to consider how much you were doing for him, nor how his focus had turned more towards you as well. Almost as if the mission was an afterthought. Keeping each other safe took the forefront in moments like these.

Strangely, Kamden found it in himself to smile at the thought. You had lit a small candle of hope inside him from the moment he first met you, and it was still burning steadily every time he saw you. There was no doing this by himself— you would be there by his side every step of the way. Through all the risks and dangers, you were ready to face it together. 

ampers&one taglist (bolded could not be tagged): @eternalgyu,, @loserlvrss,, @xikskrrrs,, @cupidslovearrows

[anjelicawrites]

Bringer of gifts

Paring: Aemond Targaryen x wife!reader

Synopsis: expanding this head canon. Luke survives Storm’s End and gets captured later in the Dance, only to lose his eye to Aemond’s psychotic wife, who wants to give it to him as a gift.

Warnings: DDDNE, torture, eye enucleation, Rhaenyra’s sons are called ‘bastards’, Rhaenyra is called ‘a whore’, reader and Aemond are two psychos in love, talk of torture, talk of beheading, talk of murder, gore, kissing, p in v sex, fingering, multiple orgasms, blood licking, talk of cannibalism, talk of public sex, talk of pregnancy.

A/N: reader is AFAB but not described but for their long hair. A/N 1: since this fic is much darker than what I usually write, I'm not going to use my taglist. A/N 2: @schniiipsel you asked and I delivered, just right before Halloween!!!

You can feel the eyes of the guards burn holes as you enter the dungeons. You can imagine their thoughts and their panic because you shouldn’t be here and they can’t stop you.

“Your Highness.”

The burly man in front of you bows curtly, yet he is in your way.

“Where is he?”

You want to end your errand as quickly as possible, your stomach is already revolting against the stench of fear and pain permeating the air; you wouldn’t do this if you didn’t love your husband they way you do.

Torture is explicitly discussed and described in this fic, so is gore. Read at your own risks. Be responsible for the fiction you consume!

NSFW and 18+ only please.

You don’t expect those men to understand what is the cause behind your actions. To tell the truth, you don’t even care, you have given an order and expect it to be carried out.

“Your Highness, are you…”

You don’t even let the man finish the phrase, you stare at him with an ice cold stare that makes him stammer on his words.

“Show me the way.”

The men in front of you seem lost: should they follow your royal command? Should they politely accompany you back to your chambers?

Their commander makes the decision for them. Still looking at you with a quizzical stare he makes way and orders his men to flank you as your little group makes way through the maze that’s the dungeons of King’s Landing, your Kingsguard following suit.

You can hear the shouts of the men imprisoned, their hands emerge from between the iron bars of their prisons like a bad dream, their unwashed bodies amass themselves against them in the failed attempt to grab at you.

You don’t look at them. With your head high you march to the far end of the dungeons, where a seemingly vacant cell stands.

The guards, and the members of the Kingsguard appointed to protect you, stop and form a circle around you, effectively blocking the one, lonely prisoner, from seeing your form in the darkened corridor.

The head of the guards grabs the ring where all the keys live, the heavy metal jingle annoyingly as he selects the right one.

“He is chained to the wall, as per your request.” He tells you.

“Good. Now open the door, I will enter alone.”

“Your Highness I can’t let you do that! It’s far too dangerous!”

The man squirms under your stare.

“He poses me no threat. Do as you’re told or you will lose your head come the next dawn.”

He scrambles on his feet to obey you.

Despite the lovely way you look, and the colorful, flowery dresses you wear, it’s common knowledge in the Red Keep, that no one you should cross you or, the Gods forbid, your husband, because you will come for anyone who ever dared defying him, or yourself. You will let slide the way this man acted, because you understand this has never happened in his entire life, and he doesn’t know how to act to make you, and your husband, happy.

As the door opens on the rusty hinges, you adjust the hood hiding your face: you don’t want this very prisoner to see you immediately.

With a decisive stride you enter the cell and wait until the door closes behind you to raise your head and look at the prisoner chained to the wall.

You let the seconds fly as you look at his unkempt and disheveled state, the ruined clothes and bloody knuckles of someone who has fought hard to maintain his freedom. To have captured him was a stroke of luck from the Gods, their blessing after the death of poor Jahaerys.

The thick hood masks the smile gracing your lips when he tries to leap at you and his body falls violently against the wall, trapped by the too short chains; you have to give it to him, he’s a fighter. Not that it will help him, but it’s amusing to observe his struggle.

“Hello little bastard. Long time no see.”

Your words nail him on the spot where he’s standing: that is still an open wound, one that will accompany him for all of his life, however short it will be.

“You!”

Your smile widens when Luke’s eyes focus on your face.

He had only see you briefly during Viserys’s last dinner, when he had the gall to disrespect your husband once again, after having taken his eye all those years ago.

“Me, little bastard. I didn’t expect to meet you again. I thought your whore mother would keep her little bastard ducklings close to her chest. I suppose her desire for a throne that doesn’t belong to her is stronger than her feelings.”

“Don’t call her that!” He screams and tries to leap again with a scream of frustration when he realizes you’re too far away from him.

“I shall call her however I want. And I never lie, unlike her. Has she ever told you and your siblings who your father was? Or is she still lying to you all?”

You step closer to him, your smile darkening when you notice how his muscles strain against the sturdy chains blocking him.

“Do you know why you’re here, little bastard?”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Or what? Will you take my eye the same way you did my husband? Do you know that you’re here because of her, don’t you? If she hadn’t cared about hiding who you and your siblings are, if she had issued an apology to he own brother, you wouldn’t be here. None of it would have given Aemond back his eye, but it would have been something. Instead, she cared more about committing treason, and sending her little bastards to the slaughter, than anything else.”

You can see the fat tears of frustration fall from his eyes, the marks they leave on his dirty cheeks.

“She loves us! She didn’t send us to the slaughter!”

“If you say so. Then why are you here?”

He struggles against his bindings again. You can see how desperate he is to make you eat your words, a part of you respecting how loyal he is to his mother; if only he hadn’t laughed at your husband when the pig had been served, if only he had said he was sorry. Instead he had smirked at Aemond, positive the consequences of his actions would never catch up with him; truly, he marked his destiny that night, and he didn’t even know.

“Do you know why you’re here? Why you’re not be kept in the Red Keep like the royalty you pretend to be?”

You see the answer die on his lips when you unsheathe the small dagger you hide in the arm of your dress, the one Aemond gifted you for your nameday, right after your marriage.

“Because you ran from consequences all your life, Luke, and now there’s nowhere to go anymore.”

The desperate sound of his struggles is covered by the heavy footsteps of the Kingsguard entering the cell. Your Aemond has personally chosen those men, picking the ones who will do your bidding without a second thought, who will kill, and die, for you.

Differently from the guards, they didn’t bat an eye when you told them to follow you to the dungeons and instructed them to keep the prisoner still as soon as you unsheathed your dagger.

There must be some blood of the dragon flowing through the little bastard’s veins, because four grown men are struggling with keeping him on his keens, on the filthy floor, and the fifth has almost lost a finger to his teeth when he had grabbed his chin, to make sure his head stood tall and easy to reach for you.

You have to give him that: the child is a fighter, it was sheer misfortune that his dragon had been hit, and that he had lost consciousness as soon as they both touched the ground; he would have made such a great Driftmark Lord, if only his mother had stayed in her place.

“What are you going to do?”

You can see his fear when you kneel in front of him and grab his hair.

Aemond told you it had been a matter of moments: one second he was standing over his nephews, the one after, he was on the ground, the pain on his left side blinding to the point he had feared he had lost both eyes.

What took long had been the Maesters in their desperate attempt to save his eye, only to have to scoop it out and crudely sew the cut and eyelid shut.

What hurt the most, he told you, was seeing how his own father, his own flesh and blood, didn’t punish Luke for his actions instead he had protected him and berated Aegon for a word he never said out loud.

It falls upon you, really, to try and balance the injustice the late king caused; the old man is dead and rotten, yet the fruits of his injustice are damaging you all and someone has to put a stop to it.

“Know that, even though it brings me immense joy, your mother and your grandsire could have prevented all of this. And your stepfather shouldn’t have come for Jahaerys, or any of us for the matter.”

Luke tries to squirm away from the hold of your Kingsguard. Desperately he fights the vice of your hand in his thick locks when the bite of your dagger strikes the soft skin of his cheeks.

His screams of pain are deafening in the little cell when the sharp blade starts cutting, blood spills all over your hand and explodes on your face and clothes when you arrive to the eyeball, carving it out carefully, making sure it will not burst, thus ruining your gift for your husband.

By the time you’re done with him, he’s barely alert on the dirty floor, the rich, red blood still flowing from his wounds, wetting his face.

“Call the Maesters.” You bark. “They need to make sure the bastard survives to savor the pain my husband had to live with throughout his life!”

One of the men of your Kingsguard offers you the silver plate you ordered him to carry and you gently lay the bloody eyeball on it, making sure it sits nicely on the shiny metal.

“You better hope your mother stops her folly, little bastard, or worse will come to you and your siblings.”

With that you hide yourself under your cloak again, making sure no one is capable of seeing your gift for Aemond: you don’t want his surprise to be spoiled!

You walk the hidden corridors with your protectors; after the brutal slaying of Jahaerys the number of guards had been doubled and with the King fighting for his life after the battle of Rook’s Rest, the whole Red Keep is on high alert, thus making your desire to not been seen by anyone difficult, but not impossible.

You stand in front of the chambers you share with Aemond, your men in a circle around you, so that no one can see you as you silently open the big, wooden door.

Aemond is sitting at the huge desk, the fire roaring in the heart and the candles illuminate the parchments he’s reading intently.

He’s prince regent now and feels the weight of the title after not being able to keep Aegon safe from Meleys’s flames; as much as their relationship has always been complicated, you know that his loyalty to his family overrides any of Aegon’s slights.

He raises his head as soon as the door starts opening; you can see how tired he is, the lines of worry etched on his young face; he should be sleeping, or simply relaxing as the burning logs creak and break, he can’t, not when he knows he now shoulders the responsibility to keep you all safe.

“Ābrazȳrys. Wife.” He smiles, lifting his free hand to invite you to sit by him. “How was your day?”

You walk slowly, careful not to reveal your gift too soon; only when you’re standing next to him, you speak.

“Productive, albeit messy.”

Before he can inquire any further, you let the cloak fall to the floor, revealing your bloodstained dress and face. For a brief second the purest expression of worry marks his handsome face, the fear of you being attacked blinds him to your gift. Swiftly he’s on his feet, his hands going to your face, as if to check the damage.

“None of it is mine, my love. I wanted to bring you a token of my love and I had to get my hands dirty.”

Only now he focuses on the ornate silver plate you’re still holding in your hands, and the eyeball sitting there, caked in blood with the nerves still attached like a grotesque veil.

“Is it?”

“Yes, it is.”

Aemond’s hands are trembling as he takes the plate from you and sits it on the table, on top of the parchments.

He stands still in front of you, his face an unreadable mask that breaks as soon as he grabs your flowery dress to pull you against him and kiss you, hungry and savage, all teeth and tongue as he backs you towards your shared bed, drunk on the dries taste of blood mixed with yours.

You stumble on the large gown as you blindly let him move you, your hands grabbing at him, your fingers on the small clasps and knots binding his clothes together as he tears through your bloody dress, until you’re both naked, falling on the bed, still kissing passionately.

You surface for air, your mane of hair loose on your shoulders, Aemond under you, naked and hard, the thick cords of his muscles marked by the welts sword training left on him today, his breathe coming out in harsh puffs as he stares at you as if you’re the most beautiful creature he’s ever seen in his entire life.

You put your hands on the strong planes of his chest to find your balance, before you, slowly, start rubbing you wet core against his erection, moaning at the thickness against your swollen pearl.

“I wish you were there with me, my husband.” You pant. “I was so ready for you, his cries of pain were the best music, the fear on his face made me throb. You would have taken me in the cell, wouldn’t you? Amidst the prisoners and in front of the little bastard, showing him what he will never have.”

“Kessa! Kessa! Yes! Yes!” His hands find the meat of your hips to move you faster on his throbbing cock, your wetness against it driving him insane with lust. “Emagon nyke sir! Have me now!”

He groans under you when you keep rubbing yourself, your hands pinning him on the plush mattress, your breasts swinging in front of his face, so teasingly close to his starving mouth.

“What would have you done afterwards? When all those men knew how I sing for you.”

“Nyke would emagon taken pōja laesi hen zirȳ! gūrogon pōja ears! nyetodha pōja irosh! mērī kostan raqagon ao! I would have taken their eyes from them! Take their ears! Slit their throat! Only I can enjoy you!” He roars, deafening like a dragon.

“What about the guards? My protectors?”

“Mirre morghe. Ao sagon ñuhon! All dead. You're mine!”

The purple of his eye has turned into a bottomless pit of madness mirroring yours, the bite of his hands leaving proofs of his love for you as your nails do on his fair skin.

“I love you, Aemond.”

Your moans of pleasure reverberate against the walls, as you sink on his erection, his girth still taking the breathe away from you as his hips push inside your wet walls, until he has bottomed out, your cunt having enveloped him fully.

“You’re made for me, Aemond and I am made for you. You’re filling me perfectly.” You moan, egging him on. “I’m so full.”

With a whine you sit on him, admiring the strong planes of his body and the way his thick muscles strain against the need to push upwards and fuck you.

Slowly you start moving, gentle figures of eight that rub your pear against the coarse hair at the base of his cock, the motion makes you moan with every shockwave of pleasure; his hands on your hips help you move, guiding you to take whatever you want from him.

When you start to carefully move up and down, your hands fly to your full breasts to play with your nipples, pinching the engorged nubs the way he likes, your cunt leaving and swallowing more and more of him, until you’re riding him at a mad pace.

“I’ve never been wetter.” You moan. “I want to cut him piece by piece as you fuck me Aemond.”

Under you he babbles praises and promises, waxing poetic on the way your cunt is strangling his cock and is pulling him in; you’re drenched and hot, your combined moans deafening the squelching sounds of your combines honeys forming a ring around his base.

“There! Aemond, there!”

You scream, when his cock head finds your hidden spot, the one that makes your knees tremble and your rhythm falter, your cunt tightening around him to the point of pain, when his thumb finds your pearl to play with it fast, throwing you into the throes of your orgasm.

He follows with a howl, his stones drawn so tightly against his body as you milk him, hungry for his seed that seeps down his length as you keep riding him, until you fall sideways, spent.

You’re both spent as you two try to regain your breath, trembling in each other’s arms.

“I haven’t thanked you properly.” He says with a smile.

“I think you did.” You let a heartbeat pass between your two. “Did you truly like my gift?”

His hand is proprietary on your hip when he pulls you impossibly closer to his sweaty body.

“You did what no one ever would. I will cherish your offering for as long as I live.”

You snuggle closer, feeling his spent cock try to harden again; you know he will soon be ready, he can’t resist the spell of your body.

“Would you truly fuck me as I cut him into pieces to send to his whore mother?”

“I would do anything you ask. I can have him bought here for you to play with, if that would make you happy.”

“I don’t want him soiling our rooms. I want him to rot in the cell, where he belongs.”

“Then, I would fuck him against the bars after you’re done with him and choose together which part of him to send her.”

You let your index play with the sparse, platinum hair on his chest.

“I was thinking that we could send her another part of him as a warning: either she stops her madness, or she’ll have her son back piece by piece.”

Aemond looks at you with naked adoration.

“He’s always been her favorite.” He says, his fingers finding the mess of come between your legs and your hole ready for him. “She will bend the knee, and accept our conditions.”

You moan when his fingers breach you again and start fucking you almost lazily.

“They will all have to die.” You whimper, feeling the delicious flames of desire burn anew.

“I will personally behead Daemon.” He smiles. “What do you want to do with the bastards?”

You’re gasping against his lips, your hips following the slow, tantalizing rhythm he’s forcing you to follow.

“Can I play with them? See how long they’ll last?”

“You’ll make sure they will suffer for days. I promise you that you’ll come back to our chambers covered in blood and with my seed leaking down your legs.”

You whimper when his fingers find your spot again to massage it with intent, your muscles clamping again as your end comes barreling down.

“I will bathe you, afterwards. Make sure their stink doesn’t attach itself to you. Then, if you’ll let me, I will make love to you again, fill you with my seed.”

Your fingers are like claws, scorching the path of your need down his wide back as the band of pleasure tightens in your belly.

“Put a baby in me, Aemond. I want them to know your line will survive and theirs will not!”

His tongue attacks the dried blood on your body again, licking the ferrous taste with abandon and hunger.

“I will put as many babies in you as you’ll let me.”

“Yes! Ah, Aemond!” You whimper. “I wanna eat his heart as his whore mother watches and weeps! I wanna kill her after she’s witnessed what her betrayal to you did to her bastards!”

His fingers fuck you fast and unforgiving, the squelching sounds of your pleasure all he can hear.

“I will build you a torture chamber, where you can play, and I can fuck you as they cry and beg for mercy.”

“Yes! Yes!”

You’re delirious now, riding his fingers and scratching his back, your voice hoarse with your screams of pleasure.

You’re putty against him, happy and sated you rub your body against his.

“Do you want to go to the dungeons and pick another piece of him? As much as I love your gift, I think it would be more affecting if we were to send her his eyeball with some of his clothing.”

“Yes! I want her to suffer. I want her haunted by the knowledge that her bastard son is in danger, until she comes begging for him. I want any hopes she has burn as she sees her bastards suffer and die.”

“And she will. The Stranger will come as a relief, still, she’ll die knowing she has lost.” His eye looks haunted now. “She wanted me to be sharply questioned, when he took my eye. She’ll witnessed what that is, on each one of them.”

He’s hard as steel against your tummy, his cock head already weeping for you; you roll on your back, spreading your legs, showing him the mess you two have created when you open your outer lips for him to witness how your hole clenches in hunger.

“Fill me again, Aemond and don’t pull out. I want to feel you inside of me as we compose our message.”

“Only if you wait for me tomorrow, and let me join you in playing with your new toy.”

“Yes.” You moan as he breaches you slowly. “And if she resists, we’ll decide together which piece to cut and send.”

He twitches inside of you at the thought: the bastard is going to end up in pieces, and his mother will learn of it all too late.

[noforkingclue]

A Misunderstanding? (dark!11 x reader)

Summary: It was all just a simple misunderstanding. Right?

Author's Note: I just couldn't help but make this a dark fic! I think 11 really leans well into being a darker doctor

Warnings: false imprisonment, dark fic

You put your head in your hands and rested your elbows on the table. How could this have happened to you? This couldn’t be happening. Stuff like this only happened in TV shows, never real life. Then again, your real life could’ve been a TV show.

You took a deep breath to try and calm yourself. You had an alibi. You were out in London, one of the most heavily CCTV-ed cities in the world. You were bound to be picked up on a camera or ten. You looked up sharply when the door to the room opened. You froze when a familiar person walked in.

“Doctor?”

The Doctor smiled at you but it wasn’t his usual smile. There was something in the eyes. Well, more accurately, something missing. They didn’t hold their usual warmth. You had the sudden urge to run but you knew that wouldn’t do you any good. Running from a police interview room that was a surefire way of looking guilty.

“You’ve got yourself in quite a mess.”

“Why are you here?”

“You called me.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Ah well,” the Doctor smiled and you saw the briefest flash of the old Doctor come through, “I knew you would. Sooner or later.”

The two of you made eye contact but you quickly looked away. The coldness returned to the Doctor’s eyes.

“I warned you,” he said quietly, “I warned you that this would happen if you left. I said that you wouldn’t be able to cope without me.”

Once again you put your head in your hands. This couldn’t be happening and yet it was. Yes, you used to travel with the Doctor. Yes, you left him once he started to get too… possessive? Looking back, the signs were clear from the start but you just shrugged them off. After all, the Doctor wasn’t human. You couldn’t expect him to act like a human when he wasn’t one.

“I warned you.”

The Doctor’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts. You looked up at him sharply.

“I warned you,” the Doctor continued casually, almost as though he was talking about the weather, “that you wouldn’t be able to last without me.”

“You… you did this!”

“Did what.”

“There’ll be CCTV,” you said, “there’ll be evidence-”

“Do you think so?”

You jumped slightly at the harshness in the Doctor’s voice. You had only ever heard him use that tone when dealing with Daleks or Cybermen or any other enemy that had pissed him off too far. You have never, never, heard him use that tone with a friend.

But then again, were you his friend now?

“It’s ok.”

The Doctor reached across the table and brushed some tears away from your cheeks. You hadn’t realised that you were crying until he did that. It was such a soft, gentle gesture that it took you by surprise.

“Come back to me,” he said, “come home. She misses you, y’know? Come back to us and I can make this go away.”

You opened your mouth. You were going to tell him to fuck off. That being in prison was better than being with him. But then you closed it again. Either way, you were trapped but where would you rather be trapped? Locked up in a dingy cell or in a gilded cage. The Doctor seemed to realise this and he leant across the table and pressed a kiss against your forehead.

“Correct decision,” he said, “don’t worry, I’ll get this cleared up as a tragic mistake. Soon you’ll be free.”

[hannahbarberra162]

Under the Microscope, part 2 (Yandere Sabo x Reader)

18+ MDNI on Ao3

No smut, but some not great behavior from Sabo.

All other chapters

You caught yourself getting excited for your next shift guarding Sabo. It was sad, really, if you thought about it. You’d resorted to being friendly with convicted prisoners to relieve your loneliness. You were no stranger to being on your own, you had been since childhood, but the active hostility from the other Marines on the base had taken its toll on you. Was it so wrong to look forward to someone who was excited to see you? Who shared common interests? You decided to stop beating yourself up and to enjoy Sabo’s company while he was here. Soon he’d be transferred and you’d be all alone once again. 

You didn’t have a shift everyday, today you were just working on your research in your office. It was slow going, you wished you’d been given a research partner. You’d always done better when you had someone you could bounce ideas off of. But the nature of your assignment meant that you had to work alone. The other scientist at the base was a Marine biologist and your work didn’t overlap at all, so you couldn’t even use him as a sounding board. You had a lot to do, so you rolled up your sleeves and magnified until your vision swam. You weren’t any closer to figuring out the genetic sequencing and the meeting with Admiral Sakazuki was getting closer. Not only that, your hands were shaking so badly you couldn’t hold your cup of coffee. You decided to take a break to try to refocus.

Going outside, you realized it was already late at night. You missed lunch and dinner again, working in your office in complete concentration. You weren’t hungry anyway, your stomach twisted in knots. You sighed and looked up at the night sky. You’d always loved the stars and constellations. Your devil fruit had only enhanced your love, allowing you to see deep into the beauty of the cosmos. Your hands were shaking but you tried to magnify some of your favorite constellations. After a few unsuccessful attempts, you were able to see the Andromeda galaxy clearly. It had been your favorite since childhood, allowing you to remember that your problems were so very small and the universe so very large. You’d also loved the story about the princess in chains being rescued from a monster by a brave hero, and their happily ever after. Of course, such things only ever happened in stories, no one was coming to save you from your own life. 

You magnified the galaxy several times, enjoying the swirling stars in motion. The hairs on the back of your neck raised - you had the feeling someone was watching you. Looking around, you couldn’t see anyone in the darkness. But you couldn’t shake the feeling, it was unnerving you. You flicked your hand through the magnification, erasing it. You felt like an animal snared in a trap and you wanted to get away quickly. With a heavy sigh, you went back inside to continue working. You wouldn’t see Sabo for a few days, so you needed to concentrate while you had unbroken blocks of time.

~~~

You had barely been sleeping during the nights, and had early morning guard duty with Sabo a few days later. Well, not with Sabo, guarding Sabo. You had to keep reminding yourself that he was dangerous and violent, not someone to pal around with. You yawned as you entered the room, saluting to your fellow officer as he left quickly. You’d heard the other ensigns talking about how they didn’t like guarding Sabo, that he creeped them out as he silently stared through the bars. That they didn’t get within a meter of the cell for fear he’d hurt them. It was hard to reconcile that image when he spent most of your shift trying to talk to you and had been so relaxed when you’d stupidly gone inside. 

You took a huge gulp of your hot coffee and slumped down on the guard bench, dropping your papers next to you. You leaned your head back against the brick behind you and closed your eyes, taking a moment to settle in for the next few hours. Sabo was already lounging by the front of the cell, ready to engage with you.

“Good morning Sabo,” you stated, not opening your eyes. You could feel his stare already.

“Good morning, Mag. I’m so glad to see you again,” Sabo said exuberant. At least he had a positive attitude. You yawned again, covering your mouth with your arm. “Still tired, hmm?” Sabo queried. You cracked open your eyes. Not this again.

“Like always, I’m fine.” You knew you looked like death, but you didn’t have to admit it.

“Have you made progress in your work?” You stiffened. You still couldn’t talk about your work with Sabo. Besides, it was a sore point and you felt defensive. You hadn’t gotten as much done during your break from guard duty as you’d hoped. 

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I understand.”

“Your wounds look better,” you said, glancing over his body. You were glad to see he was healing. Sabo hummed, uninterested in that line of conversation. His eyes flicked over you for a moment.

“Are you aware you’re losing weight?” You frowned and looked down at your uniform. You hadn’t noticed at all, but he was right. Your uniform was baggy and loose, you might have to go ask for the next size down. You often missed meals when you were working, but even when you noticed it was meal time your anxiety decreased your appetite to practically nothing. 

“Oh, um, I guess so.”

“Do they not take care of you? Along with working you half to death?” You bristled at his patronizing words.

“They don’t need to take care of me. I’m a grown adult, I take care of myself.” You said testily, narrowing your eyes. You knew you weren't at your top physical condition, but you didn’t need yet another person to tell you that you were helpless and weak. Especially not someone who was currently in seastone cuffs and behind bars . Your hands started to shake, which didn’t help your point.

“Not very well, it seems. But that doesn’t matter. When we get back to the Revolutionary Army, I’ll take care of you.” You snorted out a laugh. Sabo was just referencing his joke from the other day, he was only kidding. You felt better, he wasn’t criticizing you or your lack of self care. You rolled your eyes and smiled at him.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Sabo said cryptically. 

“Probably not, but go ahead.” You never knew what Sabo was going to say.

“You think I can’t take care of you, because I look like this,” he said, gesturing to his frame. “Rest assured, when I get back, eat more and resume my training, I’ll be more to your liking.” You thought you were going to pass out from all your blood suddenly rushing to your face. That was nowhere near anything you were thinking about.

“Oh, uh, right. Sure. I mean, I can - uh - ask for you to get supplemental food, uhm, if you want,” you stammered. What on earth were you supposed to say to that? 

“Always so kind, Mag. You’re a diamond in the rough. But there’s no need.” Sabo gave you a soft smile. You supposed there wasn’t, it wouldn’t be approved by the higher ups. You drank your coffee to end this conversation and hopefully never bring it up again.

~~~

An hour later and your eyelids were barely open. The room was warm as always, but because of the early morning chill, it felt wonderful. The room was calm and peaceful, and you were leaning against one of the supports by the bench. You’d decided to give Sabo a long article you wanted to read but hadn’t had the time. It wasn’t specific to your research, so you didn’t see how it could hurt. It was better than him being bored and saying embarrassing things to you. He was reading in silence on his metal bed, and you on your guard bench. The quiet was comfortable, punctuated by the sound of turning pages. You had your book open in front of you and were re-reading the same paragraph for the eighth time. Your eyes kept sliding closed, your head lolling forward. You couldn’t fall asleep - that was the entire point of guard duty. If you were caught, you’d be in huge trouble. So you tried to keep reading, blinking rapidly to maintain your focus.

Sabo POV

Sabo watched you drift off to sleep, happy you were getting some needed rest. It warmed his heart to see that you felt comfortable in his presence, enough to let him watch you while you slept. You had dozed off leaning against the wall, your face now relaxing. You looked younger without anxiety clouding your features. You always insisted you were fine, but it was obvious to him that you were working yourself to the bone. He knew you’d taken offense at what he’d said, but he had meant it. You weren’t taking care of yourself - the weight loss, the sleeplessness, the anxiety, your shaking hands, all of these would take a toll on you the longer it went on. He couldn’t wait until he could leave the jail and take you with him. 

You were such a delightful person, Sabo couldn’t believe you’d become a Marine. In his experience, Marines were weak, idiotic fools who were sacrificing themselves for a government that didn’t care if they lived or died. They didn’t even see the issue in doing so, as long as they got to beat down some poor villagers now and again. But you were different, so very different. You were brilliant, even if no one saw that here but himself. You were kind, having helped him with his shoulder for no reason other than empathy. It had been a foolish choice on your part, Sabo could have easily killed you. But that was something he liked about you - you were completely clueless to the way the real world worked. You were so eager to learn and understand the world but so helpless within it. You’d be alright now, you had Sabo to look after you. You didn’t understand what kinds of people lived in the world and what they would do to such a weak little thing like yourself. Luckily Sabo had found you, and he’d keep you safe. 

Sabo had been to Bayonette on assignment from the Revolutionary Army a few weeks prior to his “capture.” The Army had gotten a tip off from a mole at the base that a gifted scientist had been tasked with isolating the gene associated with the Will of D., the practical application unknown. Sabo was supposed to derail the scientific progress in any way deemed necessary, including assassination of the scientist leading the project. Given the delicate nature of the research, he had assumed the lead scientist would be heavily guarded, with a large support team to help them with their work. Imagine his surprise when he found that the bright researcher was you, working alone, in a regular office. You didn’t have any additional support, guards, or even a lab. He supposed he shouldn’t have been that surprised, the Marines had never been good at resource allocation. Or anything, really.

He’d watched you from afar for about a week, monitoring your every move. He quickly realized the strength of your Devil Fruit, as he watched you poring over DNA for hours. Your fruit, combined with your intelligence, made you an incredible research scientist. He had no doubt that if given enough time, you’d be able to sequence the Will of D., to the detriment of the world. Yes, you needed to be stopped, but you didn’t need to be neutralized. Sabo didn’t think you had malicious intentions, he wasn’t even sure you knew why the Will of D. was important. He could refocus your work to something more beneficial to the RA, he was sure of it. 

You were unintentionally difficult to get access to - you didn’t leave the base or take missions. The only way he was going to see more of you was from inside the base. So Sabo had allowed himself to get “captured” by some weaklings and sent to jail to get closer to you. The more Sabo interacted with you, the more he liked you. You were smart, sweet, well spoken, and alluring. You drove him to distraction and he couldn’t always reign himself in when you were around. He felt like a boy again, always putting his foot in his mouth around a crush. He’d been kicking himself over his “darling” comment, along with a few others. Sabo hadn’t made such a bad slip up since he was a teen. He could tell he had embarrassed you and that you didn’t understand he was trying to flirt. You had just met Sabo, or so you thought, and were still reserved. That was ok, Sabo would have plenty of time to woo you once you were with him.

Sabo quickly realized why you weren’t utilizing your fruit as a spy or for counterintelligence. You were completely oblivious to almost everything. You didn’t notice him spying on you, you didn’t notice the way the other Marines looked at you lustfully, you didn’t notice when it was time to eat, you didn’t notice when others were jealous of you, you didn’t notice when he’d made it into the jail. You didn’t take stock of anything besides your work. You were so unperceptive, it was endearing. Even little rabbits knew when they were being cornered, but not you.

What did surprise him was the absolutely terrible state that the Marines pushed you to. Given your mild and intellectual nature, he thought they would have taken better care of you. Instead, he could feel the anxiety and loneliness radiating off of you. You were losing weight rapidly and looked like you hadn’t slept in months. Your fellow Marines treated you like garbage, speaking down to you and roughing you up. Sabo adjusted his gloves thinking about those who had hurt you physically and emotionally. It was a tell he’d tried to get rid of without much success. Dragon had warned him time and time again that it telegraphed his desire for violence, but when he saw you get checked in the guard room he couldn’t contain himself. He wanted to hurt anyone who made you feel less than - whoever told you that you weren’t beautiful, whoever had made up that gauche nickname, whoever told you that you weren’t useful, whoever was giving you more work than you could handle alone. Sabo had already taken care of Koji, and he was planning on returning to the base for some additional retribution in the future. It had been irritating allowing Koji to strike Sabo but he didn’t want to make it seem like his own attack was unprovoked. After all, he didn’t want to have to break free before his plans came to fruition. 

~~~

Your POV

You awoke with a start, immediately realizing two things. First, you had fallen asleep sitting up during guard duty. You prayed to a higher power (caffeine) that no one had seen you. Second, Sabo was staring at you again from within his cell. 

“Don’t worry, no one came in,” Sabo said calmly, assuaging your fears. 

“Ah, thank you. I… didn’t sleep much last night. I, um, didn’t mean to fall asleep.” You were feeling self conscious at the thought of him watching you sleep.

“I should hope not. What if I had escaped? Or caused some mayhem?” Sabo asked teasingly. The truth was, if either of those happened you wouldn’t be able to do anything. You’d have to call for help. But you felt comfortable joking back since it seemed he might keep your secret.

“Maybe I would stop you by boring you to death talking about my research,” you chuckled.

“Oh, no. That could never happen. I find it all very fascinating. In fact, I wanted to discuss this article with you.”

“You finished it already? It was over 60 pages long.” How long had you been asleep?

“Mm, I couldn’t put it down, it was engrossing.” He talked about the scientific article like it was a novel. The only other person who thought like that was, well, you. You came and sat in front of the bars, close enough where he’d be able to reach you if he wasn’t wearing cuffs. You brought your now half full coffee with you, wanting to finish the cup before you got another.

“I haven’t read it yet, actually. Can you give me the synopsis?” Maybe Sabo could help you just a little bit in getting your work done. He didn’t know the exact implications of the article, and it was publicly available. It would be no different than giving him a random book from the library.

“Sure!” Sabo said, grinning. He spent the next few minutes telling you about theories regarding Next Generation Sequencing, a way to look at many DNA fragments simultaneously. You nodded along and took a few notes. Without the right equipment available, it was unfortunately pointless for you to try. You peppered in a few questions, which Sabo was able to answer easily.

“I think that kind of sequencing could only be done by Dr. Vegapunk,” you mused. “I don’t even have a real microscope here, I do everything by hand, so to speak.” 

“Or, maybe you could try to expand the use of your Devil Fruit,” Sabo suggested. “You know, awaken it.” You frowned. You had heard rumors of what that meant but hadn’t met anyone who’d done it. You’d try to research it in your free time after your assignment. You drank deeply from your cup.

“Well, it’s interesting either way. I hope they use it to help sequence some of these Grand Line viruses, to help cure them.” Sabo laughed bitterly and your face fell.

“You don’t really think that’s what they’ll do, right? It’s always about control and power. It would get used to create biological weapons for warfare, something like that. Destroy some island without having to be there.” You looked away, thinking about Sabo’s words. You knew that your work wasn’t always used to benefit people, but surely some of it was. Or maybe you were just deluding yourself. The voice in the back of your head had often asked what your work was being used for, you just squashed it and took your paychecks. Your hands started to shake in your lap.

“I’m sorry, Mag. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t want you to think of yourself -” Sabo started to say softly. 

“It’s fine, I can’t - it’s just a job,” you finished lamely. You looked at your watch, you only had a few more minutes with him anyway. You got up and collected your things quietly, thinking about the implications of your work. You weren’t told exactly what the “D” you were looking for came from or what it was connected to, that was outside the scope of your work. You were just a pawn, doing what you were expected to do. “Thank you for reading the article, I enjoyed discussing it together.” It almost felt like having a lab partner again. You hesitated - you wanted to give Sabo more to read but didn’t want to get in trouble. It had helped you to have a synopsis without having to do the work yourself, maybe it would be good for both of you. He'd have something to do and you could get some use out of his intelligence. 

“Can you - I can give you more to read, if you’d like,” you offered. Sabo nodded his head enthusiastically. You approached his cell, extending a textbook through the bars. He gently took it and smoothly turned it to look at the cover. It was about tryptophan receptors in centromeres, or how to turn key DNA on and off in difficult locations. Yes, it would confirm that you were working on genetic sequencing, but he had already figured that out. “Read as much as you want, we can talk about it my next shift.” With that, you left Sabo’s room. You were out the door for the changing of the guards when the other Marine stopped you before entering the cell room. Officer Shiff was cordial to you, you didn’t mind speaking with him.

“Are you taking the rest of Koji’s shifts?” Shiff asked. 

“For the next week, yeah. He assigned them to me,” you tried to keep the grimace off your face. Shiff looked at you confused.

“Mag, what are you - he was severely beaten, he’s in a medically induced coma right now. Koji attacked the Flame Emperor from within his cell, underestimating his strength. Koji’s not going to be working for months, or maybe ever again. You might have to cover for him until other arrangements are made.” Your eyes opened wide. Sabo had done that? While wearing seastone cuffs? You glanced back at him through the window in the door. He had taken off his tophat and was reading the textbook you’d given him. He looked up at you and grinned. You trembled and your hands shook so hard you dropped your papers. You quickly picked them up and scurried away back to the safety of your office.

~~~

Despite finding out the extent of Sabo’s fighting capabilities, you couldn’t stop yourself from enjoying your shifts with him over the next week. You had been right, Sabo was an excellent lab partner. He quickly understood any material you presented him with and you could discuss deep scientific ideas together. He was funny, polite, charming and so handsome. He hung on your every word - you didn’t think anyone had ever given you so much attention. But it wasn’t like he had a choice, you thought, he was literally your captive audience. Still, he seemed to enjoy your company as much as you did his. Sometimes you played with your Devil Fruit, showing him his own DNA or random cells and molecules. You showed him the cosmos, your favorite pastime, and shared your favorite stars. To do that, you had to get near the bars. You’d been more uneasy since you’d heard what he did to Koji, but you couldn’t resist. You were drawn to him like a moth to a flame. 

One evening shift, you had been magnifying space for Sabo, just for fun. You had brought an extra large coffee, filled to the brim with cream and sugar. The two of you spent hours looking through the cosmos, talking about space and making other small talk. You’d ended up showing him Saturn’s enchanting icy rings, magnifying them until you could see individual chunks of ice and rock. You sipped the last of your coffee and tossed the paper cup into the trash. It had kind of a salty aftertaste. Must have been a bad batch.

“Absolutely stunning, right?” you said, watching the icy rings.

“Mmm. Nothing compares,” he replied. You turned to look at him, and he was watching you. Your face heated. 

“Sabo, don’t.” He hummed and reached for you between the bars. His hand slipped through, uncuffed from the other. You froze. Sabo didn’t seem concerned, just brought his hand back and reapplied the cuff to his wrist. 

“They - they’re broken?” you whispered. You wanted to bolt from the room as fast as you could. You didn’t want to be the next Koji.

“Mm. I broke them before they were put on me. The seastone still works, though, if I keep them on.” Sabo was speaking conversationally, like you were still talking about Saturn’s rings, not about how he was completely free to do whatever he’d like. 

“That’s just to escape, right? You’re not going to hurt us?” you whispered, head down. You were truly scared.  You weren’t sure why he’d waited so long to leave. If he could break the seastone cuffs, he’d easily be able to break through the iron bars of the cell. There was nothing keeping him away from you. You would have maybe a second to react if he decided to do anything. 

“Not you - never you,” Sabo breathed to you. You glanced up at the earnest and dashing man in front of you, looking at you like you were worth something. There were many things you could do, many choices you could make. You should have rang the alarm, had others come in to fight the Flame Emperor. But the truth was, you didn’t want Sabo to have to fight, to be sent to Impel Down. You didn’t want him to be tortured, you didn’t want him to be hurt. Tossing and turning in your bed at night, you had occasionally thought about the possibilities if you had met Sabo in another life. If he wasn't second in command of the Revolutionary Army and you a Marine. If you would have been friends, or colleagues, or even lovers. You made your final foolish choice.

“They’re transferring you soon, you need to leave,” you said quietly. You looked at him imploringly. Sabo took his hand out from the cuff once more and cupped your cheek, to your shock. He smiled kindly at you. Your vision was wavering, maybe you were more tired than you thought.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be gone soon. I was just waiting for an RA ship to be close enough for us to leave easily.” You pulled back with difficulty from his grasp. Maybe he was still joking?

“I’m, um, staying here. I can’t come with you to the Revolutionary Army. I’m a Marine.” You had hoped to speak firmly but both your voice and hands were shaking. Your voice felt foreign to you, like someone else was controlling it. Sabo smiled at you condescendingly, like you were a small child.

“Mag, do you know what the other scientist on the base does?” You weren’t sure where he was going with this. It was becoming difficult to concentrate on his words.

“Mark? H-he’s a marine biologist. He’s working on s-synthesizing some kind of s-secretion from crabsss.” Mark’s research wasn’t classified, but you didn’t know how Sabo knew about him. You also didn’t know why you were slurring like you were drunk.

“That’s correct. Mark specifically works on synthesizing a toxin from Grand Line Blue Crabs that can be used as a benzodiazepine. He’s had a lot of success. He’s created a scent and odor free drug that can be added to liquids. Its use is primarily as a surgical anesthetic, but can also be used to drug unsuspecting victims, causing them to pass out quickly. It is highly effective, even in small doses.” You were glad you were already sitting down, your legs felt numb, like they were detached from your body.

“It has a slight salty taste, but if diluted in say, coffee with cream and sugar, it is rendered nearly tasteless.” You nodded, but which Sabo should you talk to? There were two now. And they both seemed to be leaving the cell.

“Go to sleep. I'll keep you safe.” You nodded again. That sounded like a great plan. You were carefully lifted from the ground and held tightly. “You’ll never have to worry again. I’m going to take care of you from now on.” You fell asleep to the sound of a crackling fire and the sensation of being carried by strong arms. 

[weepingtalecowboy]

Fanfic prompt :Everyone always makes the joke that Wild and Hyrule are the most likely to get kidnapped

But in their literal game mechanics and the lore of the games

Hyrule must run from anyone and trust nobody or someone could hand him over to ganon he definitely is really skittish about trusting anyone but when he sees someone help him he does trust them a bit more (he knows the concept of stranger danger and had to become a master at it or else it was game over)

Wild literally just has to throw a banana and you can almost always tell it is a Yiga even before you even pull out said banana (it is part of the game mechanics after all)

But you know who is the one who actually canonically is the most likely to get kidnapped and not notice it at any point during the entire process

Wind who has jumped on the boat of sketchy old man and pirates during both his adventures

Like he was extremely lucky that nothing ever happened to him

And he probably doesn’t know the concept of stranger danger because nobody on the island is a stranger or dangerous to him how would he even figure out if nobody is telling him about it or showing it

Like the first thing he does when the game starts is run up to a random girl who has fallen from a tree then she turns out to be a pirate and even if she has told him the truth about the kidnapped girls

You don’t jump on the boat of a pirate no matter how nice they seem (for all we know she could have orchestrated this situation to kidnap him and it is pure luck that she was just nice like that )

Essentially because later during the failed heist he gets throw across the sea he literally just wakes up on a different boat with no record of how he got there and instead of alerting anyone (because Wind fell island has a prison so he could have told the guards that a random guy had him on the boat and all that) he breaks fucking tingle out of the cell just to buy a sail for the weird talking boat and then continue on with just the two of them together (like I get desperately trying to save his sister but telling a guard or two that your sister got kidnapped and that you are saving her to make sure that at least a few people will know where you are like grandma definitely doesn’t know that you no longer are with the pirates)

And even more unhinged is the fact that tetra is not a good person at all she has interrogated a guy who wouldn’t sell her bombs which should have tipped Wind of as a red flag she has scammed a rich man out so much that he lives as a beggar with his daughter (also a thing that makes it more vague than ever to know what she would have done to his grandmother like a promise telling him she would bring his sister back safely is very dubious)

Also he canonically has repeatedly went to tingle's tower and asked him to translate the triforce charts (like that is tingle and nothing more has to be said)

Like Wind has the most luck known to mankind

It also somehow gets even worse because during phantom hourglass he and tetra are on the boat (which understandable because she proved that she is someone you can trust and a good friend)

And after waking up on a random beach the first thing you do is go into an old guy’s storage unit to get his sword (and somehow again not get mugged , kidnapped or trafficked because you never go somewhere alone when a single person is aware of it with no weapon especially when someone told you to go there )

Then he went with a different shady guy he just saved at the temple who genuinely looked like a problem in the making (and it was a problem in the making like I love linebeck he is a father figure for wind but also he did have the problem with his ex who wanted to kill him and he looked really shady and you would not have been able to escape if he did kidnap you because you are on the sea )

Like obviously Wind hasn’t learned his Lesson at any point in time because every time it went well

But with Yiga nothing goes well with them

He would probably hold hands with them as well and any other kidnapper would have a very easy catch

He probably joined the chain in less then a second without any form of self awareness (like everyone definitely was nervous with each other but not Wind he heard they said everyone else can sleep while another takes watch and planted his face on a pillow and was just out like that while everyone else was uneasy and didn’t sleep well or also took watch to make sure they won’t be killed in their sleep)

The chain really has to teach him that lesson (for the sake of like literally everything he has ever done because that luck will run out at some point)

Like Warriors definitely is seeing Wind go with literally everyone and not understanding why like that looks like a trauma response (it is just wind with over 12 years never learning about stranger danger and a big misunderstanding but also not really wrong )

[whateverisbeautiful]

This might be a stretch but I’d love to see your take on Rick and Lori’s relationship. I have many conversations online with others but everyone thinks differently when I make post, majority believe one thing but for the most part it amazes me what people say. Questions like…..would Rick have actually left Lori or would he have stuck things out for the sake of keeping his family together. Would he have still pursued Michonne ? If so how soon do you think it would have happened? Would Lori try to ruin Rick moving on with someone ? Would she even care ? Anyways I love your Reveling in Richonne and wanted to know your opinions 🤷🏽‍♀️

Thanks for this @richonnelovers4life 💗 These are good questions. And I'd love to hear your take on them too. Something I am forever convinced of is that Richonne is inevitable. So no matter how the early TWD circumstances shifted, I firmly believe Rick and Michonne were bound to meet and they were bound to be in love.

With the type of soulmates Rick and Michonne are, Cupid was simply not going to miss with those two. Even in Rick’s dreams, Cupid had an undefeated run. 😋

As for the rest of the questions, I wrote out my take on them right here ⬇️:

#1: Would Rick have actually left Lori or would he have stuck things out for the sake of keeping his family together?

Just like I think Rick and Michonne falling in love was inevitable, I think Rick and Lori splitting up was inevitable too, apocalypse or not. They just weren’t each other's person and deep down they both knew it long before the world ended.

I think had Lori survived that day at the prison, she and Rick would have been living about as divorced as could be, but with their struggle to communicate, I could see them both tiptoeing around finally outright making the call to end the marriage.

I think Rick, especially after Lori had the baby, would of course still feel very responsible for looking out for her and the baby and so it would be hard for him to directly end the relationship even if they were sleeping in different cells and communicating more like coworkers because they mentally left the marriage already.

And I used to think Lori would then pull the trigger for them and she'd officially end the marriage so that Rick didn’t have to. But now that I’ve gone back and noticed more of how she was often so vague and flip-floppy in expressing what she wanted and also would not prefer to raise her newborn without a husband (even if it was the husband she wasn’t in love with) I think she wouldn’t take the initiative to end it either.

I think what would finally prompt them to officially end the marriage would be Carl.

I think his parents' whole divorced-but-not state would take a toll on Carl and as blunt of a kid as he used to be back then I think he’d notice and maybe even call them out on it, wanting them to make a definitive decision either way. And the second Rick realized that ‘staying together’ unhappy was more damaging to Carl than just splitting up, I think he would officially end the marriage. And I think Lori would agree it was the right thing to do.

#2: Would Rick have still pursued Michonne? If so how soon do you think it would have happened?

Absolutely. 👌🏽 Rick would still be captivated by Michonne, still eventually pursue her, and they’d still fall in love. If Lori lived and let's say most other events around that time stayed the same with Michonne showing up to the prison - I really believe Rick and Michonne’s journey still plays out in a mostly similar way and similar timeline to how it did in TWD.

I think their love story would be a slow burn just like it was in the show because, depending on when Rick and Lori end it (which I think would be sooner rather than later), Rick still would be the type of guy who moved at a more slow and steady pace when it comes to his romantic pursuit. And Michonne would still need time to open that part of her heart up after losing Mike and Andre.

(Your question also made me wonder what would happen if it was reversed and Lori still didn't survive but Mike and Andre did. If Michonne, Mike, and Andre showed up to the prison post-Lori I'm curious what people predict would happen. It's harder for me to predict exactly how that would play out since we were shown much less of Michonne and Mike's dynamic. But from the things we do know about them, I think Michonne and Mike would still split too. And Michonne and Rick would fall for each other no matter what. Even tho I am 100% confident Rick and Michonne would only actively pursue each other once they were both single because Richonne is respectful and has integrity)

Some friends and I have had conversations about this scenario where Lori lives as well, and I know one argument someone made was that Michonne bonding with Carl was a big thing that brought her and Rick closer and they might not bond the same if Carl still has his mom in his life.

However, my take is that, while elements of it would be different with Lori still present, I actually think Michonne and Carl still would form their tight-knit bond. Because while Michonne wouldn’t be meeting a motherless Carl, she would be meeting a Carl whose parents either divorced or were on the brink of it and so he’d still be in need of the friendship and care he found with Michonne.

And Rick being extremely attracted to Michonne inside and out, along with appreciating her and Carl’s bond would lead to events playing out similar to how they did in TWD. But again, all this would happen only once he and Lori had officially called things off. Because, unlike their former partners, Rick and Michonne are extremely loyal and devoted people so neither of them would allow for overlap.

However, once Rick was single, he would still be checking Michonne out all the time, still finding reasons to take her on runs with him, and I’m sure all those little flirting moments between them would still be there as well. Which leads to question #3.

#3: Would Lori try to ruin Rick moving on with someone? Would she even care?

I think Lori would most definitely notice the unique effect Michonne had on Rick and she’d see how Michonne brings out a fresh, improved, and more alive man in him. While I think she might feel miffed that she didn’t get to experience this version of Rick, I don’t think she would go out of her way to try to ruin things - and emphasis on try since any attempts at stopping Richonne from happening would be futile - because, at the end of the day, she wasn't happy being with Rick and didn't want him and vice versa. And I think every passing day would make that clearer to them both.

So when he moved on, I don’t think she’d care from a place of still wishing to be with him/work things out. If anything she’d just care and feel some type of way that all that stuff she didn't feel she got from him - communication, passion, etc. - he was now giving to Michonne with ease, and that Michonne was pretty effortlessly getting the group's ‘First Lady’ position that Lori seemed to covet. Either way, whatever care she had about Rick moving on wouldn't be about Rick I don’t think.

The area where I think Lori would actually care and feel intimidated is again when it came to Carl’s bond with Michonne. Had she survived, I think seeing Carl respect, confide in, and gravitate toward Michonne would have made her feel a bit insecure as a mom.

And then she might feel threatened that Michonne’s obvious organic connection with Rick meant that Michonne would inevitably become Carl’s stepmom and they'd build a family unit that she might be envious of.

So basically, Lori would probably want what Rick and Michonne had but not with Rick. And I think if a man who was her type had joined the group and she liked him, Lori would move on too, and even quicker than Rick possibly. Because Rick would be trying to be respectful during the initial post-divorce period, all the while still looking at Michonne like a whole meal until he and Michonne finally and - using my Word of the Day in this post - inevitably made their romance official. 😊

[sabbathbloodysabbeth]

Never Say Die [2]

| Part one | you are here | part 3 | part 4

Everyone seemed to want a part two… so here’s another part! (Also name title comes from a Black Sabbath song lol)

Steve took a few steps in the house. His hands shook as he barely could see through the shirt that was over his face. Concealing his identity from the neighbors. He knows that Hopper and Joyce’s intentions were positive, but his mind was playing tricks on him. For a split second he was back in Russia, blind fold over his eyes as he’s being dragged from a van. Still in his sailer suit. Blood all over his face, the ashes of star-court still lingering on him. Not even given the chance to wash them off on the flight here.

Though When the blindfold is pulled off he’s in the doorway of a very nice home, not in the middle of a Russian cell. He can feel his body shaking a bit from the memory. Before he takes a shaky breath, closing his eyes. All of this seemed a little to easy. What if he was making it all up in his head? What if he was currently in a cell right now losing his mind. He wouldn’t put it past himself. He has had dreams so real about returning home before, to only wake up and get the shit beat out of him.

Hoppers quick to stand in front of him. Protecting him. Steve’s eyes snap open quickly, tears slowly forming in his eyes when he realizes what the older man is doing. It’s been a while since someone’s protected him, and not the other way around. Sure, once upon a time in the prison someone did protect him. But that barely lasted a couple of days before the guy disappeared in the middle of the night. Now Steve knew he fought a demogorgan and lost.

“Mom, what’s going on?” It’s Will’s turn to voice his concern. Steve can’t see him through Hoppers back but he knows how his face is pinched up. Joyce, who was currently standing next to Steve smiles shakily. Tears in her eyes, light footsteps moving fast across the wooden floor start to come in their direction.

“Will, everything’s fine. It’s just.. a surprise guest dropped in. A good surprise. “ Joyce explains putting her hand up. Gesturing for the other to stop. Which is what immediately happens. “Why don’t you go back and tell everyone to go gather in the living room. Let them know we’ll be out in a second.” Joyce instructs. Moving forward out of Steve’s sight. Who can already picture her smoothing the boys hair, wrapping her arms around Will in a comforting manner. Something he’s seen thousands of times and has always envied.

“And tell them, if any of them even think about stepping out of that living room I’ll make sure no one’s allowed to play that Dogs and Donuts game.” Hoppers voice is stern. Steve was standing behind him and it was bringing the fear of god into him. Though he has to hold back laughter because he knows the guy was purposely getting the name wrong.

A few footsteps and seconds past and he can hear Will in the living room. Voices starting to echo through the walls as both of the adults. Who were very concerned, pull Steve into the kitchen. Joyce is already pulling food out for him. Setting a plate on the table within seconds. He hesitates, before he’s moving and awkwardly sitting down. Eyes skimming the room. A habit of his that he’s picked up. Within seconds he already knows where he can exit quickly if it was needed.

“How are you alive?” Hopper asks first, getting straight to the point. Moving and leaning on the table as he looks at Steve with that serious expression again. The same one he held in interrogation rooms.

Steve chuckles shakily, “Russian Prison.” He answers simply before he’s wolfing down his food. He’s sure he was going to throw it up in a little bit anyway. It’s been a long time since he’s had home cooked food. His stomach was already shifting uncomfortably from how much he was eating. “I didn’t die during the explosion thingy, I hopped down and well. Here I am. Woke up in a van in the middle of Russia later on and found my way back home. In quick summary.” Steve explains quickly. Body tense at even the mention of the prison. Thankful for the fact Hopper knew when to back down from something like this. Eyes filled with concern.

“How do you want to do this?” He asks changing the subject.

“We can pull them one at a time in here and have them see you?” Joyce tosses the idea out there.

“No. Just want to rip it off like a bandaid. Get it all done and over with. I cant-” Steve says shakily. Dropping the fork on the plate as he stares down at the table. “I can’t choose who I want to see first. I want to see them all at once or none at all.” He admits. Moving his eyes up to challenge Hopper. Unsure whether or not they were going to allow him to see them. There shouldn’t be doubt in his mind, but there was just a smidge. Hard to trust anyone anymore. He barely knew the two adults in front of him. Only a few awkward conversations in the past.

“Alright… you ready?” Hopper asks. Moving to stand properly. Not even bothering to battle whatever imaginary war that was in Steve’s head. Steve was not ready, he never would be. He moves standing up. Left arm holding his side as he nods his head. Moving to follow the other. Hearing the hushed panicked voices in the living room. A couple curse words following along with them.

Before Steve can get a step in Joyce is stopping him. “Hold on, let me give them a warning.” She smiles softly before turning and moving into the living room. That was still mostly bare from the move in. Steve shakily crosses his arms over his chest as he tries to focus on breathing. He didn’t want to freak out to much while everyone was. He had to be the emotional rock. He looks down at the floor, not wanting to look up at Hopper. Faintly listening to Joyce begin to ramble right behind him.

“So… this wasn’t planned at all. It’s news to me.” She sounded like she was crying already. “But- this person. You aren’t expecting him and I know some of you are going to be excited to see him but he has some injuries. So maybe try not to jump him or overwhelm him.” Joyce warns. Everyone’s already starting to ask questions all at once. “I’m serious guys. He came from god knows where, doing god knows what.” She says finally hushing the crowd down.

Steve finally gets his signal from Hopper. His hands were shaking as he moves. Carefully limping a bit to the doorway. One hand on his side as he leans on it. Eyes landing on everyone in the room. Searching for Dustin and Robin. “Where’s Henderson?” Is his first question. Eyes squinting trying to see, his vision wasn’t nearly as good as what it used to be. Along with the fact he could barely hear out of his right ear. But thanks to the amazing government he was able to get a hearing aid fitted.

He knew that everyone was going to be shocked, but the way everyone’s faces go white makes a shiver go up his spine. All color leaving the room with the acceptation of Eddie and the boy with long silky hair. Both who didn’t know him. Steve’s looking around the group, to many faces and reactions overwhelming him before he sees Dustin throwing himself at him. Moving away from Eddie, who was stunned by how fast the kid could move.

Before he could tackle Steve, Hoppers catching him as says something. Dustin’s already in tears as he moves more carefully as he still hugs him. Steve’s hands shakily wrapping themselves around him, only taking a second before he’s tightly hugging the boy. Squeezing his eyes shut as he feels like one of the numerous missing pieces was just placed in his heart. He didn’t realize how much he missed the little shit until now.

“I watched you die.” Dustin sobs, body shaking in Steve’s arms. Steve feels like a leaf, he’s close to falling from the effort to keep them both up. He’s in tears himself, when he catches the green of his letterman jacket walking in from the other side of the room. Coming from the bathroom most likely.

“What’s happening?” Robins voice is loud and clear as she looks at everyone. Not given a chance to process Steve standing in the walkway.

“Didn’t figure you to be a basketball jock there buck.” Steve laughs softly. Watching as it all hits her as well. And she’s already sprinting, squirming out of Hoppers reach as she nearly tackles Steve and Dustin.

“Ow ow ow, I think you guys just turned my lungs to dust.” He gasps in pain. Both of them stepping back from him as he nearly falls. Holding his side, as he try’s to steady his breathing.

“Here let’s get you sitting.”

Steve nods his head as he moves to Joyce, who’s concern was only peaking. Leaning on her a bit as she helps him to the empty spot on the couch. Which was right next to Eddie. He’s coughing a little, lungs burning from the pain in his side. A shaky inhale of air as he looks at the other curiously. Before his eyes move to land over on the boy with silky hair who was watching him confused.

“Hey.” He chuckles awkwardly lifting his hand up as the boy smiles waving back at him.

“This- this is Argyle.” Jonathan pops in. Looking anxious at the sight of him. Nancy looked like she was a goldfish.

“Hey wheeler.” Steve chuckles, not caring about her what’s so ever. Who he cared about the most were both standing in front of him now. Nearly hyperventilating. He opens his arms out a bit, “come on you dorks. Be careful of the stitches though. I am not redoing them again.” He laughs as they both move carefully. Robin in his lap curling in on his chest. He moves getting comfortable, the exhaustion getting the best of him as he offers a arm for Dustin who was also seeking some comfort. His eyes and nose were burning from the effort of holding back tears.

“No offense but you look like shit, and I can barely see.” Max tosses in. Standing up now to get a better look at him.

Steve snorts, “I can barely see or hear and you sound and look like shit kid.” He says amused. Earning a snort. “What happened to you?” He asks curiously.

“Vecna.”

He freezes. Everybody was looking at him as he glances around, “wait the big cone head looking dude with the ET fingers?” Steve asks. He hadn’t realized that he had made it to Hawkins within the time he was away. He’s gotten hints, even seen him once. Drawings of what he looked like up on the Russian walls. From his understanding he created a portal, to trade demogorgans for the life of the prisoners. Which was apparently how he got so strong to be able to finally reach his way to Hawkins and use his powers without needing the person physically in the upside down.

“You know who Vecna is?” Eddie asks, speaking for the first time. His voice is wavering a bit as he does.

“Well that’s not what me and the prisoners called him. But yeah. We were wondering why he stopped… well snapping our bones like twigs for.” He admits.

“Prisoners?” Is the question everybody all say at once. He winces as he tries to stay relaxed. He was starting to get overwhelmed. As much as it was a relief to see all of them it was getting a little to much.

“Yeah, Russians don’t take to kindly to someone ruining one of their bases.” He chuckles dryly. “Can we- um change the subject.” He winces as he moves a hand up to his head. Feeling a migraine forming. His head hasn’t been the same since he was near that radiation shit in the mall. He blinks as he feels a random nose bleed starting to hit him. Feeling dizzy Robin and Dustin hop off from him when he starts to shake more while underneath them. El moving and offering him a tissue with a knowing look. His hands shakily take the paper, confused as to why she would be looking at him like that. It was just a random nose bleed, he wouldn’t be shocked if he got radiation poison or something.

He moves back into the couch after a second of wiping his nose, completely worn out. Blinking at the effort it was taking him just to stay here mentally. His eyes meet Joyce’s who was already getting Hopper on it. “You look exhausted hon, why don’t you go get some rest in our room.” She smiles as he nods. Moving, his legs begin to shake as he holds the bloody tissue to his nose. Walking the way Hopper wanted him to.

Unaware but fully aware at the same time of the amount of eyes that were on him.

So… I only had a few scenes that I really wanted to write for this. This was one of them. The next part I also really wanted, and I don’t know how I’m separating each part. I’m used to writing 10k word chapters so this is kind of like fresh air lmao. So I’m just writing to relief some stress as I graduate in less then a week 🥳 I just didn’t expect so many people to also want to read this.

Though, I would like to say if you like the idea of Steve disappearing and coming back out of nowhere I do have another fic called Bark at the moon! (Sorry self plug) it’s on a pined post on my account and the link leads you to ao3! (It’s werewolf steve fic and he does disapear😉) ok self plug over. Thank you guys for showing so much interest! It means the world to me!

Tag list; I tagged everyone who seemed interested! Let me know If you want to be added :)

@totallynotagoraphobic @flustratedcas @shunna @spookednsaucy @steddie-as-they-go @estrellami-1 @xxbottlecapx @gregre369 @ellietheasexylibrarian @thing-a-ling @radioactiveartz @bestwifehaver @idkwwhatimmdoiing @goodolefashionedloverboi @bringmethelow @thescribblerdragon @starman-jpg @lilaclilyroses @resident-gay-bitch @wolfscreations @adhdsummer @victor-thee-corvid @happymediummm @decadentworld @sidebarre @foundintheshallows @jamieweasley13 @yellowdevilkitten @catlovesfandoms @gryffindorsareidiots @thephantomhood

[teehee-vibes]

Guys, I think Grizzly hid lore in Dark Puckered Hole.

NOW JUST- JUST HEAR ME OUT. (Mieru, look away).

I’m not just talking about the potential purity culture of the Undersea being exposed through Finn’s self exploration… I’m talking RAFT lore.

In Chapter 69, “Behind Bars,” of Dark Puckered Hole, Finn Tidestrider is imprisoned “somewhere in the eastern sea” with another triton, who is on the brink of death. They fall in love and bang before the anonymous convict passes in Finn’s arms, but that’s not what I’m focusing on. Im focusing on the presence of another triton, an injured one, in the Oversea, especially the Sakura Ocean.

Historically in Mana, Finn Tidestrider was one of, if not, THE FIRST to leave the Undersea behind. A decade or so-so later, in modern day Riptide, there have been practically no other triton. Gillion, who was banished, and Edyn, who left to find and avenge him, are the only ones. Even more so, the only other Undersea characters are found in the Undersea (Unnamed NPCs in The Tank OR Felipe, a grung, being from Liquidus) or having left it behind for personal reasons a la Edyn (Caspian, a water genasi). When the Tidestrider siblings go around Allport, they have to wear cloaks to avoid standing out. There aren’t even other triton in Liquidus!

So how, why, is there another triton in the oversea? Finn himself is shocked by his presence. “In this prison, to find another man from the Undersea… my mind raced with questions.” He doesn’t dwell on this weirdness because his questions are drowned out by the sound of his blood beneath his skin, rushing downward, BUT it’s very bizarre, no?

Another detail: Why was the other triton on the verge of death? Of course, inadequate care, but could he have been thrown back into the cell like that? Whoever imprisoned them did not care about their lives. They could live, or they could die.

To go further, isn’t it kind of weird how Finn Tidestrider doesn’t specify where his imprisonment is? He is a very detailed author. He could have said one of the villages in Onawa Country or anything else to feed more detail into his writing, but he didn’t. I feel like the reason he wouldn’t be specific is because he himself was unsure exactly of where he was. He was taken in secret, likely kept out of sight while being arrested and transported to his cell.

I also have to wonder… who imprisoned them? I think you know what I’m getting at. I think RAFT did. RAFT has the resources. RAFT has the political sway. RAFT has governmental power. And it’s worsened by the fact that this imprisonment occurred in the Eastern Sea, the site of the Promised Bastion, where triton are imprisoned, tortured, skinned, and experimented on…

Judging by the fact that Finn refers to the other triton’s you-know-what as “a lighthouse to guide this lost sailor home,” Finn was likely a part of the Black Rose Pirates at the time. He couldn’t hide his presence in the Oversea as a crewmate for a pirate lord, let alone Captain Rose. Finn was on wanted posters, Finn was in newspaper headlines, Finn was a published author. I think RAFT had its eyes on him, but when they arrested or kidnapped him, it wasn’t for crimes of piracy… at least not on the surface.

I think this experimentation on Undersea people and gods has been going on for a long time, and Dark Puckered Hole could be evidence of this fact. Finn was intended to be a source of skin, of blood, and of magic for RAFT’s experimentation in the artificial leviathan and black ops projects. His lover was too, maybe already was (I say maybe because Finn doesn’t allude to the idea that he was physically ripped apart… that would have been unignorable). Finn probably only made it out because he’s that strong (in episode 82, when Drey is talking to and comforting Jay, he said Finn was terrifying when angry or passionate) or his crew came to his rescue.

I think political and military purposes against the pirates weren’t the only reasons RAFT wanted to ally with the Undersea. “Joining forces” with them led either to less suspicion as they funneled triton out of the ocean and to the recently abandoned Promised Bastion, or coming to dominate them allowed RAFT to simply take triton without enough pushback. Either way, without their Champion to rise against them (the one triton on the hooks accused Gillion of abandoning them), they’ve been taken en masse. And maybe Edyn’s collaboration with the navy permitted her some of this knowledge, and that’s how she knew to hide Gillion from prying eyes in navy territory.

Uhhh tldr: It’s weird that there’s an injured triton in the Eastern Oversea. I think DPH could imply that Finn and his lover were imprisoned by RAFT as test subjects for the artificial leviathan and black ops projects, proving the longevity of Fay Ferin’s plans.

[fanofstuff01]

PRISON AU IT IS!

AU by @rius-cave , although I added my own thoughts into it (For example, her idea was that Lute helping Adam but I wanted it to go more like the actual show, where I think Lute wouldn’t help Adam if he was a sinner.).

Tagging you @fightinsoda and @foreverpeachy2010 , hope you don’t mind.

Everyone’s roles:

People who’s in prison:

Lucifer: You’ll see

Husk/Hunter (I’m basic): Tax evasion/illegal gambling

Angel Dust/Anthony: That guy has a mafia family

Alastor: Spilling government secrets on radio (Still a serial killer)

Sir Pentious: Illegal weapon posession

Vox: Fraud

Valentino: Do I need to say something

Adam: Framed with murder

This is an all male prison yk

People out of prison:

Charlie: Law student

Emily: Also a law student

Vaggie: Fired cop

Lute: Cop

St Peter: Cop

Sera: Judge

Nifty: Canteen lady

Rosie: Prison nurse

Velvette: Crime partner of Vox, but managed to dodge going to prison

Do police officers can both patrol and do wardening? I have no idea. But this goes like that.

Also, sorry if this doesn’t has that much details. I tried not to copy @things-arent-what-they-seem66 ‘s fic. The next chapters will be better I swear.

ENJOYY!!!!

Also, I’ll post the new chapter of my favorite au a few hours later.

“Dad..?” A little kid came out from behind the desk where she was hiding and looked to his father. Why was his dad covered in red? And why wasn’t the person she didn’t knew moving? “Is he okay?”

“Don’t worry sweetie. It’ll be fine. You’ll be fine He can’t-“

“Stay away from her.” A slightly scared, but determined voice came from behind. “Charlie, come here.”

“Lily, you have to listen! He was going t-“

“I don’t care. Charlie, don’t go near him.” Lilith pulled her daughter to herself harshly and took her arm into her hands.

“I want to stay with daddy!” She fighted against her mother’s grip but she was too strong. Lilith gave Lucifer one more disgusted look and rushed to outside.

“LILITH!” Lucifer yelled as he wanted to go after them, but he froze when he heard someone shout.

“Stay where you are and raise your hands up in the air!” A police officer walked inside and pointed his gun to him.

Lucifer, who was still in shock, did what he said. He handcuffed him and guided him to a police car. He saw multiple polices around. Lilith was talking to one.

“I heard the intruder coming in. It was at my daughter’s room but instead of calling you, my husband decided to play the hero and end him himself. I’m hoping you will put an end to this.” Lilith’s eyes met with Lucifer’s, but she cut the eye contract. She couldn’t look him in the eye. All she saw was a murderer.

“I understand you ma’am. I hope you can get divorced easily.”

Lucifer then looked at his daughter. Oh, he could do anything to go near her, wipe her tears away, hug her and calm her down. Instead, he could just look at her. She teared her gaze from the stone floor and looked at her father. And at that moment, Charlie understood that her father wasn’t a monster like mommy said.

Lucifer only thought about how he failed as a dad while he was taken to prison.

— Today —

“Rise and cry you freaks!” Lucifer woke up with someone running their baton on the bars. It was loud.

“Mmmhm, that’s right! Get the fuck up before I make you.” He said.

Ah, of course. Officer Kadmon. A.k.a. the world’s biggest piece of shit. On his daily wisit.

“That mother fucker.” His cellmate groaned.

“Indeed.” He got up and grabbed one of his rubber ducks. Those always calmed him down.

“Whats the matter Morningstar? *random surname*? Uncomfortable?” Kadmon laughed at them, stopping at their cell.

“Nah, it’s more like a hotel to be honest.” He said calmly.

“Mocking me?” He hit their bars with his baton. “Too bad you’re not on the right position to do that right?”

“Don’t you have a better job to do?” The other guy spoke, annoyed.

“Aww, you don’t want me to break your other fingers? You want me to go the fuck away?” He said in a childish voice “Guess what! This is my fucking job you horse shit!” He laughed loudly, causing even more curse words. Shove that fucking stick up to your ass. Lucifer thought and stood up. Luckily the shithead didn’t realize.

“Goodbye bitches!” He kept walking but was immediately startled when the short prisoner squeaked the rubber duck on his hands near his ears. Nah, startled would be unfair. He literally jumped.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Morningstar!?” He tried to hit him behind bars but Lucifer was fast.

“Oops.” He chuckled and went back to his bed. It was worth it.

“Oh, do you wanna lose the privilege of your sissy hobbies?! I can make that happen!” He growled.

“Sure, sure.” He played with his duck, not caring about the screaming man.

“You’ll see, bitch.” He walked away to the other prisoners. “Back in your place huh, *Alastor’s surname*? I told them specifically to keep your cell empty!” He scoffed at the prisoner at the next cell, who hadn’t been around for a while because he escaped. Hunter said that it was Kadmon who caught and brought him back. Lucifer didn’t like Alastor, heck that prick thought he was being ‘creepy’ with his boring attitude. But at least he knew where he stood. Officer piglet didn’t.

“How nice of you, kind officer.” He could literally hear the smile on his voice. “I hope you had a wonderful week.”

“I did. Unlike you, pussy!”

— Awhile later —

Adam was on night patrol with Holly. He wished it was Lute, but that gal was nice too he guessed. She might be a gay, but she was still cool. He waited outside of a coffee shop as she got them some.

He was mumbling a song to himself when he heard a human voice coming from the woods. He was saying “You don’t own me.. You don’t own me…” repeatedly. He took his gun out just to be safe, he knew what kind of creeps there were at night. He walked off slowly there. There was an old man looking at him, and he was walking near him.

“Sir? Are you-“

“YOU DON’T OWN ME!” He screamed and made a dash to Adam, causing the officer to back down and pointing the gun at him.

And thats when he heard that. Someone shooting behind. Shooting the old man in the head right where he pointed his gun. He fell down, face all bloody.

Oh no.

“Oh shit. Shit shit shit shit!” Panic rose in Adam as he understood the crazy guy was dead.

“WHO’S THERE!” He shoot his gun at the woods. He heard someone else though.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” A guy, much saner than the old man came from behind. “YOU FUCKING KILLED HIM YOU CUNT! WHAT DID HE EVEN DO TO YOU!?” He pushed him away from the old man and looked at him. Adam couldn’t do anything as he saw the cries of the man.

Oh shit.

“Look, it was-!“

“YOU’LL PAY FOR THIS!”

He got up angrily, ready to beat the shit out of the police but then stopped when he saw the person had a gun. Instead, he ran to their police car in order to find another officer.

“WAIT!” He tried to track him down as he ran there. But immediately stopped when-

He heard a high pitched scream coming near him. It came from a woman who was just out of the coffee shop. She looked scared. “Officer, help!”

“No, look, it wasn’t-“

“Sir..?” Holly came rushing, she must’ve heard the woman, and froze when she saw Adam.

“Holly, you don’t-“ He tried to came closer to them but the guy yelled again.

“HE KILLED HIM!”

“I DIDN’T! Holly you have to-“ He shutted his mouth in shock as she pointed her gun at him, hands shaking.

“Don’t come any closer!” She stated. “Place your weapons infront of you and raise your hands where I can see them or else!”

“Come on-“ What the fuck?!

“If you don’t, I’ll-“

“Fine.” He did what she told. “Hey, what are you-“ He panicked even more when she reached him with handcuffs.

(Is this how this works? I have no fucking idea)

— After —

Adam was thrown to a court the following days. He came up with a lawyer, but there were evidence. The guy who saw him -he learned that it was his son- testified that it was him, and the woman did the same. And before you know it, he was charged for murder and sent to prison in an orange jumpsuit. He didn’t understood what happened clearly until he was placed in the middle of the general population of prison.

“Wait! I didn’t do that shit! It was a fucking mistake!”

“It surely was, wasn’t it, officer?” He heard voices behind him and felt all the color on his face drain away. He was fucked. He turned around only to be met with a huge group of inmates. They were almost like predators, and in this case he was the prey.

“What are you dirtbags looking at?!” He yelled, trying to keep his threatening posture. Failing miserably.

“Ohoh, a punching bag I’m looking at.” One of them said, mimicking the ex officer’s ex attitude. The others took this as a starting point and threw him to the ground.

Lucifer watched the prisoners beating the shit out of former officer. His cries and pleas were harmonic. It’d be easy to let the prisoners end him to be honest, but he knew a better way to humiliate him. Physical beating was something, but psychological beating… Its harm could never be measured. He decided what to do and jumped up his seat.

“ENOUGH!” He shouted to his fellow inmates. Everyone backed away with disgusted looks on their faces, still not wanting to let go of that fucker.

Adam heard calm steps coming near him and holding his chin. He muttered something and looked up to the other man.

Morningstar. It was fucking over.

Lucifer eyed the pathetic guy. He was either gonna pass out or puke. His face was ruined. Aren’t mister handsome anymore, he thought, he still remembered how arrogant this prick was before. He chuckled, karma had a cruel but pretty good sense of humor.

“Do you hear me?” He asked.

“Y-yes.”

“Then listen carefully.” He whispered sharply. “Because I will only speak once.” He grinned to the scared man.

“I am offering you a deal. You will be protected from physical harm, no one here dares to cross me. In return you’d give me your full obedience. You’ll be mine. You will always do what I say. Deal?”

“I-“

“Okay, then I’m leaving y-“

“Deal.” He quickly said, hating the sound leaving his lips. He didn’t wanna do this, all of his cells hated this. But this was his only chance. He could still hear the wolves. Cops weren’t welcome inside bars.

“Excellent.” He cupped his cheek.“Now get up. You need treatment. Rosie will do.” He held his hand out. Adam barely stood up but that was it. He passed out to Lucifer’s arms. He groaned, this guy was fucking heavy. He just let him slip and left him on the floor. He could call the nurse later.

“This mean we could end him now?” One of the prisoners asked with hope.

“No. Everyone, listen!” He called out to the crowd at the last part. “You will not be hurting him from that moment. I agree,” He raised his hands as he heard objections. “He deserves it. But I am just saying you can’t physically hurt him.”

“And why would we feel the need to not do that?” One particular inmate spoke. One inmate with a personal hatred against the former guard.

“Think about it, Alastor.” He came closer to the smiling, taller man, still keeping an eye out for his newest toy. “Humiliating him like he did to most of us is much better than simply ending that bitch, right? You must know the damage the words can do much better than everyone.” He looked up.

“You might be right. But it is no guarantee that he won’t try to hurt us.”

“Oh if he does, you are more than free to fuck him up right there. But until that happens, nobody will lay a finger on him. Understood?”

The crowd muttered yeses and okays, although not all of them looked convinced. Alastor just walked away simply. Whatever, he made the announcement after all.

“Hunter, can you help me with getting the big baby to the nurse?”

End of the first chapter! This took a lot more time than I guessed, but it was worth it!

Have a good day/night!