#its about loving yourself enough to push back against the system that is trying to break you because you dont deserve to be treated that way

[shhhhimwatchingthis]

ok yeah, I'm willing to put Young Royals up as one of, if not the best teen drama ever written

and not just writing! cinematography, costumes, music, performances! this show truly is a masterpiece

[dwaekkicidal]

Sharing is Caring [3: HyunLix]

˚ʚHyunLix x fem!Readerɞ˚

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ summary: Hyunjin and Felix take after their leader, using their way to push your body just far enough past its limit.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ word count: 4.4k

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ warnings: fem!reader, chanlix mxm mentions before the 1st divider, ot8 x reader mentions, chris x reader fluff in the very beginning, 'baby girl' and 'princess' used (1) time each, threesome, rough sex, mentions of chan/chris x reader and filming+sharing the video, hard(?)dom hyunjin, soft dom lix, overstimulation, filming, fingering, squirting, yellow from the light system is called (1) time, p in v (be safe about it irl), oral (f and Hyun receiving), spanking, slight aftercare mentions, that should be all?

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ notes: we dont talk about how late this is lol. Also sorry if the plot parts seem rushed >< I didn’t know what else to fluff it up with but there was already so many words so i left it as is lol

Sharing is Caring Masterlist

DO NOT republish or translate+post my work!

Chris’ hands roam up and down your back as the two of you lay on the couch in his dorm, you settled between his legs and draped lazily over his torso. His chin pokes at the top of your head as he strains himself slightly to look down, eyes sparkling with nothing but admiration and love. You stare up with a similar expression, a small smile taking over your features as the TV show is long forgotten.

“I’ve missed this.” His voice comes out hushed and quiet as he tries to keep this moment private, not taking even the slightest chance to wake up his roommates. It was super late into the night, past 2 am if you had to guess, and this was the first time in weeks he had gotten alone time with you.

You smile a little wider and nod, resting your cheek near his shoulder as a hand comes up to rest on his cheek. “It has been a while. The boys have been throwing me between each other so I haven’t had any alone time with you. Let alone one on one time with the others-'' He laughs before quieting himself again, “Yeah… They really have.”

A comfortable silence fills between you two for a while after that until you notice that Chris is making a weird face, a cute one though. It’s the face he makes when he’s thinking about something really hard so you poke him a few times, tickling him in an attempt to get an explanation out of him. He smiles at you again and thinks to himself as if he is trying to find the right words. “How do you think I should go about trying to sleep with one of the other boys?” The question makes you perk up and you stare at him with wide eyes.

“Sleep as in… have sex with?” You laugh lightly before laying back down against his chest. “Is this about Han?” He bites his lip and looks up at the ceiling. “Yes and no? Uh… basically that first night we opened up the relationship, Han told me that he messes around with Felix sometimes. I’ve always been interested in Lix, but it's gotten worse lately. I just don’t know how to go about it…”

You massage his ear as you get lost in thought, tenderly rubbing the area there in an attempt to calm his nerves. “I mean… realistically, you could just be honest with him. I mean, this is Felix we’re talking about. I don’t think you could offend him or cross a line with him even if you tried.” He chuckles and rolls his eyes.

“If it would make you feel better, I can tell him that you want to talk about something and get the two of you some alone time. I can even distract the boys for you if you need it.” You both laugh and he nods in agreement.

He deems it bedtime not long after that, helping you to your feet before joining you on the short journey to his bedroom. Already being in your pajamas, you just throw yourself on his mattress and groan when he throws himself on top of you. Some giggles are exchanged before he normally lays on his back and pulls you into his chest, smiling to himself as you nod off.

“Good night, baby girl. I love you.”

It was around noon the next day when you woke up. You were used to the feeling of the bed being empty thanks to Chris’ tendency to leave early and head to the studio with the other two producers. However, today was a little different thanks to an unknown figure who throws themself on the bed behind you, wrapping their arms around you and whispering a deep “Good morning.”

Hyunjin walks into your vision and smiles sweetly, laying down in front of you and snuggling close to you. He shoves his face into your neck and places tickling kisses there as you come to your senses. Felix pokes his head out from behind you and pulls you to lay on your back before assaulting your face with kisses, causing you to smile and wiggle between the two of them. 

After a while of cuddling and sleepy kisses, the three of you eventually get up in order to get some food in your stomachs. As you all ate, Felix explained that everybody else was busy doing their own things and he was lonely in the other dorm, so he came over to spend some time with you and Hyunjin. Then, once everybody ate, Hyunjin dragged you out to the living room to hang out with them despite your pleas to go back to bed and nap, which is how you all ended up cuddling on the couch watching Felix play Tekken (and losing miserably).

The boys sometimes snuck you kisses between rounds, conversing with each other and updating you about the newest songs or choreos as well as any promotions you were unaware of. You could tell something else was on their minds though. Between matches Felix would nervously bite his lip and try to sneak his hand to his neck, checking the pulse while he and Hyunjin exchanged weird faces at each other. You ignored it at first, but once Hyunjin started fidgeting from his spot beside you, you finally made them spit it out.

Now… Both men were aware of how you could squirt. Hell, the whole group was! They all witnessed it themselves when a 3-minute video was sent to the group chat a week ago: the video containing your lower half with Chris’ fingers shoved deep into your cunt that spewed a waterfall towards him and his phone’s lens. They all admitted how insanely hot it was, but ultimately moved on from it and hadn’t brought it up again. These two, however, just could not get it out of their heads. More so, they wondered if they could get you to that point and wanted to experiment.

And that is unfortunately how you found yourself in your current situation. An hour later with both men on each end of you; Felix sitting up on his knees with your head in his lap and Hyunjin between your legs, holding them open as he ate you out like it was the last meal he would get his hands on. They had spent the first 30 minutes or so minutes on foreplay, riling you up in all your favorite ways before you were even given the chance to undress. And since then, they managed to pull multiple orgasms from your body in this same position. They insisted on making you squirt their way instead of Chris’; meaning they slowly relaxed you and your body with foreplay for as long as they desired before using meticulous movements to overwhelm you. 

“You can do it, love. You gotta make a mess for us so we can fuck you.” The deep voice in your ear pulls you back down to earth and you shiver in his hold when his fingers return to your nipples like they had before your last orgasm hit. You can only nuzzle your cheek further into his thigh, letting out pathetic moans as the onslaught between your legs continues. Hyunjin never once pulled away from you, instead mumbling his response against your clit while his fingers hooked themselves inside of you.

They could tell you were close again and they worked harder, desperately wanting to see you squirt with their own eyes, not through the pixels of their phones. You knew yourself that you were almost to that point, you could feel it in your bones, but you also weren’t used to the gentleness of things. Chris always bullied his fingers in you aggressively, though extremely pleasurable at the same time, so you needed a little something else to push you over the edge. And, somehow, the younger of the two was already way ahead of you.

One of his hands was removed from your chest and in the corner of your blurry eyes, you could see him reach for a thin black object. The sudden bell-like sound of a recording beginning was played right next to your ear. You blinked away the blurriness in your eyes and watched as Felix panned his phone down to Hyunjin’s face, zoning in on the tongue licking shapes into your clit. He then moved the phone right under your face and zoomed in, letting you get an enhanced sight of the boy between your thighs and making you moan loudly.

Your eyelids tried to flutter shut but you held them open, desperate to watch the enhanced image of your beautiful boyfriend’s face that was glistening from your juices. Hyunjin caught on fast and tried to rile you up more, teasingly staring straight into the camera lens and licking a long and rough line along your clit. You even got a short glimpse of his tongue literally dripping from your cum as he pulled away to reposition his tongue inside of you.

Felix takes the chance to remove his free hand from your chest and reach forward, rubbing his fingers messily around your clit. It was all too much. Felix’s phone pointing at you as he humps the air by your head and occasionally pinches your clit mixed with Hyunjin’s long fingers bullying against your g-spot all while his tongue curves at the very entrance of your cunt and while he stares up at you intensely has you overwhelmed in all the right ways.

Your head is thrown back as you moan pathetically at the feeling of you gushing. Your legs desperately try to close around Hyunjin’s head, but Felix removes the hand on your clit and drops the phone on the bed to wrap his hands around the underside of your knees, holding them to your chest and giving Hyunjin the freedom to continue bullying your cunt.

With your head thrown back against Felix’s thigh, you don’t get to watch as Hyunjin backs away slightly, moving the hand that was resting on your thigh to rub roughly against your clit in order to pull more from you as his shirt gets completely soaked. While he does this, his long fingers continue to curve upwards and dig into your G-spot.

"F-Fuck! Wait!!" You moan out a cry and shoot your arms down to push his hands away, only for his now-soaked hand to come up and take hold of both of your wrists. They hold you tightly like this, keeping you in place as they push your body’s limits. What feels like hours of begging passes before you genuinely feel like you’re gonna pass out. The amount of wetness that falls from you has lessened more and more as they continue, but it hasn’t completely stopped so you knew they would have kept going.

“O-Okay, okay! No more, p-please- Yellow!" In an instant, Hyunjin’s hands stop their movements and Felix loosens his hold on your legs, finally allowing them to slam shut as the aftershocks take over your body. Felix’s hands move up to your head, where he strokes your cheeks and coos at you. He lays down beside you and kisses your forehead, whispering sweet nothings in your ears as you come down.

“Haha.. you okay, pretty?” Hyunjin’s hands rest on your calves, soothingly rubbing the area there as he waits patiently for an answer.

“You… You guys are fucking d-demons…” you gasp out with shaky breaths. “Even Chris didn’t try to push it for that long.” Felix giggles, pulling away from your ear to nuzzle his nose against your cheek. “We gotta prepare you, baby. I know Seungmin really liked seeing you squirt. ‘Said he was gonna learn from Channie how to do it fast so he can do it to you himself.”

Hyunjin leans forward and places soft kisses on your calves, “It’s better that we got to you before he did. You know how he is.” Instantly images of your past experiences with the boy in question flood your mind, and you clench at the thought of his mean-ass in Hyunjin’s place. 

“Fuck.. Don’t tell me that... That’s so hot.” They both chuckle and continue to dote on you, even long after your body has calmed down and your breaths returned.

“You gonna let us fuck you now, baby?” Your eyes snap open at the deep whisper in your ear. You glance down and watch as Hyunjin silently studies your lower half, now shirtless and taking in every little detail as if he wanted to paint you. Hell. He probably is going to. Felix’s hands rub up and down your tummy as a silent reminder that he asked a question. “Mhm.”

“Gonna let me take care of you?” Hyunjin’s damp fingers draw shapes into your thigh with your release, trailing some of it to your hole where he dips a finger in experimentally. You whine in agreement and allow Hyunjin to flip you over, landing you on your knees as he pulls you up against his chest. You smile and lean back, relishing in the warmth he gives off. His hand reaches up and tilts your head sideways, allowing him to lock lips with you. He smiles into the kiss and his hands roam all over your body, occasionally stopping at your hips to give your ass a good squeeze.

He pulls away slightly and speaks while his lips ghost yours, “Ready, Princess?” You whine out an “mhm” and he slides his dick through your folds, pushing in after the 3rd swipe. Moans fill the room from both of you at the feeling of him pushing in and stretching your walls farther than their fingers. He pushes his lips against yours again, pushing a few more inches in before stopping to let you adjust. It doesn’t take long, thanks to their onslaught earlier, and he easily finds a comfortable pace to start with.

Though, that one is quickly thrown out the window when your walls start to wrap around his dick tightly. Out of nowhere his right hand pushes against your back, shoving you forward so you’re on your hands and knees as he speeds up. Your arms wobble as he continues to fuck you, and you end up completely missing the dip in the bed in front of you. It’s not until Hyunjin’s big hand wraps into your hair and angles your head backward that you notice the pretty boy sitting in front of you.

It’s an uncomfortable angle, but Felix quickly distracts you by pushing his lips against yours. His right hand lovingly settles on your cheek as Hyunjin fucks into you, getting rougher with each passing second. Eventually, Felix pulls away, settling against the headboard again as he strokes himself sluggishly to the sight of you getting fucked.

Once he’s sat, Hyunjin takes the chance to go even deeper, now pushing your face into the sheets as he pounds into you roughly. Your hands clench the sheets and try to push your torso back up only for him to grab your arms and hold you down. His hands position on your upper arms and he uses some of his body weight to hold you down, keeping you still for him as he continues to fuck you open.

He goes deeper at this angle, faintly pushing against your cervix while simultaneously ramming into your G-spot. And when he’s fucking you this good, barely giving you time to think, your orgasm sneaks up on you all too easily. Tears fall from your eyes against the sheets and your legs shake as he drags another orgasm through your body. Your moans become choked as he continues to hold you down. He feels you cum around him and, thankfully for you, the clenching around him was all he needed to finish.

Your tight walls milk him dry as he rides his own orgasm, using you like a fleshlight while he does so. He moans loudly and thrusts sharply a few more times before slowly pulling out. Your body reacts with an aggressive shiver and he giggles, placing a kiss on your ass as his fingers try to soothe your arm in case he was too rough.

You’re thankful for it and it feels great, though it leaves your mind soon after due to how watery your brain has become. All the orgasms have started to catch up to you and your whole body feels like mush. You’re nothing more than a blob melted into the sheets as your boyfriends’ hands run all over your body. The only slightly grounding thing that pulls your mind back to earth is the deep voice that rings in your ears.

“How are you, baby? Talk to me.” You look up to see Felix hovering over you, face scrunched in concern. You chuckle at the sight of your boyfriend and wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him down into you and placing a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “‘M good, I promise. My body jus’ feels like putty right now.” You giggle again and he finally relaxes, leaning forward to place kisses along the tear streaks on your cheeks. 

Despite the sweet moment you share with your boyfriend, your worn-out body craves for more. One of your hands unwraps from his neck and rakes down his back, digging your nails into the skin there playfully. Then, the hand still around his neck wraps into his hair and tugs it lightly. He moans into the kiss and unintentionally bucks his hips against yours, growling as he pulls away. “Baby…”

You hold back a laugh and peck his lips, pushing him over and flipping your positions so that you’re straddling his hips. His still-hard cock is sitting directly under your crotch and you teasingly grind against it. He sighs happily and his eyes flutter shut for a moment and his hands reach out to grab your hips tightly.

“Can I ride you, Lixie?” His eyes snap open and he nods desperately. He dives a hand between you and grabs his base, angling himself upwards as you lift your hips. His other hand rests on your hip tightly and, once his tip pokes at your entrance, he pulls you back down into him. The slide makes you whine, still overly sensitive. But you’ll be damned if you’re not getting both men tonight.

Both of his hands rest on your hips, drawing circles into your skin there as you take deep breaths. You sit there for a while it seems because before you have time to adjust fully, a harsh slap is sent to your ass. You were caught off guard, not expecting such a powerful hit from the boy below you who tended to be softer with you. But then, you’re reminded that your other boyfriend was still in the room. The older man lands another smack, unhappy with your still unmoving form.

“What happened to wanting to ride him, Princess?” He wraps a hand around your torso, angling it up to wrap around your neck as his other rests just above Felix’s on your hip. He uses the grip there to start moving you, bouncing you up and down, albeit slowly at first. But you both know Felix doesn’t mind. Especially not when he has such a big smirk painted on his face.

Hyunjin continues fucking you up and down on top of Felix, occasionally squeezing your neck until you start to move on your own. Then he lets you go completely, causing you to fall forward and just barely catch yourself with your hands on either side of Felix’s head. You lose your rhythm for a moment, only for Felix to thrust up into you roughly as if to remind you what you should be doing.

His hands move down to your ass as you begin to ride him again, this time desperately chasing his orgasm as yours builds up fast again. You purposefully clench around him from time to time, thriving off the way he moans loudly and twitches at the feeling. Before you realize it, Hyunjin is kneeling beside you, pumping himself and looking at you with the sexiest smile ever.

However, you only get to admire it for a moment before his hand creates a makeshift ponytail in your hair and pulls you towards him. The new angle forces you to stretch a little and causes your hips to stop moving. They’ve pushed your body through so much in the last couple of hours, so you can’t help but lose focus all too easily. You can’t multitask and take care of them as much as you wish you could. So, you instead focus on sucking Hyunjin off and only grind your hips slowly against the man below you.

Felix whines, sighing loudly before lifting your hips a few inches. You’re not given any time to react before he plants his feet in the bed and starts to fuck up into you roughly. Your eyes roll into the back of your head and your jaw manages to drop further. Hyunjin laughs, the push and pull between the two men becoming more entertaining for him than anything else. He decides it’s his turn now and tightens the grip on your hair, thrusting his hips slightly each time he shoves you down, making you deepthroat him and choke around his dick.

You sit still, pliant even, as you let both men use you as they wish. You’re so close and you trail a hand between your legs, amidst all the bullying your cunt is receiving, and rub your clit back and forth. You moan loudly around Hyunjin as you cum, your orgasm crashing down on you just as intensely as the other ones. Felix’s hips falter due to your persistent clenching catching him off guard. His hips slow to a complete stop as he revels in the feeling of your walls fluttering around his dick.

And, thankfully for you, Hyunjin finishes soon after you do., the vibrations from your moans sending him over the edge. He watches with furrowed eyebrows and parted lips as you swallow around him and his teeth catch his lip as he pulls you off, whimpering slightly at the way you suck harshly to get every last drop. His legs twitch when you especially suck his tip hard, and he huffs out a laugh.

“Can’t go one day without being a troublemaker, huh?” He laughs and places a kiss on your forehead before backing away, allowing the younger to chase his own orgasm. He disappears after that and, had you been paying close enough attention, you would have noticed the sound of the bathroom door opening.

But you can’t be bothered by that. Not when Felix is pulling out and flipping the two of you again. He shoves you onto your back, pushing your legs up and to the side. One arm rests on his forearm by your head as the other positions his dick again. Your eyes lock with his as he pushes in again, moans falling from both of your lips as he sets a fast pace right away.

The eye contact is held as he pummels into you. His eyes break away from yours for a moment as he leans forward and pushes his chest against yours. Messy kisses are placed along your jaw as his thrusts become sloppy.

You thought the previous orgasm was your last, but when Felix drags so nicely against your walls and shoves his tip so meanly into your already bruised G-Spot, another one sneaks up on you. Your eyes snap closed and your legs try to close around his torso as you squirt again, this time soaking your other boyfriend’s stomach.

The sheer pressure coming from your cunt forces him out of you and he only laughs, pulling away from you as he watches you gush. He holds one of your legs open as he jerks himself off, using the new wetness as a lubricant. He finishes on your stomach soon after, voice jumping back and forth between deep groans and high-pitched moans as he milks himself dry at the sight of you.

You both sit there, chests heaving and heavy breaths filling the room. His eyes rake up and down your body as he catches his breath, his hands mindlessly rubbing up and down your sides as he tries to help you calm down. Your eyes meet and he smiles widely, eyes crinkling at the corners as he giggles at you.

“You did so well, baby. I can’t believe you did it a second time…” He giggles and crawls over you, hovering over you as he pushes his lips onto yours. “Lixie…” You whine against his lips and wrap your arms around his neck. He pulls away and pushes his lips against your jaw once more, “No more, Honey. Time to clean up, okay?”

Hyunjin’s voice suddenly comes from the bathroom, in a very dramatic ‘over the intercom’ voice. “Baby 1 and Baby 2, if you could please make your way to the shower so I can give you some lovin?” You and Felix laugh at the same time and you continue to lay in your spot, even after Felix has stood on his feet. He drags you by your ankle to the edge of the bed and, despite your groans and whines, pulls you to stand with him.

The two of you wobble over to the bathroom where Hyunjin is standing in the shower. He smiles and curls his finger, gesturing to both of you to join him under the steaming water. Felix taps your ass playfully, sending you stumbling forward. Both men laugh as you stick your tongue out at the younger and speed-walk your way to Hyunjin.

The three of you squeezed into the shower and, thanks to the newer dorms, the shower is big enough to comfortably accommodate you all. They take turns washing you off and you help them wash each other off while some soft kisses and tender caresses are exchanged in the cooling water.

Your body is still shaky by the time you’re fully dressed and tangled in the new sheets with both your lovers. You’re sandwiched between them, covered by the fluffy comforter, and basking in the warmth of their bodies that are tangled with yours. Hyunjin is the first to fall asleep, cheek squished against your chest as you lay on your side facing him. Felix is behind you, one arm holding his head up and the other rubbing your shoulder softly, easing you into a slumber. Right before you give in to your exhaustion you’re reminded of your earlier conversation with Chris.

“Ah- Lixie?”

“Yes, love?”

“Channie said he wanted to talk with you about something.” You smile and wiggle your eyebrows before sleep finally takes over you, leaving a very confused Felix who just shakes his head at you mid-laugh.

Taglist:

@valkyriexo @lunearta @jabmastersupriseee @rylea08

@yaorzu-blog @amararosesblog @jiminssluttyminx @clemissleepy

@miss-daisy04 @kittyxnoa @dwaekkiiracha @bubblerizz

@baby-stay92

[oddinary4bts]

Love is a Laserquest | choi san

☆summary: years after your break-up, Choi San comes to you for help. In an attempt to save his life, you escape to your uncle's cabin in the woods far from civilization. Will nostalgia and longing make you fall again, or is Choi San just spinning more lies to you?

☆pairing: gangster!Choi San x female!reader

☆rating: 18+ (minors DNI)

☆genre: gangster au, exes au, angst, smut, a smidge of the one bed trope

☆warnings: guns/gun violence (mentioned), knifes/stabbing (mentioned), a bounty over San's head, death of a minor character (named Jungkook my bad), blood, injuries, stitches, probably some wrong medical terminology bc optometrists don't stitch up people lmao, a panic attack, cursing, pet names, explicit content: oral sex (female receiving) -> face riding, let me know if I forgot any!

☆word count: 16.5k

☆a/n: Here's my submission for Outlaw: The Project hosted by @ssaboala. It is coincidentally my first time posting about another group than bts, so I hope this won't disappoint! I really enjoyed writing it (even though it's really sad oop). Also my first time making a moodboard so hopefully it works haha

☆a/n pt2: thank you to @moonleeai for being my ever-so faithful beta reader, love you lots <3

☆☆☆☆☆

And do you still think love is a Laserquest? Or do you take it all more seriously? I’ve tried to ask you this in some daydreams that I’ve had But you’re always busy being make-believe

Love is a Laserquest – Arctic Monkeys

☆☆☆☆☆

The diner is silent, unoccupied. It always is on late weekday evenings, when most patrons have gone to bed, the city falling under a carpet of hushed silence only night can bring forth. It makes the diner feel like it’s straight out of a 70s movie, and it makes for the perfect study sessions too.

Night isn’t always soundless in your part of town. Hence why you’ve been trying to escape, pursuing an education that has been leaving you penniless, but with a bright future ahead. If you make it out of med school at a certain point, that is.

Tonight, you fear the peace that night usually entails has been ruined for you – there were gunshots earlier, close enough for you to see the police cars racing past as the law officers made it to probably yet another gang fight.

There’s been a gang war on your side of town. The diner has always been safe, a refuge for both sides of the war, where they aren’t allowed to fight. To carry in weapons and hatred. No, the moment they cross the threshold of the diner, the gangsters become one family, sharing struggles that only poverty can cause.

You wipe a table clean before walking back towards the counter. Your open laptop waits for you, and you quickly read the study guide you’ve made for yourself, the cardiovascular system and its pathologies forming a maze in your mind that you’ve yet to decode. Luckily enough, you still have a week before the bloc ends and you have to take the exam.

Plenty of time to cram everything about the heart in your thick little skull, you’d say.

Your lips move in time with what you’re reading, attention solely focused on the bright screen when a thump is heard right outside the door. It startles you, and you turn around to see the empty street out of the glass door.

It takes you about ten seconds to notice the dark form sitting on the ground. They’re leaning against the door, head lolling to the side. You assume it must be someone that’s ended unhoused, something that happens far too often where you live.

You’ve always been kind. When you were younger, you were told your kindness would be your demise. Yet you’ve never been able to be anything but kind, even though sometimes it might put you at risk. So you can’t resist but walk to the front door, trying to push it open.

It’s useless – the weight of the person is keeping it tightly shut, though they do straighten a little, as if coming to their senses. They turn, and the moment their profile comes into view you’re brought back eight years in the past. To a time when the world was still a beautiful place, void of violence and cruelty. To a smile so sweet it made flowers blossom on your heart, and to eyes so sharp you knew they had read your soul.

Choi San is sitting outside the door, and the caked blood on his cheek tells you enough – he’s injured. He pushes away from the door before slowly getting up. He clutches his side as he does it, yet when he turns back towards you and faces your horrified eyes, he still offers you a smirk.

You push the door open, thinking about the years between then and now. You had dated him for a few months that had felt like forever, until you had realized in what kind of business he was getting involved with. You had tried to convince him to flee before it was too late, and he kept promising that he would.

Only he never did, hiding lies with beautiful words that made your teenage self swoon, until your parents had realized and forced you to break up. It had been a nasty break-up, filled with hatred and words you didn’t mean yet had needed to say for him to leave.

You remember breaking his heart like it was yesterday.

“Choi San,” you greet him, and when he lets go of his side, you notice blood on his hand.

Something runs cold inside of you, even though he still sports a smirk on his lips.

He says your name, bowing his head. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Months, in fact. Because he does come to the diner sometimes. He usually ignores you, and so do you, so it feels strange to have him speak to you. To hear his voice as his words are addressed to you.

“What…” you trail off, glancing down at the ripped fabric of his black tank top.

He’s got a mean cut on his ribs, and it’s only then that you truly realize that he’s badly injured. Because there’s more – one of his biceps has been sliced open too, though blood is barely oozing out of it in small rivulets. The blood on his cheek is from where you assume he’s been punched with rings, and there’s already an underlying bruise under his eye.

“Got beaten up,” he states the obvious, and you immediately open the door wider to let him in.

He limps in, heading towards the nearest booth, where he plops down and lets out a pained grunt. You make sure no one is outside before shutting the door and locking it, flipping the hanging sign on it so it says closed in case a patron decides to show up.

You take a few steps towards San, hands shaking slightly at your side. Because that’s a grown man, bleeding out on the leather seat of the booth, and his eyes are shut though he looks in pain. You don’t know what you’re supposed to do. You haven’t yet started your residency, haven’t really gone from theory to practice… Yet you’re studying to be a doctor, are you not?

“Why are you here?” you ask, though you’re pretty sure you know the answer.

“Didn’t know where else to go,” he says, wincing as one of his eyes opens. He tilts his head to look towards you. “Word around the block says…” he pauses, takes a deep breath before continuing, “that you’re studying to be a doctor”.

So you are right. He’s here because he needs your help, and you’re not quite sure how you feel about it.

“Why…” You look for words, and it takes you a moment to realize that it doesn’t matter.

For all the history between you and him, Choi San doesn’t deserve to bleed out to death on a cheap leather seat in a forgotten diner on the dangerous side of town.

He has the decency to chuckle at the start of your question, which only makes him wince in pain once again.

“Don’t move,” you tell him, and it’s a little stupid because clearly, he’s in no state to move.

He doesn’t question it, and you run to the kitchen to thoroughly wash your hands and grab the first aid kit. At night, no cooks stay around, and you usually only reheat food if needed, which doesn’t really happen. You haven’t had any client coming in at night in weeks… until San, that is. So no one is there to see what is going on, which you reckon is a relief. Because you have no idea what’s going on.

You return to the booth where San is waiting, patiently. He’s clearly wiped his hand on his face because there’s fresh blood on his forehead, and you almost balk at the sight of it.

“What have you done?” you mutter, more to yourself than to him.

It seems he’s still in sync with you because he still hears. “Got involved with the wrong crowd.”

You put the first aid kit down on the table, ignoring his eyes when they flutter open, and he rests his gaze on you.

“I don’t know if I can help you,” you say as you unzip the kit and throw it open. You spare his side a quick glance. “This looks like you’re going to need stitches.”

He makes an effort of looking down at himself, though it mostly fails as he doesn’t raise his head from the seat. “Right.”

You grab everything you think you might need – alcohol swabs to clean his skin, fresh linen to bandage his side and arm, and stuff for his cheek too. He carefully observes you, with that piercing gaze of his that used to make you go crazy inside when you were young and impressionable.

You vaguely motion at him, and he cocks an eyebrow. “What?”

“Are you able to sit up?” you ask. “I can’t reach you if you’re lying back like this.”

His pink tongue darts to wet his lips, and he nods curtly. “Let me…” he trails off, resting a bloody hand on the table while he grabs at the back of the booth to push himself up. It has new blood appearing on his side, and you quickly move towards him, putting some linen against it.

As if it’s going to do anything. He clearly needs stitches, and you’ve got nothing with you to stitch him up.

“Fuck,” he curses lowly as he’s finally sitting. You just keep the linen on his side, eyes a little wide.

Your gazes connect inevitably, and time slows. You think about how he used to smile, how his eyes used to hold a softness you haven’t had the chance to see again since he’s walked out of your life.

Or rather, since you kicked him out of your life.

“I don’t think I can help,” you whisper, and his eyes flicker to your lips.

“I can’t go to the hospital,” he admits, shame turning his features into a mask of regret. “They… If they find me, I’m dead.”

Dread fills every ounce of your being. “San, what have you been doing?”

He looks away from your insistent gaze, scoffing slightly. “You don’t want to know.”

He isn’t wrong; you genuinely don’t want to know. Because he means nothing good, even with all the memories you share with him.

“Is it going to put me in danger?” you ask, as he still obstinately avoids your gaze.

He seems to freeze in front of you, as if you’ve pressed pause to your favourite show. To avoid the awkwardness, you busy yourself with grabbing one of his hands so he can hold the linen in place before you start washing the cut on his arm. It’s not deep, but you’re pretty sure it’ll still leave a mean scar, especially considering he can’t go to the hospital.

The thought has a drop of cold sweat roll along your spine. People want him dead. People want Choi San, the man you know as a young, scared teenager just trying to find a way to make his life better, dead. You remember the innocence in his smile – has he smiled at all in the years apart?

“I should go,” he says flatly. He moves to stand, but you hold him down, two hands firmly placed on his shoulders. It makes him wince, and you quickly release your grip.

“Don’t,” you tell him. “Let me at least patch you up.”

His eyes shut again as his head hangs low. “I am so sorry.”

You don’t even know who he is apologizing to, or why he is. All you know is that it causes your heart to clench in your chest, stealing the breath from your lungs.

When you were younger, you believed San was your star-crossed lover. You believed your high school sweethearts romance would grow until you’d be old and grey and at the end of a very long road. You had dreamed of a future with him, the way only teenagers can dream – with no sense of reality. Because your reality had never been to end up by his side.

His choices had been proof enough of it.

You still remember the day you first kissed. Under an August meteor shower, with just the night sky as your witness. It had been hesitant, slow and soft, just like everything with San. And you had believed the lie, trusted it with every beat of your little heart, until your parents had found out the truth about him.

Until they had broken your heart, even before you had broken his.

If the stars had known then, what was going to happen to you and Choi San, would they still have shone through the night?

He lets out a pained sound as you gently dab at the cut on his bicep. You clean the skin around the wound in and of itself, and he watches you carefully, piercing gaze not missing how your face clouds with memories.

“How have you been doing?” he asks so softly you think his words are a gentle summer breeze on your features.

You can almost still smell the summer night air of that field where you had stargazed, where you’d always meet so long ago.

“I’ve been okay,” you answer, truthfully. Because even though you haven’t seen him, you have lived your life apart from him. Have evolved without him by your side. “Better than you, visibly.”

He didn’t expect the joke. It makes him snort, and then a soft smile grows on his lips, softening the edges of his hard features. “You haven’t changed.”

You have, and yet you haven’t. Like him, you think there’s a part of you that is still sixteen, and will forever be. A part of you that remained stuck in the moment when you watched him walk away in the rain, as if even the sky had to cry for his broken heart.

“Wish I could say the same about you,” you murmur, nostalgia a melancholic song in your words.

He chooses to remain silent, because the proof of how much he’s changed is sitting right in front of you, wounded and bleeding and hurt. The hurt is behind his eyes, in the shadows of the past that have also been obscuring your vision.

“Yeah,” he lets out, barely audible.

And then silence reigns between you, because as much as you once loved him, eight years have made you strangers. You don’t know anything about his life except the dirty, obvious darkness that surrounds him, and he doesn’t know anything except that you are studying to be a doctor…

Which leads you to wonder how does he know in the first place?

You ask him, as you’re wrapping the linen around his bicep to make a makeshift bandage. You’re proud of the result, though your fingers can’t resist but linger on the taut skin over his muscle, surprised at how soft it still is.

“I’ve heard you mention it,” he admits, as you take a step away to look at the material on the table, as if it’ll suddenly make stitches appear for you to put them in his skin. “One of the times I was here.”

“You never said hi,” you reproach him, unable to hide the ghost of a bite in your tone.

“Neither did you,” he points out, and he isn’t wrong.

All you can do is purse your lips as you finally decide to clean his skin. But for that, you have to rid him of his tank top, to make sure there’s no fabric in the wound. You look at him, cheeks somehow burning even though all you’re doing is taking care of a patient.

Though he’s not a patient, and you’re not in a hospital. You’re just a server at a dusty, old diner and he’s just your teenage lover, wounded by his dangerous actions.

“Should I grab scissors to remove your shirt?” you ask, though you’re speaking to yourself more than to him.

He still finds it in him to tease. “You want me out of my shirt?” he enquires, smirk gracing his lips again. “Say no more.”

He tries moving, but you hold up a hand to stop him. “Don’t,” you warn. “You’ll make it bleed more.”

He purses his lips, because nodding. “Right.” He glances at the first aid kit, before his eyes trail to your face again. “You got scissors in that?”

There are. You grab them, before turning towards him. It feels strange: you’ve never undressed him before. You had always wanted to wait, back then, before you slept together. You believed you were too young, and San had always respected it.

“Let me know if I hurt you,” you tell him as you take a step closer to him.

He slightly leans back, furrowing his eyebrows. “What do you plan to do with those that might hurt?”

You roll your eyes, playfully, before taking the two other steps leading to right in front of his legs. You notice that they are slightly parted, allowing you to come closer, and you take a steadying breath before reaching between you, pulling at the fabric of his tank top.

“Stay still and you shouldn’t get hurt,” you whisper, ignoring the heaviness of his piercing gaze on you.

It burns right through you, and you have to tame the beats of your heart at the feeling of the warm skin of his shoulder against the back of your fingers as you bring your other hand forward, until you’ve started cutting his shirt.

It’s stuck to his side where blood has dried, and he winces but remains still and silent as you keep going, pulling on it a little harder to be able to cut. The moment stretches into infinity, because you can���t help but take your time. It reminds you of how you’d used to run your fingers on his back, under his shirt, when you napped in the field in the summertime. In an idyllic world where gangs and violence and war were mere inventions of the media, and not a reality that surrounded you.

You’d loved the field. The wildflowers, the open air, the way it was just you and him and a few lazy bumblebees as clouds lazily crossed the sky above. You were so young then, so innocent. Hands unstained from blood, from his blood.

Because as you cut, the hand touching his shirt stains with blood. You pale at the sight of it, but you keep going, pushing through until you’re done, gently pulling the fabric from his body until he’s sitting there, shirtless, with a long wound on his ribs.

You can’t help but notice his toned chest and the defined abs on his stomach. Though blood mars his skin, turning it into a piece of violence, Choi San is still beautiful. Beautiful in a dark, dangerous way that has you glance outside, making sure no one is looking.

But the streets are empty, void of life at this time of the night. At least, they mostly always are.

“You will need stitches,” you state again as if you both don’t know already.

“I can’t…”

An idea forms in your brain. It’s a stupid idea, and you don’t even know why it crosses your mind.

Your uncle has a hunting cabin far in the woods. He’s a nurse himself, and he’s always kept everything over there in case someone got injured and he had to stitch them up. You haven’t gone in forever, but you still remember the tall trees, the deep forest scent that reminds you of autumn and leaves and grey days spent reading by the fireplace.

You never went hunting, but you did accompany your father when he went, needing an escape from the city once in a while. An escape from a life that was slowly becoming too real.

Your uncle is currently halfway across the country, so you know you’d be alone at the cabin. You glance at your laptop over your shoulder – you have three days off in front of you before your next class on Monday. Indeed, the Friday class is pre-recorded and to watch online in your free time, and you figure you can always watch it some other time.

So you turn towards Choi San, almost surprised that he’s real and he’s still sitting in front of you, honey skin cut open on his ribs.

“I might know a place where you can go,” you admit, with a small voice, surprising both you and him. Because you doubt he expects you to want to help, after tonight.

“What?” he asks.

“My uncle’s cabin,” you remind him, because you’ve told him about it all those years ago. “He should have all that I need to stitch you up.”

San looks down at himself. “You’ve just cut my shirt open.”

It sounds a little dumbfounded, and you can’t help the nervous laugh that falls from your mouth. Because even though it doesn’t look too deep, the wound still is terrifying in and of itself.

“I’ll bandage it,” you whisper. “Before we go.”

He seems like he ponders for a time. You watch the debate across his features, his eyes falling to a spot on your chin. He looks sad, troubled and defeated. “I can’t… I can’t do this to you.”

You ignore his words, carefully washing his side. You avoid the cut and try to be as gentle as you can, but his muscles still flex as he clenches his fists from the pain.

He’s strong. That much hasn’t changed. Because he doesn’t make any sound as you finish washing him and then patch him up with those same careful hands. And when you move to his face, cleaning the blood, his eyes flutter shut, and he sighs softly.

He looks so much like he looked then that your heart aches, and you find yourself blinking away tears for this man who’s had it so rough he believed joining a gang would save him.

“I should have come to you before,” he murmurs. “You’re much gentler than Hongjoong.”

You don’t know the guy he mentioned, and you don’t feel like asking. Don’t feel like acknowledging his words, so you just finish with his cheek before stepping away from the peaceful aura that was treacherously pulling you in.

Like all those years ago, you reckon.

“Let me make a call,” you say, turning away from him as you move to the counter. You feel the weight of his eyes between your shoulder blades as you get your phone from next to your laptop. You call your boss, and as someone that’s never called in sick before, you feel anxiety flush through you.

Because you’re not sick. And how could you tell him that you need to take care of your ex-boyfriend of eight years ago?

Seokhyun picks up on the first ring, voice groggy with sleep when he mutters, “Hello?”

“Boss,” you greet him. You scrape your throat and spare a look towards San who’s watching you curiously. “An emergency came up, and I have to leave the diner.” You swallow the lump in your throat that’s formed from lying, and then you add, “There haven’t been any customers all night, so I was wondering… would you be comfortable with me closing for the rest of the night?”

Your boss says your name, a little reproachfully. But then he sighs, because he knows just as well as you what a good employee you’ve always been. “Are you going to be able to come in tomorrow night?” he asks.

You pull at dry skin on your bottom lip, assessing San’s state. You could always come back to the city for work…

“You know what, I know you’ve got that big exam coming up,” your boss says, sighing into the phone. “Why don’t you take the next week off so you can take care of your emergency and focus on your studies?”

If Seokhyun wasn’t a fifty-three year old married and father of three children man, you think you’d ask him to marry you right now.

“That would be really helpful,” you tell him, gratitude dripping from your voice. “Are you sure that won’t be a problem for the diner?”

“The diner won’t lose profit if it closes for three nights in the week,” he points out. “I’ll see if I can get you replaced for the evening shift on Sunday.”

You thank him again as he grumbles that it’s nothing. He wishes you good luck, and when the line goes silent, you finally meet San’s gaze again.

“All sorted out,” you tell him, offering him a nod. “Let me just close the diner, and then we can go.”

He nods, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. He observes you as you do so, quickly closing the diner like you’ve done about a hundred times before, though this time you’re far more excited to go. You grab a plastic bag to put away the bloody swabs, and though he groans in pain, San gets up to help you clean the blood that stained the cheap leather of the booth.

Soon enough, you’re ready to go, and you walk outside with the plastic bag in one hand and your backpack on your shoulders as San chuckles, looking down at himself.

“Do you have a shirt for me?” he asks as he follows you out.

You lock the door behind you before glancing at him. He’s quite the sight, naked from the waist up and bandaged like he is, and you can’t help the small chuckle you let out as you glance towards your car, that’s luckily parked right in front.

Though it’s a deadbeat car, you trust it enough to know it’ll make the trip to your uncle’s cabin, even in the middle of the night.

“My ex left some sweaters on the back seat,” you admit as you unlock your car doors and open the trunk to put your backpack and the plastic bag in there. There’s no chance in hell you’ll leave a plastic bag full of bloody swabs near your work.

You see San nod from the periphery of your vision, and then he’s opening the door to the backseat. “Your ex, huh?” he mutters as he grabs a sweater you used to love wearing and that you haven’t convinced yourself to give back to Hyunmin.

He carefully puts it on, and you’re pretty sure just the motion is going to make blood seep through the bandage. Somehow, you don’t care that it might stain Hyunmin’s sweater.

Hyunmin was a cheater, and even though you never really loved him, it took you months before you found the strength to break up with him. Needless to say, he doesn’t deserve his clothes back.

“Yeah,” you flatly say as you move towards the driver’s seat. You sit, and San follows you, naturally, as if you’ve done it a thousand times before.

As you turn the keys in the engine, San asks, “Have you dated a lot?”

You bristle at the question, shooting him an embarrassed look. “Have you?”

“No,” he replies, features fully serious.

You purse your lips, focusing on the road as you start driving. You need to put gas in the car if you want to get to your uncle’s cabin, so you make your way towards the closest one. It takes you a moment before you register how San has stiffened next to you.

“Can we…” he trails off, and he sinks in the seat, trying to hide. “I can’t be seen here.”

You immediately press on the accelerator, and your car speeds down the street as you pass in front of the gas station. You glance at San only when you’re stopped at a red light. He’s pulled the hood of the sweater over his features, and he’s doing his best to hide.

“Where can we stop?” you ask.

“Next town over,” he answers. “I just can’t be seen in Bangtan territory.”

Right. You have no knowledge of how the gangs have divided your city, but you’re not surprised Bangtan has this part of town. It’s the industrial area, and you assume there’s a lot of money to be made around here.

“Sounds good,” you gently say, and then you’re driving again, the light turning green, allowing you to speed away into the night.

You drive silently all the way to the next town, watching your city disappear to be replaced by trees until buildings reappear. San is looking outside the window, and you can’t help but wonder how he’s been doing, truly. How he managed to get injured like he is right now, and mostly, if his dreams of running away still occupy his thoughts.

He had begged you, the evening you had broken up with him. Told you he’d make enough money to be able to move with you across the country and build yourself a nice little life over there. You had wanted to believe him for so long, until your parents had opened your eyes on just how he was trying to make money.

“Do you need anything?” you ask as you finally reach the gas station, pulling into the driveway. You park next to a pump, turning to face him only to find him already watching you.

“I don’t have money to pay for food,” he admits. He shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I lost my wallet in the… altercation.”

You gently put a hand on his forearm. “Hey, my treat. We have to eat.”

He inhales deeply, letting out the breath slowly, before he nods. “Alright. I owe you.”

You reckon he’ll owe you for a lot more than just food at a gas station, but you choose not to say it. Not when you feel like someone’s watching over your shoulder, watching you drive away in the night with the person they are looking for.

You know it’s paranoia. No one followed you out of the city and into this town. It just feels too strange to have him here, with you. In your car, on the way to your uncle’s cabin, as if eight years have gone out the window. As if you can still be young and innocent.

It’s stupid, because you can’t. Time has changed him; time has changed you. And in just a few years you’ll be a doctor, and you’ll finally get out of this hellhole of a city, of its dangerous streets.

Of its equally dangerous man, that you know could probably pull you back in with one of his many well-crafted lies, one of the dreams he weaved expertly, whispering it into your ear.

You take a deep breath before getting out of the car. You go into the station, grab snacks for the next few days and then head to the counter. The guy behind nods as you approach, and you pay for the food and for gas before wishing him a good night and returning outside. San is still squatting in the car, clearly trying to hide, and you put the food on the backseat before putting gas in.

You watch his profile as you put gas in the car. Back when you were dating, his features weren’t as sharp, as glass-cutting as they now are. He used to sport a rounder face, but today you wonder if you’d get a papercut on his jaw. You wouldn’t even be surprised.

When you’re done with gas, you sit back next to him, and you quickly bring the engine back to life before pulling out in the street. As soon as you exit the city, darkness falls on the two of you, tall trees standing on the two sides of the road again. San doesn’t speak much, and it doesn’t take you long to realize he’s dozing off next to you.

“Hey, everything okay?” you ask, suddenly worried that he might have lost too much blood. Which, you reckon, you should have thought about earlier.

He sighs, glancing towards you. “Just tired.”

“Don’t…” you trail off. “Don’t fall asleep.”

He chuckles. “You’re afraid I’m going to die on you?”

“Choi San,” you warn. “Don’t you dare say stuff like that.”

He smiles, but you reckon he’s a little pale. Or at least you think he is, in the silver light of the moon up above. “I think I’m fine. Just…” He offers you a weak smile, though you’ve returned your attention on the winding road. “Just exhausted. I haven’t slept in three days.”

Worry clutches your heart, and you nibble at some dry skin on your bottom lip. “What’s been going on?”

He slightly shrugs. “I can’t tell you. I don’t want to put you in danger…”

“Am I not already in danger by just helping you?”

The silence is telling enough. And it remains for a while until San finally speaks.

“I was in a gunfight a week ago. Accidentally shot the youngest member of the other gang. He didn’t make it, and the gang has put a bounty on my head. Ateez took my gun and told me to run; I laughed in their face and said I wasn’t a coward. Then I got attacked by two guys with knives earlier, and I made it to the diner because I had nowhere else to go.”

Now the silence is deafening, heavy, and you think you’ve altogether stopped breathing. You’re struck with an image of San in the summer sun, smiling wide as he put a flower behind your ear, claiming you were the most beautiful girl he had ever met. The contrast with who he is now – a product of night, shrouded in darkness with no hint of that smile on his lips – is stark. And you wonder when’s the last time he has seen the sun, when’s the last time his life wasn’t violence like this.

When you say nothing, he scoffs, resting his head against the window as if it’d allow him to escape. Because clearly he wants to escape – he’s just told you that he’s killed someone after all.

And you don’t know what to say. Don’t know how to react to someone confessing murder. All you can do is stare at the street ahead, hoping you won’t end up in a gunfight with San. Because where would that lead you, other than in the dramatics of death?

You don’t speak for the rest of the ride. You don’t think he sleeps either, and dawn is clinging to the far horizon when you get to your uncle’s cabin, in a secluded forest that seems straight out of a fairytale. Instead of bringing you awe like it usually does, the sight of it makes you think of all the murder mysteries you had been obsessed with when you were younger, before you realized how horrible the real world truly is.

Neither of you move, as you turn off the engine of the car, and you fall into even more of a tensed silence, though this time you can hear the chirping of the early birds. It’s peaceful, so peaceful you can barely even grasp how tangible the presence of San is next to you. The presence of his actions too, looming between the two of you like a sword of Damocles.

You move first. Putting a hand on the knob, hoping to escape the heaviness into the dawn. San speaks before you can though, and your heart stops in your chest.

“I never meant for him to get hurt,” he murmurs, and you think he’s speaking to himself more than to you. “Everything went too fast, my gun was in my hand and I just… in situations like these, you don’t have time to think.” He leans his head against the headrest, eyes closing. “All I can picture since it’s happened is him falling and blood. Like a fucking blossoming rose, all around him.” He rests his closed fist on his forehead, rubbing it hard. “I haven’t been able to sleep; I’ve been sick every time I’ve tried to eat…”

“San,” you interrupt as you break and break for him. Because this is the San you know. This is the young boy that just wanted to escape and live in a better world. You can almost taste his remorse, taste his regret and shame. It’s poisonous, treacherous, a slippery slope that can’t lead anywhere good. “Let’s get you in. I want to get that cut on your ribs checked.”

He falls silent, and for a moment you feel guilty. Because what if he had more to say? You don’t even think you would have been able to listen. You need the escape, and you know he’ll permit it. Because the man next to you is a broken man, a fracture of what he could have been.

You step out of the car, blinking away tears – from the anxiety, from the exhaustion, and perhaps even from the pain you feel for him. He follows you, wincing as he swings his legs out of the car. He stumbles a little as he stands, but soon enough, he grows steady on his feet, and his attention moves to you. You climb the stairs of the cabin, lifting the rug to find the small trap that leads to the spare key. The padlock is rusted, but it stands strong as you put in the code, and a click is heard when you pull on it.

A few seconds later, you’ve unlocked the front door, pushing it open to reveal the cabin as you remember it. Not a single item is out of place, though dust covers everything, a clear indication that no one has been here in years. You let San in, before going back to the car to get the food you bought, bringing it in and putting it in the fridge. Three full gas canisters hide under the counter, and you sigh in relief – you’ll be able to get the generator on for some electricity.

You motion to the kitchen table. “Have a seat,” you tell San, who somehow looks like a lost puppy. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”

He nods, remaining silent, eyes downcast. You only move when he’s seated, heading to the bathroom area of the cabin, where you startle a spider that almost makes you scream out loud. You keep it in, heart beating out of your chest as you get the kit before moving back into the main area.

San is leaning against the chair, eyes closed. He senses you approaching, and one of his eyes cracks open to watch you carefully, a little like he did earlier, at the diner. It looks so similar to how he used to look at you, when you joined him at the field, that you stop in your tracks, heart squeezing once again.

You don’t like the way Choi San is making you feel, that’s for sure.

“Take off the sweater,” you tell him, putting the kit down on the table. You put some clean linen next to it, to put what you need over it, before washing your hands with the disinfectant you find in the kit. You put latex gloves on after, and then you fish wire and a surgical needle from the first aid kit that you carefully put down on the linen once you’ve torn the packages open.

As you were doing all of that, San took off the shirt, struggling a little as it meant he had to lift his right arm, which pulled at the skin of his ribs, where the cut clearly has started bleeding again. Though, if you’re honest to yourself, you’re pretty sure he’s been bleeding this whole time, even though it probably was just some fine rivulets.

Indeed, the cut isn’t all that deep, you remind yourself. Mostly because you don’t want to even think about the consequences of the blood loss. As long as he stays awake, you figure he’s fine – he would have lost consciousness a while ago if he was losing a lot of blood.

You remove the bandage you had carefully put in place earlier, wincing at the sight of the blood that’s seeped through it. San keeps his eyes close, lets you clean his skin again in peace, and you feel sick to your stomach as you realize you don’t have any anesthetics for the pain that stitching him up will cause. Indeed, the pocket in which your uncle usually leaves the lidocaine is empty, and you remember that he’s had to use it for your dad when he accidentally cut himself with a machete last summer.

“Huh,” you let out. You chuckle nervously. “It’s going to hurt like a bitch.”

His eyes narrow, and he clenches his jaw. “Don’t worry about it.”

You worry at your bottom lip, holding his gaze as you gauge if he’s serious. When his gaze doesn’t falter, you offer him a curt nod, before getting the wire and needle ready under his watchful eyes.

You hand him some linen. “To bite on,” you explain as he just cocks an eyebrow quizzically. That makes his gaze widen a little as if he’s just now realizing how serious you were about it hurting, but he takes it nonetheless.

You think about the theory of how to stitch someone up. It was in your previous block – you watched hours of videos of it in an attempt to desensitize yourself to it. You don’t think it compares to the real thing, but at least you’re somehow confident of what you’re doing when you start.

San startles, groaning in pain, and you offer him a glare. “Don’t move, or it’ll be worse.”

A drop of sweat rolls down his temple, but he still nods. Even as you keep on stitching him, he remains as still as he physically can, though you don’t think he even notices how he’s trembling. Or maybe that’s you – you don’t even know.

Somehow, you make it through the whole thing. You think San might have passed out at some point, but he’s wide awake when you finish the knot to keep the stitches in place, looking up to meet his face.

He’s panting and tears of pain wet his waterline. He blinks them away as he takes the linen out of his mouth, dropping it on the table.

“Fuck,” he curses.

“Let me…” you trail off, mind set on getting something to at least help him cool off, because he’s clearly been heating up.

You grab a washcloth and a small bucket, and head outside to walk down to the lake. You fill the bucket halfway, and take a few seconds to observe the calm surrounding you, hoping that it can ease the nerves rolling inside your heart like dark clouds do on the horizon whenever a storm is coming. You feel it in your bones – you have a murderer in your uncle’s cabin.

You have to keep that in mind. To not let Choi San in like you did when you were a young impressionable teenager.

You sigh, closing your eyes to breathe in the fresh morning air. The sun is peaking over the horizon now, and you bask in its hesitant rays for all of twenty seconds before you convince yourself to go back in. You’ve got a patient to take care of, after all.

San hasn’t moved an inch while you were outside. The only indication that he hasn’t died on you is the groan he lets out as you put the wet washcloth on his forehead. You tap his cheek gently, as if to say, ‘suck it up, I’m just trying to take care of you’.

Which is exactly what you’re doing, isn’t it?

You watch him carefully for a few seconds before tapping his shoulder this time around.

“There’s a bed,” you remind him. “You’d be better passing out in a bed.”

He groans again, cracking an eye open. “I’ve just been repeatedly poked with a needle,” he drawls. “Give me a second.”

It makes you laugh. Because of the nerves, maybe. You’re not quite sure. All you know is that you’re laughing, and San opens his second eye to look at you as if you’re crazy. And you laugh for longer than you should – you’re exhausted after all, especially considering you haven’t slept since yesterday morning. So far, adrenaline has been keeping you going, but you can tell you’re about to crash.

“Sorry,” you apologize once you calm down. “This has just been…”

“A lot,” San finishes for you. “I know.”

You nod once before glancing at the doorway to the bedroom. It has no door, as your uncle and your dad usually come here alone and they don’t mind sharing a bed. It makes you realize that you’ll have to share it with San, which you reckon you should have thought about before. Because there’s no way in hell you’ll share a bed with him, especially after he’s told you why he’s being hunted.

There’s always the option of going into town later today so you can get a sleeping bag and floor mat to sleep on. But you’re far too tired right now to even consider driving, so you motion to the bed once again.

“Stick to your side; I’ll stick to mine.”

He smirks though he’s extremely pale. A lot paler than he was before, and you swallow a sudden lump in your throat. Because what if he dies? What are you supposed to do with him if he dies?

“You’ll have to help me to get to the bed ‘cause I don’t think I can move,” he says once his smirk dies. He curses under his breath. “I’m so pathetic.”

You put your hand on his shoulder again, reassuringly, eyes holding his. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re hurt. Everyone is pathetic when they’re hurt.”

He gulps before nodding once. It takes everything in you not to offer him more comfort because you feel like the slope would tilt forwards far too much if you did. Instead, you help him to get up, wincing as he puts most of his weight on you, clutching his side with one hand. You’re infinitely aware of how his skin is sticky with sweat, but you ignore it as you slowly walk to the bedroom.

You can only hope the stitches will hold because you don’t think he’d be able to withstand another round of them.

You finally reach the bedroom and help San sit on the side of the bed. He sighs, eyes shut tightly, and he doesn’t move for a time. When he does, it’s to stiffly lie down on his side.

“You might want to sleep on your back,” you inform him. “I don’t want you rolling around and messing up the stitches.”

He glares at you, though he looks like he’s already half out of it. You hold his gaze until he gives in, turning on his back with a deep sigh. You arrange pillows around him to make sure he’s not moving, and by the time you’re done, his breathing has already evened out.

For a moment, you just watch him sleep. You see him in the field where young love blossomed like a trillion wildflowers. You can almost breathe his pollen again, can almost feel the softness of his skin under your fingertips.

But he’s not what he used to be. Back then, you felt like you had discovered something new. Love, infatuation, affection, and desire, all in the form of the man sleeping next to you. You’d used to kiss, dance and sing to a song only your souls knew, and now you don’t think you recognize him anymore.

As much as he is him, he’s also but just the ghost of what he was. He’s trouble, danger in the shape of innocence, and you recall his words from earlier. You recall the despair, the regret and sorrow that haunted him after he told you. You can’t let him get to your head.

You reckon sleep might help. Though you’re afraid he’s going to waste away in his sleep, so you set up an alarm every hour, before climbing on the other side of the bed. You don’t pull on the covers, mostly because the cabin is warm, and you can imagine it’s just going to get hotter as the sun goes up and the summer heat slowly sizzles into the countryside.

It’s a good thing you put an alarm on. Because when it rings an hour later, you don’t even remember falling asleep. You’re pretty sure the second your head touched the mattress, you were out to the land of dreams. You groan, mostly because you’ve got a slight headache, but you power through it to make sure San is still breathing.

When you see his chest moving up and down steadily, you let yourself fall back asleep.

This goes on for the whole morning, and you only force yourself to stay up when your phone shows that it’s passed noon. As you had suspected earlier, the cabin has gotten extremely warm, so you force yourself out of bed to open all the windows, and then you use the washcloth from earlier to gently wash San’s face of the sweat.

He doesn’t even flinch in his sleep, but he’s still breathing and for now, that’s all that matters.

You head back to the main room, grabbing a pack of chips from where you had left the food earlier, and then you move outside to sit by the lake. Mostly because you need to put distance between you and San, but also just because the childhood memories of this place have you in their hold, and they’ve decided to make you miss the times when you’d swim around with your cousins before both of them had moved out of town.

One day, it’s going to be you too. You already know where you’d go – on the other side of the country, as far away from here as possible. You just want to forget all about the place you grew up in, and you know that, in a few years, you will have forgotten.

Though you’re pretty sure a certain piercing gaze will haunt you forever, especially after the events of today.

When another hour passes, you head back inside, putting the empty bag of chips in the trash before you check up on San. He’s still asleep, but this time he doesn’t look as pale as he did earlier. You assume it’s going to take him a while before he wakes, so you head to the nearest town to grab more food. Mostly to busy yourself, but also just because you know San will need a place to hide for a lot longer than just the weekend. Might as well make sure you have enough for him to survive a couple of days. In town, you also stop to eat at a small café on a small terrasse in the shade of a few trees, and then you grab the food you think you might need at the grocery store.

It’s the middle of the afternoon when you get back, realizing that you forgot to buy a floor mat. As you spy San, who hasn’t moved an inch since he’s fallen asleep, you figure that sleeping next to him tonight should be fine.

As long as his presence in your vicinity doesn’t drag you down memory lane again.

You bought some meat in town, so you head to the little shack outside where the generator is hiding. There’s a gas canister right next to it – also full – and you busy yourself for the next twenty minutes trying to figure out how to get it started. When it finally rumbles to life, you head back inside to put the meat in the fridge, which has finally come to life.

When you hear a groan, you quickly jog to San’s side, fully expecting to find him awake. Surprisingly, he’s still asleep, and you stay next to him for a full minute, thinking he might groan again, though he remains entirely silent.

If it wasn’t for his chest moving up and down steadily, you��d believe him to be dead. But now that a few hours have passed, you’re pretty positive he’ll make it, though he’s probably going to sleep through the day and possibly through the next one too.

Which leaves you in the most peaceful atmosphere you’ve been in for a while, with the opportunity to study as you listen to the rush of wind in the leaves of the tall trees surrounding the cabin. You sit outside, this time near the fireplace, and you study until your stomach grumbles, indicating that it is time for you to cook.

You cook the meat you’ve bought on the grill outside, feeling thankful that your dad once showed you how to use it. You go back in to grab a bottle of water before you eat, and you’re bent in the fridge when you hear San moan again, and this time it sounds like he’s saying something.

You gently close the fridge, making your way to the bedroom. San hasn’t moved, but his features are creased in a frown, and sweat is rolling down his temples. You wet the washcloth, gently wipe his face, and you’re about to leave when he moans again.

It takes you far too long to realize he’s apologizing. What for, you can’t really tell. Though you remember his troubled eyes this morning, you remember his story, and your heart breaks in your chest.

He’s haunted. You think the ghost of the dead guy will probably haunt him for the rest of his life. And suddenly you’re struck thinking maybe, maybe if you hadn’t broken his heart all those years ago, you could have saved him from the gang.

Maybe you could have opened his eyes.

You still remember the break-up like it was yesterday. You remember the rain, him leaving without once looking back, but mostly you remember the words you had uttered. Ghosts of their own, that feel more real now that he’s come back into your life.

*****

                “You’re going to get hurt!” you yelled. “You’ll get hurt, San. What are you thinking?”

He scoffed, shaking his head, and little droplets of water shot all around him. “I’ll be careful. We need the money if we ever want to make it out of this shit town.”

You blinked away tears, folding your arms on your chest as you tried to keep your heart from breaking. Though you reckoned it had broken when your parents had told you what they knew about San. When your father had mentioned Ateez, and you’d truly realized what it meant that he was part of a gang. San, your sweet, soft, and bubbly San, in a gang that had murdered someone just a few weeks ago.

“But that’s not a way to make money!” you screamed, hoping he’d understand. Hoping he’d hear the truth in your words, hoping he’d change his mind before it was too late. “Why don’t you get a part-time job, like me? Then we can go to college and get jobs in a nice city on the other side of the country!”

“It won’t work,” he drawled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I want to be out soon, not in a few years. I barely even have a roof over my head, Y/n…”

“Come live with me,” you choked out around the lump in your throat.

You both knew fully well that your parents would never let him come near you again.

“I can’t.”

You cried, hiding your face in your hands. You cried thinking of the field where you usually met, thinking about its beauty now fading into ugliness. You thought about the wildflowers, withered and dead as autumn had come. You thought about how you were convinced you knew what love was.

“What’s the point?” you asked then. “What’s the point of putting your life in danger? Life isn’t some sort of a game, Choi San. Worse, what if you have to hurt someone? Do you think you’ll be able to pull the trigger?”

He clenched his jaw, hard. “Do me a favour and stop asking questions.”

You closed your eyes, feeling sick to your stomach. Because it couldn’t be. Not San. Not your smiley San, who’d always weave dandelions crowns with you, as you’d pretend you were a queen and a king of that field you had found. An empty field, an abandoned farmland that was just yours and his to explore. That had been home to your first kiss, and all of those that had followed.

Now you wondered why he had always wanted to meet there in the first place. Was he trying to hide?

"If you love me, you’ll get out while you still can,” you said as your tears suddenly ended.

There was a weird sense of clarity in you, suddenly. You remembered the day you had fallen in love, the moment you had first kissed. You remembered the stars in the sky above, the meteors falling for the two of you. You remembered the music on the radio you had brought. Some Arctic Monkeys song about heartbreak, about moving on and failing to do so. As a joke, when it had ended, you had asked San, “Do you think love is a laserquest?”

His answer had been cryptic, mysterious, things that had made you believe he was the one. “Maybe. Maybe it is, and I’ve shot you in the back while you weren’t looking. Maybe I’m that annoying player that won’t leave you alone.”

“I’ll never find you annoying,” you had replied.

But today, watching the rain rolling down his face like tears, you realized that maybe, maybe you should have seen the warning behind his words. Because this betrayal, it came like he had shot you in the back – you didn’t think you’d be able to recover from it.

The past dwindled away as San spoke again, reminding you of the question you had just asked him. “It’s not a question of love, Y/n. I do love you. But it’s a question of survival.”

You laughed, coldly, and then you said, “You know what? You’re full of shit.”

“Alright then. Do me a favour and tell me to go away.”

“Go away.”

A long silence had lingered between you, voided of that summer warmth that had you falling in love. Like a piece was missing from the contract of you loving him, and him loving you. And you realized, maybe you had never really loved each other anyway.

He nodded once when you didn’t say anything else, before turning away. And you watched him walk away. You watched him thinking he was going to turn around and tell you this was just some twisted joke, the prank of the century. Only, he never turned around, and he disappeared behind the bend in the road, never to be seen again, cracking your heart open and splitting it in half.

*****

                The sun sets, like an ending to a dream. You’ve always liked the end – you think if you could choose, you’d want to witness the end of the world. The nostalgia, the beauty of endings… it’s something you understand now that you didn’t understand when you were younger. Because you and San ending, it had led to you focusing on high school. It had allowed you to get in the good college in town, with a scholarship that covered most of your expenses before you made it to med school.

There’s beauty in knowing losing San has allowed you to live out your dreams.

There’s less beauty in knowing that San has been sleeping for almost thirty-four hours now. Last time you checked, he was still breathing, but you’re starting to be afraid that he just won’t wake up. It’s irrational, you know – after the blood loss it makes sense that he’d sleep for a long time.

But it leaves you with far too much time on your hands to think and revisit the past. You’ve been doing it all day – thinking about the fight with your parents that had led to your break-up with San, thinking about that damn rainy evening he had walked away without once looking back. Thinking of the field, of sunshine and star falls and the sweetness of a first kiss. Thinking that, then, you thought you knew what it was like to be in love.

You haven’t dated anyone serious since San. Hyunmin was a distraction for a while, but you never were into it. Not like you were into San. There’s a guy in your class though, that you’ve been chatting with for a couple of weeks. He’s sweet, innocent, and the perspective of a future seems less scary with him around. He’s mentioned he wants to move across the country once too, and since then you’ve started talking more, the similarity of your wishes drawing you closer.

All day today you’ve been feeling like you’re slowly drifting away though. Slowly getting entrapped in a web you’re not sure you’ll be able to walk away from.

You decide to swim, seeking the fresh clarity only cold water can bring to you. You don’t have a swimsuit with you, but since San is half-dead in bed you figure it doesn’t matter. So you strip naked, feet making squelching sounds in the mud by the lake side as you step in the water.

The sharp cold has you holding your breath, but you don’t slow down. You’ve never slowed down in life – when you make a decision, you bring it to completion. And you’ve decided to swim, so swim you will.

The warm summer evening breeze catches in your hair as you take another step forward, the water now lapping at your thighs. You dread the moment it’ll hit your core, knowing that that’s the worst part, but you breathe in deeply, moving forward. Because there’s no moving backwards now.

When the water hits, your eyes flutter shut, and you hold in the wince that threatens to escape the mask of calm your features hold. Soon enough, you get deep enough to swim, and the movements bring welcomed warmth to your limbs as you flop on your back, tits out of the water.

Your uncle’s cabin is the only cabin in a fifteen miles radius. You know you won’t be interrupted, and so you let the water cool you down. Calm you down, hold you in its fresh embrace. It undoes knots in your back that have formed from worrying about San, but also from worrying about college.

From worrying that you will never be enough. You think it’s a normal anxiety to have, something most people must feel as they go through the trials of college, not knowing what to expect on the other side. A nice career, perhaps, though the perspective of failure is there too, looming over the horizon.

You sigh, and your eyes flutter open as your legs move mindlessly under you, making sure to keep you afloat. You look up at the azury ceiling over your head, so far away as it slowly turns gold. Out of touch, out of grasp. You watch the fluffy white clouds that are lazily crossing the sky, turning fiery in the sunset, as if they have all the time in the universe. And you wish you were them, up above. With nothing to worry about.

Without a Choi San on the brink of death lying about twenty meters away from you. You sigh, and you turn in the water, with the purpose of swimming again. Though your gaze catches movement by the cabin, and your head snaps towards it to see none other than the supposedly Choi San, standing on the deck with a hand clutching his side.

You shriek, looking down at yourself. Most of you is hidden, but you don’t know how long he’s been there. Don’t know if he’s seen you naked as you looked up at the sky.

He doesn’t move, only watches you where you’re swimming.

“Can you please look away?” you say from the water, and he has the nerves to lean against the railing, eyes still boring into where you’re swimming. You think his gaze might be so hot the water will boil, and it startles you into action.

You start walking out of the water, pointing towards the door. “You shouldn’t be up, Choi San.”

“I feel fine,” he says as you take another step forward, and the water barely hides your tits anymore.

That makes him turn around, as he offers you a little bit of privacy. You’re quick to get out of the water and wrap yourself in the towel you brought outside, and then you collect your clothes to head back to the cabin. San dutifully keeps his gaze away until you’re climbing the three steps leading to the deck, and it’s then that his eyes trail to you again.

“Thank you for the water,” he says, offering you a tentative smile.

You left water by his bedside earlier today hoping it will coax him to wake up. You’re strangely surprised that it worked.

“You should go sit inside,” you scold him, only half-heartedly. Because seeing him up and about reassures you, somehow.

He cocks an eyebrow, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “The weather is beautiful, I’d rather sit outside.”

You roll your eyes, but you do let him walk down the stairs to sit by the fireplace while you go inside to take a quick shower and get dressed. You decide to make some food for him, though you know he shouldn’t eat too much right now, after not having eaten for a while. He has to start slowly, and you don’t even know if he’s hungry anyway.

You settle for preparing a cup of chicken noodle soup for him, so at least it isn’t too heavy on his stomach. You bring it to him outside, as he’s just calmly observing the lake.

“Thank you,” he says, voice small as he grabs the cup and the spoon.

You sit next to him, trying not to watch him eat too much. His hair is sticking to his forehead in some places, and you have the distinct thought that he’ll probably need to shower. At least there’s plenty of rain water in the bucket for the water pump.

“What have you been doing while I was out?” he asks.

You spare him a quick glance before losing your gaze in the rocks of the fireplace. “I’ve studied. Checked up on you. Not much honestly.”

He chuckles. “I’d argue that caring for someone is a lot.”

You glance at him, cheeks burning at the sight of his teasing smile. “Not really.”

He chuckles again, but doesn’t say anything more before eating another spoonful of soup. He’s almost done with the cup when he actually does speak, asking, “How long was I out?”

“A day and a half,” you answer. “I’m actually surprised you haven’t slept longer.”

You can hear the smirk in his voice when he says, “I’m made of tough stuff.”

You snicker, but you don’t say anything, just focusing on where you’re kicking at the dirt. When he’s done with the cup, he puts it down on the ground next to him, before sitting back in the chair. He stretches out his legs in front of him, sighing deeply.

“I still feel out of it,” he admits, and you meet his gaze.

“You can sleep more,” you tell him. “I’d just like to check on the…”

You don’t even have to finish your sentence. He immediately turns so his side is to you, and you have to admit you’ve done a perfectly good job with the stitches.

“So?” he asks.

“All good.” You pat his shoulder. “You can sit comfortably again.”

He’s smiling when he does so, and his gaze wanders to the lake once again. “I’m sorry I…” he trails off, and he chuckles softly. “I’m sorry I interrupted your little swim earlier.”

You have the decency to flush furiously red, and you shrug your shoulders. “No worries, I wasn’t expecting you to be up so soon.”

You fall in a comfortable silence, surprisingly so. Rare stars dot the darkening sky up above, and all that can be heard for a moment is the flap of a bird’s wing as it moves from branches to branches in the trees by the water. The breeze picks up as you watch the little bird, and the leaves dance, loudly so. You’d think it’d be deafening in the silence between you and him, but it’s strangely reassuring.

As if, after all, you found your way back to the field. Only this time it’s completely different, as if decades have passed between you. At least, that’s how it feels like.

You notice San has dozed off in the chair next to you when you were about to speak to him again. To ask him how he’s truly been, in the years between then and now. Hoping to avoid mentioning what led to him coming to you, yesterday, a whole eternity ago.

You watch him, heart aching in your chest. Aching to reach out and brush his hair away from his forehead, aching to heal the cut on his cheek with a gentle swipe of your fingers. If only medicine was so simple…

It seems the peace of the early evening wasn’t going to stay around, because you notice dark clouds rolling in the distance, streaks of lightning cutting through them. Slowly inching closer, menacingly so, and you gently wake San up with your hand on his wrist.

He startles awake, hand shooting to his waist, finding nothing there. It startles you, and you both stare at each other for a moment until you realize what he was looking for.

His gun.

“San…” you let out and he runs his hand through his hair, eyes falling shut as he breathes in and out raggedly.

“Sorry.”

“San, I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t open his eyes, refuses to let you see the vulnerability you glimpsed behind his piercing gaze. Refuses to acknowledge that he’s terrified, deadly so.

“Let’s go in,” you tell him, softly. Because you’re afraid you’ll spook him, when he’s clearly been living in fear long enough. “There’s a storm coming.”

He nods, carefully getting up without sparing you a glance. He heads inside, hand clutching his side again, while you pick up the chicken noodle soup cup before following him.

You’ve refilled the generator before swimming, so you know it’s been charging the batteries for a while now. You don’t fear ending up in the dark with San, and there’s also always the option of using the lamps and candles your uncle always leave here in case of an emergency.

The storm doesn’t roll in until a little later. You’ve forced San to put a shirt on – mostly so your eyes would stop betraying you, dropping to his toned body whenever he talked to you. You’re currently sitting on the couch, and as the rain starts, hammering against the window behind you, you pull your legs to your chest, wrapping your arms comfortably around them.

“How hard do the storms hit here?” he asks, eyes trailed to the world outside.

You follow his gaze, right as wind picks up to make the water hit the window even harder, creating a cacophony that forces you to speak louder for him to hear. “Pretty hard.”

He nods, and he glances once at you. “Fun.”

You smile, because you’ve always liked storms. Have always found them electrifying, energizing.

“Do you remember when we used to go to the field when it rained?” San asks, taking you by surprise.

Making your heart clench so hard in your chest you have to take a wobbly breath in. If he notices he doesn’t say.

“We were always in that field,” you remind him. “No matter the weather.”

It’s his turn to smile fondly. “It got so pretty with all the wildflowers. But you were afraid of the bees.”

“Bees are scary!” You laugh, and he echoes it with a soft chuckle. “You’re the one that almost pissed yourself when we saw the rat.”

That makes him laugh, and he winces in pain clutching his side. “Gosh, is it supposed to keep on hurting like this?”

It douses your enthusiasm and your smile falls. “Well, it was a solid cut.”

His eyes get lost in the void as he takes on a wistful expression. “I’m surprised I didn’t die.”

You gulp, watching his profile carefully. “It wasn’t deep enough for that…” you trail off, even though you spent most of yesterday and today being convinced he’d die. “At least they didn’t… stab you.”

“They would have if… Wooyoung didn’t shoot.”

You remain silent, not knowing what to reply to that. San interprets that as discomfort, and he quickly adds, “He didn’t shoot them. Just… in the air. It attracted the police.”

You remember the cars zooming past the diner a lifetime ago, and you nod your head. “I heard.”

He seems surprised, and his gaze finally finds yours again. “You did?”

“Yeah.” You chuckle, a little awkwardly. “I hear a lot of shootings, in the diner.”

His eyes widen, mouth falling open cutely. “You do?”

You don’t know what he expected. The diner is right between Ateez and Bangtan territory, and as much as it is a safe space, it is also near enough to dangerous grounds, and you’ve heard plenty of shooting in your time working there.

“Always,” you admit. “It can get scary sometimes… but you also get used to it.”

He looks sad. Infinitely so, like a lost puppy. That’s when the first thunder hits, so sharp and sudden you startle. Not quite as much as San, who ducks, wincing in pain as he clutches his side.

“Shit,” he curses. “Sorry.”

“What’s wrong?” you ask, in time with another thunderclap, though this time it’s more of a rumble.

You watch his chest as he breathes in and out quickly. “Just… fuck.”

Now, concern grows in you, and you gently put a hand on his shoulder. “San…”

He meets your gaze, and there’s so much white in his it makes you think of a terrified prey. And then it clicks: he thought it was a gunshot.

“Hey,” you quickly say, moving closer to him. You’re on the side of the stitches, so you still keep a safe distance between the two of you, but you grab his hand nonetheless. “You’re okay.”

“Fuck,” is all he’s able to say.

“I promise, no one’s going to find you here.”

He remains silent this time around, eyes still boring into yours. You take that as a cue to continue, because you don’t want him to panic. You want his thoughts here, with you, and not miles away in a city he should have escaped from years ago. You wish he had, knowing the atrocities that he would have avoided.

Would he have escaped with you, had you stayed just a little longer?

“I killed someone,” he says, and you balk at the silver lining his gaze. “I fucking killed him.”

You don’t know how to help. All you can think to do is cup his cheek, right as he starts breathing even faster. “Breathe with me, San.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes fall to your mouth. You make a good show of inhaling slowly, before exhaling even slower. It takes him a moment but he eventually follows your lead.

It breaks when there’s another sharp thunderclap, and he flinches, eyes shutting instinctively.

“Hey hey hey,” you say again, even more gentle, softer than before. You move even closer, and when a tear slips out of his closed eyes, you pull him into a hug, careful not to brush his side.

His head falls on your shoulder, and one of his arms wrap around your waist. A thunderclap later, he starts sobbing, fist balling the fabric of your shirt in his tight hold, and you let him do it. You let him hold onto you, hoping it’ll keep him here with you. Hoping it’ll keep him afloat during the storm that’s raging both outside and in his mind.

“It’s going to be okay,” you breathe, and you feel like you’re lying to him.

Because how can he ever be safe from the ghosts inside of his skull? The ghosts wandering the halls of him, tainting his soul with their presence?

“He’s never going to smile again,” San chokes out. “Everyone loved him. Even in Ateez… Jungkook was the best of us. The only one who had a shot at getting out of it.”

You don’t know how good he could have been, if he was a member of Bangtan. In your mind, you’d always seen Bangtan as the bad guys, mostly because they weren’t with San. Even when you had been struggling to evade that life, you’d still rooted for him.

It’s strange how you just realize that now, as you’re holding him while he breaks.

“You didn’t mean to kill him,” you remind San, still speaking with the calmest voice you can muster up. “You didn’t want to, San. You’re not a murderer.”

“I’m still a killer,” he says. He sounds angry, and you reckon he might be angry at himself. Might be consumed with his actions, dragged to hell before his time as his mind gets stuck replaying the events.

“Maybe,” you answer. “But,” you quickly add when he stiffens in your arms. “But you can spend the rest of your life making up for it. Repenting.”

He doesn’t respond right away, as he breaks some more, sobs rocking through him. You’ve never seen him like this, not even when you were younger and in love. It makes your gaze wet, yet you hold on strong for him. You keep your head held high, and you allow him to break in the safe haven that your arms represent.

Because to him, you’ve never been tainted. You’ve always been the ideal he was trying to pursue, albeit the wrong way.

“I don’t know how to repent,” he admits when he calms down. He turns his head, and his nose brushes along the skin of your neck, slightly tickling you. You ignore the feeling, especially as he adds, “Ateez… it’s all I’ve ever known.”

You run a hand on his back, soothingly. “It isn’t.”

Because there was you, too. There was the summer field and the twinkling stars and Artic Monkeys on the radio. There was the two of you, petal-soft kisses exchanged in the dead of night and in the brightness of day. There were rainy days, and then there was rain. There was him walking away, and you hate yourself then.

You wish you had stopped him that day, had kept him from going on to become what he’s become now. A person he clearly hates, someone that has a bounty on his head. Someone that doesn’t even believe they’re allowed redemption and you reckon you don’t even know if he is.

You only know that seeing him break is bending your will, the way the wind outside is bending the trees. All you can hope is that, like the tall trees, you won’t break.

*****

                The storm calmed down sometime around midnight. San ended up falling asleep on the couch, as you’d reassuringly ran your hand through his hair, trying to keep him with you. Though you think he’s been slipping through your fingers, into his demons.

You’ll find a way to bring him back. You have to. Turns out it comes faster than you think, as the electricity runs out and you busy yourself with lighting some candles throughout the main room. When you’re done, you put a blanket over him, and you almost let out a startled scream as his eyes shot open.

“Hello,” you say, resting a hand on your heart to tame the wild beats.

You’re about to move away, but he grabs your hand, forcing you to sit next to him. You don’t really resist, though you think you probably should. You’re weak – weaker still when he murmurs your name.

“San,” you whisper in return, and you’re aware your voice carries too much longing. Longing for a past when life’s atrocities hadn’t changed either of you yet.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologizes, and a tear rolls on his cheek.

You dry it, fingers lingering there. “It’s okay.”

“Angel…”

The nickname brings you back to laser quests and favours and warmth creeping up your stomach for the first time in your life.

“I’m no angel,” you breathe.

“You saved me.”

You hold his gaze. There’s something hiding behind his pupils. The need, to forget. You don’t think you have the ability to run his mind through amnesia, but still you brush his cheek again.

“You deserved saving.”

His eyes glaze once more, though this time no tears fall. “It’s hard to believe it.”

“Do you still believe love is a laser quest?” you ask him, out of the blue.

As if you’re a line straight of that Arctic Monkeys song you listened to the first time you kissed.

“Maybe,” he says, a parallel to that first time you had asked the question. “Maybe it is.”

You can’t resist. You lean down, and you press the gentlest kiss on his lips. His are dry, but the way he sighs with you against him is soft, for your heart and for your mind, and you kiss him again. He lets you lead, follows the dance of your lips, lets you run your hand through his sweaty hair.

Even if you shouldn’t. Even if you know everything you’re doing right now is a mistake, you still find yourself deepening the kiss, opening your lips to slip your tongue out, teasing his mouth. One of his hands finds your thigh, and he squeezes ever so slightly as his tongue finds yours, and you let out a breathy sound.

When you pull away, eyes fluttering open, you find San’s gaze. You think about the boy he was then, the girl you were then. You think about who you were, together. And when he says, “Please make me forget”, you lean again, capturing his mouth in a languid kiss.

For a reason unknown, the summer sky and falling stars pale in comparison to this kiss. Maybe because it holds longing, nostalgia. Hope that life would have turned out differently. For a moment, you picture what it would have been like, without Ateez. With you and him in the field, in your family house, in a car driving by the beach, windows down as the sun sets and you sing along to the radio, wind blowing in your hair.

You see a whole life there, with you and him marrying in the field, under the sun that had been the host of your first love. You imagine growing up by his side, attending college with him in the big city. You imagine how he would have become the owner of his own construction company, like his dad before him. You picture kids laughing, running around the house he would have built for you. You see Christmas light, late nights antics by the firelight.

You see it all, and you know you’ll never have any of it. But if you can have tonight, then you’ll grab it before it slips through your fingers. Before he walks away in the rain again, only to be a memory you cherish in the deepest corners of your heart.

“How?” you ask him when you pull away.

Mostly, you’re asking how to make him forget. But you’re also asking how it is that the feelings are still there, even stronger now, as if they’ve grown up with you, yet haven’t changed like you have. Like they are a constant of an ever-changing universe.

“Kiss me again,” he asks, begs, and you give in. You kiss him wildly, always making sure not to touch his side and the stitches.

You know sex would be a stupid idea, especially with the fresh stitches. But also because he’s barely had time to recover. But he doesn’t really give you a choice, pulling you on top of him until you’re straddling him.

You sit back on him for a second, eyes trailing to the spot where you know the stitches are. “This isn’t a good idea,” you whisper through the ragged breaths caused by the ministrations of his mouth on yours and of yours on his.

“I’m fine,” he says, and you know you shouldn’t believe him. But when he pulls you down again, large hand holding the nape of your neck firmly so you don’t escape, you want to believe him.

Want to believe the beauty of his lies, like you had when you were younger.

From where you’re perched, you can feel the start of his erection pressing against you, and you moan softly in the kiss, rolling your hips. His mouth falls open, and you capture his tongue, sucking on it once before you pull away, leaving hot kisses on his jaw.

“Sit on my face,” he says, and he sounds out of his mind. Crazed, a little like you too feel at the moment.

“What?”

“Can’t get hurt if you sit on my face, angel,” he explains, and then hisses when you suck a hickey on his neck.

You let him pull your shirt off, unclasping your bra yourself as you sit back on his lap. He cups your breasts, rolling your erect nipples between his thumbs and indexes. You moan again, grinding your hips into his, and he hisses once more.

“You want to taste me?” you ask, head throwing back as he pinches your nipples hard.

“I’d fuck you, but you’re the doctor. Can’t risk fucking up my stitches, huh?” he replies, voice low and husky.

Your core heats up, pussy clenching around nothing. This is a side of him you’ve never seen, though you spy desperation beneath it. Like he thinks he doesn’t have forever, when it comes to you.

He’s right. Because tomorrow, you’ll have to go back into town, into the hellscape you call home. What will be left of the two of you then?

So when he tugs at your pants, you give in and get up, taking off your pants and panties in one swift motion. You step out of them, blood heating up by the way he’s looking at you through half-lidded eyes, gaze burning on you.

You have half a thought that you could probably ride him instead of his face, but when you see his pink tongue darting out to wet his lips, making them glisten in the candlelight, you need to know what it’ll feel like against you.

So you straddle his face as he guides you down, large hands pushing on your thighs until your pussy is a hairsbreadth away from his lips. He blows on it, and your eyes shut with sensitivity. You clutch the cushion of the couch, hoping it’ll help steady you, but the moment his tongue flicks at your clit, you realize nothing will be able to steady you. Yet you still hold onto it, especially as he dives his tongue between your folds, lapping up your juice. He moans in contentment, before moving to your clit again. And his tongue is wicked down there, like it knows exactly what you like.

You grab a handful of his hair, grinding into his face. You’re pretty sure he’s chuckling down there, and then he unleashes himself. Sucking hard, alternating circling motions to teasing you with his teeth. You’d expect the latter to hurt, but the way he does it just makes you see stars, and your pussy clenches around nothing again.

San is deadly good with his mouth. Both with crafting lies and pulling moans out of you, and your thighs tighten against his face as he sucks particularly hard, before dipping his tongue inside of you. His nose brushes your clit, and then he forces you to properly sit on him.

The way his tongue moves inside of you, lapping up your juices while opening you up, has you on the brink of an orgasm in no time. Especially as he makes you grind again, holding you tight into place. When one of his hands moves from around your thigh to reach your clit, you cry out, head throwing back.

He’s quick to rub at your sensitive clit, and you grab one of your breasts, massaging it mindlessly before you pinch your nipple, hard, right in time with a skilled swipe of his tongue. Your orgasm meets you there, shaking through you as it explodes in a blinding flash of light. You moan, loudly, something that resembles his name, and he keeps you going, guides you through your high until you cringe with oversensitivity.

Only then does he let you climb off from his face. You stand on wobbly legs, before deciding to sit next to him, and you catch sight of the smirk on his lips. It makes you blush, right as you realize what you’ve just done.

When you realize what kind of sinful activity he’s dragged you in, this time around.

“Gosh,” is all you manage to say.

He chuckles, clearly proud with himself. “That felt good?”

You worry at your bottom lip, eyes going down to the tent in his pants. You want to pleasure him too, to take him in your mouth and make him feel good, but he stops you with a hand wrapped around your wrist.

“Don’t.”

You still and you meet his gaze with slightly-widened eyes. “Why not?”

His features turn somber, haunted, and the heat of the moment passes so quickly you think it might have been a figment of your imagination.

Were you really riding his face just a moment ago?

“Please just lay next to me,” he says, barely even a whisper.

You don’t know a lot of men that would choose cuddling over getting a blowjob, but if that is what he wants, then you’ll give it to him. You lay next to him, glad that the injured side is closer to the couch. That way, you can cuddle up to him, resting your head on his shoulder while he wraps an arm around you.

“Angel,” he murmurs after a time. “You’re a fucking angel. I think you’re my salvation.”

You highly doubt you hold this kind of power, but you don’t want to tell him. Have never been good at weaving beautiful lies for him to believe.

“We should stay here,” he continues. “Forever.”

And you wish you could. Wish reality didn’t exist, didn’t call for you to go back to your regular life like you’ve never been here with him. But you know tomorrow exists, and you’ll have to leave.

“We should have stayed in the field,” you choose to answer. “Under the shooting stars.”

“I wished for a lifetime with you, then,” he admits. “I wished I’d never have to let you go.”

You’d wished for a similar thing, but life is far too cruel to allow a world of first loves.

“Why did you…” you trail off. The question has haunted your sleepless nights for a long time after the break-up. Even years later, you’d still think about it sometimes, wondering if nostalgia would choke you up. “Why did you decide to join the gang?”

He tenses next to you. But you start tracing a mindless circle on his chest, through the shirt, and it distracts him enough for him to reply. “I thought I didn’t have a choice.”

“Did you?”

His voice holds the weight of the world when he says, “I did. And I made the wrong one.”

You want to cry, but you’re older now. You’re not the teenager who thought she was going to die from losing him anymore. You know what living without Choi San is like, and as much as it hurts, you know that it’s doable.

“You made the one you believed was right,” you say carefully. “But I do wish you had made a different one.”

He holds you a little tighter, as if that will make it so tomorrow never comes. “Me too.”

There’s an eternity of flickering candlelight on the ceiling, of the circles you trace on his chest and of your breathings forming a melody. Outside, the wind has died down, and the world is silent except from an occasional cricket braving the world after the storm.

“Where will you go, once you graduate?” he asks, taking you by surprise.

Because he knows. It’s one of the few things that hasn’t changed.

“As far away from here as I can.”

“I hope you find peace, wherever you go,” he whispers. “I hope you forget all about how we grew up in a hellhole.”

Do you feel bad for saying it? Maybe. But you can’t help saying it anyway. “I will, San.”

And like that rainy day years ago, you think you can see him walk away.

*****

Seven years later

The winter sun is strangely bright, up above. You’d think it will warm you up, but the cold is relentless, violent, and it sneaks into your coat as you walk out of the hospital. You’ve just finished a thirty-hour shift, and you can’t wait to be home.

To take a shower and forget that you’ve lost a patient today.

But you’ve saved another. A young man, with a stab wound in his ribs that should have killed him. But you saved him, stabilized his condition to the point you don’t have to worry about him anymore. Which is the only reason why you’re allowing yourself to leave now.

You’re never able to leave until you know your patients are okay. It’s been that way since your first patient, in a cabin in the woods you’ve done your best to forget.

You’d let San stay, after that weekend. He had given you the number of one of his friends, so you could get some clothes for him, and you’d gone back the next weekend. Bringing him the clothes, making love to him under the moonlight as if that would change the ending.

The following week, you had gone back to find the cabin empty. He’d left a note behind.

I hope I can find you again, wherever you go.

You kept the note. It’s in your bedside table, back at home, in the nice apartment you’ve been able to rent for yourself with all the money you’ve been making now. Enough to pay back student loans from med school, enough to reassure you that never again will you struggle.

You’ve never seen San again after. He hasn’t found you, and you haven’t searched for him. Have only looked up his name a couple of times, in the months following his disappearing, scared you’d find out that he was found dead in a ditch. But his name never came up, and you wondered if he had managed to escape, if he had managed to find a place where Bangtan couldn’t reach him.

You found peace, on your side of the country. Life is kinder here, though it still holds the same atrocities. You wonder if it’s the novelty of the city, or maybe if you’ve just grown old enough to be able to withstand the bad that the world throws your way. It’s hard to tell – you haven’t kept contact with anyone from back home, except Jae-on.

Jae-on, who’s moved with you when you’ve decided to come here, like he said he would. Jae-on, who asked you to marry him in late October, and you said yes. The ring sits heavy on your finger, and you mindlessly play with it.

In another world, you would already be married to Choi San. Sometimes, you catch glimpses of that world – a piercing gaze in the morning, a smile and a kiss to your temple. Talks about angels, children screaming in happiness. In another world, you’d be pregnant again, waiting patiently to add another piece of you and him to this world.

It’s fun to think about, sometimes, but you’ve been good at forgetting. Like you told him you would – most times, you’ve forgotten all about Choi San.

But today, you had a patient that reminded you of him. So you allow yourself to feel, you allow yourself to think about that note tucked in the bottom drawer of your bedside table, hidden under the thick socks you never use.

You allow yourself to think about the cabin in the woods, about the field where you would have gotten married had you been in that picturesque world you like to imagine. You think about laser quests and first kiss and rainy days and meteors. You think about summer, about wildflowers and him.

You’re so lost in thought you miss your stop home, and you begrudgingly get out at the next one. You’re tired, and your hands are shaking as you pull your phone out of your tote bag, wanting to text Jae-on that you’re going to be home late because you missed your stop. You walk to the other side of the tracks, sighing when you see a five-minutes wait for the next subway.

At least the sun is high in the sky, even though it is dreadfully cold. You shiver, putting your phone back in your tote bag so you can hide your hands in your sleeves again, hoping it’ll preserve them from the cold.

In your exhaustion, you forgot your gloves back at the hospital, you realize. It’s strange that you only realize now, and you reckon you really need to sleep, because your brain isn’t even working right anymore.

You sigh, glancing at the display showing the time. Still four minutes to wait. You think at this rhythm you might freeze in your spot before the next subway comes. You try to hide your face in the lapel of your coat, but a movement on the other platform attracts your gaze.

A man is helping an older woman climb down the stairs. She’s speaking loudly, which might be what attracted your gaze in the first place. You follow them as they walk down the stairs, and then when the man turns towards you, you meet his piercing gaze.

He smiles, and you realize that maybe, all those years ago, he was not spinning lies to you after all.

☆☆☆☆☆

Gosh yeahhh rereading it had me ralize that it is a lot sadder than I remembered it to be. At least we got an open ending ... :') What did we think? Should I write about other groups more often? Let me know what you think! All rights reserved to @/oddinary4bts, 2023. Do not copy, repost or translate

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@btsborahaee

[swamiiyasssss]

Make-up Sex w/ Vox Pt. 1

A/N: AHH TYSM all for the love on my previous Vox post. I still can't get enough of this man . I need to rearrange his wiring system. Enjoy this angsty/smutty drabble with our TV munchkin. Also...Small reference to THAT Margot Robbie & Di'caprio sex scene in Wolf of Wall Street.;)

NSFW BELOW

Arguments can get pretty nasty between the both of you. He’s loud, and you’ll be damned if you aren’t louder.

Although….you’d be lying if you said you didn’t get turned on by him angry and raging like that. You had a hunch he was like that too lol

Still, this recent argument, something about Alastor being ”touchy-feely” with you at a gala, ( ugh, you should let Vox just fuck him, he’s EVERYWHERE in your relationship ) made you mad. Like, really mad at him. This was certainly a first. You’ve been annoyed, teased, but never real deal pissed at the TV demon....

You’ve been aware of his insecurities, he’s a soft soul like that, but to outright insinuate you’re cheating on him?? With his nemesis of all people???? Someone slap this idiot.

You two stopped talking for the following days after the argument. A lot of side sneers, comments and eye-rolls. Certainly, a lot of pent-up energy, with nowhere to be released.

“Pass me the salt, please?” You gritt out the ‘please’, a real effort to begin peace negotiations. 

He grimaces. “Like you’re gonna pass yourself around to Him?” His eyes don’t leave the newspaper. 

“Fuck you,” Tears swell, your appetite is lost, and the day ruined. 

So this was the game he was playing? Fine, You’ll play it alright. 

You stumble back to your shared bedroom. You don’t notice him standing up, trying to apologise. He took it too far. He knew he’s been wrong, but he shares your stubborn streak. Still, he won’t loose the one anchor in his life; you. 

Too late. You’re out for blood.

 You’re gonna punish this man in the most delicious way possible, give him a taste of his own medicine. 

You manned your battle-armour, a sultry, deep purple lingerie, covering your figure with intricate lush lace patterns. And your thighs, the same one’s he literally melted for, were donned in sheer stockings. A pretty present ready to be burst opened. You were gonna make him go haywire.    

You braided your hair, wore your favourite jewellery, a necklace wit a diamond ‘V’ pendant on, a gift HE gave, and headed out to the door, ready for a ‘night out with the girls’, or so he thought.

“Where do you think you’re going?” His eyes are locked on your body, on your waist. Everywhere. Jaw dropped.

You clicked your tongue. "Friend's invited me to the club. I’ll be out late.” You made sure to sway your hips oh-so-slightly as you turned around to get your bag. “Don’t wait up for me.”

He barked a laugh. Electricity rippled around him. You smiled. This was too easy. “Wait up for you? Baby, what makes you think I’m letting you leave looking like that?” He starts coming closer.

You stand your ground. “Like what?” You bat your eyelashes; his knees almost buckle.

The hallway light dances on the curve of your waist. He teleports to you, just enough to cage you in against the wall. He claws the concrete next to your head. Blood rushes to your clit. Its ecstasy.

“Don’t fucking play with me, cute stuff.”

"You started this shit." You spit, grabbing him by his collar. His eyes flare into a neon red.

He trips on himself, almost falling on to you, and you watch his lips almost touching yours. "...You're finishing it too."

Something primal kickstarts in his wiring. HE THROWS you over his shoulder; you squeal, and teleports you both to the couch in the middle of the living room.

The leather bounces under your weight as he pushes you down. He's unbuckling his belt, taking off his clothes, muttering curses under his breathe.

"Fuck-- Aren't you just a peice of work."

" You planned this, didn't you? Slut."

"I'm gonna fuck this attitude out of you, beautiful."

You just sat there. Admiring him. Pitiying him. He wasn't ready for what you were about to say. You almost backed out, but Hell, this was too good.

As he was struggling with his buckle, you extended a leg, your high-heeled platforms already on. Your foot stops his palms on his beltline. He snarls. He looks up at you, glaring. "What are you doing."

You shake your head "I'm mad at you, Vox." With a heavy sigh, you drop the bomb. " When I'm mad, this TV demon isn't gonna touch me for a very, very long time."

His face is priceless.

It's not his fault you look so damn gorgeous in the lace, with his initial moving up and down on the curve of your chest. You're breathing hard; he's breathing harder. He needs to be in you, say sorry and be sorry in his own special way.

"And from now on, " You spread your legs farther, and you swear you can see his heart dropping in his chest. "It's nothing but short, short skirts around the house."

You curl your tongue. "Honey."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pt. 2 coming soon !

[frvnkcastles]

hiii!! i hope you're okay ❤️ so i was thinking of a frank x reader where she's asthmatic but hasn't had an attack for a long time, so they're watching a movie and she has a very strong attack and he helps her and comforts her.

thank you, i love the way you write ❤️❤️❤️❤️

FEEL THE RUSH ➵ F. CASTLE

Summary: You have an asthma attack, and Frank is there to help.

Warnings: Asthma attack, language

Word count: 1k

Author’s note: Anon I’m so sorry it took me so long to get to this! Thank you so much for your kind words, I hope you enjoy this <3

Maybe you had been foolish to sink into the false sense of hope and security — maybe you had been foolish to think another attack simply wasn’t going to rear its head and you could live your life without care or worry about the air in your lungs.

Truthfully, it was something you always had to deal with, always a part of your daily routine that you had just grown accustomed to. Being asthmatic could be a real pain in your ass, but for the most part, it was manageable. For the past months, you had been spared of an attack, and you almost forgot how constricting and terrible it could be.

You liked to think your sudden lack of symptoms had something to do with the man by your side. He seemed to make everything better, after all. You had been friends for a long time, but a few months back, he had taken the plunge and kissed you — with caution, as not to take your breath away entirely. He had worked backwards, first cradling your face in his massive hands and clashing his perfect lips against yours, noses brushing together as he handled you with ease and effortlessness… and only after, he shyly backed away, wondering out loud if you’d do him the honor of joining him for a date. He had enchanted you entirely and you had agreed in a heartbeat, and ever since then, you had been inseparable.

He spent a lot of time at your apartment, and it already felt like he belonged there, like he was what turned it from a house into a home. You were completely comfortable with the burly, hulking man who fixed your furniture and learned the contents of your kitchen cabinets in an effort to cook you dinner even without asking. In fact, you were head over heels for him and his tendency to always have his hands all over you, sometimes in a protective manner, sometimes hungry and needy to feel your body under his calloused fingertips. He made every day a dream come true, heaven on earth, and you couldn’t have been more grateful.

So, it was easy to forget about your health concerns. He was the concerned one, always looking out for you and making sure you were alright, and you were just happy to have him.

But of course, bliss could only last so long, and you were pulled back into reality on a seemingly uneventful Friday evening, your body nestled against Frank’s with his strong arms around you and your fingers drawing patterns on the back of his cut-up hand. It was all so domestic, something he never thought he’d have again, and in that moment, you were both undoubtedly content.

It started out with a wheeze, a shallow attempt to inhale air into your system. Frank was immediately alerted, well-aware of your condition, and with a cocked eyebrow, he pushed himself off of the soft cushions enough to give you a knowing look full of worry and willingness to jump into action.

”I’m okay”, you managed, but he didn’t settle back into the couch, only continued to observe you, and his instincts proved to be right — in the next second, panic erupted on your face and you felt the familiar, suffocating grip, making it difficult for you to breathe. Your chest tightened and you burst into a fit of coughs, sitting up while struggling to haul air into your lungs.

Without a word, Frank got up from the couch. ”Where’s your inhaler, sweetheart?” he asked with a clear and firm voice, trying to stay calm and rational as he quickly glanced around the living room.

”The—the bedroom?” you theorized, silently cursing yourself for neglecting your inhaler. It had been months since you had had a full-blown attack, and days since you had needed to prevent smaller symptoms with the device, and in the rush of the moment, it was hard to think back to where you had left it.

Frank wasted no time, making his way to the bedroom

where you heard him ransack every nook and cranny. You tried to control your wheezing and regain composure, but it seemed the symptoms were only getting worse with every passing second, and it became blatantly obvious that the inhaler alone was going to offer any relief. It scared you, the thought of it being utterly lost, but before you could start panicking any further, Frank was running back to your side.

”Got it. Fucker was in the bedside table”, he announced gruffly, seating himself next to you on the couch while handing over the inhaler. As you desperately brought it up to your mouth, Frank caressed your cheek and wiped astray strands of your hair behind your ear. ”It’s okay, baby. It’s gonna be better soon”, he spoke with reassurance, swallowing thickly as he watched you slowly get the upper hand.

As you began breathing easier, he smiled, the feeling of being useless subsiding. He hated not being able to help, even if realistically he knew there was nothing else he could do. ”Attagirl. You did so good, sweetheart”, he praised you, leaning in to kiss your temple before lowering his face to your level to meet your stare. ”Feelin’ better?” his voice was soft as he addressed you, care in every word.

You nodded, the panic in you melting away as you gripped the inhaler with a vice-like hold. ”I’m never losing track of this thing again”, you grumbled, making Frank chuckle as he gently pulled you into his arms and stroked your back.

”Y’know I hate bein’ so fuckin’ useless. Just wanna make it better for you”, he lamented, and with a tender smile, you hugged him tight.

”You’re not useless. I would’ve been screwed if I had to start looking for the inhaler myself”, you reminded, and supposing you were right, Frank nodded.

”Fair ’nuff, sweetheart. Lemme know if you ever need anythin’ else from me, aight? I’m here for ya”, he swore, and full of love for the man and his big heart, you withdrew from his embrace just enough to place a careful kiss right on his lips. He returned the fervor, greedily kissing you back, almost losing his cool as he ached for more of you.

”Thanks, Frankie. You’re my hero”, you grinned, half-joking, and with a snort, he rolled his eyes.

”You’re your own hero, pretty girl. ’M just the lucky asshole who gets to admire you in all your glory.”

[summers-art-domain]

Dying under a tree

Tw: death, tragedy, graphic depictions of violence. features: my oc’s Aurora and Sky, no designs yet really.

2122 Words

I pushed myself against the tree, my body screaming with pain. I cough and tears overflowed from the pure pain. It felt like a million needles were being stabbed into my lungs. I could smell copper. Blood. My vision blurred from my tears, and I blinked them down my face. I clenched my good hand, my arm shaking violently. I looked up, under the leaves of an old oak tree. Another wave of pain washing over my body and I cough. I bring my good hand to my chest, blood staining my arm. I look at my other arm. Mangled and bleeding. I sob, my rib cage racking and it hurts like I just got hit with one million cars. I look around. People screaming and crying and running and trying to escape. Why now!? What the fuck!? I was happy. I had almost everything I wanted and they took it and fuck them and I just what the hell!!?? I watch a mother and her newborn get shot down like cattle. I almost vomit from the amount of blood. I don’t know how they don’t see me. I don’t even care. I wish I could help someone. I just close my eyes and tilt my head up. 

Escape escape escape I don’t want to be here I’m hurt and scared and angry please distract yourself think of a happy moment think of someone you love-

Sitting under the old oak tree, its leaves protecting us from the beaming sun. She laughed, a golden and warm laugh. A laugh I could listen to forever. I would do anything to make her laugh like that. Her smile radiating enough light to illuminate the solar system. A sun. She was warm and golden and bright. I felt my own smile grow. My heart skipped and and jumped and practically flew out of my chest. “That’s dumb-“ her laugh died down, though her smile was still shining. Her soft straight brown hair tucked behind her ears, it falling over her shoulders and down her back like a waterfall. 

“Clearly not, you think it’s hilarious.” I jokingly say. My smile probably lop-sided and imperfect.

“Only ‘cause it’s you” she comments, voice quieter at the ‘you’. 

My stomach drops. And my heart does backflips and spikes and dances. Butterflies release from my stomach to my chest. I can feel my face heat up. My breath hitches. 

“‘Cause you’re funny.” She continues, trying to save herself. Her face is slightly pink. “More fun then other girls. All they wanna talk about is boys ‘nd stupid stuff…” she looked at her knees. Slightly scraped from playing in the woods earlier. 

I stare at her face, slightly pinkened, a cut on her chin from falling earlier. Her eyes looking down, her round nose with freckles covering it up and down. Her soft lips, slightly red and one sucked into her mouth as she chewed on it. Her eyebrows furrowed, like she was thinking. 

“I don’t like talking about boys. I think girls are prettier anyway.” She admits, glancing at me briefly when she notices I’m staring. 

“Me too.” I blurt before thinking. I’ve never thought about it like that. “Girls are prettier than most boys.” I pause, rethinking. “Some boys are pretty too though.” I continued. I look at her hands, picking at a scab on her knee. It’s red and probably doesn’t feel too good to do that. 

“I don’t like boys at all. They’re mean and loud.” She adds matter-of-factly. Continuing to pick at that scab. Ignoring what she said about boys, I see her scab start to bleed.

“Hey- you shouldn’t do that..” I grab her hand while saying that, holding it in mine. Not even realizing her face flash bright pink and her eyes staring at our hands. 

“Y- uhm-..” She stutters, staring at our hands, and interlocks our fingers. 

My heart rate increases. Those butterflies seem to quadruple and begin dancing in my chest. Our hands sit on the ground, interlocked. We sit side-by-side under the oak tree. I look at the ant crawling next to my shoe. She looks at her knees. She scoots closer and rests her head on my shoulder. I really think she’s prettier than anyone.. girl or boy. 

A sharp pain radiates through my chest. I realize I have been holding my breath. My leg throbs with every time my heart beats. I look around, no one’s alive. Everyones- everyone’s dead. The stench of blood burns my nose and makes me gag. Causing my chest to tighten and more pain stab me yet again. Tears begin to fall again and I look at my leg, broken and bruised. A nasty gnash against my calf. How did I survive? How am I still alive? Why didn’t they kill me… 

More than just the deep cut on my chest. It hurts. Everything fucking hurts and I hate it. Why am I alive!? Why did they kill all of them. I look around, just dead. Dead men, women, and children. I hate it. I feel nauseous. Dying here. So many regrets. 

I scream in frustration and pain. Pain pain pain pain pain. The scream makes my chest hurt worse. “I- I literally am going to die alone…” my voice breaks and crumbles. “Never even got a chance to properly tell ‘er…” All I can think about is her. Is she dead? Dying? Suffering? Maybe she was captured, maybe she escaped, I hope she’s safe. 

Snow falls, the sun hidden behind clouds, I sit under that same oak tree, the leaves gone and dead. She looks down at me, her soft lips turning up into a light smile.. She stands in front of me, her hands hidden behind her back“I got you something for Valentine’s Day!” She happily announces. 

My heart stops and I look up, her smile seeming to trigger my own. The crumpled letter in my pocket suddenly seeming realistic. I forget to respond. My brain asks a million questions…

“You okay?” She asks me, slightly concerned. “Sorry if that’s weird!“ she apologizes.  

“Oh- nonono! I’m just surprised! Can I see what ya’ got for me?” I backtrack- sounding weirdly soft. Just like she is. 

“Oh okay-“ her smile returns. “No actually I don’t think you should see the thing I got specifically for you-“ she comments sarcastically while moving to hand me the gift. I laugh slightly at the sarcasm. It’s a small box with purple-pink wrapping paper. we’re both quiet as she holds out the box, I stare at it. My heart suddenly deciding  it actually wants to be an F-1 racer. “Here!” She shoves the box into my hands.

“thanks…” I open the box silently, careful to not rip the wrapping paper. Inside the box, there’s a little crocheted version of me, holding little white, red and burgundy paper roses. She looks down at me expectantly. I could cry- the amount of- how much time did this take? The little me is accurate- down to my favorite shirt- down to the one streak of blonde in my hair from me backing out of getting high-lights after the hairdresser had already done one. Down to my lop-sided smile. “Th- thank you- I.. wow.” 

“You’re welcome!” She Exclaims as she plops down on the ground in front of me. The ground is only slightly covered from the fresh snow. “You like it right?” She looks at my face, I probably look like I’m about to ball my eyes out- but I’m really happy. 

“I f- fucking love it. Seriously..” I can barely get the words out. “How’d you even do this- I don’t hardly let you take pictures of me!” I ask her. 

“Oh, I used an old reference. Nothing crazy.” She answers, a little quieter than usual. 

“You okay?” I looked at her, I noticed she was looking down at the ground. 

She stays silent, looking at the ground still. “Look, Sky, I-“ She stuttered. uncharacteristically she looked nervous. Silence follows, she glances at me, and then the ground. Her nervousness starting to rub off on me.  “I really enjoyed making that for you.” She exhales

I-

“-u- ar-“ I hear someone. “Righ- right?“ I realized I had passed out. My vision focuses fairly quickly. I see someone. They have long brown hair. Limping and holding their side. I smell blood. “Are you alright-“ Her. She grabs my shoulders. I feel someone. the pain comes back. I see her face. It’s bloodied and tear streaked. “You’re not alright-“ Her voice doesn’t just break. It shatters. A sob racks through her. “Y- you’re alive though.” 

“A-“ I choke on my blood, blood spits up and I cough. 

“Shhh- shhh…” she soothes me, though it sounds strained and painful as she sits next to me. 

I look at her stunned. She’s here- Tears well in my eyes. “Aur- rora-“ my throat and lungs burn trying to push the words out. But I get them out. I know the situation. People are dead, I’m bleeding out and based off of the wound in her gut, she is too. If there was help to get she would have gotten it. “We’re not o- okay..” I look at her, her normally soft lip broken open and bleeding. She shouldn’t be beautiful with a black eye, bloodied lip and broken nose. But she is. 

“I know..” she looks at me, her eyes still find a way to be bright. For a moment, the pain stops and it’s just her. Just us. And I’m okay with that. “let’s, just. sit here…” she smiles sadly. And I could cry. I could sob and sob into her already tattered and bloody shirt. But I smile too. Her smile, even with all the pain, is still bright. Still warm. Still real. I take my good hand, and hold hers in mine. 

She scoots closer to me, and I rest my head on her shoulder. Everything hurts but it’s fading, I feel light. 

“Remember Valentine’s Day..? 2 years ago.” She asks, her voice quiet. 

“Y-yeah..” I force the words out. My throat still sore. That’s probably one of my favorite days. She gave me a gift and then she took me shopping. We both watched the sunset while sitting on her roof even though it was cold the whole day she still managed to make me feel warm. Just like now. 

“I did enjoy making the little you.” She repeats, and I smile, I love that thing, it sits on my night stand, still holding the little roses. “But there was- there’s something else.” Her voice goes soft, like she’s out of breath and nervous and I feel her heart rate speed up. I still feel soft, the pain almost completely fading, my heart rate slowing. Normally I would feel scared. Something’s wrong. “Since we’re dying…” she pauses, I notice her breath hitch as if she’s trying not to cry. “Since we’re dying here, I wanted to tell you what it is.” She wraps her arm around my shoulder. “You still with me?” She sounds scared. 

“Ye- yeah I a- am..” my voice is weak and breathy but there. Nothing hurts. I feel tired, but I love this girl so I'm going to listen to her. 

“Okay, look, Sky. Sky I love you.” She practically vomits. For second, I’m back. She loves me? I start to cry. all that time I had thought she didn’t. She loves me?! I smile.s,I long and crying is a weird combo. But near as weird as the situation.  We’re dying and I’m crying and she loves me. I love her too I love her so much- so so so much-

“I love you- I love you too Aurora.” My throat hurts again but I don’t even care. My voice breaks and I sob. I hear sobbing other than my own, it’s hers. She’s sobbing, 

“Please don’t- don’t leave me…” Aurora squeezes me. I start to fade again. My head feels light. I keep crying. I’m sad. No.. happy? I’m happy. I love her. She loves me. We both are here and alive so why am I crying? She’s crying. 

“I love you.” I repeat. Not fully understanding. But knowing. I love this girl. 

“I lov- I love you too Sky.” She hugs me. Sobbing. 

“I’m tired.” I tell her, feelin light and relaxed. She’s hugging me she loves me she’s here and so am I. 

“Me too.” Aurora’s voice is quiet. She tries to stop crying, she looks so sad. I wish I could help her. 

“Can- can we just sleep?” I ask. Maybe if we rest she won’t be sad. 

She sadly smiles. I love her smiles.  “Yeah. Yeah we can.” 

[the-chosen-fanfiction]

John (the Apostle) | Everything I Hold Dear | Romantic

Dialogue prompt: “Why didn’t you tell me before?! I could’ve helped you.”

Requested: Yes

When John finds out you’ve hidden your illness from him, he is rightfully upset, especially since you know the One who can heal you.

You jerk awake with a gasp for air, sweat beading on your forehead. With fingers digging into the covers, you look to check if you’ve accidentally roused any of your friends, but Mary and Ramah are still sound asleep, with Tamar rolling over in minor disturbance before snuggling back into the furs she’s draped over herself. How she stays alive under all these layers of searing hot pelts is beyond you.

Another jolt of pain – the first one was the one that woke you up – surges through your lower abdomen, towards your right side. You grit your teeth, fighting the groan that threatens to spill from your throat. You swallow it and it redirects itself into a pained snort, and it shunts to your leg. 

It has started to grow worse over the past weeks. First, it was nothing but an annoying, deep, warm pain, close to the kind of hurt you go through when menstruating, albeit lower. Gradually, you became less capable of swallowing it away and it took longer and longer to fade, until the point your face paled and a fever seemed to claw its way through your system whenever you suffered through it. 

Of course, you have considered heading over to Jesus to ask if He could heal you, but you don’t want to be a bother. You keep it from your husband, John, in order to not worry him and to prevent him from trying to convince you to go to Jesus anyway.

After a few minutes of huffing, you lay back down with a sigh, draping an arm over your clammy forehead whilst pushing off the covers. Sleep does not take you again.

You lay awake for hours until dawn sheds the tent in rays of sunlight, rousing your friends. The women wake and look well rested, setting out to their daily duties. You follow in their actions, knowing that no matter how hard you try, there is no way you’ll fall asleep anymore. 

“How did you sleep?” Tamar asks out of politeness, and you force a smile onto your face. 

“Pretty well, thank you. How about yourself?”

She knits her brow in worry. “Are you sure? There is barely any colour on your cheeks.” With the back of your hand, you feel at it. 

“Really? Oh… I’m fine.”

Unconvinced, Tamar sighs.

“Well, if you insist. My rest was good.’

Breakfast is served and you find your significant other talking to his brother. John smiles as soon as he sets an eye on you and wraps an arm around your hip, pulling you against him.

“Hello, my lovely wife,” he greets, “It still feels so wonderful to be able to say that, by the way.”

You smile and kiss his cheek. “Hello, husband. Yes, it’s unbelievable. Have we been married for four months already? Time flies!”

James huffs a breath after putting his spoon back into his now-empty bowl. “Well, I hope that overtime you two will get less clingy in public. Listening to John gush about you all the time during our fishing trips was bad enough as is. Now that you’re finally married, you can keep that stuff behind closed doors, no?”

John rolls his eyes at his big brother and gives you a sweet look. “For the record, we’re on the road right now and as much as I would like to have a private tent with my lovely (Y/n) right now, some things are a luxury we can’t afford. Once we are back in Capernaum, however, I hope we’ll get to keep your nose out of our business.” You giggle as John brushes his lips against your temple, which in turn makes James gag in a theatrical manner.

Everyone packs up and you help by rolling up mats and tucking utensils into their assigned baskets and bags. With so many sets of hands, you finish quickly.

On the road again, you find a spot in between Nathanael and Matthew for a while, with John speaking to Jesus in front of you. Behind you, Andrew nearly kicks your heels with every step, a few annoyed glances over your shoulder not enough to make him aware of it.

You chat with the former architect about the project that resulted in him leaving the business, a heartbreaking story that eventually led him to Jesus. Matthew makes remarks here and there that make you chuckle to yourself, for Nathanael is often confused as to what he means. 

Luckily, Andrew eventually changes to another location in the line of followers, moving forward whereas Jesus and Simon now walk behind you. Your new partner is Philip, who is keen on informing you about whatever prophecy he believes might be tied to Jesus, and you slightly envy his knowledge of Scripture, hoping that one day you’d be able to memorise it as well as he does.

The sun stings in your face as it reaches midday. The group is walking slower now that the trek starts to take its toll, and you secretly hope that someone will suggest taking a break soon. 

“...So, that verse of Isaiah is one that truly inspires me to keep on going. Does that make sense?”

You smile and nod. “Yes, it does absolutely make s—” Your face twists in displeasure as your words are swallowed up in your small noise of pain. With your hands reaching for your lower abdomen, you grit your teeth and furrow your brow, “Absolutely makes sense,” you squeak the rest of your answer, but Philip has already noticed.

“Are you alright?” he queries, “You seem like you’re in pain.”

“I’m alright,” you say, “Just… Cramps.”

He hums. “Just that? It looks like as if–”

“–The porridge I had for first meal doesn’t really digest well,” you reassure him, “I’m fine, truly. It’ll go away.” 

Philip does not look like he believes you, but to your relief, he doesn’t press further. “Right then, where were we… Oh, yeah, I wanted to talk about Malachai.”

Despite the ache in your ankles, it takes another hour for Nathanael to complain about blisters, which brings forth the proposal of stopping for a while. You thank Philip for the new insights and head over to John, who is talking to Thaddeus and Little James, already munching on an apple he dug out of the bottom of his bag. 

“Hi love,” he murmurs, “Want a bite?” Even though it’s intimate, you bite into the fruit that he holds your way, causing the both of you to laugh. “Hm, you good?” he quizzes, “You seem a little heated.” John rubs some hair out of your face, which now makes you realise that it must have been sticking against your forehead. 

“You know how the sun sometimes gets to me,” you tell him. “Would you like to sit with me for a bit?”

He agrees to this and greets his friends before taking you over to a more secluded area, where you can sit in the shade. You nestle yourself against him, knee against his, and you share a waterskin as well as the rest of the apple. “I wonder where we’ll be tonight,” you think out loud, earning a hum of agreement from your husband. 

“Me, too. I’d love to watch the stars with you after dinner. Just you and I, no James complaining about me giving you kisses.” He wraps an arm around you and presses a sticky peck against your cheek, causing you to flush slightly. 

“I’d like that a lot,” you tell him, smiling softly.

Closing your eyes, you sit in silence for a while, listening to the birds titter around you as they sing their brightest songs to attract potential mates. The scent of persimmons in a nearby tree tickles your nose. All pain flows from your feet as you rest for a while, with the chatter of Disciples a little away, far enough for it to become a blur.

Eventually, it’s time to get up again, for the next village is nearby yet too far to walk in one go. Hoisting you to your feet, John holds onto you and kisses your forehead swiftly, his beard tickling your skin in the process. He tugs you with him to the front of the row, your hand remaining in his as you stroll down the path, kicking up dust.

“If we are lucky,” he muses, “we’ll be back in Capernaum in a fortnight or so. Can’t wait to take a short while off.”

“That makes two of us,” you say, “Spending some time alone with you is something I’ve been yearning for for a long—”

Your legs nearly give out underneath you and you don’t even realise you’ve fallen until the panicked voice of John calls your name. Hunched over, you reach for your side, overcome with terrifying agony. Gasping for air, for all of it was pushed from your lungs the moment it shunted through you, you let out a strained noise that you didn’t even know you were able to produce.

“(Y/n)!” A few other Apostles huddle around you to help you up, but soon notice that you’ve not fallen over a rock or anything of the sort, instead are victim to an all-consuming pain in your lower gut – it feels as if you’re being torn apart, as if your organs are bursting open inside of you, a red-hot ache that is so deep that you feel like tearing open your stomach with your bare hands in order to reach it.

“She’s got a fever! (Y/n)? (Y/n) can you hear me?” John’s voice is a blur and the others soon follow, for your brain cannot make up any comprehensive words anymore as they melt together in a cacophony of muffled sounds, soon drowned out by the sound of your own heart beating inside your ears. You’re alone with the indescribable pain, until Jesus comes into your field of view, and you gasp, looking at Him as He puts His hand onto your lower belly.

The second it makes contact, the pain fades immediately and you inhale sharply, stunned by what has happened. All followers are as surprised as you are and gawk at Jesus, hoping that He’d answer what had been the matter with you. 

“What–What was that?” you whisper. “I–I mean, thank you!” 

Jesus chuckles and holds out a hand to you. You gladly take it and he helps you up. At once, John wraps his arms around you, still in shock of what he witnessed. 

“It’s okay, (Y/n),” Jesus tells you, “You have been having that pain for a long time, haven’t you?”

You cast down your gaze in shame. “Ah, for a while, yes…”

John swallows, worry visible in his eyes. “You were in pain? But–Why didn’t you tell me before?! I could’ve helped you. What if that happened whilst I wasn't here, what if I had lost you?!” He is almost offended, but upon seeing your embarrassed flush, he sighs and cups your face. “Oh, darling. I… I had no idea, I’m… I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t want to worry you,” you whisper. 

Carefully, your husband catches your gaze. “My love, your wellbeing is very important to me. I could have been with you through it! And what kind of husband would I be if I—” His eyes go to Jesus, “You-You-You could have gone to our Rabbi! You have seen His miracles, right? He could have healed you if you had just asked Him!”

Jesus just smiles at the pair of you. You don’t dare to look up at Him. 

“It was not for a lack of faith, Rabbi.” you whisper. “I know you could have healed me sooner.”

“I know.”

“I just didn’t want to bother you.”

“I know.” Jesus hums. “But don’t be shy to come to me. I can handle it.”

You feel tears sting behind your eyes. “I… The others need You more. I can wait.”

“You’re important to Me, (Y/n),” Jesus says, “And so is your health. Don’t be afraid, for I will not turn away from you, my Daughter.”

“I’m sorry for not trusting it in Your hands, Lord.”

“That’s okay.” He reassures you. “But let it be a lesson for the future. You can come to both me and John if something is hurting you. You matter, too.” 

Sighing in relief, you nod. “I will do that, Rabbi.” John smiles and squeezes your hand. 

“Now,” Jesus says, “Let’s continue our journey to the next village. I’m sure that (Y/n) is exhausted and would like to spend the night at a proper inn together with her husband, hm?”

He winks, causing a flush to crawl up your cheeks. John lets out a scoff, which in turn causes his brother to burst out in laughter. 

Flustered, you take his hand and set out for the next town, delighted to be rid of your hurt and to be ensured that no matter what happens, you can always rely on both John and Jesus.

[mischiefmaker615]

Maid to Honor (Loki Love Story Ch.12)

Rose glanced in the corner of her eye at Loki who continued to read his book beside her on the bed. As soon as she leaned forward, his hand shot over to her chest and gently pushed her back to her original sitting position, causing yet another groan to leave her lips.

''I cant just sit here and do nothing-''

''while we enjoy our days off you will take the time to heal your wound.'' He told her without even looking up from his book.

''I'm not useless Loki, I can do things.'' She said determinedly.

''then lets have sex'' he smirked, looking over at her challengingly and her eyes backed off.

''I said things, not everything..''

''then as soon as you are able to let me fuck you comfortably you are to stay there and rest.'' He told her calmly and went back to reading his book.

''but-''

''would you like to read?''

''I'd like to do things without you hovering like a shadow.'' She told him grimly and crossed her arms.

With a sigh, Loki set down his book and turned more to look at her. ''darling you hurt yourself. Your lucky it wasn't deep enough for stitches but Banner said any possibly strenuous movement could delay the healing process. If you wish to do normal things that much sooner than I suggest you sit there and heal.''

''I'm achy Loki, my drive needs to be used. There has to be something I can do..'' she practically whined.

''fine, I will accompany you on a walk around the tower, how is that? There's always the balcony you can go on for fresh air.'' He suggested.

''why can't you stay here and continue reading?'' she said flatly and he laughed.

''because without my watchful eye, I know you're bound to try something more than you should.''

Rose sighed and gave a nod as she carefully got up. ''fine- but I'm not broken. It's feeling better than yesterday.''

''and I am glad, but don't think you're getting out of being punished when you are properly healed because you still withheld information from me.'' He told her calmly as he joined her side, talking her arm as he used himself for ready support.

''what punishment- isn't getting stabbed enough??'' she questioned as they moved down the hall at a slow pace controlled by him.

''that is learning from your mistake darling. I am merely teaching you your mistake. After all, you're still my serv-''

''assistant.''

''fine, assistant. And there is going to be quite the assisting around here.'' he smirked and Rose found it wise to advert her gaze from his lustful blue orbs that dragged over her body.

''Loki its my side, not my arm.'' Rose reminded with a hint of sarcasm as he raised a forkful of eggs to her mouth.

''any movement could delay the healing process'' he counter reminded and tried against but she leaned away and took the fork.

''I'm pretty sure he meant major movement. I can move my arm without moving the rest of me.'' She sighed and began eating where he stubbornly sat down next to her and began eating as well.

''at least your cooking is down, I'm not sure there's anything left here to teach you.'' Rose thought out loud, glancing around the house as if she would find something. ''you already know about basic home life, job, direct deposit is just the start of money management...''

''relationships?''

Rose paused and looked at him with small surprise ''..what about them?''

''back on Asgard, we hold a courting system before one is wed, royals are very different from commoners as well. The Midgardians here seem to just rely on their friendship and trust each other is loyal before a wedding is even planned..'' Loki explained, finding himself holding her free hand out of unconscious habit.

''well its dating.. when you like each other, you form a relationship where you remain true to each other and each other only. A wedding isn't usually mentioned until you are absolutely sure you wish to be with that person.'' Rose explained, her thumb gently stroking his skin and feeling her cheeks slightly redden at the particular topic.

''why wouldn't you be absolutely sure in the first place?'' Loki asked as he raised a brow.

''well, some mortals can be dating one but perhaps grow bored or in ways disinterested where they wish to seek someone else to fulfill all their needs.''

''how many needs are there?''

Rose shrugged as she thought. ''some people are simple, others have many. It could be sexual needs, or perhaps the person isn't giving enough attention, respect, holding promises, stuff like that. Mortals are very complicated sometimes and backstab others more than people in actual battle.''

''it seems so..'' Loki agreed, his mind elsewhere before his eyes returning to her ''if you are willing to try, perhaps I could use magic to heal your wound.''

Rose raised a brow and her eyes narrowed as she set down her fork ''you couldn't suggest that before you stranded me on my bed??"

Loki chuckled and stood ''come on darling, you wished to do something anyway.''

He led the way to his own room in which he instructed her to lay on her back on his bed. Moving her shirt up to access her wound, getting a little side tracked with a few kisses before being reminded to continue- gathered the very book he had been reading on her bed.

''isn't that the one you were reading?''

''indeed love, I was already preparing myself to perhaps see if I could speed up the process.'' He smiled almost smugly before he set it down with a particular page open ''I just need you to lie still, you shouldn't feel any discomfort, perhaps just a little strange.'' He told her before he kneeled down before her gash.

Carefully removing her bandages, he looked over the wound once before he took a deep breath and hovered a hand just above it. Rose bit her lip, wanting to wash but figured it be best to close her eyes just as Loki did. She could hear him taking deep breaths and she could have sworn the area around her wound felt cold, tingly even with random waves of warmth over her skin before she felt light pricks. Just as she was about to wince when the sensation began to get uncomfortable, she left Loki's lips press against hers, making her jump with surprise but definitely didn't hesitate to kiss him back.

''you're all healed darling.'' He murmured against her lips as he cupped her face, slowly getting up and moving himself on top of her before lowering his body onto hers, groaning from the sensation her body seemed to fit like a glove against him.

By all the movements, she could tell there was no pain and her body was all back to normal, allowing her to wrap her arms around him neck and deepening the kiss with a soft moan and her leg rubbing up against his thigh. She felt his hand slip between their bodies and undo the button of her jeans before he reached behind her, gripped and pulled them down. He only broke the kiss to move down and pull her pants off from her ankles before he removed his own shirt, moving slowly just how she liked it as he gave her his bedroom eyes.

His lips made a path as he kissed and sucked her smooth skin up her thighs until he got to where he knew she wanted him to be. She arched her back at the sensation, a shiver running up her spine as he slowly removed her panties down and off before he licked a strip once and light against her clit. She let out a moan and gripped his hair as he moved a hand and released his cock from his pants, kissing up her body until he got to her neck and nipped, a small yelp leaving her lips where he smirked against her skin, loving the sounds he was able to earn from her before he raised her legs against his waist and aligned his tip to her entrance.

''I hope you're ready for your punishment darling..'' he whispered.

Rose fluttered her eyes open, having a split second to process what he just said before she gasped as he entered her, burying himself up all the way to the hilt. Slowly resting his hips and body down against hers, he remained motionless as she bit her lip and looked at him who looked completely content and his finger tips drew pointless circles against her skin.

''..what are you-''

''your punishment darling for keeping the fact that you were injured from me. You will spend a good long while being my good little cocksheath before you get even the slightest bit of movement.'' He told her innocently and pressed his hips down to prevent her from moving as she tried to get a little bit of friction.

''Lokkkiii'' she whined and Loki couldn't help but kiss that sweet mouth of hers, biting down on her bottom lip as she gripped his shoulders.

''get comfortable darling.''

[luc1d-dr34m5]

having oc brainworms atm hold on

wrote this all in one sitting, maybe a few mistakes

■

The silence was defeaning.

The familar crackle and zaps of energy inside the can gone.

Schools of neuron flies going about in a hurry.

Overseers gathered in the entrance pipe, zapping at eachother in worry, to the puppet room.

It was quiet.

Except not fully.

Maddened muttering and mumbling can be heard from the puppet of [Triple Core Systems]. Iterator of this can.

Hands tightly clenching his head, probably enough to bruise, wound even.

Body curled up into a shaking ball as his arm held him there.

Anti-gravity on but all the lights are shut off.

The only source of light was from the bio-luminescence of the puppet and the ring of energy thrumming around it.

Its hands dig in further into it's head, about to break skin before-

A latch opens, a whirr of an Iterator arm hurling itself somewhere at high speeds can be heard and-

"Cor3yyy!! Your Comms cut off again!!!"

The puppet, The iterator reffered to in question, goes limp, dangling in the air by its arm.

Interrupted. Interrupted by this shrill sound again. They cannot solve the great problem for their kind and merciful creators if they dally in place. They- It has to work. It needs to work work work and-

"COR3Y!!"

Two Iterator puppets slam into the wall of the room after one threw itself at the other.

"We worried!!!"

It blinks.

One

Two

Three.

Then, they look up.

A familiarly reassuring annoying face is close to theirs.

"Triple Core Systems!!! You shut yourself off and away from everyone else for 5 cycles!!! are you trying to give ME a HEART ATTACK?!?!"

As the smaller, clad in yellows and greens with a ring of aqua green energy crackling in anger around it, Iterator shakes them as they shout and complain and berate them for this awful habit they've adopted

A chime sounds in the air as lights turn back on, their systems start to buzz and crackle as they get activated again, overseers momentarily teleporting in before leaving and neuron flies finally relaxing.

They look down at the other iterator, [Iridescent Ravaged World].

They chuckle at his worry, not mockingly but in relief that they noticed, that they made an effort to push and push against them until they gave in.

Aforementioned Iterator just wailed and weakly bashed their fists against them.

Cor3 lets him, They deserve it for doing it again.

"Do you WANT me to rip out your remaining eye left?? huh??? Do you???"

They sigh playfully as Iridescent huffs and crosses his arms infront of them.

"I do not need to use my eyes to figure out a solution to The Great Problem. But its worth it seeing your finely crafted puppet every moment of a cycle when im not being an idiot."

A straightforward and true statement. Even if Core cannot harbor romantic feelings, they can atleast appreciate beauty.

And besides, its endearing to watch Iridescent sputter and fail to make an appropriate comeback every time Core compliments him.

"Hmph!! W-well, come on. To the bridge!!! They want to check up on your overachieving ass."

Iridescent huffs as Core chuckles at how flustered he is.

They untangle their arms and wires before Iridescent yanks Core off and away to the bridge that connects their Cans together.

As they zip through the side layers of their can, Core thinks to themself...

'How wonderful would it be, if this bond never ends'

Thousands of Cycles later, after the Ancients ascended(Some not by choice. Many not by choice.)

Core holds Iridescent as they hug eachother on the floor of Iridescent's can, their son, a genetically modified to perfection slugcat, cuddled up between them.

They have their differences, and even caused 1 major injury to eachother in the past.

But no matter what.

Cycle to Cycle, Dominion and Ascension.

They are intertwined.

Forever and ever.

☆

I LOVE THEM SOKAY....

[criticallyacclaimedstranger]

Ficlet: Friday Night Reset

Read on Ao3

Fandom: Triple Frontier

Ship: Francisco “Catfish” Morales x Reader/you

Warnings: Unprotected PiV sex. Bit of dirty talk and praising (him to her). Pussy has a sweet lil pet name.

Summary: This is loving porn without a plot, people.

Words: 724

"I've thought about this all day..." Frankie's whispered barytone is like a fine, honeyed whiskey in your ear when he moves slowly in you, hot breaths setting your skin on fire as he moans low from how tight you are.

You have your knees splayed open to the sides, arms thrown under his and hands gripping his shoulders from behind, and your breathes come in whiny little puffs. You're so delectably full of him, stuffed to the brim, wet and accomodating but still so tight that it feels like you're going to straight up die if he were only a hair thicker.

He's fucking you with deep, slow strokes, petting your hair, kissing your cheek, murmuring words of comfort to which you can only respond with little gasps. It's Friday night and the week has been tiresome. When you finally came home late on Friday afternoon Frankie, who had been home for a couple of hours already, had already tidied up for the weekend, and made dinner. He sent you to the bathroom for a long, hot shower while keeping the food warm, and you had enjoyed the meal tremendously after your shower. Not long after, he had taken you to bed: he wanted it and you needed it. You needed to lose yourself in his care and his cock, needed the release after the week you had had.

"You feel so good, baby," he now praises you, "I love your sweet little pussy, your gatita, she's so tight and warm and wet for me."

He slots his mouth over yours and you let him take your breath away with the kiss that greedily and confidently takes its time. Eventually, you have to release one hand from his shoulder and thread your fingers through the curls at the back of his head, enjoying the silkiness of them before gently tugging his head, breaking the kiss.

"My love," Frankie smiles against your lips, punishing you with a harder thrust that makes you yelp and choke on the deep breath you were trying to fill your lungs with. "Am I too much for you?"

"No," you manage. He cups your cheek, brushes his big thumb over your lips. It slips into your mouth and you suck it.

"Can you take more?" he asks you hoarsely, your wet tongue suckling his thumb affecting him. You nod, a fire lighting up in your glassy eyes.

"Of course you can, you're my good girl..."

He wraps his arms around you, no longer supporting his weight on anything but you, hips grinding into yours as he fucks you with a new urgency. You're helplessly trapped underneath him, every inch of you covered by his golden, sweaty skin, his face hidden in the crook of his neck as he pants "Good girl, good girl, my sweet good girl" with each vicious thrust. Something snaps in you and tears begin to run down the sides of your faces as you allow your head to go absolutely empty. All that there is, is Frankie on top of you, in you, big and thick and heavy, ravaging you as best he can, resetting your system with the orgasm that is approaching faster than you would like it but still not fast enough, taking you higher and higher but at the same time deeper and deeper into the mattress until you fall apart with a loud sob that makes your whole body tremble.

"My beautiful baby," Frankie praises you, "so pretty when you cum, so warm, so fucking tight, you're going to make me cum, I'm gonna cum, baby, deep into sweet little gatita, you can take it, can't you?"

He babbles, you can tell, his brain short-circuiting from the insane pleasure as he climbs higher and higher, his thrust becoming desperate and shallow before he pushes all the way in, his body stiff as a plank on you, your pussy milking him dry until he shivers and collapses on you. He comes up on one forearm immediately, however, and kisses your tears away.

"My love," he murmurs. "My beautiful girl."

"I'm fine," you croak, and he lets his lips caress yours in the sweetest of kisses.

"I know."

He pulls the covers over both you and lets you rest in your bonelessness against his chest where his heart beats, strong and secure, for you.

[bubbledumbbinch]

Yanderes! Leona, Jack and Malleus in heat with their reader friend

HAHAHAHA EVIL LAUGHTER. Finally…. I’m getting around to this request….. i guess i might make this less “headcanon-y” and more ficlets? Scenarios? Idk? First time trying this out so here we go!

This piece of writing is purely for 18+ audiences only. Minors do NOT interact.

Pairings: Leona Kingscholar x Fem! Reader, Jack Howl x Fem! Reader, Malleus Draconia x Fem! Reader

Warnings: SMUT, yandere, dubcon/noncon elements, coercion, unhealthy relationships, breeding kink(?), talk of pregnancy, dark content

Leona Kingscholar

The botanical gardens was a usual hangout spot for you and your lazy friend Leona. However, when you arrived at his favorite napping spot under a specific tree, you felt something was off when he wasn’t there. You definitely knew he wouldn’t go to class unless there was some kind of exam. Was it something serious? ‘Where are you?’ You texted Leona and sent the message. After waiting a bit, your phone buzzed and Leona had replied. ‘Screw off. Leave me alone for a while.’ the text read on your screen had you feeling worried about the beastman. He was your friend - and you knew something had to be up.

The speed-walk from the gardens to Savanaclaw was a bit anxious, your body was starting to sweat as you worried about Leona. You didn’t even think to text his dorm mates like Ruggie or Jack to ask what was wrong. Once you finally made it through the mirror to his dorm, you rushed to eventually make it to Leona’s door and knocked. You were met with a loud snarl and a gruff voice. “Who the hell is it?! Go away.”

“Leona-san, I’m coming in!!” You quickly barged in, chest heaving up and down from the worry you felt. The door slammed behind you before you could even recognize what was going on in front of you. 

“Leona-san! Are you okay?! I- Oh…!” Your field of vision was immediately met with Leona sprawled on his bed with his shirt off and his blanket covering up to his waist. His hand was lazily pumping up and down his length from underneath the blanket and it was so painfully obvious. Leona was panting heavily and eyes were half lidded.

“You… what the fuck are you doing here, herbivore? I told you not to come!” Leona spat from across the room, making you recoil in fear from your spot. You gulped and blushed, turning away.

“I- I’m sorry,” stammering, the words just really seemed to have a hard time finding a way out of your mouth. “I just, I thought it was something I could help you with, so I’m gonna go now!! Sorry for interrupting!!”

You quickly tried to turn around and walk back out, but didn’t realize Leona was coming closer to you only seconds prior. Your wrist was grabbed harshly and you were being yanked until your back thudded onto something hard - Leona’s chest. It was so toned and warm, you were almost tempted to lean back into it.

“Hn, I change my mind. Maybe this is something you could help me out with, herbivore...” His low and sultry voice almost purred the words into your ears sending heat to your clothed cunt. As if on cue, Leona’s calloused fingers made their way to rub at the crotch of your pants, making you squeak involuntarily. 

“Leo-naa..!” you shrieked out his name, half of it turning into a moan. He growled at the noise of his name coming out of your mouth.

“Heh, it looks like you’re forcing me to do something a bit unforgivable.” The dark tone in his voice made you gulp hard. “Herbivore… I was really trying to hold back, find the perfect time to make you my mate, I even had preparations to take you away to stay with me. It was the perfect plan.” The weight of his words caused you to tense. Almost sensing your unease, Leona decided to dip his warm fingers into your pants and underwear to rub at your needy clit. You gasp and cover your mouth instantly, afraid of the noises Leona would pull out of you. Leona growled as his other hand slapped your arm away from your face.

“Don’t cover up your noises herbivore, if you know what’s good for you.” Leona  angrily muttered against your ear, sending waves of panic through your system. The wet squelching sounds were only growing louder as well as your moans. “Leona-saahn~ haaah,” you threw your head back into him as he plunged two fingers into your pussy. 

“Hm? Don’t tell me you love being talked to like that? Does it turn you on, slut?” Leona’s smooth voice invaded your senses and only spurred you on further. “Y-yes, Leona-san!!” you were now a moaning and squirming mess. Leona guided you to the foot of his bed and pulled his fingers out of you, pushing you onto the mattress.

“This is gonna be fun, herbivore. I really, really should have done this sooner...” Leona whispered, almost to himself. Your face was sweating and you stared up at Leona helplessly, feeling his large erection grazing your thighs as he caged your body with his own, like a predator rearing to devour his prey.

Jack Howl

Vargas’s outdoor gym sessions were always difficult - even more so since you couldn’t use magic. Wanting to utilize your skills to its capacity in his class, Vargas forced you to do more physical training than the other students. Those trainings always left you and your clothes hot and sticky with sweat. Being the only female student in the school, you were also the last person to use the locker rooms, with one of your first year friends near the door to protect you and your privacy. Today was Jack’s turn and everything was going smoothly, to your knowledge. As you were idly thinking about the ways you would prepare dinner tonight, you didn’t realize how much trouble you were really in.

The door to the locker room slowly creaked open as you peeled off the layers of your gym uniform. Heavy footsteps echoed and forced you to pause all of your activities. “J-Jack..?” you whimpered, worried about who was going to catch you half naked. As the steps came closer to your location you couldn’t help but start to shake in fear.

Jack’s white hair and ears peeked around the corner of the lockers making you jump and hide your body in your arms. “O-oh!! Thank goodness, it’s just you!” You sighed in relief. Jack could only grunt in a noise that sounded like approval. Jack didn’t look too good, his cheeks were red and he looked like he was panting - like he had just finished running a race. 

“Uhm, Jack, are you okay?” you shuffled uncomfortably in your spot as Jack’s gaze was still fixated on your body, your arms still covering yourself. 

“Listen, I uh, I have to change, Jack…” you trailed off and looked away, hoping he would get the idea. He didn’t.

Instead, Jack slowly sauntered towards your smaller form. You didn’t even realize you were walking backwards until your head and clothed backside touched the cool lockers behind you, the sound of locks and metal catching you off guard. Taking your moment of surprise as an opportunity, the beastman rutted his hips towards your sweaty body, the friction causing him to groan right in your ear. The noise sent heat down to your core, shame and fear filling your head as you gasped.

“You smell so good right now, Y/N…” Jack said lowly, his breath was so hot in your face it felt like a sauna. He dipped down to your neck and licked a long wet stripe up your skin.

“Aah! What are you doing, Jack?! Th- this isn’t like you!” You shrieked, hoping your voice would get to him somehow.

You yelped as Jack lifted you briefly, only to set you down on his lap to straddle him as he sat on the locker room bench. He grunted as your clothed cunt momentarily made direct contact with his erection that was still in the confines of his pants. You couldn’t help the moan that escaped your mouth, yet your beastman friend believed to sound like honey. Gold eyes bore into yours as he panted and lifted his hips back up to meet yours. “Nngh~!” You buried your face into his neck.

“I’m, haah, sorry, Y/N. I can’t, I can’t help it right now. I like you so much it hurts. I need to touch you, nnh- to make you feel good.” His confession was sudden as he guided your hips to grind on him, lewd moans and whines being forced out of your body with every movement. You couldn’t help but blush and grip onto him tighter, chasing your own inevitable release. 

“Mmh- Jack, please.” You whined into Jack’s ear. Your panties were soaked and he could feel the juices soaking into his uniform. “I’m gonna fill you up with my pups.” Jack growled into your ear as he was losing sight of his own self control.

Malleus Draconia

It was odd to receive a text from Lilia to come to Diasomnia’s dorm. Once he said it was an issue involving Malleus, you told him you’d be on the way immediately. Curiously enough, Lilia never answered your text about what was wrong with Malleus, he only mentioned that he requested you specifically. Reaching the dorm, you noticed the skies were particularly cloudy and grey, and green lightning bolts were littering the skies. You ran inside quickly to be greeted by none other than Lilia himself.

“Ah, Y/N, finally you’re here!” The bicolor haired student welcomed you warmly. His tone was much different than his serious one he used over text.

“I’m here, where is Malleus? What’s wrong with him?” You asked, looking around the dorm. It was seemingly more empty than usual.

“Oh don’t worry! Come, I’ll lead you to his room…” Lilia walked with you to Malleus’s dorm room, when he stopped in front of the door. Suddenly, a darkness had taken over his facial expressions. “I’m... sorry for what I’m about to do, Y/N.”

“What do you mean, Lilia?” You stood as stiff as a board in your spot, dumbfounded.

“Be safe.” Lilia’s words went over your head. Suddenly, the door was opened as he shoved you into Malleus’s room, promptly locking it once you were inside. You banged on the door with both fists. 

“Hey!! Lilia!? Let me out!!” Panicked, you felt the atmosphere in the room was… heavy. Looking behind you to Malleus’s bed, a large black mass had taken form on it.

“Child of man…” You could hear Malleus’s voice from every corner of the room, especially focused from the direction of that black mass. Suddenly, wings uncurled and revealed Malleus, or a creature that heavily resembled him. Along his face were black scales that focused on the edges of his face. A tail was swishing behind him aggressively. Malleus’s arms were now scaly and long nails replaced his short black polished ones. And with those black claws, he used an index finger to beckon you towards him. “Come closer.” He breathed.

You felt your body move on its own, as if you weren’t even controlling it. “Malleus, what’s wrong?” You whispered, not even sure if the words had come out of your mouth. Once in front of him, you stood awkwardly and fiddled with the sleeves of your uniform. “Is there something you need from me?” You breathlessly spoke, avoiding his piercing gaze.

“I requested you for a, specific, reason…” he cooed and pulled you into a tight and awkward hug you didn’t reciprocate. Then you felt it. Something hard and large was poking at your stomach, causing you to gasp suddenly in realization. “It seems like you’ve caught on. Well, my sweet Y/N, you don’t want to keep your prince waiting, do you?”

“Strip.”

“What..?” You asked dumbly.

“You heard me, I said strip. Now.”

“I, I heard you, I just-,” you stepped back, and began to take off your clothes slowly. You stopped at your simple bra and underwear, hoping that was enough to appease him. It didn’t - but it was something he could rip off later.

Grabbing your shoulders and bringing you in close, Malleus’s teeth latched onto your neck, biting hard enough to draw blood. You moaned unexpectedly and held onto his neck, unknowingly pulling him in closer. “Ah, M-Malleus, no..!” Your voice shook.

Instantly, Malleus threw you down onto the bed and straddled your lower half, pinning your wrists above your head. His wings extended above you as his green eyes pierced into yours. The fierceness alone took the words out of your mouth as you stared up in fear.

“Don’t even think about fighting me back. You will surely regret that choice and I don’t want to hurt you, unless you deserve it. So be a good girl for me, while I breed you over… and over… and over again.” You watched in horror as his tongue, now long and forked, laved over his bottom lip in hunger and excitement.

“Well now child of man, doesn’t that sound exciting? Let’s get started right away.” 

[little-diable]

Hold me close, at least for a little while - Aaron Hotchner (smut)

@honeypiehotchner writing keeps pushing me back into my Aaron phase, definitely check out their fics! Quite a few of you sent in similar Aaron requests, so I pierced this together. It certainly won't be my last Aaron imagine, so, don't worry if this doesn't fit what you've requested. Please remember to like and reblog if you enjoyed reading this! Enjoy my loves. xxx

Summary: The reader is sent in to flirt with their unsub, even though Aaron tried to keep her from doing it. When the situation spirals out of control, Aaron is right there to take care of her.

Warnings: 18+, shower sex, unprotected sex, colleagues to lovers (?), typical CM violence, some cursing and attempted rape (nothing explicit)

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x fem!agent!reader (2.8k words)

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

“Look at me, Aaron.” It was a mere whisper, so silent Aaron had struggles with picking the vowels apart. He slowly turned towards her, eyes no longer focused on the window, hands placed on his waist, trying to stop himself from reaching for her. They had been going at it for the past minutes, fighting about the next step in their case, and while (y/n) tried to convince him that she should present herself to their unsub, Aaron tried everything to keep her from doing so.

It was a fucked up situation, really, and yet she wouldn’t back down. Perhaps she felt the need to prove herself to Aaron, the man she had been crushing on for months on end. Perhaps she felt the need to prove herself to the team, the group she had joined just at the beginning of this year. But perhaps she simply needed to prove to herself that she was strong enough to pull through a delicate situation like this one.

Their unsub had been targeting women that had similar features, women that were the same age as (y/n), that even had the same height. He’d instantly go for her, claiming the woman like he had done with the others, desperate to own the women like treasures from old times. A man greedy for power, for fame. 

And (y/n) was ready to give in, adrenaline burst through her system like a star giving its all before burning out on the dark firmament.  

“I won’t send you in, you haven’t done something like this before. You’d risk the other women and yourself.” Aaron’s rough voice shook through her like a bullet piercing her skin. He was towering over her, white dress shirt stretching over his muscles, seemingly adding a few more inches to his height. If she weren’t stuck in this situation, (y/n)’d reach for him, no longer able to stop her crush from consuming her.

“You will, Aaron, you have to. We both know this is our best shot at catching him. I’ll be careful, I promise.” He shook his head, trying to find the words that could keep her from doing this, even though Aaron knew that (y/n) spoke the truth. If they wanted to catch him, they’d have to use her, hoping that he’d fall for her tricks. 

“We have to make a decision, guys.” Derek murmured his words, leaning against the door of the small room they had been offered by the sheriff. Neither (y/n) nor Aaron dared to look at the rest of their team, pondering over their racing thoughts, biting themselves through their minds like parasites feasting from dead bodies. Dead bodies that would litter the ground of this very town, if they wouldn’t step in soon. 

“We’ll pull you out of it, the second he lays his hands on you.” Aaron spoke with his eyes burning through her skin, hoping to communicate the silent warning that he wouldn’t hold back from pulling her free. And with a smile tugging on (y/n)’s lips, she reached for his hand, softly squeezing it before she followed the others out of the room. 

“(Y/n),” Emily’s voice rang in her ears, forcing her to sit straighter on the chair close to the bar. She had been passing her time in the bar for the past hours, gingerly waiting for him to turn up. “He just arrived.” 

She gave it a few more moments before she let her eyes wander, easily finding his frame. He was handsome, almost as tall as Aaron and with a gaze so piercing, (y/n) couldn’t help but understand why the other women had followed him home. It didn’t take him long to catch her gaze, smirking as she averted her eyes, hoping that it would come across as an attempt at flirting. 

“Hey,” his voice was deeper than she had anticipated, forcing (y/n) to lift her gaze once again. With her teep grazing into her lower lip, she smiled at him, inching closer to give him a better view of her cleavage. “Can I?” 

With a chuckle bubbling out of her, (y/n) nodded her head, watching him sink into the chair vis-a-vis hers. He kept studying her, even as he spoke his name, introducing himself to (y/n) while she tried her best to come across as tipsy. And as she was sitting there, making small talk with the man that grew more confident by the second, her mind couldn’t help but focus on the thoughts of Aaron. 

She could still feel his heavy grasp on her wrist as he had pulled her into the room this afternoon, scolding her for her offer to go into this very situation. She could still smell his expensive cologne, mixed with the smell of coffee, crawling up her nostrils like a drug poisoning her system. She could still hear the heavy breaths spluttering from him as if he was trying to keep himself from lashing out. 

Fuck, (y/n) was in deep, no longer a mere crush though something more, something raw, something sinful, something insatiable. Her feelings for Aaron were growing by the days passing by, stronger than in the weeks she had already pulled through. 

“You’re not from around here, are you?” The guy leaned back in his chair, seemingly comfortable, not seeing her as a threat. She was nothing more than a toy he wanted to play with, hoping to see the fear in her pupils, fear he needed to satisfy his needs. (Y/n)’s teeth sunk into her lower lip as she shook her head, putting on a rather innocent act to fool the smirking man. 

“Then we should make the best of the time we have, do you want to get out of here?” While her mind screamed at her to stay seated, to shake her head no, her hand took the one he stretched out to her, pulling (y/n) into his chest. Her breaths grew shallow, faking a gasp spluttering from her lips like a whisper spoken in the dark evening hours, concealed by night's veil. His breaths fanned over her skin as if he debated kissing her, eyes flickering between her eyes and lips, though he pulled himself out of his state before he could give in. 

With her gaze meeting Emily’s, who was sitting a few tables away, one last time, (y/n) followed the guy out of the bar. Their plan had been easy, focusing on catching the guy before he could drive away with her, and yet he pulled (y/n) into the nearest alley, not towards his car as they had planned he would. She struggled in his grasp, though the hand he pressed against her mouth drowned out her screams, keeping her close as they were swallowed by darkness. 

“You see, agent, you may think I’m stupid. But I also do my research, did you really think I wouldn’t recognise you?” He whispered his words, had one arm still wrapped around her, while he pushed her against the nearest tree. Before (y/n) could breathe out, trying to scream once again, he pulled the small bug from her ear and stepped on it. 

“Fuck you, Caleb.” She spat her words, set on pushing him away with all strength she could muster, though he had already reached for her wrists, pinning them behind her back. His other hand worked on her dress, pulling it up to her waist with a few simple movements, clearly knowing what he was doing. 

“Such a pathetic slut, I bet this turns you on, doesn’t it?” Though before (y/n) could reply the sound of somebody cocking their gun broke through the night. Her eyes met Aaron’s, who was standing behind the guy, gun pointed at his head. 

“Let go of my agent, Caleb, you’re arrested.” Aaron’s rough voice rang in her ears like the blood thumping through her veins. A wave of relief clashed through (y/n), filling her every pore like water flushing out poison. She was safe, Aaron was here, nothing would happen to her with him around. 

(Y/n) barely paid any attention to the scene playing out in front of her, how Aaron ripped the man from her, pushing him towards Derek who handcuffed him. The sound of sirens reverberated through the night, momentarily distracting (y/n)’s racing thoughts. Aaron pulled her into his chest without a vowel breaking from his lips, clearly relieved to feel her pressed against him. Their hearts kept skipping beats, silently communicating what they were too scared to voice out. 

Her head was pulsing, eyes burning in exhaustion as (y/n) stepped into her hotel room. The white walls stared at her, forcing her thoughts to trace back to the past hours. She had barely dared to speak a word as Aaron had driven her back to the hotel, squeezing her shoulders with a soft ‘Good job, agent’ spilling from his lips. 

She longed to feel him, not wanting to spend the night alone in the hotel room that reminded her of a hospital, too sterile, too cold. And yet she hadn’t felt the confidence to actually ask her boss to stay, to hold her close, at least for a little while. 

A sigh rumbled through (y/n), body plopping down on her mattress, trying to distract herself. And yet her mind wouldn’t allow her to rest, wondering what would have happened if Aaron hadn’t stepped in, would she have been able to break free? Had it been foolish of her to try and trick the guy? 

“Fuck.” Her groans were interrupted by the sound of somebody softly knocking on her door. Slowly she rose from the bed with aching limbs, dragging herself to the entrance of her room. “Aaron?” 

“May I come in?” (Y/n) opened the door for him, watching him with dilated pupils, not able to stop her eyes from wandering up his frame. No longer was he wearing his vest nor his jacket, he had rolled the sleeves of his white shirt up, exposing more of his muscular forearms. 

For a moment neither of them dared to speak up, though while (y/n) was searching for the right words to speak, Aaron moved closer, warm hand cupping her cheek. His thumb stroked her skin, allowing himself to properly feel her for the first time since they crossed paths all those months ago.

“I was ready to kill him, I would have pulled the trigger without thinking twice, if it weren’t for Derek.” Aaron’s confession left her heart racing, staring up at him as if he was a god, an immortal being her naive mind was obsessing over. “Fuck, I would have lost it if he had touched you any further.” 

“I,” no other word managed to claw through her as Aaron dipped his head down, kissing (y/n) before he could pull back once again. The kiss was hungry, not like she had imagined what their first kiss would feel like, no, this one was fuelled by their every emotion, the anxiety they’ve felt, the anger simmering inside of them, threatening to burn their skin like lava being spit from the highest mountain tops. 

Her moans vibrated on his lips, forcing his smile to widen. Impatiently she tugged on his shirt, not able to think straight, not able to pull herself from the state he had pushed her into, with a simple kiss. And who was he to deny her said want? 

“Shower.” (Y/n) mumbled the word against his lips, gasping in surprise as he picked her up, carrying her into the small room. Their lips found one another again, pressed together as she unbuttoned his shirt, tracing the muscles he had carefully chinselled over the past years, a clear sign of the strength lingering in his every limb. Only as Aaron pulled her shirt over her head did they break apart, allowing their eyes to take in one another’s frame. 

“You’re gorgeous.” His compliment had its effect on her, shooting heat through her veins like a fire alighting a streetlight, shining light onto the dark path they were now wandering together. Aaron let go of her to start the shower, clearly noticing how (y/n) undressed herself, not wanting to waste any more time. And as she pressed herself past him, stepping into the shower, Aaron couldn’t help but admire every inch of the body he had dreamt of in the past months. 

He soon followed her into the shower, naked frame searching hers with his lips kissing their way down her neck. Her gasps were drowned out by the steaming shower, trapped like a moth drawn to a no longer alight flame, forced to trust on her instincts. 

“Don’t leave any marks, my boss won’t like that.” Her words coaxed a chuckle out of Aaron, he sucked on her neck, teeth softly grazing her skin to properly leave his mark. 

“I’m sure he won’t mind, not this time.” The moment was soon gone as (y/n)’s hands started exploring his naked frame, wandering down his front till they reached his hardening cock. Softly she pumped him, wanting to hear the moans he was able to produce, spoken out into the night like yet another confession he had been holding back for days on end. 

“I don’t think I can hold back any longer.” Aaron murmured his words, pulled from her to stare down on her naked body. And with a silent ‘please’ leaving her, he pushed (y/n) against the cold shower tiles, wrapping one of her legs around his waist. Carefully he explored her heat, circling her clit with soft movements, moaning as he felt her arousal dripping down her thighs. 

“Condom?” He whispered the word, barely able to form a functioning sentence nor to think straight. 

“Want to feel you, ‘m clean, just pull out.” Without another warning Aaron pushed into her, cock buried deep inside of her. Both needed a moment to adjust, no longer used to a contact this intimate. She clawed her fingernails into his shoulder, begging him to start moving. 

He fucked her slow, taking his time to properly feel her walls clenching around him, pulling him in. (Y/n)’s moans kept rumbling through her, followed by a groan clawing through Aaron every now and then. Both had painted pictures of this very moment happening in their minds, and yet it was so different to what they had imagined it to be. It was by far more intimate, by far more loving than they could have dreamt of. A perfect mixture both were now clearly addicted to. 

“Don’t think I’ll ever let go of you again, you’re mine.” The rather possessive words drew a gasp from her parted lips, eyes squeezed shut as (y/n) tried to come up with a reply. Just the mere thought of being his left her trembling against him, body covered in goosebumps. God, how she had hoped that one day she’d end up with her body pressed to his as he claimed her, once a mere dream now her new reality. 

“I’m yours, fuck, forever.” With a satisfied hum rumbling through him, Aaron pulled her in for another kiss. He kept fucking her, no longer slow, though urged on by the need to feel her walls fluttering around his cock. He wanted to watch her fall apart, only because of him and his touch - a memory he’d take to grave - Aaron was sure of it. 

Both were creeping closer to their orgasms, ready to let go with their hearts racing as if they were on a chase, threatening to jump out of their flesh cages. And yet they wouldn’t stop themselves from giving into the emotion, hoping to stay connected till this night would fall. 

(Y/n) came first, letting go with her forehead pressed against his and her fingernails scratching his skin. Aaron fucked her through the passing moments, only daring to let go as her body no longer was tense, though begging him to follow her down the edge. He pulled out of her with a hiss, relieving himself on her stomach. 

No words were spoken as they stayed pressed together, (y/n) had her face nuzzled into the crook of his neck, deeply inhaling his scent like a drug fogging up her system. Though she was no longer stuck in a trance, forced to wander through the empty valley of her heart, guided by the light Aaron was slowly pushing back into her system.

Please like and reblog if you’ve enjoyed reading this, come talk to me about my writing, let’s spill some tea or thirst over our favorite people. xxx

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[wkemeup]

Play Pretend (II)

summary: In the aftermath of Munich, Bucky struggles to go back to how things were before. But now that he knows how it is to love you, he's not sure he can. pairing: bucky x reader word count: 5.8k warnings: smut (18+), mutual pining idiots a/n: here is the final part! make sure you catch up at part 1 first! gif by @crispychrissy

Bucky couldn’t get the image out of his head for days after the mission in Munich. Pictures of you laying so beautifully beneath him, the slight curve of your lips as a moan slipped past, skin so soft it begged to be touched and soothed and worshiped. He couldn’t let go of how you sounded, how you cried out his name or the gentle whimpers spoken so sweetly against his ear. He couldn’t stop craving you wrapped so tightly around him, your hands caressing down his arms, his back, his shoulders, your unbridged desire to touch every part of him, even the parts he despised.

Memories that found him in his sleep in the early hours of the morning, in the shower when his legs were weak and tired, at the breakfast table when you strolled in wearing a t-shirt down to your thighs and the evident curve of your breasts bare beneath the fabric.

Bucky tried to push the thoughts away. He tried to stop thinking of what happened in that cold, abandoned Hydra base. He tried to bury that longing somewhere deep, somewhere he’d never be bothered by it again. But it always came back in the image of you in that cell.

It plagued him. It taunted him.

He wanted more.

He didn’t know how to admit it. Not to himself, and certainly not to you. So, he did his best to suffocate those feelings, those cravings for something real, but they still found their way to the surface.

They spilled over on movie nights with the team and Bucky would find himself inching closer to you, in the gym when he took just a second longer to lift his weight from your body after a winded match that ended on the surface of the mat, on walks around the compound when he found himself wanting to capture your hand in his own as your fingers brushed by.

Those feelings slipped from his smothering hold on missions when he watched your back far more than his own, when he’d missed an obvious target in an attempt to clear your enemy line and ended up catching three bullets himself. He lost composure whenever you didn’t respond on coms or when you’d stumble back onto the quinjet with an injury you’d been hiding. He dove headfirst into fires and threw his body up as a shield and spent every night in agony wondering if you knew that he’d give his whole life to you if you’d asked.

It made him stupid. It made him reckless. It might actually get him killed.

But it hadn’t started in Munich. No, that was just the catalyst of it all. Bucky had loved you long before that drug infiltrated his system and left the two of you in an impossible position. He’d managed to keep his feelings at bay for years; hiding behind quick witted jokes and friendly banter and a genuine friendship and it had been enough. Honest, it had.

Only, now he knew what it was like to be with you. He caught a taste of what it would be like to make love to you and he didn’t know if he could ever forget and move on. It had been weeks since Munich and it still felt like it happened yesterday.

He had to do something to keep it from consuming him, even if it broke your heart. Even if it broke his, too.

***

“What the hell do you mean you can’t work with Y/n anymore?”

Steve groaned, pinching at the bridge of his nose. It had been a long day of debriefing with about a dozen agents making demands he was unwilling to compromise on. This, separating his best team, was among them.

“It’s just not a good idea, Steve,” Bucky said, arms folded tightly over his chest as he watched Steve pace relentlessly down the conference room.

“That’s ridiculous, Buck.” Steve slumped into the chair beside his friend. “You two are the best insurgent team I have.”

“Just trust me. You’ve seen how I’ve been in the field lately. I can’t keep a straight head around her, okay? Not after—” Bucky clenched his jaw, turning away.

Steve sighed, hanging his head. “You ever gonna tell me what happened in Munich?”

Bucky’s lip was chewed raw; scars over broken wounds, teeth digging into painful cracks. It was a nasty habit he picked up after Munich. He wasn’t used to this kind of nervousness; a deep and unsettling feeling churned to stone in the pit of his stomach.

“Reassign me, Steve,” Bucky asked again, firmer. He could feel Steve’s eyes burning on him, tracing every inch of his face, searching for a tell, but he wouldn’t find one. Bucky was trained better than that. He knew to keep his features cold, stoned, even if his heart was pounding against his chest. He wondered it Steve could hear it, too.

The silence hung heavy in the air.

“Alright,” Steve finally conceded. He shook his head reluctantly. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Bucky sighed a breath of relief, the weight of months filled with a longing he couldn’t tame and painful twist in his heart slipping from him in seconds. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” Steve stood up from his chair, gathered the papers from the desk and made his way to the door. He paused just at the frame, turned around slowly to find Bucky had relaxed a little too much for his liking and added, “you’re going to be the one to tell her.”

“What?” Bucky scrambled out of his chair, nearly losing his footing and all composure as he stood to face Steve.

“You’ve been partners for years,” Steve shot back tensely. “She’s had your back on countless missions, saved your life on more than one occasion, and—come on, Buck— you guys are friends! The two of you spend every day together, even when you’re benched! You don’t want to give me an explanation? Fine. But you sure as hell owe her one.”

Bucky shook his head rapidly, hands clenching at the fraying edges of his t-shirt. “Steve, I—”

“Just talk to her,” Steve said, a heavy disappointment lingering in his voice. His lips parted, as if there were more he wanted to say, but decided against it. He hung his head, pat Bucky firmly on his shoulder, and left.

***

Had he always been able to hear his own heartbeat like this?

It was pounding in his ears, thunderous, deafening, and he swore just about everyone else on the floor could its thumping as he approached your room.

The door was open ajar with a small glimmer of sunlight streaming out into the dimly lit hallway. You were singly quietly to yourself – humming, maybe – as you sat on the edge of your bed, staring down onto your phone. You didn’t seem to notice him at the door. He knocked.

Your head popped up, surprised at the sudden intrusion and your eyes only narrowed upon finding it was Bucky standing below the doorframe. You looked at him for a moment before you turned back to your phone without saying another word.

He deserved that.

“Can I come in?” Bucky asked sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck. He was still staring into the room through the small slit in the door.

You shrugged. “Depends. Are you still avoiding me?”

A sharp sting burned in his chest as Bucky tried to unclench his jaw. Truthfully, he had been avoiding you for days now. Ever since he made up his mind to ask for a reassignment. It didn’t matter if Steve shipped him off to Alaska or the Amazons or out into space with the goddamn raccoon; all he knew was that every minute he spent beside you was agony and he needed to get away from it – away from you – before it consumed him whole.

None of that was your fault. You didn’t know why he was suddenly too busy to spar on your usual weekdays or join the team for movie nights. He never told you why he suddenly started pulling away, cutting off all contact as if you hadn’t been friends for years before Munich.

“I’ve got something important to talk to you about,” Bucky replied, clearing his throat.

You sat up, sitting the phone down by your side as you recognized the tone in his voice. Clinical. Mission oriented. Business. He didn’t want it to sound so cold, but he wasn’t sure he could do this if it wasn’t.

Bucky stepped into the room, prying the door open gently with a slow squeak on its hinges as he closed it behind him. He’d been in your room dozens of times before, but somehow, in this moment, it felt like an invasion of privacy, like he wasn’t supposed to be there.

He took a deep breath, trying to keep focus. He took a few steps forward and gingerly sat on the edge of your bed, keeping careful distance as he wrung at his hands in his lap.

“I’m being reassigned.”

You furrowed your brow. He could practically hear your heart skip a beat.

“What? No. They can’t do that!” You shook your head, determined. There were traces of disbelief on your face – anger, too. Your hands gripped tightly into the sheets at your sides. “They can’t just reassign you, Buck. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Y/n, you don’t understand,” he started to say, but you were already on your feet, pacing around the room. It was how you calmed yourself when your thoughts were racing too fast. The stabbing pain in Bucky’s chest only seemed to dig deeper.

“I know the field has been messy lately, but that happens to everyone! They can’t split us up because of a few extra trips to the med bay,” you argued, wearing trenches into the carpet of your bedroom. You stopped abruptly. “Who gave the order? Steve? Tony? I’ll take this up with Fury if I have to, okay? I won’t let them—”

“Y/n, stop. Please.” Bucky hung his head. His right hand was red as his left clasped and tugged at the skin. He couldn’t find the courage to meet your eye but he could tell from the way you stilled that you knew what he was about to say. “It was me. I asked for reassignment.”

It didn’t seem to hurt any less though because your stance still faltered. It was barely noticeable, not to the human eye, but Bucky’s sensed were advanced thanks to his time in Hydra. He saw the way your body weight shifted just slightly, how your breath caught in your chest, the slight flicker of your eyes. Shock. Betrayal. Hurt.

“You said it yourself,” Bucky reasoned, trying to find excuses where there were none, “there’s been too many ER trips lately. I keep getting hurt.”

“Because you insist on using your body as human shield, Buck!” you retorted, arms flung out to the sides. “Just knock that off and we’ll be fine!”

Bucky shook his head, his lips curling ever so slightly though it didn’t touch his eyes. “It’s not that simple.”

“Of course, it is!” you argued. You started pacing again. “Don’t be an idiot, Barnes. I’m not losing my partner. Go tell them you were joking or concussed and not thinking straight!”

“I’m not going to do that.” Bucky clenched his jaw. His right hand was starting to lose feeling from how tightly he was gripping it.

Why couldn’t you make this easy on him? You were supposed to be angry with him for ignoring you for the last week. You were angry with him and yet you still fought for him. He couldn’t make sense of it.

The pacing stopped again, though this time it came in slow, like a realization that found its way piece by piece until it melded into a visible image.

“Was it something I did?”

Bucky jumped up to his feet, instinctively wanting to walk towards you but you held your ground. He froze, standing several feet away.

“No,” he said firmly. “God no. You didn’t do anything wrong, Y/n.”

“Then what?” You raised your arms out to the side in question. “We’ve been partners for years, Bucky. I’ve relied on you all that time to have my back, to keep me alive out there, and—and—” you groaned rather loudly, “you’re my best friend! You can’t just up and decide you’re done with me and move on!”

Bucky frowned. “That’s not what this is.”

You shook your head, arms folding tightly over your chest protectively. “Sure feels like it.”

The silence between you was unbearable. Bucky didn’t have a good excuse. You were right to be angry with him. He was abandoning you. He was a coward. He was running away from a painful situation to avoid facing it head on because he was terrified to lose you. Though, as you pressed the heels of your palms into your eyes, pulling them away a moment later to find a soft glisten of reflection in their wake, Bucky started to wonder that were already true.

“Oh God,” you exhaled, a heavy realization in your voice as you turned to him. Your shoulders slumped. “This is because of Munich, isn’t it?”

Bucky flinched. He tried not to, but you noticed. A look of absolute devastation crossed your features as your lips parted, sinking down onto your bed.

“I knew things were different after that mission. I mean, how could they not be?” You leaned over against your thighs, letting your hair fall down to shield your face where Bucky could not see. “I crossed a line. I shouldn’t have given in. You couldn’t consent with that shit running through your veins. Not really. So— fuck – I completely understand if you can’t be around me after I—”

“That’s not what happened,” Bucky interjected sharply, shaking himself from the fear coursing through him as he crossed the room to you. He knelt down beside your bed and waited patiently for you to lift your head and let the curtain of hall fall away from your face. “I could have fought it. It hurt like hell, but I would have survived it even if we… if we hadn’t…”

He let his voice trail off, his cheeks turning a slight side of pink. He sighed. “The point... is that I wanted to. I really wanted to. And that’s the problem.”

You narrowed your eyes, confused.

Was he really going to tell you? Wasn’t this what he had been trying to avoid? Throwing away years of friendship to confess deeper feelings he was all but sure you’d never reciprocate?

But there was something about the way you were looking at him. With tears glistening in your eyes and a grief he couldn’t quite place nestled into the lines on your forehead, Bucky began to wonder if walking away would give him any relief at all. He wasn’t sure he could ever leave this room again if you were left blaming yourself for his crimes.

Bucky slowly placed his right hand on your knee, rubbing his thumb gently along the dimple. Your eyes followed his movements, watching curiously until he found the courage to speak.

“We’ve been partners for a while,” he started, clearing his voice when it came out shaken. You nodded. “I feel like sometimes I know what you’re thinking just by looking at you and when we’re out in the field, even in the middle of chaos, it’s like you can tell what I’m doing before I actually figure it out myself. We’re really good together. Out there. It’s hard to find that these days.”

You didn’t say anything and for that, he was grateful. He needed to get this out before he shut down completely.

“I think we only got that good because we’re… uhm… we’re close, you know?” Bucky took a deep breath, releasing his grip on your knee when he realized he’d started to squeeze it a little too hard. Your hand was sitting on your thigh, but you’d inched it closer to his, enough so the tips of your fingers overlapped onto his.

“We’re friends.” Bucky paused at the term, deciding it wasn’t strong enough. “It’s more than that though. I trust you with things I wouldn’t even tell Steve. You were the first person I felt like I could be myself around. Not the Bucky that Steve remembers or the one Hydra manipulated. This one. Whatever that means.”

Your whole hand covered his now, as much as it would allow. He glanced up to find your fingers curling under his, a slight squeeze to tell him you were still listening. He exhaled another breath and the pressure in his chest felt a little lighter.

“What happened in Munich didn’t awaken anything or… or open my eyes to something I didn’t know was there,” Bucky continued, his eyes trained on your legs, unable to find the courage to face you. “I’ve known how I felt about you for a long time. I was okay with it. I learned to live with it and manage it because being your friend and being your partner was too important to lose. But…”

He felt your hands squeeze his again.

“But after Munich… I don’t know how to go back. I don’t think I can.” Bucky didn’t dare to meet your eye. He could feel the words slipping past his lips before he had a chance to pull them back in. A waterfall of confessions he couldn’t hope to control. “It’s why I’ve been so reckless in the field, why I keep ending up in the med wing. I can’t shove it down anymore and it punctures me right through the goddamn heart when I see you surrounded by armed agents or when there’s a weapon aimed at you and my instinct is to run towards you. Screw what happens to me.

“I know you’re good at your job,” Bucky stressed, shaking his head. “I know you can handle yourself and you don’t need me to protect you but… but I want to. I want to keep you safe and hold your hand when you’re getting stitches and curl up beside you at night just so I can remind myself you’re real when the nightmares get the better of me. I want… I want more than I should.”

He could hear the skip in your heartbeat, how it gradually picked up in pace the longer he spoke. Your breathing was shorter, too. Shallower. Bucky was certain it was all confirmation of the story he’d been telling himself for years.

“This… How I feel… It’s not good for us. As friends. As partners. I’m trying to do us a favor and just remove myself from the equation.”

Bucky still had yet to meet your eye. He’d turned to examining every detail he could find on the fabric of your sleep shorts, in the sheets you sat upon, in the divots and dimples and blemishes on your thighs. He wasn’t sure he’d have the resolve to leave if he looked at your face.

Several beats of silence passed by and Bucky wondered how it was possible you hadn’t lashed out at him yet. He expected you to be angry for driving a wedge between you with something as reckless as love and affection. He expected you to turn your shoulder, reject him for everything he was, because it was one thing to befriend the Winter Soldier, another entirely to love him.

Bucky slowly rose back to his feet, letting his hand slip away from your knee and your gentle hold on him fell away. He mistook your silence for acceptance, maybe even agreement. He cleared his throat, starting to back up towards the door.

“So, um,” Bucky said nervously, trying to fill the silence in his escape, “that’s why. I hope you can forgive me some day for all of this. I’ll, uh, I’ll go.”

Bucky barely had his hand on the knob when he heard the soft squeak of your mattress springs as you rose to your feet.

“You’re wrong.”

The sound of your voice startled him, enough to get him to look back at you before he could stop himself. Your hands were clenched at your sides, eyes red with tears, bottom lip chewed raw.

“Y/n, I—”

“You’re wrong,” you said again, almost angry and somehow that was a relief. It would make it easier for him to leave if you were angry, but you had different plans. “You’re wrong if you think you’re doing me some kind of favor by leaving.”

Tears were on your cheeks now and Bucky’s stomach lurched. This wasn’t what he wanted. This was agony.

He took a step closer to you. “You have to trust me, it’s not a good idea for us to—”

“You’re wrong,” you continued, cutting him off again as you rubbed at the tears under your eyes. “You’re wrong to assume that I don’t feel the exact fucking way about you and—and if you leave, Bucky, I swear to God it will kill me.”

Bucky froze. His heart stopped beating completely, might have plunged down through his stomach, broken through the floorboards and buried itself into molten lava and dirt, because of all the things he was expecting you to say, that was not one of them.

“Don’t do this,” you implored, voice a little broken, barely above a whisper. “Please don’t go.”

Bucky was at a loss. He didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t prepared for this. He never even considered you might beg him to stay, that you might feel for him in the way he felt for you. It never once crossed his mind. It felt like a dream.

“I miss you.” Your voice was so small and still, it nearly tore him straight in half. “I miss how we used to be. I miss seeing you smile and your stupid jokes at the most inappropriate times in the field.” You laughed to yourself, under your breath, and even through the tears it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard. But you sighed, the smile falling away. “I miss you when you’re not here. All the time. So much it hurts. I feel like I’m going out of my mind when I’m not with you. You’re my best friend, but I… I also… I miss Munich.”

Bucky’s eyes widened and you only caught a glimpse of him for a second before your face was in your hands, trying to shield yourself from him.

“I know it’s wrong,” you murmured, muffled by your palms. “I know it’s not right to miss a moment when you were in pain and made to feel something you didn’t ask for, but… I think about it a lot and... how much I want more.”

Stunned silence. Throat dry. Heart pounding.

“What are you saying?” Bucky finally found the courage to ask.

You lifted your head, finally meeting his eye and there was a relief there as you looked up at him. Your shoulders eased. A soft smile returned to your lips and it nearly melted him completely.

“The same thing you are, I think.”

He swallowed. “Oh.”

Bucky watched, near frozen, as you crossed the room, bare feet padding softly over the carpet until you were only inches from him. The space between you closing as your hands slid up his arms, resting against his shoulders, cupping at the sides of his face, just observing, just feeling. There was no venom in his veins and yet, Bucky felt electrified under your touch. His heart stammered in his chest as your fingers wove at the strands of hair at the base of his neck.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” you told him and he wondered for a moment if he stopped breathing entirely. "No Hydra chemicals. No foreign influence. Just us, okay? You and me.”

Bucky nodded, a little stunned.

Slowly, you inched up closer to him, your eyes drawing closed until you were a breath from his lips. Just barely grazing upon his own, waiting, and Bucky let his hands slid up against your back, tugging you closed against him, and captured your lips in his own.

It was different than the first time in Munich, less rushed, less desperate, but instead filled with a longing that had spanned years between you, coated in affection and heartache and need for one another beyond anything a serum in a lab could fabricate.

Your hands wove into his hair, his arms pressing you firm against his chest, and it was like you were holding onto him for dear life. Your feet began to carry the two of you backwards, dragging Bucky towards the bed, and you yelped as your knees caught on the edge of the mattress, sending the two of you spiraling onto the bed.

“You alright?” Bucky laughed, brushing away the hair in your eyes as he propped himself up on his elbows caged around your shoulders; most of his weight laying upon you in the sweetest comfort of pressure.

“I'm perfect,” you replied, bright smiles and joy radiating from every pore. It was contagious.

“We can stop here, if you want,” Bucky offered sincerely. He was riding a high he never thought he’d ever experience and anything you’d be willing to share with him was a gift within itself. He’d kiss you for hours if you’d let him.

“And if I don’t want to stop?” you questioned, staring up at him with a hunger in your eyes. Your fingers trailed down his t-shirt, dancing around the hem of the fabric at his hips. “If I wanted to keep going... If I wanted you...?”

“I’m yours, sweetheart.”

A simple answer. A true one. He���d never been more certain of anything in his life.

Bucky knelt back, tugged on the fabric of his shirt between his shoulder blades and pulled it over his head. You watching him as he tossed it to the corner of the room before he settled back down against you. Your hands ran along the lines of his muscles, over the scars and imperfections, and for once, Bucky didn’t shy away from the hands of a woman. It didn’t feel like a twist to his gut, he didn’t hold his breath. No – instead, it felt renewing, healing almost.

His hands slid under the waist of your shirt, inching it higher as he rand his touch along the curves of your sides, until you leaned up for him to help remove the fabric. It joined his shirt at the edge of the room.

Perfect and bare. Stunning in your nakedness. A privilege he never thought he’d be granted.

“You want to take a picture or...?” you teased him, noticing how long he’d been staring at you.

Bucky laughed, shaking his head. “Don’t temp me. Besides, I’m hoping I won’t need a picture to see you like this again.”

“Definitely not,” you confirmed, tugging him down to meet your lips again.

It was laced in smiled and laughter and ages of holding back from one another all rolled into one. A freedom of taking your time, of enjoying one another, and learning to memorize your bodies. Bucky would have wondered if he were dreaming if not for the way you wrapped your legs around his waist, grinding against his hardening cock – no dream could produce a feeling like that.

With his lips on your neck, Bucky played with the hem of your shorts, waiting until you lifted your hips just enough to give him the access to slid them down your legs, removing the last remaining fabric along with it.

Bucky kissed his way down your body, mapping a trail from your neck, to the hills of your breasts, to your ribs, to the comfort of cushion at your stomach, to the crevices at your legs and inner thighs. He paused for a moment, setting his cheek against your thigh as he drew his fingers between your lips, separating them to give access to the sweetest parts of you.

You flinched a little as he touched your clit, a gasp emitting from your lips as your hands curled into the sheets. Bucky grinned, encouraged by your reaction as he began to circle the pads of his fingers at your entrance. Listening for the subtle changes in your breath, the moans the slipped past, and the curl of your fingers, Bucky leaned in and wrapped his lips around your clit.

“F-fuck, Bucky,” you whined, hands snaking into his hair and gripping tight against his scalp.

He smiled at the feeling, at the way you cried his name, and he pressed his slicked fingers inside of you. Perhaps it was the haze of the foreign chemicals the last time he had you under him like this, but he didn’t remember you being so vocal, so sensitive to his touch. It was a rush and he had to keep himself from rutted up against the mattress as added a third finger, curling them just enough and massaging at the walls as they squeezed tight around him.

Tongue lapping at the wetness, sucking around the sensitive bud of nerves, fingers perfectly drawing out the high as it built at your core, it only took moments before you crashed. You cried out his name, legs wrestling against him in the sensitivity as he drew out the feeling as long as he could, moving slower and slower until you stilled under him.

“Fuck,” you exhaled, a laugh entranced in your voice.

Bucky grinned, pleased with himself as he crawled his way back up the bed to meet your lips. He didn’t bother to wipe the remnants of your high from his mouth and you didn’t seem to mind as you kissed him, certainly tasting yourself upon his lips, and it only made him want you more.

“You’re turn,” you smirked, trying to slide out from under him as you licked your lips, but Bucky held you down.

“Next time, okay?” he countered and you sunk back into the mattress with a pout on your lips. “I don’t think I can last if you get your mouth on me.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” you teased, running your fingers down his stomach until he began to shiver.

“Yes,” he chuckled, swatting your hands away playfully. He winked. “I’m gonna die if I don’t have you right now.”

“Jesus, Buck, don’t even joke,” you laughed, hiding your face in your hands.

“Hey, someone's gotta,” Bucky grinned as he tugged down his pants, kicking them off to land amongst the rest of the discarded clothing. “If it got me here, I’ll happily make light of a fucked up Hydra breeding experiment.”

“Would you have told me if it hadn’t happened?” you asked, voice a little softer, peering out from behind your hands.

Bucky stilled, his grin falling into something gentler and he shrugged. “Don’t know if I ever would have had the courage. I never thought we’d be here. Never could have imagined you’d feel the same way.” He leaned down to press a kiss to your shoulder. “Would you have said anything?”

“I don’t think I really knew until you threatened to walk away,” you admitted.

“Well,” Bucky sighed, pressing a trail of kissed along your collarbone as he settled between your legs, his length pressing against your thigh, “good thing I’m not going anywhere.”

“Better not,” you murmured against his lips as you drew his mouth to yours.

Then, as he felt the hitch of your breath against his lips, he sank into you. Stretching walls and guiding your legs to wrap at his waist to offer an angle that left your jaw slacked. Your eyes fluttered closed, lips parted, and Bucky felt a rush unlike anything he’d ever experienced. Even through the smoke filled haze of that serum in Munich, he’d never felt an ounce of the relief as he did in this moment. To be completely and entirely yours.

He felt you squeeze at his shoulders, urging him to move, and slowly, he rocked his hips against you. Slow and steady. Needy. Until your nails dug into his spine and Bucky couldn’t prolong the tender build up any longer.

Chasing and chasing; higher and higher. Bucky could tell you were close from how tight your walls were clenched around him. It took near everything he had not to come on the spot, but he held on, waiting, watching as your lips parted, as the most beautiful sounds he’d ever heard slipped past, and you cried out his name.

“Oh fuck—fuck—Bucky, don’t stop.” Your breath was hot against his cheek. “I’m so close. I’m—ah—”

A hitch in your breath and your whole body seemed to fall slack. It only spurred him on. Hips snapped, fingers rubbing quick circles at your clit, until you were whining and shaking under him, until he was satisfied with the blissful look on your face and he let himself go.

He spilled into you, rutting his hips in a few final, lazy thrusts as he sank into the crook of your neck, panting. Dizzy and content, riding a high that extended beyond his body, Bucky hummed into your collarbone as he felt your nails draw patterns along his back in gentle sweeps. It tingled on his skin, send shivers along his spine, and he never wanted it to stop.

“Hey, Y/n?”

You paused, just for a moment, before you resumed tracing the lines on his back, over muscles and scars alike. “Yes, Bucky?”

He could hear the teasing in your voice, the light-hearted laugh, the warmth that made him fall in love with you and his heart clenched. He wrapped his arms under your shoulders, the full weight of his body still pressing you down to the mattress, still buried inside of you.

“Promise me this is real.” An embarrassment crept up as he said it, though the drawing on his back didn’t skip a beat. “You and me. I’m not dreaming or stuck in my head. This is real, right?”

Your hands slid up along his shoulders to his neck, and then to the sides of his face as you guided him off your chest to meet your eye; more beautiful than he’d ever seen you, with a glimmer of sweat and an afterglow radiating in the smile lifting your cheeks.

“This is real, honey,” you told him, leaning in to kiss him sweetly on the lips.

“Okay. Okay, good.” Bucky grinned, cheeks flushed in heat. He settled back against your chest, resting his cheek to your heart as you resumed drawing the lazy patterns on his back.

Perfectly content.

Warm. Safe.

Home.

---

Thank you so much for reading! ❤️ If you enjoyed this fic, please consider supporting me at my ko-fi account ✨

[yeongwonie]

STUPID CUPID! — 33

pairing. park sunghoon x f!reader

SYNOPSIS. alone on valentine’s day, you decide to sign up for the student council’s fundraiser: a matchmaking survey, hoping to at least get a few laughs out of the whole ordeal. little do you know, park sunghoon (your archenemy since junior high) has the same idea. but it’s fine! your student body president, kim sunoo, would never tamper with the matching system, right?

note. this is my formal apology for chapter 29 </3 i loved writing this so much even tho its literally my own smau i am the biggest sungy/n fan

+ please rb if u want to!! it rlly helps w/ tumblr’s algorithm :))

masterlist

⤎ prev | 33 — like it was (written; 1.2k) | next ⤍

AT 11:01, SUNGHOON FINDS YOU slumped against a tree in the school’s courtyard.

initially, it’s hard to tell, but when he sees you curled up, face half-hidden in the warmup jacket you’re clutching to your chest, he knows it’s you. he approaches slowly at first, then breaks into a light jog until he’s standing in front of you. he crouches down until he’s at your eye level, then, tentatively, a hand reaches out to touch your shoulder, tapping lightly in the hopes of waking you up. 

when you don’t stir, sunghoon examines your face more closely. your hair clings to the sides of your face, and your brows are furrowed. he holds the back of his hand a few centimeters away from your forehead and finds that even the air around you feels warm and clammy. 

lightly, his fingers move to brush a few stray hairs out of your face. the moment he makes contact with your skin, your eyes shoot open, and you blink up at him in disbelief. 

“what are you doing?” you ask, voice low from disuse. in a flash, he retracts his hand and moves backward in slight fear. somehow, you still manage to appear more than a bit intimidating, even though he’s just woken you up from your impromptu nap on school grounds. 

“sorry,” sunghoon mumbles, still squatting awkwardly in front of you. it’s a little unnerving, the way you stare at him in silence for a long pause (though, he supposes if he’d woken up to you in front of him, he’d have the same reaction). eventually, you sigh, then pat the space next to you under the tree’s vast trunk. 

slowly, sunghoon moves to lean against the tree alongside you, though he never lets you out of his direct line of sight. he watches your eyelids flutter closed as you let out a shaky exhale. for a few moments, he mirrors you, letting the warm sunshine of the late morning wash over his face. staring up at the thin veil of branches and leaves stretching across the sky, it’s not hard for sunghoon to see why you’d fallen asleep here so easily; he’d known you’d looked tired, and something about the atmosphere of the courtyard was strangely tranquil and soothing. 

while sunghoon watches the leaves rustle slightly in the light breeze, he thinks only of you. he and you had gone so quickly from close friends to strangers because of his cowardice, and now, it was far too easy for him to fall back into his old routines and find comfort by your side. it terrifies him, how easily he had sat down next to you despite years of trying to push you from the furthest depths of his subconscious. 

at the same time, he can’t help but wonder why it is you seem so exhausted. he wants to believe it’s only because of the pressure of this showcase. during your years “apart”, sunghoon thinks you’ve only gotten more admirable, though you’d always been someone who was willing to work yourself to your limit for the good of your team. still, another part of him knows it has to be a little bigger. the puffiness around your eyes betrays your clear lack of sleep.

sunghoon hopes you’re not losing sleep over him, as he does so often. 

lost in thought, a sudden weight on his shoulder is enough to make sunghoon jolt a little, then look down at you in surprise. your hair tickles the skin of his neck, and sunghoon is rendered helpless, frozen in utter shock. you’re still asleep, having effortlessly fallen back into your slumber minutes prior (your unbothered state is an almost comical juxtaposition to his panicked expression, he thinks).

and then, sunghoon realizes what he’d come outside to do.

“it’s past 11, now,” he murmurs softly, turning his head a little to look down at you. your eyes don’t open, but he continues, knowing you’re listening. “we should go.”

you shift the position of your head, pressing your chin more firmly into his shoulder while mumbling a light protest, and sunghoon feels the tips of his ears burn bright red. 

“come on,” he tries to say seriously, though the end of his order breaks off into a laugh. “i’m not going to carry you, by the way.”

“i would hope not,” you reply. at last, your eyes crack open, and you sit up straight, squinting against the sudden rush of bright light and schooling your features into a soft frown. after lingering for a few seconds, you push yourself to your feet and dust any dirt off of your practice clothes. 

you extend a hand to sunghoon, and he stares at it for a second too long before allowing you to pull him to his feet. one of your hands slips into your pocket and pulls out your phone, and once you look at the screen, your eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets. 

“it’s 11:20?” you exclaim, voice rising in panic. 

sunghoon laughs a little, then places a hand on your shoulder, as though he’d sensed the sudden urge you felt to sprint the entire way back to the practice room. “don’t worry, he says, “coach said she only wants us back to help set up. don’t tire yourself out.”

“but,” you protest, brushing his hand off of your shoulder, “won’t she still be annoyed?”

“i don’t know, aren’t you the captain? i think you should get special privileges or something.”

“that’s really not how it works,” you say, a smile contradicting your seemingly bothered tone. 

side by side, sunghoon and you start to walk back to where your teams are probably waiting. he grimaces a little at the thought of setting up every single chair for the auditorium, but any negative feelings are pushed out of his mind by the sheer elation he feels just being next to you like this, as though no time had passed and nothing had happened to jeopardize your relationship. 

and just like that, the words flow out of his mouth, as easily as he wishes they had any time during the last four years. 

“about what you asked yesterday,” he begins, pausing in the middle of the walkway. “do you still want to know?”

you pause alongside him, and sunghoon scans your face, expecting curiosity or even eagerness. instead, you look pensive, and maybe even a little sad. 

“can we talk about this later?” you ask, and his heart drops. noticing his shift in demeanor, you quickly continue. “i do still want to know, i just.” you pause to swallow. “i don’t know if i’m ready to hear it, right now.”

sunghoon nods, because it’s all he can really do in the moment. he wonders what would’ve changed had he said something sooner, or if he hadn’t said anything at all and you’d continued on your separate paths like two parallel lines. with a grim look on your face, you turn and continue walking back to the dance room, leaving sunghoon to trail a few steps behind.

he decides then, for probably the sixth or seventh time (and a few years too late), that he will do everything he can to fix things. the prospect of valentine’s day in the near future looms over him like a vast shadow as he watches you walk ever further away.

✮✮✮

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[theresattrpgforthat]

hey! love the blog, could you recommend any tactical combat games in the vein of lancer/icon? I'm hopelessly addicted to moving little dudes around on a grid rn

THEME: Tactical Combat Games 

Thank you! Here are some games that centre tactics and combat. Enjoy crunching those numbers and moving around those dudes on a grid!

Trespasser, by tundalus.

It's clear even from your place of rustic isolation. Hideous beasts run roughshod through the countryside, roving bands of marauders reduce settlements to smoking rubble, wide-eyed prophets babble madly at the sky, and common folk like yourself live in a constant state of terror. Well, you've had just about enough of it. No more tilling the fields in obscurity. Of course, that's all assuming you survive your first day. 

Trespasser is a tabletop roleplaying game about peasants-turned-adventurers carving out safe refuge amid the long collapse of their dying world. Designed for player-driven sandbox campaigns of survival and dungeon crawling, Trespasser borrows themes of early tabletop and pairs them with a tactical combat system inspired by 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. 

You’ll get good use out of a number of dice with this game, although most checks will require a d20. Rather than a power fantasy however, this game prioritizes survival: your characters are but mere peasants, trying to make their way in a large, dark fantasy world. It is expected that your character die, and another character will have to replace them. If you admire the principles of old school gaming but also enjoy picking character options and pushing miniatures around a grid, Trespasser might be for you.

Rotted Capes, by Paradigm Concepts, Inc.

The Golden Age of Superheroes has ended, not with a BANG, but with a BITE! The Dead overran the world and humanity's protectors are missing, dead or worst of all, Z'ed!Once dismissed as the B-List Superhero, you are now mankind's last hope for survival in this horrific world where the Super Zombies sit atop the food chain, looking hungrily down upon you. 

At its core, Rotted Capes is a roleplaying game of post-apocalyptic survival in a world overrun by zombies with a particular twist; this event has taken place in a typical superhero comic book world and the players take on the roles of superheroes struggling to protect what’s left of humanity.

If you want to crunch numbers, Rotted Capes is the game for you. You have Attributes, Skills and Powers that all add up to give you modifiers on every roll, with special abilities and moves you buy with XP at the beginning of the game. With both regular zombies and zombified super-heroes, you’ll be up against varying levels of difficulty that require teamwork, strategy, and an urge to give in to the flaws that your character carries with them in order to survive. The book itself is a bit difficult to navigate, but once you get used to the system, you’ll have freed up some brain space to figure out where (and when) is the best moment to strike.

Zafir: Tactical Roleplaying Game, by Zafir Games.

Zafir: Tactical Roleplaying Game is a fast-paced, tactical, cover-shooter, tabletop RPG that brings something new to the genre. The setting is inspired by ancient middle-eastern themes and Zoroastrian mythology, with a unique magitech twist, bringing the world into a magical analogue of the industrial revolution. Guns, magic, airships, and energy crystals all coexist in the world of Zafir. 

Set just two decades after a massive world war, the nations of Zafir are at an uneasy peace. Banditry and sky-piracy are rampant, and the need for muscle and guns is at an all time high. Will your crew help fight back the tide of outlaws, or become outlaws themselves?

Zafir requires 4 different-coloured six-sided dice for play, each dice representing stats and trackers, as well as a battle map and tokens in order to keep track of what your characters are doing. Characters are broken down into your standard categories of Class, Origin, Attributes, Equipment, Abilities and Proficiencies. Your character also has a Responsibility, which gives your character non-combat skills, and languages, which hint to the complex lore of the setting for this game. The bulk of your tactical play will take place inside Missions, although there will likely also be as many social role-play opportunities as you like in between each mission. With a large world to explore and a wealth of character options, feel free to min and max to your delight!

Gone Rogue, by QuickWit.

The world is in chains, having willfully relinquished control to the automata known as the Legardien. You are members of the Rogue, the last bastion of resistance against our metallic overlords, on your way to their shining capital of Sion. You are desperately outnumbered, outmatched and outgunned, perceived as the enemy by the sheep licking at the Legardien heel. You will enter Sion to overthrow the despotic Legardien from their seat of power and restore the reigns of humanity back to our own hands. No matter the cost. To yourself, or to mankind. The time of peaceful obedience is over, the age of the Legardien at its end. We are the Rogue.

In development since late 2019, Gone Rogue is a tabletop roleplaying game in which players take on the roles of fearless revolutionaries in a futuristic pacifist dystopia. Skilled, audacious and armed with advanced weaponry, you must enter a city unaccepting of your ideals. Your mission, to reclaim mankind’s freedom in an uncompromising battle against an army of autocratic war machines.

Gone Rogue uses a series of archetypes to determine your character’s role in the party, each with starting stats and abilities. Your character will also choose a Suit that will give you traits, upgrades and inventory items. This is a game that cares about inventory, movement, hit points, cover and more, so expect to pull out your grid maps and start crunching some numbers! However, don’t forget that there’s lore and worldbuilding involved as well - at the beginning you will need to answer some questions as a group, about what the resistance looks like, what the characters’ stake is in this fight, and what kinds of NPC’s the party has access to. This game has only a starter kit right now, but as starter kits go, it has more than enough to get you playing!

FIST, by claymorerpgs.

Now: the second half of the twentieth century. The powers that be are locked in a tense nuclear standoff, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Away from the watchful eye of national intelligence, a cadre of exceptional misfits is assembled. These soldiers of fortune are uniquely equipped for covert and unusual operations. In these uncertain times, the line between science and superstition has been broken, and the new arms race is only beginning. You, or your associates, may be faced with weapons, tactics, and actors unlike any you have ever seen. For a price, those exceptional misfits can help. 

When you’re all out of options, it’s time to call FIST.

FIST is a tabletop roleplaying game for one referee and two to six players. It draws heavily from Chris P. Wolf and Olivia Gulin's Offworlders and John Harper's World of Dungeons, as well as being inspired by Metal Gear Solid, The A-Team, and Doom Patrol. 

Characters take on traits that act as building blocks; each trait gives you a special skill, an item for your inventory, and a stat modification. Character advancement adds on more traits, making for highly customizable characters. FIST also has community-made supplements for additional traits, foes, and missions to give you the experience that works best for your table.  When it comes to dice mechanics, the roll instructions are fairly simple. The game is designed for theatre of the mind: the tactics come into play when it comes to how you solve your problems. Thematically, you’re looking at supernatural warfare: think about modern mercenaries going up against strange horrors beyond our mortal ken.

Beacon, by Pirate Gonzalez Games.

BEACON is a high-fantasy TTRPG inspired by LANCER, D&D 4e, and Final Fantasy.  BEACON is a tactical, highly-customizable game where you are encouraged to mix features from various classes, like the teleporting Shadow Dancer or un-killable Gravewalker.

Design the details of your setting together (your Reflection), create your character (your Beacon), and get ready to do battle against the cyclical, everchanging threat of the Scourge. Will you and your fellow beacons be able to defeat the Scourge this time, or will you find a way to break the cycle forever?

If you like LANCER and ICON, you will probably like this game. Like both of the aforementioned games, Beacon uses two different systems for narrative vs combat-style play, and also uses d20s and d6s for your character’s roles. The bulk of Beacon revolves around quests, which are the adventures your characters will embark on, each with information and preparation requirements, a number of stages, specific rewards, and downtime between each quest. Highly structured gameplay allows for a wealth of resources for GMs - and with over 400 pages of character options, combat information, NPCs and setting information, Beacon at its playtest stage is a game to be reckoned with. If you’re looking for a tactical RPG with a fantasy element, I highly recommend you check this one out.

The LUMEN System, by Spencer Campbell.

LUMEN is a rules-lite system for making and playing RPGs focused on telling the stories of powerful characters. LUMEN was first developed for the games LIGHT and NOVA, and has been converted to this genre agnostic SRD so that you can use it to make your own games with the same system. 

At its core, LUMEN is designed to tell power fantasy stories. The characters played have access to incredible powers, and use those powers relentlessly in pursuit of their objectives. It’s inspiration comes from video game genres such as looter shooters (Destiny), hero shooters (Overwatch), and dungeon crawlers (Diablo). 

LUMEN uses d6 dice pools, 3 attributes, and a series of classes that give players something unique that sets them apart. While the system relies on players determining how they will go about solving their problems, much of their problems will involve combat. Games can include status affects, health tracks, spells and similar special abilities, and more. LUMEN focuses on fast and lethal combat, so you won’t be moving around on the map, but players will use the tools they have at hand to gain the upper hand in stressful situations, invoke consequences and complications, and look cool while doing it. 

Some games that use the LUMEN system include Hedge (Wardens fighting off a Faerie Apocalypse), Blazing Hymn (Mech pilots protecting humanity from monstrous Angels), and Lords of Eternity (Superhuman beings of immense power, duelling with swords).

[neoculturetravesty]

Lie to me

Image taken from here. Because lbr, this Jaehyun made us all feel some kind of way.

Pairing: Rich CEO Jaehyun x Escort Reader Genre: smut, pwp, angst, mafia au if you squint Warnings: 18+, Dom Jaehyun, sub and escort reader, lingerie kink, collar kink, makeup kink, beauty kink, intense choking kink, choking out (breath play) and some fear play associated with that, oral (male receiving), deep throating, unprotected sex, innocence kink, Jaehyun has a lot of fucked up thoughts about wanting to own you. Word Count: 5.5k

Summary: Jaehyun knows he’s playing with fire when he keeps booking the most beautiful girl that the high end mafia-owned escort service has to offer.

A/N: Ngl, this gets dark: there are mentions of intense loneliness, thoughts about Jaehyun wanting to (at one point) make it hard for the reader just to feel something, and towards the end, the reader longing for an escape from the mafia escort life. If you’re uncomfortable with any of these themes, please protect yourself and stay away.

It was in the way you were kissing him so needily that Jaehyun felt most powerful. It was in the way the city skyline was glittering behind him, turning the two of you into mere silhouettes in its glory. But Jaehyun didn’t care. He had his back to that view. Because he liked the view in front of him a lot better.

He liked that you were on all fours on the couch while he sat splayed out like a king, still in his suit from earlier. He liked that you were pretty from him from head to toe. Hair pushed to one side, giving him the perfect view of the black lingerie set you wore. A beautiful see through lace bra. A matching garter belt that hugged your waist in all the right places. Panties that make your perfect pussy lips peek through. Thigh high stockings that the belt clipped onto. And beautiful black stilettos to finish it all off. He even loved the sweet taste of your lipgloss as you kissed him with so much attention. He loved that you were kissing him at all. Then again, it’s what he had paid you extra for.

It’s what he would pay you for every time he had to make these damn business trips. Because for a couple of nights, you would use your sweet mouth and sweeter pussy to ease all the tension from his mind and his body. Like you were doing now. Purring as you kissed him, making little, lovely sounds with your whole body as you leaned into the kiss. And if you got off balance, you would grab onto his shirt, then lay your hand over his chest, while Jaehyun sat there and did nothing. One arm rested over the frame of the couch where he sat. The other held onto the glass of whiskey you had made for him. 

“More.” Jaehyun demands and you know exactly what he means so you begin kissing him even more needily. You whine like your entire body wanted him, not just your lips. You mewl as you grip onto his shirt tighter, grinding your hips against nothing but air. You press your mouth into him and kiss him like you couldn’t breathe and he was giving you oxygen. Like if you didn’t get to kiss him, you would die.

Jaehyun knots his fingers in your hair at the nape of your neck and pulls you off of him and you whine and reach for his lips once more but his grip is firm. He holds you away from him while your eyebrows knit together. Panting. Reaching for him in want. Because that’s what he wants to see.

“Shhh…” he kisses the corner of your mouth then brings the glass of whiskey he’s been drinking from to your lips. “Sip.” he orders simply.

You sip deeply as you pant, drinking like you need this, though the taste is strong and burns your throat on it’s way down. Jaehyun sets the cup down and swipes his thumb across your lips to wipe the little droplets away. Then he reaches in to kiss you but not for long enough. His hand in your hair is firm but his hand around your throat is unsatisfied.

“I can’t choke you when you’ve got this collar on.” he mutters irritably.

“Do you want me to take the collar off, Sir?” you ask him attentively.

“No, baby girl.” He leans in to kiss you sweet. “I wanna take it off for you. Get on your knees.”

“Yes, Sir.” you say and elegantly get off the couch and kneel before him. Jaehyun runs his eyes down your body and is pleased with what he sees. You seem like you’ve really made an effort to look the way you look tonight. Your hair looks gorgeous and he can tell it must have taken a lot of time. Even your makeup is prettier than usual, making you look so goddamn glamorous. Your skin is glimmering. In another world, you could’ve been a top model instead of a high end escort. Then again, he had paid you to look this way. After the sort of week he had had, he wanted something to soothe his sore eyes.

Jaehyun’s hands softly push your beautiful hair behind your shoulders, then he begins unclasping your leather collar with care. He undoes it and removes it from your slender neck and watches the imprint it has made on your delicate skin. He leans in and places a kiss on it to soothe you. But then he closes his hand around your pretty throat and gently squeezes.

“Remember, baby girl. Eyes on me.” he reminds you as his hand slowly but surely keeps increasing the pressure.

“Yes, Sir.” you whisper to him and look up at him from below. You try to keep your face soft, obedient, pretty. But Jaehyun can see the slowly building loss in your composure. And that’s what he wanted to see. It’s why he would choose you every single time. He wanted to take the most perfect girl he could find, the most poised and beautiful girl he could find. And slowly make her come undone in his hands. It was fucked up and he knew it. But what could he do when here you were in his grip, your pretty eyes looking at him with so much vulnerability, your sweet lips parting, your cute face changing color as Jaehyun slowly squeezed your airways. 

Your body convulses as you hit your limit and your hand instinctively comes up to grip the wrist of his hand that was holding you by the throat. But Jaehyun doesn’t stop. He would stop only when you tapped him thrice. That was your system. But you were his favorite girl for a reason. Because though you’re convulsing and gripping onto his wrist with both your hands, and though your body’s fighting instinct has switched on, you’re not tapping out. Jaehyun is actually impressed that this time, your eyes are still very much on him, even as they begin to lose focus and close.

“Well done.” he says, satisfied when you become heavier in his grip. He holds you against his knee and presses his lips to your forehead, his hand coming away from your neck and rubbing over the plane of your chest.

His lips and his hands keep soothing you till you come back to life. When you do, your face is panicked and you gasp in lungfuls of air though he hasn’t been choking you for a while. You lean into his thigh, swallowing, panting, gasping from the experience. A couple of tears spill from your eyes.

Jaehyun leans in and wipes them with his thumb. He kisses your forehead again. “Was that too intense, baby girl?”

“Yes, Daddy.” you called him that when you were feeling vulnerable and scared. When you weren’t too sure what kind of a night you were in for.

But this was exactly the kind of shit that Jaehyun was into. Where he would break you till you were quivering and helpless and scared and needing someone. And then to become that someone you needed.

“Come here, sweet girl.” He pulls you up into his arms and onto his lap. You lay your head on his shoulder as he collects your legs in his arm, then soothingly rubs his hand over them while his lips press calming kisses to your lips. He reaches behind you and undoes your bra and takes it off of you. Then he holds you to him close. His hands rubbing over your naked back. Your bare chest pressing into his clothed one. He loved how frightened you had been and how you were calming down in his arms now. He loved that he could do that for you. Comfort you and be the only one that could calm you down--even though he had been the one to make you this way in the first place. But what did it matter? It was all pretend, anyway. And he loved how much you needed him in this moment. It was the only way anyone ever needed him.

“I really appreciate that you did that for me.” he tells you, pressing his lips to your cheekbone. He smiles as he combs your hair away from your face so he can see you properly.

“Thank you, Sir.” you say softly, obediently. 

Jaehyun’s smile fades. It’s not what he wanted to hear. He doesn’t like that you’re on autopilot again. Or that you’re calling him ‘Sir’ again. He liked it when you called him ‘Daddy’ because it would tell him that it was you that was speaking to him. You, when you were in your most vulnerable, most sincere, most real. You, when it was you and him. Not an escort and client.

So, Jaehyun tries something else. He pets your soft hair then strokes your cheek with this thumb. “You look so beautiful today, baby. More beautiful than I’ve ever seen you. Too beautiful to be real. Did you do this for me?”

You look him in the eyes and nod, smiling gently. “Yes, Sir.”

Jaehyun traces his thumb over the shape of your perfect lips. “How long did it take you to be this pretty for me, baby?”

You’re pressing little kisses onto his thumb as you hear him talk. “All day, Sir.” you breathe out.

“All day?” Jaehyun purrs into your skin. “Wanna get on your knees and tell me about it?”

“Yes, Sir.” you say respectfully and get off of his lap and sink back to your knees in between his feet. Jaehyun unbuckles his belt and pulls his zipper down. He brings his hands to your breasts first, taking both your nipples in between his thumbs and forefingers, rolling and pulling them to his desired hardness. Then he puts a hand to the back of your head and brings it to the base of his cock.

“Kiss me while you talk, baby girl. Tell me how you started your day to get pretty for me.” Jaehyun says, picking his whiskey back up as he settles into the couch. Ready to be serviced. Ready to be loved, even if he had bought it.

“I woke up at 10 am then got a full body wax because I know Sir enjoys me smooth.” you begin telling him as you start pressing kisses to his balls. You hold his length in your hand to get more access to the base. You look so pretty from where Jaehyun’s looking. Your perfect jawline visible as your mouth moved on him. Fuck, you were way too pretty. He had the prettiest girl on her knees, kissing his cock in the most depraved way possible. He felt like a king.

“Mmm. Good girl. How long did it take and who did it for you?” Jaehyun asks, wanting to know all the little, perverse details.

“It took an hour. And um…” your kisses pause and Jaehyun’s eyes close. He knows you want to say ‘the service’. The service did it for you. The damn service prepared your body and made you pretty and sent you to his hotel room to be fucked. Because he had paid for all of that, not for any other reason. 

“... a woman did it for me.” you finish and resume your kisses and Jaehyun lets out a breath. He makes himself smile again. You were good, he had to admit. The amount of times he had booked you had made you learn some things about him. Despite his reality, he allows himself to fall back into this fantasy.

“Yeah? Did she do anything else to your body?” he asks, combing your hair away from your face with his fingers as you begin kissing his length deeply. You would choose one spot, kiss it with so much attention and roll your tongue over it and over it. Then you’d move to another spot. You were so perfect that it woke the most carnal, most feral parts in Jaehyun. The ones that wanted to destroy you.

“Mmm… she bathed me. She put me in a tub with essential oils. I asked her to put in all your favorites.” you say and Jaehyun takes your hand that’s gripping at his cock and brings it to his face. He presses his nose to the inside of your wrist and inhales your skin deeply. 

“I can smell it.” He presses a kiss to the back of your hand before he returns it to you. “What did you do after that?”

“I… I was dried and then oiled on my entire body. Even the insides, so they would be good for you.” you answer, slowly making your way up to Jaehyun’s leaking tip.

“Hmm… all of your insides?” Jaehyun strokes your face and feels the heat coming off of it when you answer.

“Yes.”

“Good girl. Then what did you do?” Jaehyun holds his cock so you can kiss the tip exactly how he likes. Goddammit your lips were perfect. You were gorgeous as fuck, like you could’ve been the most glamorous model to have ever existed. But here you were, sweetly kissing his thick tip on your knees, your pretty face tilting this way and that in devotion. The most beautiful girl in the world was kissing his cock in devotion.

“I went to get the lingerie. I tried on many before I decided on this one for you.” you say, kissing his tip, the precum still connecting your lips to it when you lift up to talk.

“It is a good choice, baby girl. I love it.” Jaehyun kisses the top of your head then picks up his glass. “What did you do next?”

“I got my hair and makeup done. It took about three hours because I wanted to be so perfect for you, I got full body makeup done.” you’re swirling your tongue over his sensitive tip now and Jaehyun tilts his head back into the headrest and bites his lip. Fuck, your mouth was so sweet. Your lips were sweet and your tongue was sweet and your voice was sweet and your words were sweet. But your throat was sweeter.

“My baby looks perfect. More perfect than any girl I have ever seen.” He says as he grits his teeth. He exhales before he orders “Stay like this.” He angles your head down, holds it in place and then begins fucking up into your open mouth. And you’re good because you accept him right away. As if your body was attuned to his, and you knew what he wanted to do, what pace he wanted to set. You’ve relaxed your jaw and you allow yourself to be held by the head and be throatfucked. You allow yourself to drool down Jaehyun’s length thickly because you know he would appreciate it. 

“Fuck, baby, your mouth is so sweet for me.” Jaehyun’s voice is strained but it is just as well because he loved hearing the lewd sounds of his cock pumping wetly into your throat. He loved how it echoed around this damn hotel suite. He preferred it over the sound of his loneliness, anyway.

He fucks into you faster till his thighs are sore and he can’t move anymore. Then, he just pushes your face down on him all the way, till your nose is pressed up into his stomach and your throat is closing around his cock, drawing the most satisfied growl out of him and you can’t breathe anymore. He only let’s go when you desperately tap at him three times.

You come up gasping like a drowning woman who has just surfaced and Jaehyun watches as you sit back onto your heels. He watches your pretty face, looking so fucked out. Your makeup was starting to beautifully streak around your eyes just a little bit. Your lips were parted as you breathed in air throatily and your chin was wet with slobber. He watches how your breasts heave up and down from your panting. He watches the thick mess of your drool on his cock. All of it just makes him lean forward and press a long, lingering kiss to your hairline.

“Good girl. You’re so good for me. My perfect girl.” he says into the kiss.

“Thank you, Daddy.” you gasp in the sweetest voice in the world and Jaehyun’s heart aches for you. It makes him put his arms around you and hold you like this, to his chest while you kneel and his hardness presses in between your bodies.

He pulls back and brings his face closer to you. He looks at you from above as he wipes your chin with his hands. “I’m going to fuck your pussy now. Did you get your shots?” he asks caringly. Of course he knew you got your shots. He would receive your full fucking medical report each time he booked you. But he wanted to live this fantasy. Where he had someone he could be concerned about. Someone he could love. Someone to make him feel wanted and needed.

“I did, Sir.” you say and Jaehyun kisses your forehead once again. 

“Good. This means I can fuck you bare. I can feel your sweet pussy right on my cock like I’m supposed to.”

You smile as you look up at him. “Yes, Sir.”

Jaehyun kisses your face again. He couldn’t get enough of you. You looked like the most beautiful little broken doll on your knees for him and he couldn’t get enough. “Good girl. Now kneel on the couch so I can fuck you.”

“Yes, Sir.” you say and stand up but before you can kneel, Jaehyun pulls your panties sensually down your legs, unclasping the garter hooks as he goes. He holds your hand like a gentleman and helps you climb on the couch on your hands and knees. 

He watches your perfect little holes. Plump and pretty and lined up for him, perfectly framed between your garter belt and your stockings. For a moment, he watches in yearning. It was these fucking holes and your cute face that put him in this mess in the first place. Where he couldn’t get enough of you. Where he kept putting his hand into the lion’s den. Where he realized how empty his life was. How lonely he was. How he had no one at all. How he had to pay a woman to make him believe that he was wanted. That somebody needed him.

He smiles sadly. It wasn’t your fault. You were the only thing in his life that gave him any sort of happiness. So he leans forward to press a kiss on your ass. Then he takes off his jacket and loosens his tie before taking it off him as well. 

He lines himself to you and watches you for a moment longer. Fuck, you were so beautiful. Your perfect body was on all fours, your perfect hair was swept to one side leaving your neck so deliciously exposed, your perfect hips were held high, your perfect pussy was glistening as it waited for him. And it was all Jaehyun’s for the taking. So he doesn’t wait a moment longer and grabs onto your perfect waist and pushes himself inside of you.

You let out a lovely moan that sounds like music to his ears. For a moment, he doesn’t even wonder if that moan was real or not. He just listens to your voice that sounds like heaven to his ears. He lets you sing sweet melodies out into the air as he pumps you. He lets your lovely voice take over his carnal senses as he fucks you. But soon, it’s not enough. Soon, the need to strip you down and break you takes over. He wants to hear you. He wants you to moan for him. He wants to hear your sweet voice keen out in pleasure because this is real… not because you’re giving him what you think he wants.

So he gets on his knees on the couch as well and leans over, pressing his body onto you so he could hold you up into him and fuck down into you. He squeezes you. He uses his strength and squeezes you with his arms till you’re mewling out for him and you’re close enough that you feel his heartbeat thumping into your back.

“Oh, baby. Do you feel me? Do you feel me all the way inside you?” he moans in your ear. He sounds breathless, he sounds desperate. He sounds like a drowning man.

“Y...yes, Sir!” you moan. His hand creeps down your arm and takes your hand. You balance yourself on the backrest of the couch as he takes your hand and lays it over your stomach, then presses his own hand on top of yours. 

“Feel that, baby girl. Feel my cock moving inside you. Feel me owning your body, inside and out.” Jaehyun all but growls at you. Fuck, you were so fucking tight, it was making his vision blurry. But this is what had made him keep choosing you in the first place. All those months ago, he had asked for a perfect girl; and a new girl. Someone who was new to the company. Someone whom he could, in a fucked up way, break in, train her insides to know his cock and his cock alone. He wanted someone to want him in that way, someone who would belong to nobody but him.

You’re moaning so pretty. Your eyes are closed as if in ecstasy and you breathe in deep, controlled breaths as you feel your belly and Jaehyun’s body hugging into you like this. He grabs your jaw from behind and squeezes your chin. 

“Tell me how you’re feeling, baby girl.” Jaehyun begs.

“I… I feel so good, Sir. Your cock feels so good inside me.”

No. That’s not what Jaehyun wanted to hear. He didn’t want to hear the script you probably used with all your customers. He wanted to hear you when you were you and he was him. He wanted to know how he made you feel. 

So he fucks into you harder, just so he could get a real reaction. And he does because your moans have turned to whimpers and your face has contorted in his hand and you’re sucking in your breath through your teeth. But you’re not stopping him. He wonders if you would ever tell him to stop. He wonders if other men fucked you even rougher to make you be able to take this.

Jaehyun doesn’t know what comes over him. But he finds himself wrapping his discarded tie around your delicate throat and pulling you up so you were both kneeling upright. Then he bares his teeth and squeezes your neck with it and fucks into you faster. No. No man could fuck you like he did. He was just not going to allow it.

Finally, he sees it. He sees that fear on your face again, because your eyes are squeezed shut and your pretty mouth is parted as you take deep breaths to absorb what you’re being given and there is anxiety on your face and both your hands are on Jaehyun’s hands that are holding onto the tie around your neck. Not pulling him off, but preparing to, if it came to that. This. This was the only way Jaehyun could get you to be real with him. Your fear was the only true emotion you’d show him. It’s what had made him addicted to using you this way. Because in those few seconds of pure, visceral fear, he would see you.

But you were a trooper. Because you were taking his vicious fucking and relentless choking and not stopping him. You were letting him growl out like an animal and fuck you like animal and use your body for whatever fucked up emotions his emptiness was pulling out of him.

And Jaehyun realizes. A whore is a whore, no matter how much he fools himself into believing otherwise. He was nothing to you. You were a whore and he was a paying customer. 

And that’s when he finds himself abandoning the tie and wrapping his arm around your neck and choking you so damn hard that you’re tapping onto him right away and whimpering when he lets go.

Jaehyun sits back onto the couch, panting. He feels wretched, like his emotions are choking him like his arm was choking you. He pulls you back onto him and makes you sit on his cock.

“Tell me how you really feel.” he asks desperately, grasping at straws, begging you for something real.

“I feel so good, Sir. You make me feel so good.” you breathe out in your damn pretty voice and it makes Jaehyun want to cry out. But he doesn’t cry… anger was better than crying. So he grips the hair at the back of your head.

“No. You! Tell me how you really feel. Tell me how I really make you feel!” he yells at your face and holds you still so you won’t move on him. So you’d be forced to look at him and put down your walls for once and tell him.

You try to breathe evenly as the man before you grips onto you aggressively and demands an answer. You watch the man breaking. Men had cried to you before. Men would tell you anything when they bought your company. But this man wasn’t crying, yet you find yourself wishing that he was. It would be better than the wreckage you saw in front of you. So you look at him and for once in your career, you provide an answer.

“I’m paid to tell men whatever lies they want to hear. I don’t know how to tell the truth anymore.” you tell him in a surreal moment where the veil has been lifted for the two of you for a split second; but it was enough for Jaehyun to see the girl behind the pretty, poised and perfect façade.

“Then lie to me.” Jaehyun cries and pulls your knees in so you’d fall into him and he could hold you. Hold you close to his body with his arms around you and your arms around him. “Lie to me…”

You begin moving on him slow and when he hears your voice this time, it isn’t pretty or serene or lovely or any of those things. It is thick and raspy and finally reflects the storm that was in Jaehyun’s chest.

“I love you.” you whisper and Jaehyun can’t hold back his cries of laughter. He kisses your bare shoulder that was pressed into his face and wraps his arms around you, a hand over your head so he could cradle you while you moved on him.

“Yeah? You love me?” he turns his head to look at you and you’re buried into the crook of his neck, your lips parted, your eyebrows scrunched and it looks so real that Jaehyun’s heart explodes with happiness.

“I love you.” you breathe and the tremors in your voice are so sweet that Jaehyun kisses your shoulder again to soothe you. You had taken his pain. You had seen his pain and absorbed it because Jaehyun saw on your face what he had felt in his body. So he protects his girl, his perfect girl, his beautiful girl, the prettiest girl in the world to have ever lived.

“Why?” Jaehyun asks happily and he is surprised that his voice is equally as shaky with elation “Why do you love me, baby?” Jaehyun holds your body and moves in you now so you would feel his love.

You lift up as he takes over and bring your hands from around his back to on his face. You cradle it “I love you because… because you’re a good man.” you tell him and Jaehyun hears the sincerity in your tone. He’s probably going crazy. He’s probably crazy because a whore’s words of love are sounding sincere to his ears now.

Jaehyun smiles at you “Yeah? I’m a good man?” It felt so good to hear it, to hear anyone tell him that. But it was coming from the lips of an angel, so it felt even sweeter.

“You’re a good man.” you nod and then your head tilts back and your eyes close and you gasp a moan.

Jaehyun kisses at your neck that you’ve exposed by tilting back and he kisses at your collarbone and he kisses at your breasts. “Why else? Keep talking to me, baby…” Jaehyun can’t help that his hips are picking up the pace of their own accord. As if they need the release, as if they see how doing so is making you melt in his hold.

You’re breathless when you talk “I… I love you because… because you hold me like this. Because you treat me so good and take care of me.”

“I take care of you, baby? Of course, baby, I will always take care of you.” Jaehyun’s voice breaks as he looks up to tell you that.

“I love you because… you’ve never hurt me. You’ve only loved me.” You say, still cradling his face and stroking your thumbs on his cheekbones.

Jaehyun closes his eyes and presses his head on your chest. You hold his head in your arms and he picks up the pace and moans like he’s in pain. You stroke his back and the hair at the back of his head and hold him like he was the last man on earth.

“Look at me.” he demands and you do. He holds your gaze and pumps up into you strongly till he’s emptying himself inside of you while he grunts and you’re a whimpering mess but you never leave his eyes.

“Shh… it’s over now, baby.” he calms you because your body has begun to shiver. He gently lifts you off him and sets you on the couch and gets up, but you hold his wrist. 

“I’m just getting you a cover.” he tells you kindly but you shake your head.

“Stay with me.”

So Jaehyun sits back down and picks up your body and cradles it in his lap and covers you with his jacket instead and rubs some warmth into the rest of your skin with his hands. He watches how your eyes close as your whimpers and shivers die down, how your lips had been pressing into his shirt all this time, leaving little lipstick marks on the white fabric. How slight your shoulders seemed in his strong arms, how needily you were curling your body up into his.

“I wish you could take me away from all of this.”

Jaehyun’s head whips around. Like he’s not sure you’ve said what you’ve said. He’s pretty sure his cock isn’t inside of you anymore. He’s pretty sure the sex part of the night is over. So why did you say that? 

He pulls your head back by your hair and searches your face. Then he presses his lips into your forehead and protectively covers your shoulders with his jacket again. 

“I can. I can take you away.” He promises but you look at him like you’re fighting back tears when you shake your head.

“It’s not that simple.”

“I’ll make it simple. I’ll take you away, baby.” He vows and takes your hand and kisses the back of it in an intense promise.

“You can’t.” you shake your head “You can’t fight them, Jaehyun.”

“I can fight the world for you.” he declares passionately. He’s not sure if he’s truly lost his mind. He doesn’t know if you’re still lying to him, if all of this is still play or not. When it came to you, the lines between reality and fantasy were all blurred. But you had said his name.

You had never lied to him like this before, and you had never said his name and now, Jaehyun doesn’t care. He liked living this fantasy where you wanted him, where you needed him to save you. He would live in this fantasy forever, even if it killed him.

“Then let’s run away.” you whisper to him as a hot tear falls from the corner of your eye.

Jaehyun looks at you in unbelievable, gut-wrenching joy. Like he literally can’t believe it. “Yeah? You wanna run away with me?”

You nod as more tears fall and Jaehyun smiles a brimming, thankful smile that comes out in an exhale and puts his forehead against yours.

“We’ll run away. I’ll take you away and keep you safe. I’ll protect you forever. I’ll protect you if it’s the last thing I do.” he vows and your eyes close.

Now you let yourself believe. You let yourself believe as he lies to you. You let him hold you, you let his arms protect you as the city skyline glimmers behind you, turning the two of you into mere silhouettes. 

You let yourself believe that he would save you.

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