#ive been reading something where everyones calling everyon chaps.

[bloomfish]

asbolutely love it when I'm reading something and there's a british character who's like "oi oi! better tell the chaps and blokes i'm a right bloody sod"

[taexual]

sleepwalking ● 17 | jjk

pairing: jungkook x fem!reader

summary: due to unfortunate circumstances, you ended up managing your ex-boyfriend’s band. you thought you’ve both made peace with it, but suddenly he’s very eager to prove to you that first love never dies.

genre: rockstar!jungkook / exes to lovers

warnings: explicit language and depictions of medical treatment (mentions of an IV, not overly descriptive), fluff (!), angst, A LOT of pent-up emotions, SLOW BURN

words: 15.5k (help)

read from the beginning ○ masterlist

chapter 17 ► looking sideways when i say i’m okay with the past, but i’m afraid of what i might say if you ask

When you regained consciousness, it took you a few more minutes to understand what was happening.

In your hazy mind, the first clear thought you could grasp was a memory: Jungkook had gotten into a fight. Instinctively, you imagined yourself standing up and finding him. Not because your job required you to—honestly, you weren’t sure what job you even had at this point, your mind hadn’t sorted itself out yet—but because you wanted to see if he was okay.

You tried to open your eyes, but the room was spinning, and you felt a little queasy from the unexpected vertigo.

You shut your eyes again and tried to focus on your other senses—as best as you could without moving—hoping that this would answer some of the new questions forming in your mind.

You did not know where you were or how you got here, but the room was warm. The lack of proper ventilation made the air feel stuffy.

You didn’t hear any background noise, so you assumed you weren’t at a hospital. But you could hear a lot of shouting in the room. You thought you discerned three different voices, but they were all talking over each other, so it was hard to tell.

You were lying on something soft but scratchy, and a heavy duvet pressed you into the bed. It felt comforting, but you were starting to sweat.

Someone’s hand was on your wrist, their fingers cold.

Reflexively, you squeezed their hand.

“Don’t move,” someone whispered right next to you. Jungkook, you realised. “We’ve called a doctor.”

Your initial reaction was relief. He was here, so he had to be okay.

Your next reaction, however, was pure panic. You didn’t need a doctor. You just needed a minute.

“We should have taken her to a hospital,” another voice argued. “I’ll never forgive you if anything happens to her.”

That had to be Luna, you were sure of it. Your eyes remained closed, but you could envision your friend with her arms crossed over her chest, regarding the boy next to you with a scorching glare.

You didn’t like this mention of a hospital.

You squeezed Jungkook’s hand again, but even as he tried to explain to Luna that you would go on a particularly bloody rampage if he took you to a hospital—he had a point and you would have felt grateful if you hadn’t been so distressed—she still wasn’t hearing him.

You opened your mouth and felt your chapped lips tighten painfully.

“No hospital, please,” you croaked in the voice of someone who had been a successful chain smoker for over fifty years.

You heard Luna whisper-yell, “you’re unbelievable, the both of you!” and you tried to open your eyes again, but nothing had changed. It still felt a bit like gravity had taken a day off as the room and everyone around you continued to float.

You heard a faint voice that you did not recognise, and from the official tone and the immediate chill you felt inside, you deduced that it was the doctor.

“I’m going to administer a very mild sedative,” he said—to whom, you weren’t sure. Your insides felt very heavy. “And set up a drip. Make sure she doesn’t move much or the catheter will—oh, see, like that. That can’t happen.”

Your muscles spasmed involuntarily. Something pricked your arm. You didn’t mind needles, but you did not like IVs. You didn’t need to be sedated.

“I don’t think—” you tried to say when you felt something cold on your arm—the doctor’s hands, presumably, in very unpleasant, squeaky latex gloves. “I don’t think I need this.”

“Can you open your eyes for me, please?” the doctor asked.

“No,” you said with what you hoped was a shake of your head. In reality, you merely wrinkled your nose. “T-that is not something I can do right now. But in a—”

“Your body needs rest,” the doctor explained. Jungkook moved closer until he was clutching your hand with both of his. “It won’t knock you out, but it will relax you, make you a little drowsy. That will likely help you fall asleep naturally. Is that all right?”

You lacked the strength to tell him that you were already very tired—or the strength to tell him that you still had things to do, so you couldn’t just sleep.

The memory of the flooding at the venue in Manchester came back to your mind and your muscles tensed again.

Really, you were about to refuse, but there was hardly anything you disliked more than inconveniencing people. They had invited a doctor for you. He was just doing his job.

“Okay,” you said in quiet defeat.

“Your friends are in the room with you,” the doctor said. You felt a cold sensation on your arm. “They will stay with you and make sure you get plenty of rest. Even after you wake up, you must spend as much time in bed as you possibly can.”

“Don’t phrase it like that,” you heard Jungkook object. “Give us a specific time, or she’ll be out of bed as soon as she wakes up.”

Silence followed. You tried to imagine what was happening. Jungkook must have looked very eager—in his exaggerated manner, which resembled desperation rather than hope. Luna probably nodded in agreement. The doctor, if he was kind enough, smiled at them patiently.

“Two days,” he finally stated. “Today and tomorrow, at the very least. If she has to walk, someone should accompany her. But don’t keep her on her feet for too long. I’ve seen the crowd of people outside this room—don’t tire her out. There should only be one or two people in the room with her, all right? Proper nutrition, sufficient sleep, and a—”

You felt yourself drifting off, and the doctor’s words faded and merged together until you were no longer sure whether you were imagining what a doctor would say in this situation, or if he was actually speaking.

When you opened your eyes again, Luna and Maggie were seated in the armchairs next to your bed. The room had stabilised, allowing you to take in your surroundings before Luna glanced up from her phone and Maggie pulled out her earpods, noticing that you were awake.

The space around you appeared to be a hotel room. Next to the bed stood a metal bar with bags of faint yellow liquid on it. A catheter was attached to your arm and an intravenous line led to it from the drip. You shivered at the sight of it.

“Oh!” Luna’s gasp drew your attention back to her. She dropped her phone on her seat and straightened up. “How are you feeling?”

Right away, Maggie jumped up and removed her earpods.

“Confused,” you spoke and immediately tried to clear your prickly throat.

Maggie leapt forward and grabbed an empty glass from the bedside table. She poured some water from one of the three bottles on the floor and handed it to you.

You couldn’t remember the last time you had water. It tasted heavenly.

“You’re in a hotel room,” Luna explained as you drank. Maggie sat down on the armrest of her friend’s chair. “In Manchester.”

The mention of the city made you glare at her, and both girls breathed a sigh of relief. At least you knew where you were in a broader sense.

“It’s 7 PM,” Luna said after checking her phone. “The band has a day off tomorrow because the concert’s been postponed—”

“Because of the flooding,” you finished, leaning forward to put the glass back on the table. “I remember, Luna. Thanks. What, um—how come I’m here?”

Luna looked at Maggie for a moment, wordlessly asking her to take over the story.

“Well, you fainted,” Maggie started. She wasn’t usually a woman of many words, and this time was no different, which you found comforting. If Maggie didn’t think it was necessary to talk for hours, then you must not have been doing that bad. “Jungkook found you.”

“Yeah,” Luna had to interject with more details—she was still irked about his decision to book a hotel room instead of a hospital room. “And then he spent half an hour describing your symptoms. It took the doctor all of one second to diagnose you with burnout and put you on a vitamin drip. He told us to keep you on bed rest and watch for any more nosebleeds or fainting spells. If they continue, you’ll need to go into urgent care.”

You wanted to ask questions—where did they find this doctor? Where was this hotel? What was happening at the venue?—but the girls were on a roll.

“Meanwhile, I wasn’t even allowed in the room,” Maggie said, returning to her chair and sitting down properly. She was upset that she had missed what Luna had just summarised for you. “The doctor told us that only one person could stay, but neither Luna, nor Jungkook agreed to leave. So, no one else could come in until you were feeling better.”

“Jungkook was the one who decided on the hotel room, by the way,” Luna remarked, seemingly glad to finally express her frustrations. “I argued. I think you should at least have a blood test done. What if you’re anaemic? But—”

“I’m not anaemic,” you finally interrupted as you settled back on the bed. The mattress quickly adjusted to the shape of your body. Closing your eyes, you had to admit that the bed was really quite comfortable. Perhaps you could stay here for a few more hours. “This has happened to me before. I’ll be fine.”

Luna sighed. Her knowledge of the last time this had happened to you came from Jungkook’s haphazard stream of thought as he tried to explain to the doctor that the two of you had been in this exact situation before—you, unconscious, and he, on the verge of losing his mind.

Honestly, for a moment, Luna thought the doctor had considered sedating Jungkook instead of you.

“I knew you were going to say that,” she muttered after a minute. “Jungkook seemed to believe you’d shoot us all dead if we took you to a hospital.”

Gratitude bubbled up in your chest, but when you saw your friend’s solemn features, you tried to soften your response.

“I wouldn’t have shot you,” you said. “I would have smothered you all with pillows."

Maggie scoffed, and Luna rolled her eyes, but the corners of her lips still turned up.

“Nice to see you haven’t gained a sense of humour while you were out,” Maggie teased.

“Ha,” you responded dryly—but you were smiling, too.

Luna crossed her legs on the armchair to get more comfortable. She glanced at Maggie anxiously. The girls weren’t sure if they were tiring you out with their conversation, but you were looking up at the ceiling, not indicating that you were tired in any way, so they decided to continue.

“So, want to tell us how this happened, then?” Luna asked.

You turned your head to her. “I was hoping you’d tell me. I can’t exactly remember.”

“You fainted,” Maggie reminded you. Luna leaned over and gave her a pat on the arm, thanking her for this valuable reminder.

You smiled gently. “You mentioned that. Where’d the doctor come from?”

“Oh, Jungkook found one,” Maggie said. “There’s a clinic across the street from the venue. And this hotel is right next door.”

“Oh.”

A minute passed as you attempted to piece it all together.

You could not remember any of this, but the news that Jungkook had taken care of most things was not calming. He must have really been going out of his mind.

You were curious about where he was, but you didn’t want to ask. Your paranoid mind made you think that any question about Jungkook that was not related to Rated Riot was unnecessary and would, therefore, be misunderstood. Your friends already seemed like they were resisting a few additional comments for the sake of your health.

“So,” Luna started after a quiet minute, “how come you fainted?"

You exhaled and tried to scratch your eyebrow, but the catheter tugged painfully at your skin, and you winced instead.

You dropped your hand back down. “I-I... I guess I overestimated myself.”

Luna pushed the IV stand closer to your bed so you could have more freedom with your limbs. You nodded gratefully.

“You’re going to have to slow down,” Luna said. “It’s no longer negotiable, I’m afraid. If you don’t listen to us, we will take you to a hospital.”

It was the plural pronoun that bothered you the most, but you forced yourself to swallow your discomfort at disrupting the daily routines of your friends.

“I’ll be alright soon,” you said. “And I promise this won’t happen again.”

“It had better not,” Maggie chimed in. “And what’s with this hatred of hospitals? You don’t like that they’re full of people who want to help you feel better?”

“I don’t hate them,” you said, which wasn’t entirely true. Your experiences in hospitals included your mum crying, and you’d rather not relive that—not so soon after your brother broke his leg. “I just don’t have time for them. I’m okay.”

Luna gave you a stern look. Even Maggie, who was usually quite calm when you said you were fine, was glowering a little.

“Fine,” you conceded. “I’ll endure this drip and then I'll be okay. Thank you for being here.”

Luna made a deliberate scene of fixing the bags on the metal stand—clearly intending to emphasise the seriousness of your condition—and then lowered herself back into her armchair.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

Smiling at both of your girls—to distract them from further discussing your health—you said, “I love you.”

“We love you, too,” Maggie said. “And, babe, just so you know, it’s not just us. There was—everyone was here. The concierge nearly fainted when he saw us all in the hallway.”

Your smile quickly fell. “What do you mean, everyone?”

“We took care of it, don’t worry,” Luna interjected, sensing your growing panic. “Maggie and I talked to Seokjin, Jimin, and Namjoon, who then spoke to the rest of the staff and escorted them out. And Jungkook took care of his band.”

The panic lingered. Your job was solving crises, not causing them. You did not like this.

“He took care of them?” you repeated, swallowing.

“Well, they were very worried,” Luna explained, glancing at Maggie for help. Maggie only nodded, indicating her agreement. “And, uh, they were very loud, too. He told them to go and texted them updates every ten minutes.”

“God.” You closed your eyes and carefully tried to prop yourself up into a half-sitting position. “What updates? I was asleep.”

“That’s what he’s been texting them,” Luna explained. “Every ten minutes, on the dot. And then Taehyung texted me, asking why I kicked his best friend out of your room—which is ridiculous because I did not kick him out. But you’re my best friend, so technically, I would have had the right to kick him out if you were uncomfortable.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose with your hand and shook your head, an involuntary smile creeping onto your face at your friend’s protectiveness. “I’m comfortable. Thank you.”

“Are you going to see him?” Maggie asked.

You looked up at her. “Jungkook?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “He’s right behind the door, you know. Glued to the wall in the hallway.”

Your gaze slid down her dark blue jacket and focused on the mirror on the wall behind her. “Oh.”

“The doctor said he would need to go to the hospital, too, by the way,” Luna said, earning a surprised look from you. “He said the bandages around his head looked very threatening.”

You pressed your lips together. You’d expected that, but you still felt a fleeting twinge of disappointment—you’d covered his wounds to the best of your ability. And the bandages were honestly not the worst part of this.

“The doctor hasn’t even seen what’s underneath,” you said.

“He has now, actually,” Maggie replied. “He went to the emergency room about an hour ago to have them changed.”

You were too taken aback to properly understand her. “Jungkook did?”

“Yeah,” Luna said, pulling her phone out. Your mind tuned out her next few sentences as you struggled to come to terms with the fact that Jungkook had gone to the emergency room on his own accord. “—and he called us from the hospital. Apparently, he pestered the nurses with questions about what else we could do to help you feel better. They told him to leave, but he wanted to hear from us—in case we thought you needed anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if he brought a heart monitor here, just in case.”

Maggie snickered—but caught the serious looks on the faces around her and covered it up with a fractured cough—while you groaned and rubbed your eyes. You wouldn’t have been surprised, either.

You exhaled. “Yeah—I-I’ll see him. If that’s okay with you?”

Both girls nodded and got up from their seats. Before they went, however, they convinced you to accept their help to complete the difficult task—as you pointed out while rolling your eyes—of walking ten steps to the bathroom, and then ten steps back to your bed. Clearly, they were taking the doctor’s orders very seriously.

“We’ll be right outside,” Luna said once you settled back in bed. “Call or text—”

“No,” you protested. “You can’t—you don’t need to stay here. You’ve already done so much.”

“We were just sitting in your room with you,” Maggie said. “It’s hardly anything. Don’t worry about us.”

“It’s not hardly anything,” you disagreed. “At least get something to eat.”

The two girls looked at each other. Maggie shrugged and then looked back at you, still doubtful. You nodded with more conviction.

“We’ll pick up some food for everyone and come back,” Luna finally decided. “Okay?”

You nodded again. “Okay. Thank you.”

As soon as the girls opened the door to your hotel room, you heard shuffling outside—as if someone had been leaning right up against the door and scrambled away before it opened.

“You may come in,” Luna told Jungkook with excessive dramatics as she and Maggie turned to wave at you again.

You gave them another nod and watched as Jungkook tentatively walked inside. He turned to close the door behind him and lingered, for an awkward moment, at the entrance.

His bandages were fresh and none of the scantily wrapped bruises were visible any longer. Perhaps they would heal in time for the concert.

Before you could express your hopes out loud, however, Jungkook took a shaky breath and approached you.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so fucking sorry, I don’t know what I would have done if—”

“W-why are you sorry?” you cut him off, disturbed by the absolute devastation in his voice.

He was right next to your bed now, barely able to inhale. “It’s—you—you fainted—and—it was because—I shouldn’t—”

It hit you, suddenly, why he was hyperventilating so much. And the shock of this realisation was so great that you could not react immediately, and he proceeded to stutter for another few moments.

“This—it has nothing—this isn’t about you,” you finally said, almost as coherent as he was.

Still, he persisted, “but I—you—I was—I should have—”

“I didn’t faint because of you, Jungkook,” you said more firmly. There were several reasons why he should have felt guilty, of course, but this was definitely not one of them.

He finally stopped speaking, although the rapid process of inhaling and exhaling—which caused his shoulders to hunch and straighten from the intensity of the motions—continued for another minute.

Then he gave you a long, uncertain look. You maintained eye contact and watched as his breathing gradually slowed. You had never seen him panic so much and so suddenly—he had seemed almost perfectly fine when he came in, but it took him all of two seconds to fall apart.

Slowly, he regained control of his breathing and looked you over once more.

“Okay,” he said, shifting his weight to his other leg. “I-I don’t know if that—if it makes me feel better, but—”

“Thank you,” you said.

Lost in his own thoughts, he craned his neck towards you. “Hm?”

“Luna and Maggie told me you’re the one who found me.”

Jungkook looked briefly embarrassed.

“I explicitly asked them not to tell,” he said.

You smiled. “I’m sure this was Force majeure, so don’t blame them. And they’re my best friends anyway.”

“Clearly.” He brought his hands down his face before admitting, “I just—I thought you wouldn’t want to see me.”

A part of you thought he was right to assume that. You shouldn’t want to see him.

But another part of you forced you to lower your gaze and twiddle your thumbs nervously as you linked your hands on your stomach.

“No, uh, see,” you began with a nervous chuckle. “That’s, uh—that’s almost the worst part of this whole thing. My plan, really, was to avoid you.”

Jungkook raised his eyebrows, then politely lowered them. He placed his hand on the back of the armchair and said, profoundly, “very mature.”

“You don’t get to judge,” you warned.

The corner of his lip quirked. “Just making an observation.”

“So, my plan was to avoid you,” you continued. “But we both know how that ended. And then I woke up here, sort of feeling like I was floating in a space station somewhere near Saturn, and you know what my first thought was?”

Jungkook thought he was floating in a space station somewhere near Saturn.

“Wh—um, what?” he asked.

“My first thought was if you were okay.”

You looked at him as you said that, and he thought he saw the rest of his life flash before his eyes—a life that, just a few days ago, he’d deemed meaningless.

Without any proper distractions, it was just him and his thoughts, and they were never good company. They hated him for losing you.

But then you fainted and now that you’ve regained consciousness, your first thought was if he was okay.

He didn’t trust his legs very much anymore.

“Can I sit?” he asked, a little breathless again.

You took a second to reply, and he interpreted it as a sign of hesitation. “You can.”

Suspicious, he asked, “will you try to leave if I sit?”

You gave him a questioning look and nudged your hand, causing the IV bags to wobble. “Does it look like I can move around with this?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “You might still try.”

You snorted and shook your head. “Just sit down, Jungkook.”

He sat down.

The two of you were a peculiar sight like this. If this were a role-playing video game, there would have been exclamation marks over your heads—and if you had been approached, the list of conversation starters the player could choose would have been, simply, endless.

There was so much you wanted to say and ask each other, but the strength of your resistance was absurdly impressive.

One thought, however, overwhelmed everything, and it was very simple: how little everything else mattered compared to your health.

Jungkook took a deep breath and looked at you, taking in your tired, but ceaselessly dreamlike features.

Slowly, he found himself calming down. As long as you were here, as long as you were okay, things would work out one way or another.

“I, um—your mum called, by the way,” Jungkook said. “I have your phone. It fell out of your jacket when I—when I found you.”

Right away, you felt a surge of panic. You and your mum had a deal. She knew you were busy, so she would text sometimes, but never call. Unless something had happened.

“My—she called me?” you repeated with so much concern that Jungkook noticed the drip stand shake a little from the force of your distress. “Did you answer?”

He felt his own hands return to their almost natural trembling. “Uh, well, as it happened—I did.”

“Why did she call? What happened?”

“Well, nothing,” he said. “She said she hadn’t heard from you in a while, and she was worried.”

Mother’s intuition, she had called it when she spoke to you. When you returned to your dorm after your hospital stay six years ago, she had called you because “for some reason” she couldn’t sleep for two nights in a row. She didn’t know you were ill, of course, but it touched you, this maternal feeling that transcended all logic.

It could have been a coincidence, you supposed. Lots of things were.

“What did you say?” you asked.

“I said you had a lot of things to take care of,” Jungkook replied. “But you’d call her when you had a free moment.”

You watched him as he spoke and noticed his eyes widen momentarily, clearly taken aback by what he’d just seen in your expression. You realised you hadn’t expected him to hide this from your mum, and your surprise must have shown.

Blinking, you turned away and gripped the edge of your duvet.

“Thank you,” you said.

“I also told her you’re very stressed,” he added quieter.

“Oh—well, that—you could have kept that to yourself,” you said, less enthusiastic about his thoughtfulness. “She’s going to freak out about it.”

“Let her,” he countered. “You’re her child. She’s worried about you. You have to let people worry about you when there’s a reason to.”

You had a different opinion, of course. But instead of arguing, you chose to find out what conclusions your mum had drawn from this brief exchange. She hadn’t heard from Jungkook directly in years, even though she knew you were working together.

“What did she—was she surprised to hear from you?” you asked.

Your question made Jungkook appear as if he was trying very hard to tap dance while sitting down. He bounced his legs, tapped his feet, and occasionally scratched something under his chin, above his nose, or on the back of his neck.

“Uh, well, we’re, um, you know,” he said. You were almost ready to assume that he was hiding something else. “You and me—w-we’re working together. She wasn’t that surprised.”

“Right, but I mean—”

“I told her not to worry too much, and that you’d love to hear from her,” he finished, skilfully diverting from the topic and speaking even louder so you wouldn’t have a chance to interject with another question. “She said she’d text you, and you should call her when you have a minute. Not right now, though. You’re resting now.”

Again, you tried, “I’m just—”

“She put Kai on the phone, too,” he added. “So, I talked to him for a second. He called you an idiot.”

That took a very unusual turn, you thought in surprise. Your mum hadn’t spoken to Jungkook in years, and now she wanted to put your brother on the phone, too—you were simply confused.

“He—why’d he say that?” you asked, presently more unnerved by the name-calling than your mother’s unexpected choices.

“For forgetting to call your mum, he said. And for working too much,” Jungkook replied. “Which is precisely what I warned you about in Amsterdam, so I honestly can’t believe this happened to you again. We asked you to take it easy, so at least listen to us now, and—”

It was hard to breathe in this still room, with the force of everyone’s concern weighing you down.

Slowly, you kicked one leg out from under the duvet. “I did take it easy.”

“Right,” he said, closing his eyes and mumbling, “you never fucking take it easy.”

You heaved yourself up to your feet, holding onto the IV stand for support. “I was—”

Jungkook looked up and jumped to his feet as soon as he realised what you were doing. “Where are you going? Sit down.”

“I’m fine. I’m just—”

He blocked your way, quickly ensuring that you did not have enough space to take another step.

“See, I told you you’d do this,” he groaned, his chest pressed against yours. “Just sit down.”

You tried not to stagger backwards—which was his intention, of course—and still stood your ground. “I just want to open the window, I’m—”

“Sit down.”

Huffing in angry resignation, you sat back down.

“Okay,” he said, stepping back from the bed to give you more space. “Now lie down.”

You rolled your eyes but settled back into a horizontal position, glaring at him all the while.

“Should I roll over, too?” you bit. “Give you a paw?”

“Not unless you want to.”

You bared your teeth. “Funny.”

“Just lie down, please,” he reiterated. “And just—just rest, okay? For a little while, at least. I’ll open the window.” He saw you open your mouth and added hurriedly, “I know you can do it yourself. But let me.”

Sighing, you surrendered to the warm confines of the duvet. “Okay. Thanks.”

He crossed the room and struggled with the curtains for a moment. He could tell you were watching him, and he felt irrationally nervous—he thought that if he did something wrong, you would try to get up again. Finally, he grabbed the handle of the window, twisted it and pulled. A moment or two later, a welcome breeze finally filled the stuffy room.

Relieved to be able to breathe something other than your discomfort, you watched Jungkook return to his armchair.

“You didn’t tell me if you’re okay,” you reminded him. “How’s your eye?”

He looked confused as he lifted his hand—as if to verify if the eye in question was still there—then paused and dropped it again.

“It’s working,” he said, sitting back down next to your bed.

“And the pain?”

He shrugged. “Bearable.”

“Good,” you said, slipping your hands under the covers and resting them on your stomach. “I’m glad you took out your eyebrow piercing before the whole thing with Sid, by the way. Otherwise, we might have had even more problems.”

Jungkook didn’t want that to be your shared problem—he was determined to carry out his plan, which he boldly referred to as “Getting My Shit Together”—but at the same time, he was glad that he didn’t cause you any additional distress. Honestly, he couldn’t have cared less about his piercings right now.

“I—yeah.” He rubbed his eyebrow absentmindedly. “I hadn’t planned it like that, but it worked out, I guess.”

“Did you get any rest?” you asked then.

The question felt misplaced, and his stomach sank at the sheer wrongness of it. You were always worried about others. And he always gave you reasons to worry.

Really, while he was happy—alright, ecstatic—that you thought of him, he should have been the one asking you this.

“How, uh—how do you mean?” he returned.

“After the flight,” you said.

He looked down at the beige carpet under his boots and shook his head. He couldn’t have slept even if he wanted to—not until he was sure you weren’t on your feet, insisting you were okay.

“I don’t need rest,” he said.

But as you looked at him, it was clear that rest was exactly what he needed. Beneath the imposing bandages, his eyes were bloodshot, and his skin was pale and waxy. He was still beautiful—Maggie would have made a joke about it—but in a way that made your heart ache if you looked at him too long.

“You should go,” you said. “Get some sleep.”

Jungkook gave you a look as if you had just confessed that you enjoyed beheading people in your spare time: incredulous and slightly offended.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

This was going to turn into a childish game, you knew it. But you tapped your thumbs together and still tried.

“What if I want to be alone?” you asked.

“Then I’ll call Luna and Maggie.”

Your arched eyebrows challenged his solution.

“When I said alone,” you clarified, “I didn’t mean not with you.”

For just a split second, he looked almost relieved to hear this. Then he bit his lip and brought a hand over his knee.

“If my presence is not the problem,” he said, “then I’m staying.”

“The problem,” you argued, “is that you’re going to end up in this bed, connected to an IV, if you don’t sleep.”

“Let’s cut to the chase,” he offered. “I’m not leaving you alone. In fact, I’m staying. Unless you explicitly tell me you can’t stand to look at me anymore.”

He gave you an opening to tease, and you enjoyed building up to it as you looked down and ran your tongue over your lips.

“And, uh, you’d leave then?” you asked—taunted, really.

“Begrudgingly,” he replied, as discontented as you were amused.

You nodded. “Alright.”

He raised his eyebrows, slightly dispirited. “You’re going to tell me to go?”

“No,” you said. “Stay.”

So he stayed.

And this moment in the hotel room, as the vitamin drip dribbled quietly into the intravenous tube, did not just feel bizarre. It felt a little like a parallel universe—like you’d lost consciousness in a world where you were very angry and very stressed, and had woken up in a world where only subtle echoes of all the fervent emotions you’d once felt existed.

In this world, all that you were feeling was eclipsed by what really mattered: the people who were in this room with you and had been waiting outside of it.

But you felt another particularly prominent sentiment, which was heightened even more by Jungkook’s relentless focus on you. You did not want to name it, however. To identify it was to give it power over you, and you liked to believe that you had your heartbeat under control right now.

“It’s like—this is just like back then again,” Jungkook said suddenly. “Isn’t it?”

You exhaled, returning to the jagged, uncertain moment.

“Yeah...” you said, stretching the vowels in a frantic attempt to fill the space that would soon turn into an awkward silence. “Thank you for not taking me to a hospital this time. This really isn’t so bad.”

“It is bad,” he disagreed right away. “But I didn’t want you to have another reason to feel stressed. I thought a hotel room would relax you more than a hospital room.”

“It would,” you said. “Thanks.”

He hung his head. “Yeah.”

Not the awkward silence, not the awkward silence, not the—

“Well,” you inhaled, “at least you won’t have to study for any finals this time, right?”

You expected him to smile back at the gentle jab about him failing his exam the last time you were in the hospital. But when Jungkook looked up, he looked crestfallen somehow—almost like he was disappointed that he did not have to study for finals this time.

“Yeah, um, actually—I-I didn’t fail my exam because I didn’t study for it,” he said in a slow, contemplative tone. He wasn’t sure if he could ever admit this to you, but he figured he didn’t have much left to lose. He’d already told you so much. He might as well tell you all the rest. “I failed because your friend texted me about twenty minutes before my final, saying that you left your exam looking very disoriented. She asked if I could check on you.”

Horror descended on your face as you realised what he meant.

“You went to look for me,” you surmised painfully, “and didn’t show up to take your final.”

He nodded and you shook your head with a newfound ferocity.

“Jungkook,” you said, remembering how you reacted when he first told you he had failed—how you immediately blamed his recklessness and his friends. How you brought up all of his mistakes and thought this was another one of them.

“You passed out,” he said. “I don’t regret it.”

“I yelled at you so much!” you continued, lost in your own guilt. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

“You helped me study, too,” he defended, feeling almost uncomfortable. He’d never felt your reaction was inappropriate, even under the circumstances. He had failed the exam, after all—like he’d failed several others before.

You shook your head again. “Yeah, but—”

“It’s fine,” he cut you off.

“It’s not fine!” you refuted immediately. “It was my fault you failed.”

“It wasn’t your—”

“I thought it was your friends again,” you said. “I thought they distracted you, and you didn’t study.”

There it was—this vast precipice between what you thought had happened and what had actually happened. Now that years have passed, Jungkook didn’t even know where to start.

The fact was this: you believed that every time he failed you, it was his friends’ fault—and that belief comforted him. It was so appropriate, so fitting.

And sometimes it was true, but even when it wasn’t—when it was just him, not being good enough—your assumption that it was Sid’s fault didn’t paint Jungkook as desperate; merely reckless. Not hopeless, only a little dumb. He preferred it this way.

But now he took a deep breath.

“My friends did distract me from a lot of things,” he said. “But the truth is, sometimes… I tried too hard, and I didn’t want you to know about it. I couldn’t stand the thought of trying to do something for you and then—just completely fucking everything up and letting you down. Sometimes blaming my friends was a convenient excuse.”

You frowned. “What—what are you talking about?”

“Well,” he wiped his palms on his black cargo pants and stretched out his legs, “remember when we were planning to go on holiday together and I fucked up?”

Your frown deepened.

“Hawaii?” you asked. “When you bought the tickets home for the same day we were flying there?”

“Uh…” He hadn’t realised he’d messed up several times. “No. Different holiday. When I missed the train we were supposed to take to the beach? For our summer break?”

“Oh.” You nodded. “I remember. But I saw Sid’s Instagram videos with you, drinking at his garage. I know you were—”

“Those were old videos. And he posted them at a very bad time, which, honestly,” he chuckled sadly, “it’s nothing new for Sid. He seized every opportunity to make me miserable, and I was—I relied on that sometimes. I think he wanted to start an argument between us on the train, that’s why he posted those videos. The truth is, though, I didn’t even see him that day. I missed the train because I wanted to rent out a car and surprise you.”

The quiet confusion on your face prompted him to keep going.

“I didn’t want just any car,” he explained. “I wanted the same Cadillac convertible I’d rented out for our first anniversary.”

You had fond memories of the convertible. Not of the actual drive, which was, honestly, quite painful—there were bugs and unruly strands of your hair everywhere—but of the laughter you’d shared inside.

“It was summer, finally warm enough outside,” Jungkook recalled. “I thought it would be a nice way to relax after studying. I even, uh—I made decorations and everything. Glittery, silver letters that said, ‘just passed our finals’. It’s a play on ‘just married’, you know? It’s a—a joke.”

Eager to understand where this was going, you remained frozen on the bed, and Jungkook felt himself waver slightly. He was glad you weren’t laughing—he dreaded you’d laugh or find any of this as embarrassing as he did—but he slid his hands under his thighs anyway, as if to warm them.

“The thing is, though,” he continued. “I didn’t take my passport with me. Because you don’t need a passport when you’re taking the fucking train, but you can’t rent a car without one, and those fucking assholes at the rental shop—anyway. I went back to my dorm to pick it up, and by the time I got back, the rental shop had closed for lunch. And I missed the train.”

Your heartbeat was steady—fast, absolutely speeding, but steady nonetheless. It hadn’t slowed since he started speaking.

Your expression, however, was almost painfully concentrated. When he looked at you, it seemed as if you were listening to a séance where a spirit was recounting their death.

You cleared your throat and tried to speak. “I thought—”

“You thought I forgot about our trip and went out with Sid,” Jungkook finished for you.

You didn’t have to confirm it, he knew. The hope that this was what you would assume was his safety blanket—this way, he didn’t have to face the fact that he could never do anything right for you, not even when he tried so hard to.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” you asked.

You weren’t angry at him for this because he’d made it to the beach later that night, after all. He had taken the last train and barged into your cabin just after midnight. You had nearly knocked him out with a bedside lamp, assuming it was an intruder.

But you didn’t understand the point of allowing you to believe—for years—that it was Sid’s fault. Why didn’t he defend himself?

“Because—did you not hear me describe the letters I’d cut out from glittery paper?” Jungkook asked, his voice high-pitched in irritation at himself. “It’s embarrassing. I should have just met you at the train station like I said I would.”

“Well, why didn’t you?” you questioned. “Why put all this effort?”

“Because I love you,” he replied. You tugged on the IV tube again as you squirmed and unconsciously flexed your arm. “And because I saw your friends get picked up by their boyfriends in their cars. I saw those boyfriends bring them massive bouquets of roses. I saw all the grand fucking gestures that I could never do for you, because I didn’t have enough—I wasn’t—it was mortifying. I thought that you deserved the world, and all I could give you was… some fucking wildflowers before our dates.”

The corners of your lips twitched as you tried to speak, “it’s—I loved your wildflowers, though. And I never cared about anything else.”

“I know,” he said. “But I did.”

You looked down at the white duvet. “You and your gestures.”

Jungkook hummed, but did not add anything else. He was thinking—and regretting his silences. You were thinking, too—and wondering if this was the only time he allowed you to assume that his friends were at fault when they weren’t.

The room around you stilled, adapting to the atmosphere of the conversation. Even your drip quieted.

But then someone knocked on the door of the hotel room, and you and Jungkook almost lit up with relief.

“It’s us!” Luna’s voice called out just as Jungkook stood up to check who it was.

Your friends had returned with paper boxes of Thai food—enough to feed at least five people, from what you could see from your bed—and waved at you from the doorway.

A conversation followed—one that you couldn’t quite hear, except for irrelevant snippets, such as “are you sure?” and “well, okay”—and then Jungkook stepped away from the door, allowing the two girls to address you.

“Apparently, we’ll be heading back to the bus for a quick nap,” Luna said. Jungkook gave her a disapproving look that she promptly ignored. “Is that okay with you? Jungkook will stay.”

Your reflexive response was, of course, to try to dismiss their responsibility. “He doesn’t—neither of you have to stay—”

“Someone is staying,” Jungkook stated, his voice strict, final. “And I would like to be the one to do that.”

You weren’t protesting against him specifically, but as you prepared to reply, you realised it might seem that way. Your hesitant silence was a chance for Jungkook to nod at the two girls again. They nodded back, but then glanced back at you.

“Our phones are on,” Maggie said, lifting her device up for you to see. “So, you can still call or text us at any point, and we’ll rush over here right away.”

Jungkook raised his eyebrows. “That certainly does not make it sound like I’m about to torture her.”

You bit back a smile on your bed while Luna said simply, “just a precaution.”

“I get it,” he said. “And I’ll personally call you if I say or do anything that’s over the line.”

Neither Luna, nor Maggie had a response to that, and you looked up to meet three pairs of expectant eyes.

“I—it’s okay,” you said to the girls. “You—yes, get some rest. We’ll be fine here. Thank you.”

“Okay. We’ll be back!” Luna promised, shooting a warning look at Jungkook, while Maggie waved her phone and called out at you, “text us!”

You wanted to give them a small wave, but the thick duvet and the persistent catheter digging into your arm made it difficult to pull your hands out, so all you managed to do was just shuffle around under the covers and nod at them.

The girls left the take-out boxes inside, waved at you again, and walked away.

Jungkook closed the door and slowly returned to his seat, his shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets, and steps unsteady. He looked lost and frightened.

He didn’t want you to misunderstand his intentions. He didn’t want to stay here just to have you to himself, to apologise and to beg for your forgiveness. He wanted to stay because he couldn’t breathe when he didn’t know if you were okay.

As his hesitation hung in the air, memories of your previous hospital stay returned to you again, and you closed your eyes to shake them off.

“You should eat something,” you said.

Jungkook refused.

“When was the last time you ate anything?” you prodded.

Again, he mumbled and hummed under his breath, evading the question and sitting very still—as if he was expecting something. As if something was coming.

And you realised that something was coming. But you had to speak to bring that something here.

“So, then—w-was there anything else?” you finally asked.

Jungkook knew you were referring to the moment he’d just revealed, this deliberate misunderstanding. It was all he could think about. This was the something.

“There was,” he said with a sigh. “But I don’t—”

“Tell me about it.”

He had a lump in his throat that he couldn’t swallow—but not due to his lack of trying—and he suddenly felt like he was standing in front of a jury of his peers.

He didn’t want you to keep thinking that he hadn’t made an effort for you when he had, only it never turned out well. But he was also nervous about you learning how hard—and how impossibly much—he tried. He thought it would only highlight his shortcomings—and there were many of them.

He’d convinced himself that if you didn’t know about them, then he wasn’t letting you down. It was challenging to break out of this conviction now.

“Well—t-that Valentine’s Day,” he stammered. “Our second one—do you remember?”

You remembered right away. Despite your distaste for the commercialisation of the holiday, it still stung that Jungkook had avoided you the whole day. And for several days after that, too—although you’d assumed that to be deliberate. He’d missed Valentine’s Day and didn’t want to see you out of guilt.

“Sure,” you said.

“Well, that wasn’t Sid’s fault, either,” he said. “I know you thought we went on a drinking binge that weekend because Sid happened to conveniently go off the grid right at that time. He had a habit of—”

“But you weren’t with him?” you interjected, impatient.

“No. He was—it was nearly a Weekend at Bernie’s situation. There was some event happening at Jude’s summer house that weekend,” Jungkook said, and you tried to control yourself before you made mocking comments about the idea that people had enough money to own seasonal houses. “And Jude got so high that Sid and some of Jude’s cousins had to pretend he was just not feeling his best whenever his parents asked about him. They mimicked his voice through the door and everything.”

“So, where were you then?”

“I was—well, I—I spent that whole day—ah, no,” he stopped abruptly and brought his palms over his face, lacing his fingers over his mouth as he changed his mind. He couldn’t do this. It was awful. He was such a mess. “You know what? Maybe it’s better if you keep thinking I was at that summer house with them.”

“No,” you opposed in frustration, lunging forward to sit up. You did not listen to him drone on about Sid and Jude just to have him change his mind. “Now you have to tell me.”

Jungkook raised his head when you moved—his concern for you overwhelmed his chagrin.

“Okay, okay, don’t—lie down,” he asked, gesturing at the pillow.

You complied to get him to keep going. He took a breath.

“Just so you know,” he cautioned, “this might finally ruin my bad boy reputation.”

“You never had one.”

He clicked his tongue against his lower teeth. “Okay, ouch.”

You grinned. “Tell me. What really happened?”

He hesitated for another second, bouncing his knee up and down, up and down, and then stilling completely.

“Well, for one thing,” he began finally, “I was going to make dinner. That didn’t go well, because the communal kitchens were—well, you know. But that’s fine, I didn’t worry too much because there’s always take-out.”

You nodded. The communal kitchens in both of your dormitories were typically crowded with people or they smelled so terrible from a failed cooking experiment that it was simply wiser not to set foot in there.

“There was a great pizza place literally two blocks from your dorm,” you pointed out.

“Yeah, exactly.” He nodded in agreement. “But, um, we’d already gone out for a fancy dinner on Valentine’s Day the year before, so I wanted this year to be more… special. I don’t know. Or different, at least. So, I thought I’d cook and make you a slideshow. And—okay, you’ll have to stop smiling if you want me to continue.”

You hadn’t realised you were smiling. You pursed your lips and pulled them to each side to compose yourself.

“Sorry,” you said. “Continue.”

“Right,” he said. “So I made a PowerPoint. Added all of our pictures that I could find in my camera roll, wrote some funny captions. There were going to be at least 200 slides, I’m pretty sure you would have fallen asleep in the middle. I even recorded an acoustic Sleep Token cover to use as background music.”

You told yourself you’d stay quiet, but your disbelief was uncontrollable. “You didn’t!”

“I did,” he said, smiling, but trying not to, for the sake of the story. “It’s gone, though. I erased all traces of that night.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Well, I, uh—I didn’t want just to play you the slides on my laptop,” he said, scratching nervously at his chest over his dark grey hoodie. “I wanted something more.”

You nodded. “Of course.”

He looked away instead of acknowledging your comment.

“Then I remembered something I saw on Instagram that could have been cool. It was one of those aesthetic accounts. They had a picture of this dark, cosy room with a projector screening a film right on this white wall,” he said. “So, I thought, well, shit! I have a white wall behind my wardrobe. And the science lab downstairs has a projector.”

You didn’t like this as you stiffened on the bed, mumbling a dreading, “dear God.”

“Yeah.” He paused to lick his lips. “But it’s probably not what you think. I got the fucking projector.”

He said that with so much grandeur that you couldn’t help but raise your eyebrows—questioning if this was really something to be proud of.

He recapped the story anyway, “I took my roommate’s wrench, and it really didn’t take more than fifteen minutes to open the lab door, unscrew the projector, and bring it back up to my room.”

You shut your eyes and scrunched your nose at the step-by-step description. You wondered if there was a statute of limitations here, and if you would have been considered an accomplice now that you knew about this.

“They have security cameras, though,” you said, glancing at him again. “Don’t they?”

“They do,” Jungkook confirmed. He had a sardonic smile on his face. “Why do you think I was suspended for a month after Valentine’s Day?”

You lost him there. “Wait—they knew you stole the projector?”

“Borrowed,” he corrected. “I returned it two days later. But, yeah, uh—Minjun actually pulled some strings here. His dad went to university with the dean, so he vouched for me. Told him it was all a misunderstanding, and that it would never happen again.”

You looked away, frantically sifting through memories of the month after that particular Valentine’s Day. You remembered not seeing Jungkook for a few days after it, but you saw him fairly regularly later on. He would hang out in your dorm while you had classes, claiming not to have anything better to do.

It took you a full minute to properly recall the explanation he’d given about his suspension.

“Oh,” you said. “Minjun told me that you got suspended because you were caught completely wasted, spray-painting one of the campus buildings.”

Jungkook nodded, his eyes cast low.

“To be fair, I did spray-paint that one,” he admitted. “And I was probably wasted when I did it. But I wasn’t caught.”

You weren’t sure if “spray-painting” was a lesser offence than “stealing a projector from a laboratory” in your eyes, but you didn’t want to question Minjun’s decision now.

“Okay,” you said. “So what happened after you stole the projector?”

“Well, I took the borrowed projector up to my room and set it up,” he replied. “Everything looked great. I was going to give you the best Valentine’s Day dinner this world has ever fucking seen.”

He smacked his palms against his thighs as he spoke, showing off his determination, and you found yourself resisting a smile again. Jungkook had a certain way of telling stories—his changing smiles and small chuckles, his hand gestures and even his tone of voice always made it feel more vivid.

“But, um, I had to move the wardrobe to get a bare wall,” he continued. “And, uh, what I did not foresee was that, earlier that very same day, my roommate’s electric kettle had broken. He went out, purchased a new one. And he put the old one on top of the wardrobe to save space.” Jungkook gave you a moment to think back on this roommate. “You remember the guy, he hoarded everything, all kinds of fucking cables and wires, and—anyway. So, I started to push the wardrobe, and the fucking kettle—it fell and hit me right on the top of my head.”

A surprised gasp left your lips—a stark contrast to the easy, laid-back way he had just spoken.

Jungkook nodded in response to your reaction. “Yeah. My vision sort of darkened and I thought I heard something crack—I, uh, I did think it was my skull, not going to lie.”

He chuckled again—to minimise the impact of his words once more—but you sat up despite his inevitable protests.

“Jungkook!” you scolded. “And you didn’t tell me?!”

“Well, my skull obviously didn’t really crack.”

“I’m not so sure that it didn’t.”

“Anyway,” he stressed. “There wasn’t any blood or anything, so after a few minutes of sitting on the floor, I figured I was good to go. Then I stood up, and, uh—I don’t think you need a visual of what happened then.”

You closed your eyes.

Really, no. You did not need a visual.

About a year ago, at one of the smaller Rated Riot concerts—at a club that seemed harmless at first glance—Jungkook had climbed over to a wooden ceiling beam and swung his arms over it to brachiate across the narrow joist. The beam turned out to be heavily lacquered, and his sweaty palms slid right off, forcing him to crash onto the table below.

He gave himself a concussion, dislocated his shoulder, broke $200 worth of bottles and glasses, and frightened the living hell out of the middle-aged couple who were sitting at the table that he’d landed on.

“Yeah,” you said in your quiet hotel room. “I can imagine.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook breathed out. He recalled this exact same moment—and he knew that, once again, the cause of his injury was his own overexertion. “So, I spent the whole night in my dorm room, on the floor—because I couldn’t crawl to my bed—hoping that I wouldn’t die.”

“And it didn’t occur to you to call me?” you asked—not gently. “Or the fucking ambulance, actually?”

“No,” he replied, unfazed by your disapproving tone. “Not if it meant having to explain what I was doing before all of that happened.”

“You’re crazy,” you said, shaking your head. “You clearly got a concussion, and you didn’t do anything about it.”

“To be fair,” he said, “it’s not that I was embarrassed about it or anything. I was just—horrified that I’d let you down. It was Valentine’s Day. I wanted to give you a slideshow and a romantic fucking dinner. Not—not lie on the floor of my room, half passed out.”

You fought against a pensive sadness. It seemed unfair that this night had not gone the way he’d planned.

“W-well, what did your roommate say when he returned?” you asked instead.

Jungkook poked his cheek with his tongue. “He wasn’t very happy that I broke his old kettle.”

“You broke his—Jesus Christ.” Your hands were on your face as you fell back and buried your head into the pillows. “So, he just left you there on the floor?”

“I assume he thought I was drunk.”

“Fucking—what a—and he was valedictorian, wasn’t he? What a fucking moron,” you groaned. “I knew I should have kicked his ass while I had the chance. I never liked him.”

Jungkook felt a warm rush of comfort to hear how agitated you were getting on his behalf.

“Yeah, he didn’t like me very much, either,” he said. “But that’s um—that’s the story. I missed Valentine’s Day, almost died, and got suspended. I couldn’t possibly tell you what happened.”

“No, how could you?” you deadpanned. “Your reputation was at stake.”

He smiled. “Precisely.”

Even though you joked about this, and he was grateful that you did, both of you knew that this was not entirely about upholding some specific “bad boy” image.

You’d already witnessed this side of him – the side that felt anxious and dreaded the thought of not being good enough. Of not meeting expectations. Of letting others down.

In fact, now that you thought about it, your first proper conversation during this tour had been about this very issue.

“The time I was arrested,” Jungkook said, his shaky voice interrupting your thoughts, “that was—it might have been another one of those times.”

“What?” you asked, perplexed again. “How—I was at the police station with you—the officers—”

“I don’t remember a lot of details,” he interrupted. “So, I’m—I’m not really sure. But, uh, apparently, that night we didn’t just spray-paint a building. Or spit at the officers, allegedly, while we ran from them. The police assumed Minjun and I were the “drunk and disorderly” call that they received an hour before they found us.”

Your memories of that night were hazy, too—mostly because you refused to go over the details in your mind. All you could remember was Jungkook calling you from the precinct and asking—in the most resigned voice you’ve ever heard—if you could come pick him up. The story that you were given when you arrived at the police station only came back to your memory in fragments: property damage. Assault of police officers. Resisting arrest.

“You weren’t?” you asked.

“No,” Jungkook said. “We had some drinks at a bar outside of town, and Sid started harassing some bikers across the street. Someone called the police. Jude said he even punched someone there, I don’t know. Minjun and I were already back in the city at that time. I asked him to come with me to keep watch. I wanted to spray-paint these song lyrics for you—”

Your head jerked as your surprise prevented you from shaking it properly. “Wait—you—what? What lyrics?”

“It’s—well, you know what lyrics,” he replied, timid suddenly. “There was only one song we listened to all the time.”

You remembered.

It’s you and me ‘til the end of time.

You swallowed, breathless, and almost completely weightless as you clutched the duvet tighter in an attempt to ground yourself.

“The building I chose was downtown,” Jungkook continued. “Right across the street from the park where we had our first—well, our first date. I wanted that place to have something—something that we both loved. To commemorate all that we had, I don’t know. I haven’t been a very good boyfriend to you at the time, and I wanted to redeem that.”

The unexpected tightness in your stomach worried you for a second, but the sedative must not have fully worn off yet, because you took a deep breath and felt your body wind down a little. The room continued to blur behind Jungkook, but you suspected that your condition or medication had little to do with that.

“And, uh,” you tried to ask, “the police found you there?”

Jungkook nodded.

“I think Sid guided them to us,” he said. “It never made sense to me why the police would even go there. No one patrolled those streets, what was the point? Not to mention, it was dark, we were dressed in black, and—honestly, it wasn’t our first time with graffiti. But what happened was, I got a text from Sid, saying that someone at the bar had called the cops on him. And not five minutes later, he and Jude both showed up downtown, and we heard sirens.”

“So, what did you do?” you asked—uncertain, suddenly, if you’d actually asked him this before. You had talked to one police officer that night and had accepted everything he told you as the truth.

“Well, Minjun and I ran, of course,” Jungkook said.

“And the other two?”

“I can’t remember the exact sequence of—I was—I was drunk,” he said, giving you an apologetic look. He wanted to share the whole story with you, but he wasn’t sure if he knew it himself. “I remember Sid and Jude shouting at us that they would hold the cops back while we ran—and I didn’t even—we didn’t even think that there was anything weird about that. Minjun and I just ran.”

You felt your memories frantically rearrange themselves after every word that he said. Your head had turned into a disorderly, confused mess.

“The, um—the spitting, then?” you asked.

“That had to be Sid and Jude,” Jungkook speculated. “But I guess I might have done that, too. I, uh—I want you to have the full story, so I won’t deny things that I can’t even remember. I’m thinking about it now, and I don’t know which moments were really Minjun and me, and which were actually Sid and Jude. We were all very drunk, and nobody at the police station believed a word we were saying anyway.”

You nodded, urging him to continue, and he did—grateful and a little scared that you were listening to him so intently.

“Minjun and I got a good head start,” he spoke. “I don’t know what Sid and Jude meant by saying they’d hold the police back, because three officers still chased after us. But they were always at least five metres behind—I could tell from the distant sound of their shoes. I remember feeling so disconnected from my feet as I ran, I could sense I was going to trip. I don’t—honestly, I’m not saying this to defend myself—but I don’t know how I would have managed to look at the cops over my shoulder, spit at them from five metres away, and keep running without breaking my neck or falling over.”

“Hmm—yeah. I don’t know, either,” you said, turning away from him. You understood that it was important for him to clear his conscience, especially if he had been held accountable for something he didn’t even do, but you had other questions. “I’m confused about something else, though. If you and Minjun were being chased while Sid and Jude stayed back, why weren’t they brought into the station?”

All Jungkook did was raise his head and give you a look.

“Right,” you realised. “Of course. Money.”

He looked back down and nodded.

Exhaling, you studied the ceiling tiles for a few seconds before admitting, “I’ve always had a feeling that Sid had set you up.”

“Yeah,” he replied with surprising calmness. “I think so, too.”

You ran your fingers over your hair and pulled a strand from the back of your head to toy with it as you tried to think.

In every conversation that you’ve had about Sid using Jungkook as a scapegoat, Jungkook had either insisted that you were misunderstanding, or he simply fell silent (to avoid arguments, you assumed, and not necessarily to indicate his agreement with you).

This felt very new and particularly unusual. He wasn’t feeding into your dislike for his friends. He was doing something else now, but you were hesitant to draw conclusions about what it might be.

He had claimed he was done with Sid right after their fight, but after enduring his insufferable friends for years, you weren’t ready to believe that you wouldn’t have to see Sid’s nauseating mug again.

“But, anyway,” Jungkook said after a quiet minute. “Minjun and I apologised. Minjun paid bail. We signed something—I don’t even know what that was. And I went home with you. That’s the, um—the whole story as I remember it.”

You simmered in your cluttered mind for a moment longer, attempting to form a thought that you could voice. But all you could manage was a question. “Why didn’t you talk to me?”

“Would it have made a difference?” he asked. “I was still caught. You had to come and pick me up.”

“At least I—it would have—okay. I don’t know,” you finished lamely. This was a ‘what if’ that you didn’t have the strength to consider.

He hadn’t lied to you, though, you realised—and you weren’t sure how that made you feel. He allowed you to make assumptions that his friends were to blame, and he went along with it. That wasn’t worse than outright lying to you, but it wasn’t much better, either—it still put an unnecessary strain on your relationship.

Logically then, knowing the whole truth about what was happening with him might have made a significant difference. He had good intentions—yet he did not use them to defend himself.

You felt a little sorry that he only told you now, when you couldn’t go back and see what would have happened if you’d known about this all along.

But you realised you did not feel angry. You couldn’t find a specific point in his revelations that you could point at and say, “this is the one. This will be the reason why I can’t stand to look at you anymore.”

You couldn’t say that his choice to be silent made sense, but you knew him. And you understood why he made that choice. The way you saw it, this was partially his friends’ fault anyway.

All on his own, Jungkook wouldn’t have felt this uncertain, this insecure to admit to you that he loved you and that he wanted to show that to you in unorthodox ways—a lot of which didn’t work out.

“So, you just…” you spoke up again. “You were okay with me assuming that you were out with friends every night? That you chose them over us repeatedly?”

Jungkook sighed. If there was anything he’d learned over the past few days, it was that communication was not his strong suit. But now he’d reached a point of no return. He had to talk.

“Honestly, I thought it was a better alternative,” he said. “I thought I was a miserable try-hard. And I realised after our conversation in Amsterdam that, well... this is part of the reason why I didn't—why I assumed that you broke up with me because you didn’t love me anymore. And not because I kept fucking up.”

Your breaths were shallow as you listened to him.

“I think that it turned against me, this unnecessary secrecy,” Jungkook continued. “I wanted to be the best for you, and when I couldn’t be, Sid became a great excuse. But in my head—for me, he didn’t seem to have that big of a presence in our relationship. But of course, after I blamed my own mistakes on Sid, too, they built up. And, in the end, I think what happened was that…”

He faltered and you finished his sentence for him, “I started to see that all the reasons why something went wrong in our relationship were Sid. Sid. Sid. Sid.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I made you think that if I was given a choice, I’d choose my friends over you. Which I wouldn’t! But, um—I had a very poor way of showing that. Have, actually. Still do. I’m sorry.”

“Hmm.” You turned away. “Do you—you know what else I think this is?”

He looked at you. “What?”

“Sid’s influence,” you said. “You were so scared that he would think you’re hopeless or pathetic that you couldn’t even talk about the things that you did—the things that you wanted to do for me. You thought you were a ‘try-hard’ because your friends convinced you that you were.”

Jungkook felt stunned and a little nauseous.

He didn’t know if this was something he’d implied in his endless attempts to apologise for the bet, but you articulated everything he had struggled to convey.

He was trying to prove to Sid that he wasn’t pathetic—and he was doing it long before Sid suggested the bet. He was doing it every time he went out with his friends. He was doing it every time he allowed you to blame these friends after he missed your dates—just so he wouldn’t have to admit how much he tried to make these dates special, and how miserably he’d failed at that.

Eventually, he began to accept that he was truly pitiful for being so stubbornly in love with you. He hated their pity. He wanted to change it. Make it not so.

But the aftermath of the bet made him realise that all he really did, was prove that he was pathetic—he wanted to get you back in any desperate way possible.

He was okay with that now.

He was okay with being so in love with you that he couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t focus on anything else. Couldn’t stay where he was, repeating the same mistakes, going round and round, because he needed to grow. Needed to become someone who deserved you.

He was okay with it because being pitiful meant being in love with you, and he would never try to fight against that.

And you knew all these things about him. You knew everything.

He didn’t really understand how the world worked and he didn’t know if destiny played favourites. But he remembered writing a line in one of Rated Riot’s earlier songs—you weren't made for me, that much is true / but I was made for you—and he was once again confronted with the weight of this realisation.

He loved you. He’s always been yours so completely and wholeheartedly that you read him without looking at him.

He liked to think he knew you well—but that was extremely presumptuous of him. You were a universe within a universe. Really, it was you who knew him in ways he didn’t know himself.

“I—you’re right,” he said, running his tongue over his chapped lips. “I shouldn’t have given a fuck about what they thought, but I did. And I don’t—I, um—I don’t want this to seem like I am an angel for telling you about all that. No, I fucked up. Many times. We went binge-drinking, drag-racing, we skipped classes, failed tests, spray-painted buildings—”

“Stole projectors,” you interjected.

“—stole projectors,” he repeated reluctantly. “It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, while I only pretended to fuck up. No. I took you for granted many times, I know I did. And I’m—I’ll always be sorry about that. But I’m—I’ve kicked him out. Sid. I’m done. Truly done this time. And I don’t even care if Jude stays.”

The way his voice broke off at the last sentence sounded like he cared a little, but you recognised the determination in his eyes when you looked at him. He’d made a decision.

“And Minjun?” you asked.

Jungkook inhaled. “Minjun… said he’d stay.”

“Good,” you said.

“Good—yeah?” he asked, evidently surprised. “You think so?”

Minjun had constantly looked like a kicked puppy when you were in the room. Now that you understood why, you thought you liked him a little more for it.

“Yeah,” you said. “I think he’s the only one of your friends worth keeping.”

“I’m starting to see that, too,” he admitted. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

You looked down. With half of the vitamin drip gone now, you felt your body start to return to you—and, automatically, the surreal haze inside this hotel room began to clear. You were no longer floating somewhere on the ceiling and only pretending that you were perfectly fine.

You were coming back to yourself. And the return was rugged and painful.

 “You, um—you keep apologising to me like—like you’re obligated to respond to me,” you said. Jungkook didn’t know if you realised it, but your voice changed when you spoke to him as his manager and not as someone he’d known and loved for over seven years. “I’m your manager, but these things—you can—I shouldn’t tell you how to live your life. That’s not my—”

“I want it to be, though,” he cut you off with a sudden boldness that he hadn’t realised he still had in him. “I-I mean, I don’t want you to worry about me like that ever again, but I—I want you to think about me. Sometimes, you’re the only person who truly does.”

You shook your head—not to rid yourself of the responsibility, but to remind him, yet again, that he had people who wanted what was best for him.

And, honestly, he knew he did. He just wanted you.

“You have your grandma,” you said.

“Yeah, of course,” he said, nodding distractedly. “But, um, you know.”

“And you’re loved by thousands,” you continued. “They all want you to stay safe.”

He smiled—appreciative but oddly apologetic.

“I��m grateful for that,” he said. “It’s just that—I want you to be the one who wants that for me. I’ve only ever loved you, I’ve never—never been in a relationship with anyone who wasn’t you. And I don’t want to be, so the next thing that you say better not be about me finding someone else, because—”

“You have been in other relationships, though,” you said despite his warning. You didn't know if this was really true, but you ploughed ahead anyway—just to say something. “I don’t know how long or short, but Sid always bragged about your double dates whenever he called me to pick you up, so—”

“The double dates,” Jungkook said, “meant that Sid was on a date with two girls at the same time. And I was there for decoration.”

You scoffed. “I hardly imagine that to be possible, considering Sid looks like a sewer rat on a good day.”

Jungkook wanted to argue, but he was too amused by this image.

“And, um—what do I look like?” he asked.

You blinked, taken aback by the question, then quickly turned away to gaze out the window instead. “You look… you know what you look like.”

“No,” he said, fully grinning now. “Now that you mention it, I realise I actually have no idea what I look like.”

“There’s a mirror on the wall right behind you.”

“It’s like I’m blind, I don’t know what’s—”

“You’re ridiculous,” you groaned, your face warm. “You look nice. Move on.”

“Oh! That’s high praise coming from you.” He made an effort to bow. “Thank you.”

“Fuck off,” you retorted because you couldn’t smack him on the shoulder. Instead, you motioned with your hand, urging him to keep going. “Sid couldn’t get a date with a personality worse than his looks. Not if you were there.”

“I’m sure the expensive restaurant worked in his favour,” Jungkook remarked.

You threw your head back, realising the significance of money yet again. “Ah.”

“In any case, I don’t care,” he said. He cleared his throat and leaned back in his seat. “I never wanted to be with anyone who wasn’t you anyway. Which—as you’ll be happy to point out—sounds silly because when Sid was in a good mood, he was very dedicated to making sure neither of us left the club alone.”

You shrugged one of your shoulders, trying to come off as casual. “Well, since you brought it up.”

“Yeah, well.” He sighed, not running away from this, because, frankly, there was nowhere to run. “And you’re, uh—you’re my manager. You know what I’ve been doing after hours anyway.”

“Hmm.”

You didn’t have a better response, because there was something that Luna had said to you the other day that would not leave your mind alone.

He had the option to keep the bet a secret from you.

This evening had been filled with these options.

It would have been easy not to mention his miserable attempts at grand gestures or the people who were there after you. But he was bringing up everything—every little detail from your relationship and after it—and you sat expressionless on the bed, not knowing what to make of any of it.

“I meant what I said, though,” Jungkook said, leaning forward again. He felt restless; as if he could jump out of his skin if he tried hard enough. “You’re the only meaningful relationship I’ve had. It wasn’t fair for me to pretend to be interested in a second date with someone else, when I constantly caught myself thinking about if I’d ever see you again. Or when I’d see you again, after we started to work together.”

Your eyes were focused on the sheets of the bed, but he still didn’t dare to look at you.

“I didn’t want to believe that I could still be in love with you after all this time,” he said. “But—well, the evidence is against me.”

“W-why’d you go with Sid then?” you asked—quickly. Before he said something else that you didn’t know how to respond to. “Clubbing and on these dates?”

He clenched his jaw. “Well, you said it. I was trying to prove to him that I wasn’t pathetic. That I wasn’t in love with you anymore.”

“But why did you care so much about what he thought?” you pushed, and there was a hint of hurt in your voice. Jungkook felt his heart leap over several beats as it pounded against his ribs. “Why did his opinion matter to you more than mine?”

He exhaled so deeply that it was almost a miracle his lungs hadn’t collapsed. His insides were burning with regret. With an urge to turn back time. An urge to make things right.

“Because I was—I was a fucking idiot. For years before I met you, I thought Sid had everything I wanted,” he said—which was equally as simple as it was unfair, and, in retrospect, stupid. “The freedom, the audacity to do whatever the fuck he pleased. No consequences, ever.”

You remembered him saying the same thing to you on the bridge in Stockholm and felt yourself shiver as though the wind from that night had followed you all the way here.

“And the way he treated me when I was single was different, too,” Jungkook continued. “I was single, I was in a band, and it finally felt like he approved of me, like we were actually friends. Like we were equals. And I cared about that so fucking much. It felt like I finally had everything that he had, and I was just—blind.”

“But you didn’t,” you said. “You didn’t have what he has. I don’t think you ever will.”

Jungkook was surprised to realise that hearing this did not sting.

He agreed.

“Yeah,” he said. “I actually—I had so much more than Sid would ever have, because I had you. And that’s—that’s probably why he dragged me around with him. He was determined to make me truly lose you like he always made me lose everything. And I let him—I helped him make that come true. I can’t—I’m not much better than him. I want to believe I am, but I’m—I made the bet.”

You remembered thinking that Jungkook and Sid could never be equals, because Sid always needed Jungkook to have less. And now that you heard Jungkook come to a similar conclusion on his own, you thought you felt the room shift a little.

“Yeah,” you said, distracted. “T-that—the bet was fucked up.”

“I know. I’m—I’m sorry,” he said. “I just—I want you to know that I meant everything I had said. All of it. And I understand why you don’t want to believe me. I, uh—I know your family history. But I’ve got mine, too. My grandpa is almost eighty. He’s only ever loved one person his whole life. So did my dad. So will I. It’s just—regardless of what’s going to happen, you’re—I’ll always love you.”

You cleared your throat once, then once more—louder.

Jungkook was about ready to get up, alarmed suddenly, but you quieted and looked around. He caught a glimpse of your eyes as you scanned the room and he realised—in a paradoxical sense of relief—that you were frightened.

Not angry. Not refusing to believe him. Not disappointed or frustrated.

Just scared.

“It’s uh—it’s really late,” you said, looking back at the window. “Isn’t it? The sky’s completely dark.”

He swallowed. You didn’t want to talk about this. And you shouldn’t. You needed rest.

“Yeah, uh… do you want me to close the curtains?” he asked, swallowing all that was still left unsaid.

It was impossible anyway, he supposed, to pour seven years of misguided decisions into one conversation. He was just relieved you hadn’t asked him to leave.

“No,” you said. “Keep them open. I want to see the sky.”

He’d hoped you would say that, and he felt an almost forgotten lightness in his chest when you did. Lots of things had changed over the past few days, but a lot of things hadn’t—including your love for the night.

“A lot of stars tonight,” he said meaningfully. He was glad he had accidentally picked a hotel room with a view of boring back alleys: there were no lights to cover up the stars now.

“Yeah,” you agreed, much calmer. “They’re beautiful.”

There was a quote in a book his grandmother had once read to him: “are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?”

He remembered feeling oddly wistful when he heard it. He imagined the night sky behind his closed eyes and he felt as though he was lacking something crucial—something that would come, but not yet.

He remembered watching the way you watched the stars back in Tilburg—hours before it all fell apart.

The night sky had always reminded him of you—really, even before he met you.

“I could open the window wider,” he suggested.

You closed your eyes.

“Could you?” you asked quietly.

“Yeah.” He stood up and approached the window, pulling the frame until he saw the ends of the curtains lift off the floor. “A distinct smell, isn’t it? The night.”

“It is,” you agreed.

It probably shouldn’t have been possible at this point, but as he turned around and traced your features with his gaze, he thought he fell in love with you a little more at this moment.

“We, um, we have this song,” he found himself saying as he returned to the armchair next to your bed. This song had been buzzing in his head nearly the whole night tonight. You could feel his nervousness as he mumbled, “ah, you probably know it already, it’s so obvious. And I told you in Oslo—okay, anyway. We have this song. It’s a B-side on our second single.”

“Cursed,” you said, recalling the title easily enough because this was your mum’s favourite song.

You always thought that the single—“Haunting,” which was their second title track and the very first Rated Riot song that you’d heard—overshadowed “Cursed.” Perhaps unfairly.

“Yeah.” Jungkook nodded. “Who, um—who do you think inspired it?”

Swallowing, you willed your thoughts to clear, so you wouldn’t have to think about the lyrics, but could not do it.

You remembered the entire chorus with perfect clarity, as though you were listening to Rated Riot perform the song in concert right now—Taehyung heavy on the bass and Jungkook yelling out the lyrics with his whole body leaning over the edge of the stage towards the audience.

You’re for the stars and for the moon to see /

You weren’t made for me /

You’re for the night and for the day to breathe /

You’re everything they want to be /

You're the enchantment that makes planets turn /

You’re more than the entire world /

You weren’t made for me, that much is true /

But I was made for you.

“I have no idea,” you said finally. You hoped, against all odds, this was a song that Yoongi wrote when he was drunk—those tended to be very emotional. “Was this the, um, absinthe one?”

Jungkook snickered humourlessly and shook his head.

“Don’t do this to me,” he asked, looking down for a moment—just until he could count the four loose threads in the carpet. Then he returned his gaze to you.

“It was you,” he said. “Your love for the night sky. I know it’s your favourite thing in the world.”

He said that and suddenly your chest was filled with them—with these stars that you loved to watch and he loved to sing about.

“W-well, that’s—you’re, um,” you struggled, “you’re not wrong about that, I guess.”

“It’s a song about my favourite thing in the world, too,” he added.

“W-what’s that?”

He had a sad smile on his face. “You.”

Your stomach tightened again and you squeezed your eyes shut—a feeble attempt to get away from this situation and from all the thoughts that your head could no longer contain.

“Not tonight,” you whispered. “I can’t—I don’t want to talk about us or about—about anything else tonight.”

“Okay,” he agreed immediately. “We won’t talk about it.”

“Okay,” you echoed, even though his laid-back response did not relax you.

You sensed longing in his words, and anguish. He would have done anything you asked him to—and this power scared you. You didn’t want it. You just wanted—

Exhaling loudly to drown out your thoughts, you turned to a side and glanced at the bandages on his face.

“Tomorrow, we will have to—we’ll have to figure out what to do with your eye,” you said.

Jungkook had not fully returned to this planet yet. “My eye?”

“Yes,” you said, giving him a longer look—as if to check if you hadn’t dreamt him—and then closing your eyes again. “Your black eye.”

He reached up to touch the bandages, perpetually confused about his injuries. “Oh—what do you mean, what to do with it?”

“Well, it’d probably be weird to cut it out, so we’ll have to cover it up.”

“Hmm.” He smiled at the ease in your voice. If everything else was lost, he hoped that he would at least get to keep your banter. “Okay.”

“I’ll think of something,” you promised as the gentle night wind brushed a strand of hair away from your face and fluttered your tired eyelashes.

“Thank you,” Jungkook said in a hush—his courage had finally abandoned him. “I’m sorry that this is another thing that you have to—”

“No,” you cut him off. “It’s not that bad.”

You tried to turn your head towards him, but lying here with your eyes closed felt very pleasant. You thought you’d felt revitalised before, you thought your body had started to feel more like it belonged to you again, but that had been momentary. You couldn’t keep your eyes open long enough to properly look at him.

“Do you mind if I… keep my eyes closed for a minute?” you asked.

“Do you mind if I stay here?” he responded.

“You—”

“Actually, I don’t care,” he decided. “I’m staying.”

You forced yourself to look at him. “You don’t have to do that. I’m fine.”

“You always say you’re fine,” he reminded you. “Look at where we are now.”

“It was a one-time thing. Look at this.” Lethargically, you raised your arm with the catheter. “I’m being pumped full of vitamins. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” he said. “I want to believe that. Really, I do, but you have to stop. You can’t keep going like this. I-I mean—”

You shook your head against the pillow. “Jungkook, this is really nothing.”

“I have a hard time believing that when you’re connected to a—”

“It’s—”

“Look, just—” he took a breath and extended his hands, “—p-please—please don’t let this happen again. Please look after yourself. I can’t lose you.”

He knew he might have to keep working with you without ever calling you his again. He’d have to learn how to deal with that.

But he could never deal with being here without you.

“Okay,” you said, your eyelids heavy. “Okay, I’ll be careful.”

“I’m going to need a promise here,” he said, reaching out his hand.

You chuckled weakly and extended your hand to gently graze his palm with the tips of your fingers. “I promise.”

He leaned in closer to fully grasp your hand in his, and saw the gentle—likely unconscious—smile on your lips as you squeezed his fingers. His chest filled with a warmth so big and powerful that, reasonably, there had to be no space left for his heart there anymore.

And yet something kept beating. He felt his own pulse reverberate against your fingers as he clutched your hand in his.

You’d be alright.

You hadn’t foreseen how calming the gentle dripping of the IV would be. You’d only meant to rest your eyes for a quick moment. You didn’t realise you had dozed off.

Only when your mind sobered up sometime in the early morning hours—you based the time solely on the colour of the sky outside—did you force your eyes open and concluded, with a painful jolt of your exhausted muscles, that you’d fallen asleep.

You looked around and for a moment, the dark, strange room filled your exhausted mind with terror. Then you noticed Jungkook sleeping in the chair next to you, and you felt yourself calm down.

Thank God he was here.

Blinking suddenly, you parted your lips as if preparing to argue with your own thoughts.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. He had a performance tomorrow. And a bandaged black eye that you still hadn’t figured out how to hide.

“I can tell you’re overthinking from all the way over here,” Jungkook said, his voice drowsy, eyes half-open. He must have heard the rustling of your covers and woken up. “Go to sleep.”

“What time is it?” you asked.

He was too tired to note the urgency in your voice as he mumbled, “sleeping time.”

“Jungkook, I’m serious,” you said. Finally, he caught your alarmed tone and his eyes shot open. “What time is it?”

He straightened in his seat and regarded you for a minute while he searched for his phone somewhere on the armchair. You didn’t appear to be in pain, but the emergency in your eyes threw him off.

“It’s three-twenty,” he said after a brief moment of blindness from the bright screen of his phone.

“Shit.” You looked around in the darkness, not sure when you had last seen your phone. You couldn’t remember Jungkook mentioning that he’d picked it up when he found you, and you hadn’t asked for it back. “I have to—”

“No,” he said, getting to his feet.

“No,” you argued back. “I need—”

He leaned over your bed and took hold of your hands right as you tried to throw off your duvet and sit up. You tried to evade him, but Jungkook proved he’d known you long enough to guess every move you were going to make—in complete darkness.

“No,” he said again, struggling with your relentless dedication to flail your limbs around until you stood up. “Lie down, please. I don’t know what you think you must do at three in the morning, but I promise you, it can wait. It’ll be done. I’ll do everything to make sure everything is okay.”

You stopped resisting his hold and allowed him to gently guide you back onto the mattress. He only let go of you when your head hit the pillows.

“You can’t be here. You need rest,” you insisted as he pulled the duvet over you, tucking it under your sides until you were firmly cocooned inside. You couldn’t tell if he did that for your comfort or to make sure you couldn’t escape this bed.

“So do you,” he countered.

“I'm fine—”

“No—for once, just... please stop saying that,” he asked, his eyes bright, but his voice completely spent. “You’re not fine. You’re getting a vitamin drip because you fainted. You need to sleep.”

You kept your eyes on his for another minute, trying to adjust to the thick darkness, so you could make out his silhouette as he towered over your bed. He was watching you and waiting.

“Okay,” you gave in. “I'll sleep.”

“I’ll be here,” he said, finally sitting back down.

You knew that wasn’t right. He needed to get proper rest. He shouldn’t have kept watch over you.

“Okay,” was all you said despite everything. “Thank you.”

He mumbled something unintelligible in response and you didn’t dare to ask him to repeat it. The room gave space to the night as your conversation wound down.

You could hear a faint screech of a lost bird outside the hotel window. Bugs were singing somewhere in the distance, too. And, as you drifted off, you thought you heard Jungkook whisper a weary “I love you.”

chapter title credits: bad omens, “the grey”

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[choccy-milky]

bruh i need to vent about a rude comment i got on my recent chap and also about clora, cuz its something thats been on my mind for a while now. it has spoilers to my most recent chap tho so im putting it below

so in my most recent chap clora gets hit by the killing curse but thanks to seb sacrificing himself for her, it doesn’t work/she survives. and I got a rly rude comment about how that’s super cringe and that clora is a "shoe horning of every possible manifestation of Mary-Sueism I have ever seen." theyre dropping my fic after almost 500k words bc apparently THAT’S where they draw the line and that "just somehow pulling it out the bag and surviving a killing curse from the power of love. In simpler terms, it’s absolutely cringe worthy" and "forgive me if I rolled an eye at the yet again invincible nature of Clora Clemons-the-one-eighth-Veela-extraordinaire"

BUT LIKE LMAO TELL ME U DIDN’T READ/WATCH HARRY POTTER WITHOUT TELLING ME. that’s literally what happens to harry??but its only cringe when it happens to our "mary-sue" clora? like yeah sure love magic might be a bit cringe but IM LITERALLY JUST PULLING FROM THE SOURCE MATERIAL. of all the things to take issue with in my fic and interpretations, theyre taking issue with something that’s canon BAHAHA.

and since im on the topic of clora being mary sue can I just say I hate the misogyny/internalized misogyny that i've seen some people (NOT A LOT, THANKFULLY) treat her with. like i get it, im not pale and blonde and as conventionally pretty as clora is, but even if I was, is that a reason to hate me?? and does being beautiful and well-liked = mary sue? bc as far as I know, mary sue is a chara who is just naturally amazing at everything and doesnt need to try hard and theyre just inexplicably great for no reason (like mc in the base game BAHHAA) if anything the mary sue in MY fic is seb LMAO (but hes a boy so its ok). like clora has worked hard and studied magic all her life due to being a squib and wanting to make up for not being able to DO it. she isnt good at flying, seb is still better at her than duelling, shes really short sighted when it comes to doing/thinking whats best for others and can be a huge idiot.... and like. the only guys that have even shown interest in clora on a real scale have been seb and leander (and then lawley for blackmail purposes, and also bc he hates seb) so its not like literally everyone is falling over themselves for her?? like her interactions with the main cast of boys (ominis, garreth, amit) theyre all indifferent to her LMAO but still, the fact that shes pretty and guys here and there might look at her and go o shes cute! doesnt make her a mary sue SORRy thats just called being attractive idk its just annoying that ppl automatically see a nice kind beautiful female character without any VISIBLE flaws and go SHES TOO PERFECT!! MARY SUE!! WAH IM JEALOUS! and like I get it bc when I was younger I probs would have been annoyed by clora as well due to my own insecurities and internalized misogyny but hey, how about u just realize that’s ur own problem and your own jealousy, and not a real one HAHAH anyway ive since evolved bc I used to be a ‘not like other girls’ type girl back in highschool. trying to be super tomboy-y bc I thought being feminine was cringe and too basic but now ive embraced it and love girly things and dresses and charas like clora who are still strong and showcase their strengths and weaknesses in subtler ways, and I want to smooch her and make out with her. get behind me clora ill protect you🤺🤺🤺

[lqfiles]

THE NEW PART? HELLO? HELLOOOO? Omg my heart… the tension… the grip on her wrists… bringing her closer… THE NAMES? he’s so downbad and he doesn’t even know it yet omg i know he’s gonna tell everyone to fuck off except y/n and i love that for them

like their bickering is so… idk how to explain it but i can picture it so well in my head and it feels like a conversation i would hear (and, again, it’s paced so well) in person

and ngl the fake texts where he was calling her names and she’s telling him to stop… it reminds me of when my best friend told my bf (we were friends then but we bickered a lot) what i liked being called and he wouldn’t stop calling me that name… and now we’re dating 🧍🏻‍♀️ ily i love books that just bring back happy memories 😭

the tension… you write so well and i hope you know how talented you are 🫶🏼🫶🏼 literally. like the pacing, the subtle little details about them hating each other but still wanting to irk the other is so well done, talented 🫵🏼 HOW MANY WORDS IN NCT DREAM? YEAHHHH

everything’s going so good, so well paced and you need to process that in your head

- 🫧

(bella’s napping rn after eating some cucumbers and after running around in circles)

I FEEL LIKE I SUCCEEDED LETS FREAKING GOOOOO, tbh i felt like this this chap could’ve been better ngl, originally it was 2.2k words going into much more plot but i was like “no one is reading all that..” so i had to cut some parts out and try to not pace it too quick 😭 i’m glad the conversation felt real tho, i always imagine the characters saying the dialogue in the scene, that’s how i usually work on my stuff loll. tbh haechan is already starting to be down bad because the fact that he is going out of his way to annoy her with a nickname that’s meant for ENDEARMENT already says something.. 🌝

AAAWWWW THATS SO CUTE 😭😭😭 can’t believe i just took your experience and implemented it into this fic that’s crazyyy.. the way i was planning on making the nicknames win y/n over too like she has a slight weakness for them and with her growing attraction for haechan you already know she will be weak, that’s so cute tho, i’m happy you have such a cute memories of your pre-relationship!!

every time you point those little things out i feel like ive succeeded because that’s exactly what i want people to notice >o< you just made me day bae ily i hope your day goes well and thank you for the feedback <33 say hii to bella for me once she wakes up!!!

[fw00shy]

What Happens After Summer is Up to You

Harry/Draco | T | 1.6k | post-war summer at hogwarts, a little story about letting things go and not making a big fuss over it, fluff honestly but not too sweet | ao3 link

for @drarrymicrofic: what if he wants ken not barbie. ty @vukovich for the beta 💙

(i)

Draco returned to Hogwarts the year after the war for the same reason that got him into this mess in the first place: because he was told to. "Keep your head down and count yourself lucky," his father had said, and Draco packed his bags the same as he did every year, having learned nothing about making his own decisions.

That would come later.

"Some people need a little more help in life than others," Pansy said with a pitying pat of his bedcovers as she watched him pack.

Pansy more than passed her NEWTs with the help of Polyjuice and a morally compromised Ravenclaw. A two-pm Portkey to Zanzibar waited for her in celebration of her well-deserved accomplishments.

Draco picked up an engraved wooden case and opened it to reveal his father's Snitch, the one from the year Lucius had won the House Cup. Draco packed it with him every year as a good luck charm, but looking at it now brought upon a wave of unease.

"Who else is going?" Draco asked Pansy. She was wearing a bruise-purple miniskirt and black lipstick that drained her complexion as gaunt as a Thestral. Draco noted this with petty satisfaction.

Pansy flopped back on Draco's bed. "I dunno. Everyone, I suppose. Daphne, of course. Blaise. Theo. Greg, maybe? But he says he might not have the money, which I think is for the best really — he's just been so sad, probably wants some time alone, to, you know, process — though Blaise said he'd cover for him…" Pansy sat back up. "Draky baby, you aren't sad about missing out, are you?"

Draco snapped down the lid to the Snitch and stashed it in his trunk. "Don't call me that."

"Don't be like that," Pansy cooed. She got off the bed and flounced toward him, her every step light with barely constrained exuberance. "You know it won't be the same without you. I'll owl you a nice prezzy, alright? Look at me."

Pansy's eyes were black and glittering, her mouth hardened in a crocodile smile. She looked like she was ready to move on with her life, which she might as well go and do. Nobody was stopping her, anyway.

(ii)

Hogwarts held preparatory courses over the summer for Muggleborns, and the newly anointed Headmistress singlehandedly taught them all. There were twelve students in total across the years, and the terms of Draco's probation stated that he was to aid in their education.

"Studying over the summer… bet this is Granger's idea of fun," Draco grumbled under his breath over dinner the first week.

"Mine, actually," Potter said around a mouthful of peas. "She helped write the curriculum, but then she scored an internship at the Ministry."

They were sitting at the teacher's table, which meant Draco could talk to Potter without having to meet his eye. As such, they'd spoken a few times, though primarily for passing the butter and pepper and whatnot. (Their fingers brushed on occasion. Though never on purpose, of course.)

"I'm happy for her," Harry said.

"It's a good curriculum." Draco coughed. Dear Circe, complimenting Granger… did he have no filter?

(iii)

Teaching Quidditch to ten-year-olds was Draco's least favourite part of his sentence. You'd think sharing his joy of flying would be his only solace in a soulless summer cleaning up after children barely coordinated enough to wipe their own arses, and you would be horribly, disgustingly wrong. Turns out most Muggle-raised children had a healthy dose of vertigo that often manifested into projectile vomiting from a metre up.

"I just don't get it," Potter said as he Scourgified puke from Draco's hair for the third time that afternoon. Their students were long gone, taken off to the kitchens after one plummeted to the ground in a cannonball of chunder.

"Of course you don't," Draco huffed. Not just anyone could fly like Harry Potter, the youngest Seeker in a century despite never setting foot on a pitch before Hogwarts. "Like any normal dunce can be Harry Potter. You're stupid to think anyone has it as easy as you."

Potter threw a fist at Draco's eye. Draco returned it to Potter's chest, shoving Potter down to the ground. It felt good to hurt, so good that he nearly whined in disappointment when Potter froze and dropped his fist mid-air.

"That was a compliment," Potter said, his face cracked open with bewilderment. "You — God, Malfoy. You mess me up." He got up from the ground, his knees grass-stained and his face bruised with mud. Draco watched the anger bloom red and splotchy over Potter's cheeks and tried not to cower when Potter drew his wand. Was this what Voldemort saw before he died?

Potter muttered something unintelligible, and Draco felt the pain siphoning away from his body. He was light all over, as though Potter had managed to take away all his wounds, even the ones within him, so that there was nothing to Draco but air.

Draco watched Potter disappear back into the castle before standing. He walked through the halls in a daze until he ran into the Headmistress, who told him to clean up before he set a bad example for the incoming First-Years. It wasn't until he was freshly showered and pulling on his robes again that he realised that his Dark Mark was gone.

(iv)

They started tossing around a Quaffle in the late afternoons after Quidditch class. They were already in their leathers, and saying yes was as easy as lifting off the ground. Throwing around a Quaffle was loads harder than chasing after a Snitch, but neither were practised at it, which helped, as they dove after missed catches with all the vigour of a game-ending Snitch. They flew until the daylight ran out and their breaths with it, sweaty and exhausted and so late into dinner that they were sent to the kitchens to scavenge leftovers.

It was a Sunday afternoon in mid-August when Pansy's promised owl brought Draco a box of chocolates; too many for Draco to eat alone, so it was only sensible for him to share as he would have with Greg or Vince in the past. He walked the long corridor to Potter's door and knocked, chocolates in hand.

It was a terrible mistake. Potter wore only boxers, his glasses askew and his hair still sleep-rumpled (despite it being The Afternoon!). Draco stumbled back as though slapped. Potter honestly had no right being so effortlessly attractive on top of everything else he had going for him. It was like seeing Dumbledore in his sleeping hat, or maybe the first time Draco caught Pansy on the toilet and realised that girls pooped: all wrong, completely wrong, he really ought to go, perhaps another time —

Potter dragged him inside with only the gentlest roll of his eyes.

The inside of Potter's room was as cosy as Mother's cashmere jumper, only uglier (the wrong colours). Potter ate an embarrassing number of chocolates while proclaiming, "I dunno where it all goes, honest; can't gain a stone," and Draco was so disgusted by the utter unfairness of life that he fell asleep over Potter's bed and had to sneak back to his own room in the wee hours of the morning.

(v)

It wasn't meant to be an open invitation. But Potter followed Draco all the way back to his room after dinner the next day, and Draco didn't manage to shut the door on him in time.

Potter looked around, his head swivelling around comically, like an owl. And then his eyes narrowed on Lucius's unopened letters piled high on Draco's desk.

"What's in them?"

"Dunno," Draco said. "Directives, if I had to guess. Rather pointless, considering I'm stuck under McGonagall's iron fist until the summer's out." Potter opened one anyway, and Draco watched anger carve lines between his brows with some bemusement. Was this what it was like to have Harry Potter on his side? It was a bit like hanging around a guard crup, or maybe a guard dragon.

Potter burned the letter. He burned them all before returning to his room.

Draco sat on his bed and stared at the scorched top of his desk. He wasn't sure how he felt about it all being gone. Part of him was relieved, sure, but mostly the loss numbed his chest through.

Then Draco remembered his father's Snitch.

Draco summoned the Snitch to him, and it burst forth from the bottom of his trunk amid a cacophony of torn textbooks and scattered winter cloaks. Draco caught the box in his right hand and tucked it under him before gingerly stepping over the mess to his window, where he took out the Snitch and let it go. And then all that was left of Lucius in Draco's room was Draco himself.

The future unfolded before him, cold and barren to the ends of the earth. What was he supposed to do now?

(vi)

In the last week of summer, Potter told Draco to call him Harry, and then he asked Draco what he was going to do with his life.

Draco said, "I dunno. Get a job at the Ministry. Marry Pansy, I suppose. And you with Ginny, yeah?"

"Yeah," Harry said and took Draco's face into his hands and kissed him.

Was this it? Was this what all those miserable years surmounted to? This crystalline moment, the one that Draco waited for his whole life. And now it took him by surprise.

Harry's lips were very chapped, though his mouth held the sweet promise of fresh grass and sunshine. Whatever that meant. Draco kissed him back. And then he said it wasn't fair that Harry was so good at kissing as he was at everything else, honestly — sunshine? Was there anything Harry struggled at? Because he was so bloody perfect that it made Draco want to stomp on his face and throw up all over him.

"You're the only person in the world who thinks I'm perfect," Harry said and kissed him again.

(vi)

What happened after summer is up to you. 💙

Read on AO3

[cheeriecherry]

Hi there! I wanted to request Bakugou, Deku. And Todoroki, how they react to their fem!S/O Being sick. Like they're delirious with a fever near hospitalization( but not quite that level), body aches, wet cough. boys get worried when they don't come into work/school/text back. So they come see, and find her as well previously stated. Thank you so much for taking the time to read and answer this!

Ofc! Stay safe everyone and make sure to wear your masks :O

BAKUGOU KATSUKI

-He’s not a clingy guy, so he doesn’t expect you to answer his texts right away or always tell him where you are or what you’re doing.

-That being said, he knows your routine. If something is off a little bit, he’ll be mildly concerned, but will ultimately chalk it up to you being forgetful or spontaneous.

-But after you don’t show up in class, he starts to get worried. 

-He tries to think of whether or not you had any injuries during training that might have excused you from lessons, but he can’t think of any beyond a couple minor scrapes and bruises.

-He sends you a text in between classes, and when you still don’t reply he makes a trip back to the dorms at lunch to check on you.

-He doesn’t expect to find you like...this. 

-Curled up on your bed under nearly a hundred blankets, shivering. Your lips are dry and chapped, and he can hear your laboured breathing from the doorway.

-Now, he doesn’t wanna get sick, but that’s the last thing on his mind as he walks over to you and sits on the side of your bed.

-You don’t even seem to be aware of him as he presses a hand to your forehead, wincing at how hot you are.

-He doesn’t want to leave you, but he knows you’re probably sick enough to warrant a visit from Recovery Girl. Pus you’re his girlfriend, so it’s better to be safe than sorry.

-But like I said, he doesn’t want to leave you alone, in case you start choking or something, so he sends Kirishima a cryptic text telling him to bring recovery girl to the dorms.

-Ngl the bakusquad probably tags along with her when she comes to visit, but she ultimately commends Bakugou for calling her because are, in fact, very ill.

-She considers calling the hospital to have them bring you in, but she wants to try helping you in the comfort of your own room before resorting to extreme measures.

-You’re stuck with an IV in your arm for a couple days, and receive a kiss from the old woman on the forehead every morning, and soon enough you start perking up a little. Your breathing improves, and you start to sweat off the fever.

-Bakugou barely leaves your side during the whole ordeal. He goes to classes, but every morning, lunch, and evening he’s in your room. Sometimes he just sits and works on homework, sometimes he falls asleep.

-He’s been warned not to be near you while your still contagious, but he says fuck authority and does what he wants. You’re more important anyways.

-Still, it’s a relief once you start to feel better, and eventually open your eyes. You don’t remember most of what happened the past few days, but you do recall hearing your boyfriend’s voice a couple times.

-He might not know how to take care of you but he’s good at finding people who do, and he’ll always try and do what’s best for you.

MIDORIYA IZUKU

-one hella worried boy.

-Usually you guys hang out before class starts, but he figures that you maybe slept in today or something. So he sends you a text telling you good morning and heads off to class.

-When he gets there and find you’re not there, he starts to feel bad for not going in to check on you, or at least wake you up. Like, what if something bad happened to you and he just ignored it?

-He doesn’t want to be pushy or overly anxious, but he’s also a worrier by nature so...

-He can’t concentrate during class, thinking to hard about all the things that could have happened to you. He really really hopes you just missed your alarm, but a little niggle in the back of his head tells him that’s not the case.

-He excuses himself to ‘the bathroom’ during second period, and runs as fast and as stealthily as he can back to the dorms, where he then finds you.

-You’re practically gasping for air, laying on your bed. You’ve thrown your covers off because you’re too hot, but you’re also shivering so hard you’re shaking the mattress. He knows as soon as he lays a hand on your forehead that you’re not okay.

-So he does what anyone would do and calls one of his friends...who are in class. He’s somehow surprised when Mr. Aizawa picks up and starts scolding him about his students being in class, but he quickly babbles out that he’s ‘not actually in the bathroom and that he went to check on you because you weren’t in class and you’re really sick and please sir could you get recovery girl’

-There’s a sigh right before the line goes dead, and ten minutes later the tired man himself shows up with the school nurse.

-Once they actually see the state you’re in, and hear your horrible congested coughs, they both start to get worried.

-Again, recovery girl will want to try and avoid any media hubbub involving the school, so she’ll try to treat your symptoms in your room. It works pretty well considering her quirk, but you’re still on thin ice. Your fever is dangerously high, and even with an oxygen mask on you’re still having trouble breathing.

-Not to mention your mumbling...you’re not really aware of what’s going on, but it sounds like you’re trying to have conversations. Everyone worries that you’re hallucinating from the fever.

-Midoriya tries to convince your teacher to let him stay with you, but both Aizawa and recovery girl tell him there’s not anything he can do. It’s best he go back to class...which he reluctantly does. And only because recovery girl is going to stay with you until the end of the day.

-Once classes are over he makes a beeline for your room. His hands are full of little things the rest of the class had given him to give to you, as get-well presents. He sets them on your desk and sits beside you on the bed.

-Recovery girl’s quirk seems to be working, you’re a little more restful and still, though your lungs still sound horrible. He talks to you a little bit, wondering how you got this sick with no one noticing, but how he knows you’ll scold him if he blames himself for it.

-He falls asleep beside you on your bed that night, and the next morning he wakes up to a gentle trembling hand in his hair. 

-He opens his eyes to find you’ve turn onto your side, and are looking at his with a tired gaze. Your eyes are still a little glazed over, and he can tell you’re not really all there yet, but he still smiles at the improvement, as well as that the first thing you thought to do when you woke up was to touch him.

-He makes sure to keep up with his studies over the next few days, and makes lots of notes for you to go over later when you feel better. All his free time is spent in your room, despite the fact that he might catch what you have. He at least wears a mask at recovery girl’s request.

-It’s a major relief when he sees you sitting up and walking slowly around a few days later, though no matter how much you ask he’s not gonna let you try and do schoolwork until you’re at 100%.

-It’s a miracle this guy doesn’t get sick, though everyone kind of keeps a few feet away from him for a while.

TODOROKI SHOUTO

-Doesn’t think anything of it at first. He notices you’re not texting him back, but your phone might be off or dead, or you might be busy.

-He starts to wonder when you don’t show up in class. If you’d been planning to take a day off, you would have told him. Right? He sends you another text, asking if you’re okay, and promptly gets his phone confiscated.

-He gets it back at the end of the day no problem, but when he sees you still haven’t replied, he knows something is up.

-He ignores everyone on the way to the dorms, ducking in between people to try and get there faster.

-When he finds you in a pathetic wheezing ball under a heap of blankets, he instantly feels a pang of guilt. Maybe if he’d been more diligent, he would have learned that you were sick sooner...

-But it’s hard to beat himself up while he’s still got you to worry about.

-He finds a couple towels and old shirts around your room, and wraps them around some ice blocks he made, then sets them all over your body to help bring your temperature down.

-There’s no one in his phone contacts that he could really call in this situation, so he reluctantly settles for the class president. He’s always wanting to look out for fellow students, after all.

-So Iida shows up, takes on look at you, and sprints away to get recovery girl. Todo didn’t think it was that bad, but he mostly trusts Iida’s judgement, so...

-And then recovery girl comes in and confirms that yes, you are very sick. Very sick indeed.

-And the worry flares up in him again. He watches as she fixes you with IV fluids and antibiotics, and sets an oxygen mask across your face. He can’t help but notice how small and vulnerable you look in this state, and how he wants nothing more than for you to get better.

-He wonders if you should go to the hospital, if it would be better for you there, but recovery girl wants to keep you comfortable. She has most of what she needs at the school, but should your condition not improve in the next day then she’ll definitely arrange for an ambulance.

-Todoroki wonders how he’ll be able to visit you and make sure you’re doing okay if you’re off campus, but ultimately he wants what’s best for you.

-He wears a mask while he’s in your room to try and deter himself from getting sick as well, but he spends most of his time in there. He sometimes does homework, but mostly he’s just laying beside you on your bed thinking (or napping).

-He goes back to his own room to sleep during the night, but the first thing he does when he wakes up is come check on you.

-Your condition steadily improves, but you don’t regain consciousness until the third day, and when you do, the first thing you see if your boyfriend.

-He’s sitting in one of your chairs a little ways away reading, and he doesn’t notice you’re awake at first. When he does see that your eyes are open, he comes to sit on the edge of your bed.

-The first thing he does is give you a lil kiss on the forehead, and then he goes on to explain how you’ve been bedridden for days because of an illness, but how your condition has been getting better over time.

-V grateful that you’re awake now, so much so that he barely even feels the guilt from before. He’s just glad you’re doing okay.

-Gonna wait on you hand and foot for the next week or so, and nothing is too expensive. You want a square watermelon? He’ll get you a square watermelon, whatever you want. He might even try a hand at cooking meals for you, though they’re slightly burnt and overseasoned.

-He tries though, and it’s the thought that counts. He bars most of your classmates from visiting you while you’re recovering, because he doesn’t want to overwhelm you, but after some finagling he agrees to let two in at a time...but only for a couple minutes.

-He wishes he’d paid more attention in the beginning, but he makes up for it by doting on you afterwards.

[pepperpills]

The Harvest - RE8 Fanfic

The Harvest

A Resident Evil 8 fan fiction by Joana

Karl Heisenberg x Female Reader

Notes: heey guys, thanks everyone who has been reading this series, it was fun writting this story, but as i said a couple of chapters ago, it has come to an end. I am currently writting a new Heis x Reader story, focusing more on wordbuilding and their relationship. I guess The Harvest, as my first try on this, has been a great experience and I hope the next one turns out better. That being said, please enjoy this piece and I will see you all later on a new begginning, thanks!

Warning: NSFW content

Part I - Destiny (1) Part I - Destiny (2) Part II - The Lord Part III - The Hunt Part IV - Soft Torture Part V - Cry Baby

Part VI - The Encounter

It wasn’t a particular sunny day, but the weather was cooler than usual. It was enough for Karl to decide to work outside, once the heat inside the factory was overwhelming his sweaty body. He was shirtless, but still had his hat and spectacles on to protect him from the sun and the light.

Heisenberg was in the middle of something. Ever since you two inaugurated the new wing, he has been working to the bone on a new project. You understood he was trying a new set of armour to make the Soldats tougher. Unfortunately, for you, this was a task you couldn’t help him with. It was still on project, but he was already trying to find the material and that was why he had been searching the factory’s yard all morning, coming and going, absolutely focused.

You were getting bored, though. Once you couldn’t adventure the factory by your own anymore – neither wanted to, having in mind what happened last time –, you chose to sunbath at the yard in the early hours. It was still kind of chilly, because no matter what, the Village was always like that, and you obviously didn’t have any bikinis, once you really didn’t need a set living where you lived. In that manner, you bathed in your panties, wearing no bra.

You gave Karl a major distraction, because of this. First, he was jealous of your boobs exposed like that, but you managed to convince him no one could see you, once the factory was only accessible by the bridge and it was a considerable walk from the allowed parts of the Village. He chilled, but something in his pants was feeling encaged.

Not long after, you got bored. Then an idea crossed your mind causing you to smile. You quickly went to the bedroom to change, grab a few things and then went to the kitchen. Karl had been so long under the sun that he might as well be thirsty. Considering that, you prepared a juice with lots of ice, leaving the building to meet him outside caring a glass of it.

“Hey, Karl.” You called him, his body half inside one of the tanks. “What about a quick break?” You offered, rising the glass once he looked at you.

His countenance showed interest. His mouth was indeed dry, almost causing him chapped lips. Heisenberg walked towards you, the scene glowing in your eyes. The man’s chest was shiny with the sweat. Without his shirt, you had a great view of his body, enjoying the sight of his strong arms. Karl was a Renascence painting for you and the thought of it made you smile, which only invited him nearer.

“Thank you, buttercup.” He said, taking the glass you offered him.

He drank it almost entirely at once, causing some drops to roll down his bearded chin. When he was done, you came closer, resting your hands on his shoulders, not being able to resist a stupid idea that came through your mind. Heisenberg was a bit confused, but accepted your approach, placing his free hand on your hips. Instead of kissing him, you licked his chin, retracing the juice line. He wasn’t expecting it. You finished with a kiss, looking for his tongue, willing to make yours dance with his inside your mouths.

“You’re full of tricks, aren’t you?” Karl laughed when you let his lips go.

“Just some.” You shrugged, smirking back at him. “But I will let you work for now, I know you’re busy.” Now he had a sorrow expression, your kiss had awakened something in him, but you were right, he needed to find at least one metal piece to try on the model.

“It is okay, I will meet you later.” You comforted him, playing with ones of his rebel hair locks.

“I will make it up to you, Y/N.” Karl promised, pressing you harder against his chest, not wanting to let you go.

“No need to, just be there.” You planted a soft kiss on his lips to which he couldn’t help but smile.

“Ok, I will be, kitten.” Heisenberg kissed you once more, eager to taste you, he was intense.

After a couple more kisses, you managed to soften his grip around your hips and he decided that if he could finish the work earlier, it meant more time with you. With that in mind, he returned to the tank. You excused yourself, telling him you were going out to hunt to try the improvements you made on your bow.

You started walking towards the forest behind the factory. As soon as you reached the firsts trees, you noticed a change in the lighting. Clouds were now hiding the sun, bringing in new winds. You puffed, your plans of a cooler hunt probably spoiled because of this change of weather. Neither way, you were already there.

You took your usual path, going down to the stream. Not long after you noticed the absence of Lycans in the surroundings. You use to listen to their roars and sometimes even footsteps, but this time the only sound heard was the birds chanting. An odd atmosphere took over the forest, making you a bit tense.

Maybe they were occupied somewhere else, you thought that they could be on a hunt of their own, chasing a poor villager. This didn’t relax you, though. You kept looking around, searching for Lycans and other animals.

This happened half way to the stream, so fast you weren’t able to process the entire thing. You got distracted with a noise coming from your right, you looked over a fallen trunk, but saw nothing but a mild movement on a bush. It could be the wind, but you wouldn’t take your chances on a silly thought.

The aura was so tense you were about to make up your mind on coming back to the factory, leaving the hunt for another day, scared again of the creatures of the forest. You didn’t have time to decide, though. On your left, a wet thud caused you to jump. Your attention rapidly turned to the source of it.

A body had just fallen from one of the tree’s highest branches. For all you knew, that was a Moroaica, judging by its clothes and grey skin. This wasn’t the work of a Lycan. They would only eat other creatures when they didn’t have a different flesh and, before opting for this alternative, they would feast on the Village’s cattle. This must be something difference.

Only to confirm your suspicions, the culprit land in front of you. It came out of nowhere. Well, from one of the branches above your body. You instinctively screamed, not even noticing it, even though it was pretty loud. This thing wasn’t like anything you have ever seen in your life, but it resembled a lost tale from the cabins.

The story was about a pale creature, one that inhabits the dark, but would go out of its hiding places to hunt when starving. It was described to have sharp fangs for teeth and a blood thirst. On the folk’s tale, the thing wouldn’t have much reason, it would only know two things: the hunger and the instinct of reproduction.

However, this one, standing in front of you, had a human malice written in its red injected eyes, a beauty in its traces. It smirked at your thunderstruck face, feasting on your fear before feasting on your blood. The creature, which resembled a woman, approached your form elegantly, not rushing, having everything under its control.

She extended a hand full of sharp claws to your cheekbone, putting away a hair lock. She dug one claw into your skin, causing the red liquid to flow. Then she licked the blood from her nail, moaning to your sweet taste.

“You are too pretty to spoil.” She made up her mind, giving you a Cheshire cat smile.

The next movement was a blur to your human perception. You believe the thing attacked you, because you remember feeling your back meeting the soil with a thud. She was on top of you, pressing fangs on your neck. You passed out, regaining a faint consciousness some time later when you were being cared on someone’s shoulder when, before passing out again, your sensitive nostrils perceived a scent of oil.

-x-

Karl was worried out of his mind when he found you. He thought he heard your scream, but it was really the Lycan’s roars responding to it that enlightened the situation to him. He had just found the perfect metal piece when it happened, leaving the factory in a rush, panting already, only thinking of bringing his hammer that flew to his hand as he passed through the grid.

He used the Lycan’s flair to find you. No sign of whatever made that to you, it was only your body lying cold on the dead grass. He almost panicked, imagining you were forever lost. The relief the man felt to feel a weak blow of air on his hand when he placed it close to your nose was indescribable.

Heisenberg didn’t think twice before putting you over his shoulder, his hammer being held by his other hand, and take you back to the factory, cursing himself he let your go earlier, thinking he should have joined you or, at least, sent an escort of dogs with you.

You didn’t wake up for a long time. He laid you on his bed, watching as your chest went up and down with your breathing, this being the only thing that calmed his nerves down a little. But not so much later, he had to leave for a while, afraid he would throw everything metallic on the room.

He put on a real tantrum on a room nearby, not knowing the noises came to you on dreams as much as his enraged screams. Karl almost lost it there, turning himself into a beast on the sight of you hurt. Managing to stop only so he could really analyse your situation.

It was bad, but how bad he wasn’t sure. After being somewhat calmer, Karl quickly noticed the marks on your neck. He wasn’t a moron, specially when being “raised” with Alcina, he knew it was a bloodsucker’s doing. However, Lady Dimitrescu would never do such a messy job and it was even less probable that she would adventure herself on his area. No, it had to be a foreign.

Heisenberg would gladly chase this beast, swearing to tear it apart with his own teeth if it pleased him, but he couldn’t just leave you on your own. He sat on a chair beside the bed, holding your hand on his, focusing on the warmth on your skin. He stood like that for ours, after cleaning your wounds, on the verge of tears. At some point, he rested his head on your shoulder, near your soon-to-be new scar.

“C’mon, buttercup, wake up.” Karl whispered in your ear.

His hot breath was gently calling you out of a paralysis state. Your eyes started to open, your lips unglued, but a fever was commanding your body, making you feel restless. Heisenberg noticed your minor movements, his heart beat accelerating at the sight of your awakening.

“Fuck, Y/N!” He cursed, but a smiled formed on his lips. “Fuck, doll, what a scare you gave me!” Karl held your hand tighter.

“Karl…” You started. “I don’t feel so well.” You told him, seeing that perfect smile faint.

“I know.” He agreed. “I guess I know what it is.” An unpleasant expression formed on his brow. “Wait here.”

Karl didn’t wait until you responded, knowing you wouldn’t let him leave the room, but he had to test something and he really believed it would make you feel better. For fucks sake! It was the only way to make you cure. He went down the factory, to a part of it you didn’t yet know, but was going to get used to soon enough. He grabbed a bag of liquid and left, heading to the kitchen.

He poured the liquid in a glass and came back to you. You were now sat, trembling like crazy, wrapped by the blanket, but even that wasn’t enough to stop the cold. Seeing this, he didn’t mind sitting down on the chair again, extending the glass to you.

“Here, drink it.” He told you.

“What is it?” You asked, but the strong scent didn’t leave any doubts, you were just playing dumb.

“I guess you know what it is, Y/N.” Karl raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you hungry?” In response your stomach rumbled, making the man smirk.

“I-I can’t.” You sounded disgusted.

“You have to, kitten. It will make you feel better.” He took your hand on his, passing you the glass and guiding it to your lips.

You opened up just a little, resisting your new instincts, but as soon as the smell got more intense being that close to your nostrils, you gave up and drank it voraciously. The iron flavour making you salivate as the liquid calmed you down, stopping the trembling, washing away your fever, more potent than any medicine. When you emptied the glass, you proceeded to lick every last drop of blood reminiscent.

“That is a wild kitten.” Karl mocked, relieved at your reaction.

“Karl, what happened to me?” You wondered, not sure if he could answer.

Before telling you, he got into bed, taking off the blanket that was hiding your form. His fingers reached your marks, the sore region aching with the contact, causing him to retreat his digits. He sighed.

“You are not human anymore, Y/N.” Heisenberg told you, heavily.

“What?” You voice was a lot lower than your expected. You looked down to your lap.

“You encountered a thing back in the forest, right?” You only nodded. “Well, that thing bit you and… Well, transformed you.” He clarified.

“I feel… Better.” You moved your hands, stretching the fingers. “I mean, it hurts, but somehow I am more disposed.”

“You know…” Karl started, setting himself against the headboard, pulling you to rest in between his legs, your head resting on his chest as he played with your hair. “It isn’t ideal, but at least, now we can be together for a long time.” He kissed the top of your head and glanced down at you, care written all over his grey abysms.

“Forever?” You softly asked.

“Forever, kitten, forever.” Karl answered.

THE END.

[agent-ccarter]

even if it's a lie | Sirius Black

Summary: The Marauders have left Hogwarts, and the impending threat of the Dark Lord looms over them all. (2nd in series )

Warnings: Angst!!!, Swearing maybe, blaspheming, cigarettes.

Pairing:  (I tried to make it a gender neutral reader!!) Y/N x MaraudersEra Girls, Y/N x Sirius

same room | even if its a lie | please, let me get what I want 

*****

I know you don't love me so But please say it once before I go

I know that you can feel me Tell me that you don't love me But say it one more time

*****

Smoking was a habit you'd never entertained much before, mainly using it to remove awkwardness in social situations, but you found yourself relying more on the now, going as far as always carrying a pack on you. You knew it was bad, but quickly the steps outside of the block of apartments had quickly become littered with butts as a result of so many of you taking up the habit. The ground beneath you was cold, but not enough to stop you sitting down whilst you waited.

The click of the door was no surprise as Sirius made sure he was ready early for every meeting, however the sight of only you came as shock.

“Just us?”

“The others were called in to the Ministry early, don't know why. Figured i’d wait.” You flashed the packet of cigarettes towards him, and he slipped one between his lips gratefully. He puffed as if it was an inhaler, before passing a newspaper to you.

“Whats this?” He merely nodded at the paper in response, and you unfolded it to see what he was talking about.

Plastered across the front was a picture of Walhburga Black, looking as distraught as she possibly could without crying, with the headline “Tragedy for the Black Family.” You glanced at Sirius who had continued walking slowly even though you'd stopped. You continued to read: “Walhburga Black has had to deal with tragedy once again this year as the death of her son, Regulus, comes mere months after the death of her husband. The absence of her son, Sirius, means that-”. You stopped reading there, scrunching the pages and dropping it in your bag.

By now, Sirius had finished with his cigarette and he had squished it underneath his boot. The rest of the walk was silent; there was nothing either of you could say to make the other feel better. Only the shared deep breath before you entered the meeting showed each of you that the other was ready.

Lily was the first to greet you, standing from the long table. She tried to disguise her hug as just an overly friendly meeting, but the look she gave you when she pulled bag was obviously to elicit some kind of response.

“Hows my nephew?” You asked, ignoring her and prodding at her bump instead.

“Energetic to say the least!” You giggled, almost asking her what she’d expect from the son of James Potter, but when you looked for him you could see him comforting Sirius in a way you couldn't. He hugged him, hand pressed in the nest of hair and Sirius’ head rested in the crook of his shoulder. A hug of brothers, true brothers, James the only person who knew Sirius like they'd shared a womb.

Lily desperately wanted to ask how the walk had been, but the look of sadness on your face simply made her hug you once more. She whispered in your ear, “How did it happen?” 

“They found him in the water,” you nodded your head for the next part, “ripped to shreds apparently, barely recognisable.

“Jesus,” Lily sighed. She shared one more look of sympathy before moving towards the table. You grabbed a glass of water, raising it gratefully to your chapped lips and drinking it one.

“Lets get started, shall we?” Sirius addressed the room, which was unusually sombre especially as his voice almost croaked. He cleared his throat before continuing, “The last attack in occurred just outside of London, but luckily we were ready. Only one injured, no deaths, and now we just need..” Sirius trailed off in a spiel usually performed by James, a recap of Order activity since the last meeting. He moved his hands everywhere to try and hide the slight shake, ruffling his hair or leaving them in his pockets. James and Remus sent him comforting glances, but when he’d finished he sat down as if he was about to faint. 

“Y/N, I need you to keep an eye out near Grimmauld Place, okay?” James asked, sending another comforting glance, except it was to you this time. “There has been a lot of Deatheater activity around there recently, for, obvious reasons.” He trailed off, and continued to hand out assignments before anyone could dwell on what he'd said. 

The meeting was over quickly, and you were about to leave when you heard a “Y/N, wait!” from Sirius. “Ill walk back with you.” You nodded in response, waving goodbye to everyone else. 

The walk to Grimmauld Place (neither of you had to tell the other where you'd be going as you knew eachother far too well) was another silent one, except for the quick exchange when Sirius ran into an off license to top up his cigarettes and grab a bottle of cheap alchohol. 

Thankfully, the area around the row of houses was sheltered with trees, and the somewhat busy streets largely drowned out your minimal conversations. You set up camp on a bench, sharing the vodka between you. You took a big gulp just after you watched your mother leave the Black residence, escorted by your brother. 

“Fucks sake,” you huffed, earning a concerned look from Sirius, “they're cowards, sneaking around in the dark to hide how shitty they are.” “To fucked up families,” Sirius poured some liquid in the bottle cap, passing you the bottle and hitting them together in a cheers.

“To fucked up families,” you agreed, letting the alcohol burn your throat once more. You wanted to say something more, about how you've both chosen yours instead of relying on blood, and you were sure that Sirius had the same idea as he stared so intently at you that you could the reflection of the street lights flashing perfectly against his eyes. 

He looked perfect. God did he look perfect.

“I’m sorry, you know,” you coughed, liquid courage twisting in your throat, “for how it all ended. I love you.”

He sighed, as if he was simultaneously waiting for those words to leave your lips and hating the fact that they did.

“Please, don't,” he muttered, both of you now more aware of his hand resting on yours. You tried to pull yours away, embarrassed at him shooting down your confession, but he entangled his fingers with your instead. 

“We've got too much to lose. Ive already lost everything, I can't lose all of you too,” he sighed once more, and you were sure you could see a slight gloss more evident in his eyes, “I can't lose you. I couldn't stand it.”

You understood. Neither of you had anywhere else to go, anyone you were blood related to go running to when it all went to shit. No loving parent to hold you while you cry, no sibling to torment. The compromise of friend you could manage; pushing down the feelings was ok if it meant you'd have at least some family left. Someone to run to when you needed it.

But you were sat so close that vodka from both of your breath’s mixed between your lips, and you lent in further to close the gap. Sure, you'd just agreed to stop, but it was clear he was leaning on to.

Unfortunately, the bang of a door echoed around the road, and the pair of you snapped away to see his mother stood outside of the large house, dwarfed by the huge house, and crying. Crying? This was the only time you could ever feel any sympathy for such a spiteful, cruel woman, though Sirius certainly didn't feel any at all. He stood up so quickly that you were sure Walhburga could hear his boots as he quickly walked home.

*****

i'm going darling, I'll step lightly Live on as if you still love me Just say it one more time Even if it's a lie, even if it's a lie

*****

[notyetneedcoffee]

No Secrets, Part 6

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader, Bucky Barnes x Reader (???)

Warnings: None in this section

You studied Steve’s smiling face on the screen. Even though the faint dimple on his left cheek showed, his eyes held... something... that held back his normal vibrant joy. Perhaps fatigue, you thought, noticing the rare hint of darkened skin and redness. Hair damp and wearing a tight gray tee, Steve looked to be freshly showered. You wanted to see him in person, not over a video feed.

"So,” You smiled. “How’d things go?”

“Fine. No issues.” He sighed, eyes going soft. “I miss you.”

“Miss you, too.” You chewed on your lower lip. “I suppose you heard about my spectacularly bad decision.”

He nodded, growing serious. “Lot of paperwork.”

“I'm sure.”

“Lot of worry, too.” He scolded.

“I know. I’m sorry.” You looked down to the tea in your hands. Sighing, you asked. “Any chance you may come visit me?”

A teasing grin pulled at his full lips. “Feeling lonely, Honey?”  

“Lonely. Stir crazy. Bored.” You rolled your eyes before smiling. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot.”

“Good things, I hope.”

You wondered how much you could tease him. “Oh, good. Very good. So good some of it’s bad.”

He sighed your name, blushing slightly. “Don’t tease.”

“Who’s teasing?” You giggled.  

Steve grinned, but that ghost of something returned and the smile faded. “You said that because you could tell what I was thinking, that you would be completely honest. Regardless of how long this effect lasts, you and I will be honest with each other. No matter what. Even when it’s hard.”

“Yeah, Steve, I meant it.” You sighed, wishing you could reach through the screen and touch him. “What’s wrong?”

He stared off camera for a long while, out his window, like he was weighing his words. When he spoke, he did not look back at the screen. “If you never realized what I was thinking when I was around you, if this thing never happened, would you have become Buck’s gal if he’d asked?”

And there it is... you thought. They’d talked.

“Hypothetically?” You sighed. Steve still wasn’t looking at the computer. “If Bucky approached me... if he asked me out... if I felt like our friendship could grow into a romantic relationship... and if you were stupid enough not to say anything before any of that happened... then, yeah, probably.”

Steve frowned. “Would you have preferred...”

“Steve. Stop it.” You ordered. “Don’t circle around the hypothetical questions. I DO know how you feel. I’m happy I know, no matter how it came about. So, if you have a real question, please ask. Otherwise, let go of all the ‘could have’ and ‘would have’ and ‘what if’ worries. Please.”

He opened his mouth as if to say something, then stopped. A frown creased his brow. “Sorry.” He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. “I’m tired, not thinking straight.”

“I wish I was there.” You wanted to crawl onto his lap and hold him. He nodded again. “Are you home for a while?” Steve shook his head, suddenly looking tired. Disappointment flooded over you. “What?”

“I was going to call you when we first got in, but I ended up in, ah, conversation. Then I got pulled into a briefing. Sam, Bucky, and I are wheels up in just another hour.”  

“So, no visit?” You didn’t mean to whine, but did.

“Sorry, no visit, Honey.” Steve didn’t look happy about it either. “I’d much rather be there with you.” A sly smile spread. “Now that I’ve held you, kissed you... it’s all I can think about.”

“It’s a pretty good thought.” You smiled, kind of happy the conversation had gone full circle.  

“That it is.” He laughed, and it lit his eyes.

“When do you come home? I want to see you.”

“Hopefully within a week.” Steve leaned a little forward. “I’ve got to get ready to go. Be safe, and please don’t go wondering into town.”

A harsh buzz pulled you from a dead sleep. Sitting straight up, you grabbed your phone on instinct. Natasha was calling you at 3:16 am. She hadn’t called since you left the compound. You croaked. “Yeah, yeah, I’m up.”

“The boys got hit hard. Took Thor and code green to get them out. Quinjet is forty minutes out.” Her voice was quiet, calm and clipped.  

“Their status?” You swallowed.

“Wilson is going to need surgery. Barnes and Cap both took multiple shots. We got the blood loss under control, so they’ll heal up.”

Closing your eyes, you pulled your knees up to your chest. “I appreciate the situation report.”

“Not calling to give you a sit-rep.” He voice quieted. “You should get your ass to the med lab.”

“Thought you and Tony didn’t want me in your head.”  

“Not planning on being there,” She huffed a little. “And Tony can do whatever the hell he wants. Everyone else on the team was part of the rescue. You should at least have the chance to be there when we bring them in.”

“Thanks, Nat.” You jumped off the bed. “Forty minutes?”

“Thirty-seven.” She cut the connection.  

The early hour meant the drive back to the compound went by uneventfully. The minimal staff at the compound made moving through the halls easier, too.  The doctor and three nurses met you at the med wing entrance.

‘Better not disrupt my med bay.’ The doctor extended a hand. “We were told you’d be here. Take up a place over there. The trauma team is bringing them up now. Stay out of the way until one of us say you can come up.”

The trauma team came through the doors in a rush with Sam on the gurney. A blood-soaked dressing was tied just above his hip and two IVs hung from poles on the gurney.  They went by in a blur and straight into the operating suite.  

Two more medics pushed in a gurney with Steve on it. Dirt and blood covered his body. His suit appeared shredded, bloody wounds showing beneath. His head lolled to the side, eyes barely open. He saw you and his mouth opened as if to speak. They pushed him through a set of double doors before he could.  

‘Oh, Honey, thank God you’re here. You’re here. Love you.’

They pushed Bucky pass you. His unconscious form a shock. Someone had torn his body armor off and cut away the cloth from his right thigh. One of the medics held a large dressing against it. ‘Got get his volume up. He’s lost too much blood. Had to have hit the femoral.’  

‘No. No, drugs!’ Steve’s thoughts came through clear as a shout. ‘Got to get up! Where’s Buck! Where’s Sam!’

You pushed into Steve’s room. One nurse was stitching up a wound under his collar bone, the other stood aside with a syringe. “If he doesn’t want the pain killer, then don’t give it to him.” You snapped. “Unless you’re going to help patch him up, then why don’t you go get a status on the others. That will calm him down faster than anything.”

‘Whatever.’ She left the room.  

You rushed forward and kissed his chapped lips. He sighed. ‘Love.’

“Where are you hurt?" You whispered, resting your forehead against his temple. 

“Through and though of the upper chest, left bicep, a graze on the left shoulder.” The nurse listed off, without rushing. “Broken tib-fib, but they set it on the jet so it’ll mend without intervention.” She sighed. “Cap, you need food and lots of water. Let me set you up with a bag of IV ringers at least. No reason to feel like garbage while you’re heeling up.”

He nodded. She pulled out the kit. “When I’m done, I’ll check on Sam. They were taking him to surgery.”

“Thanks.” He muttered. Squeezing your fingers, he watched her slip the needle in. ‘Ugh. Hate that.’

You smiled to yourself. He could take a 9mm bullet but grumbled at needles. The nurse moved with quick efficient certainty and left. You kissed him again. He hummed. ‘Love you. Love you so much.’

“I love you, too.” You whispered against his lips.

‘Yes, thank God.’ Steve gave you a weary smile that faded as soon as the door opened and the first nurse entered.

“Sergeant Barnes is unconscious, although they’ve stopped all the bleeding and have scanned for any internal issues.”

Steve groaned, trying to sit up. You put your hand on his shoulder. “Steve, stay put.”

“No.” Steve growled out. ‘Not letting him wake up without knowing someone there.’

“You can’t walk on that leg. Not yet.” The nurse bit out.

“Then bring a chair.” You helped him swing his legs over. “Now!”  

The other nurse who seemed to know Steve came in with the chair. Either she heard or just understood his stubbornness. “Wilson will be in surgery for at least another couple hours, but he’ll be fine. Doc just wants to make sure he has a full recovery.”

“Thanks, Kim.” Steve pivoted on one foot and dropped into the chair. ‘Thank god. Now get the hell out of the way.’

You wheeled Steve into the adjacent room. Bucky lay on the bed, stripped down. Still covered in dirt and blood, but great swipes of antiseptic circled the multiple wounds. The jagged wound across his thigh looked ugly and vicious. “What caused that?”

“Flying piece of metal. It was an old mill. I think it was from an industrial saw.” Steve said through clenched teeth. ‘Should have known better. Dammit. We should not have gone in.’

“Don’t, Steve.” You squeezed his hand. “He’ll be okay.”

One of the male nurses came in to check the readings and change Bucky’s IV bag. He and Steve exchanged pleasantries. Something startled Bucky awake. His hand came up striking the nurse across the room. He jumped up, only to have his leg collapse under him. Equipment crashed to the ground as you rushed toward him.

“Bucky!” Steve shouted, standing but not moving.

Buck’s eyes were huge, unfocused. You knelt before him, eye to eye. “Bucky! Buck, you’re safe. Sweetie. You’re safe.”

‘No! Get out! No! Fuck! Doll? Thank god.’ Bucky’s hands grabbed you roughly, pulling you forward, pulling onto his lap despite his wounds. His arms wrapped around you, face burying in your throat. ‘Breathe. Breathe.’

“It’s okay. You’re okay.” You ran your hands through his tangled hair. “You’re home. You’re okay.”

Bucky rocked you, forcing himself to breathe, otherwise calm.

‘Never seen anyone else do that. Never seen anyone else pull him from the edge so fast.’

You looked over your shoulder at Steve, tears in your eyes from the release of terror flowing off Bucky. Fingers rubbed along his scalp as you made quiet shushing noises. Bucky took a deep breath and coughed. He still breathed you in like you were the source of all oxygen. “Doll, dammit. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”  

“No,” You sniffed. “But you may owe Jimmy an apology.”  

“Stevie?”

“Right here.” Steve spoke, voice think. “Sam’s in surgery.”

Bucky’s head came up. The two men stared at each other over your shoulder.  

‘Know you love her, pal. Please, please, don’t make me give this up. She feels safe.’

‘You love her so much. I see it. It’s okay. It’s not the same. I get it.’

You pressed you tear wet cheek against Bucky’s hair. “Let’s get you up, Buck. I’m not doing your wounds any good leaning on them like this. You need fluids, baby, you’ve lost a lot of blood.”

He nodded. It was awkward and you strained to help him onto the bed again, but he didn’t argue. The nurse from Steve’s room, Kim, was back. You stayed by his side until she started the IV. She covered him with a blanket. “Lie here until you get two of those bags in you, then I’ll make sure you get moved back to your quarters to recoup. Okay, Bucky?”

“Yeah, I’ll be a good boy.” Buck tried to smile weakly.  

“Same goes for you, Cap.” She turned to where he sat.  

He gave her a smile. “Sound good.” Then Steve’s eyes locked on yours. ‘Want to go home with you.’  

You gave him a small nod even though your hand still ran through Bucky’s hair.  

A/N: Just one part left!

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[sachigram]

Catharsis

((click here to read on ao3!))

The first thing Izaya notices when he wakes up is that the room is too damn bright. He always remembers to close his curtains, as his hours are all over the place, and blackout curtains are essential for any sleep he might salvage.

The second thing he notices is that he's definitely not in his bed, and he can't remember why he wouldn't be.

“Izaya-kun, easy. You hit your head.”

Well, that explains a few things. Izaya turns to look at Shinra, squinting up at him.

“'S too bright...” he murmurs, and Shinra frowns.

“You say that every time, but the curtains are closed. You want me to get you a sleep mask?”

“Every time?” Izaya asks, closing his eyes and ignoring Shinra's stupid question. He tries to remember what he was doing before, but it's all a blur. “What day is it?”

“It's Tuesday. You've been here for two days, and you have a concussion. I've been monitoring you, so you're fine, but your memory might be hazy for a while.”

Izaya hums, used to injuries by this point. It's not the first time he's woken in an unfamiliar bed, and it won't be the last. He licks his lips and notices how dry they are.

“Can I have some water?”

“Yeah, and you're probably starving too, huh? You've barely eaten.” Shinra gives Izaya a firm look as he says this, and Izaya blinks up at him, confused. Shinra's face returns to its normal dopey grin quickly. “I'll be right back.”

Izaya is asleep again before Shinra returns.

The next time Izaya wakes, it's to raised voices.

“You keep saying he's fine, but he's not fine! He can't even focus his eyes for a goddamn minute!” Shizuo. Is that Shizuo? Why would Shizuo be at Izaya's bedside, worried for him?

“He has a head injury. Besides, his body is likely catching up on sleep and fluids. He's not in very good shape,” Shinra says, and Izaya feels there's an IV in his arm. He keeps his face smooth, impassive. It won't do him any good to open his eyes to Shizuo's looming presence.

“Bullshit, the flea does constant cardio. He's gotta be in great shape by now,” Shizuo says, and Izaya hears Shinra sigh.

“Just go home, Shizuo-kun. I told you I'd call you when he's awake and lucid. It won't be good for him to wake up to you here. He'll be scared and might run for it, which will make him worse.”

“I'm not gonna do anything to him! I'm just making sure he's alive!”

“I know that, but he won't. And he's confused enough without you adding to it.”

Shizuo makes a grumbling noise, and then there are footsteps leading down the hall before the distinct sound of a door opening and closing.

“Before you ask,” Shinra says, and Izaya knows it's addressed to him, “Shizuo-kun is worried sick about you, and it's only confirming my suspicions that he's smitten with you.”

“Ha,” Izaya mutters, and when he opens his eyes again, he finds it's not as bright as last time. “Why was he here?”

“He's the one that brought you here. He said he was chasing you and you collapsed off a building.”

“Oh, whatever. He probably slammed my head into a wall and then felt guilty about it.”

“It's possible,” Shinra agrees, “but your blood sugar was extremely low at the time, so it added credibility to his story.” Shinra settles into the chair by the bed, and Izaya glares at the ceiling, knowing what's next. “You're going to kill yourself if you don't start taking care of yourself.”

“I'm busy. I was working and then he started chasing me. It was his fault.”

“You always say it's his fault.”

“Well, it always is!” Izaya sits up and glowers at Shinra. “I keep odd hours, you know that. I don't mean to forget to take care of things, it just happens.”

“That excuse was good the first few times, but I'm really starting to think you do it on purpose.”

“What are you, a concerned mother? Either way, you get my business and my money, so it hardly matters.” Izaya looks down at the IV. “Can I take this out? I need to use the bathroom.”

Shinra gives him a long look before reaching down and taking the IV out himself. Izaya tentatively puts his feet on the ground and stands, feeling wobbly as he does so. Wordlessly, Shinra moves closer and offers his shoulder, and Izaya holds on gratefully and allows Shinra to help him down the hallway.

“I'm going to make something to eat,” Shinra says, his voice muffled through the bathroom door.

Izaya doesn't respond. He sits on the toilet, too weak to keep standing, and when he washes his hands afterwards he has to lean on the sink. His reflection is horrible to look at. He's paler than normal, eyes dark underneath, lips dry and chapped. His cheekbones look too sharp. His hair is going everywhere.

Izaya grumbles and reaches into his pocket for his lip balm, but he isn't surprised to find it missing. Shinra always empties the pockets of his patients for safety reasons.

When Izaya opens the door, he's relieved to see Shinra isn't there waiting on him, but it's short lived, as Celty is quickly approaching him, her body language open and relaxed in his presence, which is odd for her. Shinra must have told her to be nice.

“Need a hand?” Celty asks, lifting the PDA. Izaya considers doing something petty, like swatting her away or slapping her PDA to the floor, but he dismisses the idea quickly. He does need help, and being a brat because he's not feeling well won't be beneficial to him.

“Thanks,” he says instead, leaning against her as she helps him to the table and eases him into a chair. She hovers over him, on edge again, and Izaya peers up at her and waits to see what it is she wants from him.

“You gave everyone a good scare.”

“No one's ever cared before when Shizu-chan injured me. Not that I blame anyone. It happens too often to panic every time.” Izaya puts his elbow on the table and rests his chin against his hand.

“Shizuo didn't do anything. He brought you here. He's been worried for you.” Celty fidgets again, and then her fingers are moving rapidly across the screen. “Listen... I think this would be a good time to try and bury the hatchet with Shizuo. Think of it like an extended olive branch. If not for him, you could have died. Isn't that as good a reason as any to make peace?”

Izaya stares at her.

“Well?” she prompts.

“And have you told him about this grand idea of yours?” Izaya asks.

“Yes. He said you're not likely to change, and I agree. But I also think it's worth a shot.”

“If he thinks so badly of me, he should have left me there.” Izaya doesn't bother reading her response, just buries his head in his arms. “I didn't ask for his help. If he hadn't been chasing me, I wouldn't have had to run for my life, and I wouldn't have needed saving. I don't want to talk about him anymore.”

Izaya hears the sound of her stomping her feet, and then heavy footsteps as she marches towards the kitchen. Shinra makes a startled noise, and then he's speaking in a hushed tone Izaya doesn't bother to listen to. He knows what it's about, anyway.

He drifts off again, and the next time he lifts his head, it's to find a bowl in front of him.

“Just some soup,” Shinra says, sitting across from him. Celty sits next to Shinra, her arms folded over her chest, her neck billowing smoke.

“I'm tired,” Izaya mumbles, rubbing his eyes. He barely looks at the soup, but it smells decent enough.

“You need to eat,” Shinra says. “You're going to be tired a while, even more so if you don't give your body energy.”

Sighing, Izaya brings his spoon to his lips. Some kind of potato soup. It's good, and Izaya wonders which of them made this, but he doesn't bother asking.

“Can I go home tonight?” Izaya asks after a few moments. Shinra gives him a patient look.

“That's up to you. Do you think you can take care of yourself?”

“Well, I'm moving around, not passing out, and I'm holding a conversation with you. I'd say that qualifies,” Izaya muses. He lifts the bowl to his lips and drinks the broth, finding it soothing in his throat.

“Let me rephrase,” Shinra says, and his eyes narrow. “Are you going to bother caring for yourself, or should I expect you back here soon?”

Izaya bristles, sets the bowl back on the table. He smooths his features and forces his voice into a neutral tone.

“Even if I intended to walk into traffic, it's not your place to keep me from doing so.”

“Oh, you'd be surprised. Especially with Celty here! She could knock you out for another few days if she had to.”

“Shinra, we've been over this before. I'm not hurting myself. I'm just busy. Stop being such a nag, alright? It's not as if you care anyway.” Izaya sips some water, watches Shinra over the table. “Besides, if Shizu-chan keeps inviting himself over, I'd rather not be here next time he comes back.”

“Eventually, this feud of yours is going to have to end. You could resolve it peacefully, or wait for one of you to kill the other. I think the first option is the best one,” Shinra says.

Izaya stands, wobbles, and has to sit back down immediately. Shinra is still smiling at him.

“Maybe just stay one more night. We can see how you feel tomorrow.”

“I can call a cab. I could even call someone to help me to the car.”

“How? I have your phone.” Shinra tilts his head to the side. “You need to take this seriously. I think one more night, at least.”

“Fine, but at least give me my phone. If I've been here a few days, I need to contact some people.”

***

He waits until about an hour after Shinra and Celty go to bed. He stands and hangs onto the wall, maneuvering himself as quietly as he can. He finds his keys, knives, wallet, and lip balm in a small bowl on Shinra's counter, and he puts them in his coat pocket alongside his phone, where he has been texting back and forth with Namie and a few clients for the past few hours.

He's already arranged for a ride home, and it takes him a while to exit the building, but he manages to do so without falling down. To his surprise, Shiki's car is the one waiting for him, and he composes himself before opening the back door and getting in beside Shiki.

“Izaya. You look rough. Sure you should be leaving?” Shiki asks.

“Of course. Shinra is a busy man. I'm sure someone else needs that spare bed more than I do,” Izaya says. He meets Shiki's gaze and grins. “I'm feeling much better.”

“Maybe you should take a few more days, just in case,” Shiki says.

“The last thing I need is more downtime. Forgive me, Shiki-san, but I'd really like to get back to work and put this behind me.”

Shiki waits a few moments, eyeing Izaya scrupulously. “Fine then. If you're sure.” He signals the driver, and they're off.

***

When Izaya runs into Shizuo again, it's an accident.

Izaya has buried himself in work once more, as he's accustomed to. He has less time to think about anything else when he's busy.

He's leaning against a wall, head buried in his phone when he feels someone looking at him. His eyes meet Shizuo's, who is wearing his sunglasses, but is clearly watching him. Izaya frowns, weighs his options, and decides to just run for it without saying a word to Shizuo.

“Izaya!” Shizuo shouts after him, but Izaya doesn't stop, just runs and runs until his chest aches and he's gasping for breath. He finally finds a small cafe to duck into, and he makes his way to a table in the back, flopping into it and ordering some tea when the waiter comes by.

He busies himself by sipping the tea and continuing to use his phone. He lifts his head at some point and notices it's raining outside. Surely Shizuo has given up the chase by now? He decides to wait just a little longer to be sure, and to give the rain a chance to let up, but of course it only starts coming down harder. Sighing to himself, he pays his bill and puts his hood on, stepping outside into the downpour.

It's a gloomy day, but warm enough. Izaya is at least thankful he isn't cold and wet, as he can't afford to get sick any time soon. He has so much to do, has taken on so many things at once, and it's still not enough to really quiet his mind or exhaust him enough to where he can sleep at night. He's been ignoring Shinra's advice, and Shinra himself, as the doctor has been harassing Izaya ever since he left in the middle of the night. Sometimes Celty will text him as well, but Izaya hasn't responded to her more personal questions and has kept their correspondence strictly professional.

He walks quickly, weaving through the people around him. He needs to get home and sort through the files he's had Namie organize for him and then he needs to give Shiki a call to discuss progress. Maybe at some point he can get some sleep, but undoubtedly Shiki will have another request, and while Izaya knows it can all wait, he also knows eventually he'll run out of steam and he'd like to finish some things up before then.

He's so caught up in his own thoughts that he doesn't notice someone approaching him, but he does jerk away just before Shizuo's hand can close around his wrist. Izaya whirls around, a knife drawn, and he glares up at Shizuo, who is glowering right back at him.

“Why did you run?” Shizuo asks, and Izaya actually laughs in his face.

“Is that a trick question? Do you think I want you to snap me in half?” Izaya asks, and Shizuo's scowl deepens.

“I wasn't going to do anything, and I still won't. Not unless you do something first,” Shizuo says, his eyes on Izaya's knife. He's still wearing the sunglasses, which is ridiculous since it's raining, but Izaya has also seen Shizuo wear them at night, as if they could hide who he is despite the fact he's wearing the same outfit as always.

“I'm busy,” Izaya says. “If you're bothering me for some sort of thank you, you can fuck off. I didn't ask for your help.”

“I wasn't— Hey, fuck you! You didn't deserve being helped at all, flea! I could've left you there to die on your own. That's what you'd have done if our situations were reversed, right?”

“Yes,” Izaya says, smirking as he gazes up into Shizuo's shades, seeing his own reflection in them. “I'd have done more than that. If you fell before me, I'd slit your throat while you were down. I wouldn't hesitate.” Izaya backs away, but keeps facing Shizuo, knows better than to turn from him while Shizuo is focused on him and this close. “You should've let me die.”

Shizuo's teeth are bared, his hands clenched into fists. He takes a few steps forward when Izaya backs away a little more, pursuing Izaya as he always does.

“Yeah? You wouldn't hesitate, huh? Well I'm better than you, and I wasn't gonna attack you while you were down. Celty's been saying some bullshit about using this to try and make things right with you, but I knew you wouldn't change, and I was right. You'll never change.”

“You're right,” Izaya says, and he does turn away then, knowing he's going to have to either attack or run for it once more. He isn't in the shape to be doing either, but he'd rather try to escape than keep facing Shizuo head-on. “Don't flatter yourself, anyway. You didn't save my life. I'd have woken up and called Shinra myself without you.”

“You wouldn't have. There was blood all over. You'd have died if I didn't carry you.”

“I didn't ask for your help!” Izaya snaps, looking back at Shizuo, who is watching him with a strange expression on his face. “If you hadn't been chasing me, I wouldn't have passed out.”

“Why the fuck did you pass out anyway, I-za-ya?” Shizuo asks. Everyone around them is giving them a wide berth, either knowing who they are, or just not wanting to get involved in their shouting match.

“I was tired. I was tired, and I knew you wouldn't stop, so I couldn't stop. I'm not thanking you because it was your fault!”

“Fuck that! You're lucky it was me that was after you and not the same shady ass people as you! And I never asked you to thank me!” Shizuo shouts, and Izaya feels his head pounding in response because this entire exchange is so stupid, and Shizuo's response struck a nerve with him.

“I would've been fine without you. Now let me go.”

Shizuo is watching him carefully, studying his face and his posture. Izaya bristles under it, feeling exposed somehow. Shizuo is an idiot half the time, but sometimes he's so sharp it takes Izaya by surprise, and Izaya isn't in the mood for surprises right now.

“Something's wrong with you,” Shizuo says. “Well. Something more than the usual bat-shit crazy stuff that's wrong with you.”

“I'm busy. Unlike you, I have to do more than punch people for a living.”

“Yeah, you just ruin lives. So what is it? Did you kill someone or something?”

Izaya feels a frigid cold wash over him. His hand feels numb where it grips the knife, and something in Shizuo's expression changes. Unthinkingly, Izaya turns and runs for it, clumsily running into a few people before landing in the path of an oncoming car.

Shizuo's hand snatches him backwards by the hood, and Izaya finds his back held against Shizuo's chest, Shizuo's arms going around him reflexively. The car passes, honking at them, and plenty of eyes are on them now.

“Fuck. You're losing it, flea.”

“Let go of me,” Izaya says, but he doesn't try very hard to pull away. Shizuo's arms drop all the same.

“Shinra said you were exhausted and obviously not caring for yourself. Said it was a constant problem of yours, since he doesn't know how to shut up. All I asked was if you were alive,” Shizuo says, and Izaya is still close to him, though not touching him anymore.

“Shinra is a nosy asshole,” Izaya says.

“He is,” Shizuo agrees.

“So you don't want me to thank you. Why are you following me around then if not to beat my face in or yank gratitude out of me?”

“Well, I kind of saved your life and all,” Shizuo says, and Izaya turns to face him wearily. “So now it kind of feels like my responsibility to make sure you stay alive.”

“I don't need your help. I can take care of myself.”

“Can you?” Shizuo asks, and doesn't wait for a response. He walks forward, bumping Izaya's shoulder with his as he passes. “Let me walk you home. I'd like to sleep tonight, and I won't if I think you're off in a ditch somewhere.”

“Why do you care?” Izaya mutters, following anyway. He does need to get home, and he can hardly control what Shizuo does.

“I guess because you don't.” Izaya watches Shizuo's back curiously, entranced by him. He never can tell what Shizuo is going to do next. He hates and admires that about Shizuo.

“I'm not trying to off myself, Shizu-chan, regardless of what Shinra has said.”

“Maybe not actively. It's still dangerous, you know? Not caring about yourself one way or the other. It just makes things worse later on.”

“Right. I guess you're an expert on being reckless,” Izaya says.

“It's not like you have the market cornered.”

They make decent time. Not many people are walking around anymore since the rain isn't getting any lighter, and they're both soaked to the bone by the time they're in front of Izaya's building. Izaya looks over at Shizuo, sighs, and edges past him.

“Do you want some tea?” he asks, and he doesn't have to look back to know Shizuo is following him.

Namie is still sorting through things when they walk through the door of Izaya's apartment. She gives them both a wilting look, her eyes lingering on Shizuo, and then she gives Izaya an accusing stare.

“You're late,” she says.

“I was waiting for the rain to stop. Didn't want to get wet,” Izaya says, and Shizuo snorts.

“Yeah, you did a great job staying dry,” Namie says. “If you get sick, I'm not going to take care of you.”

“You will if I complain enough to you. You'll be here anyway,” Izaya points out. “You can go now. Try not to curse anyone on your way home.” She rolls her eyes at him and gathers her things quickly, pulling an umbrella from her purse and giving Izaya a pointed look as she does so.

When she's gone, Shizuo turns to him.

“Who was that?”

“My secretary. She has a way about her, doesn't she? Charming woman.” Izaya goes to the bathroom and gets two towels, tosses one to Shizuo when he emerges. “I'm going to get some dry clothes.”

Shizuo doesn't respond, and Izaya knows it's because the beast is feeling just as weird about all this as he is. The two of them know each other pretty well, but have never actually spoken before without fighting either physically or verbally. Izaya is surprised they managed to get through high school together, but Izaya also rarely went to class.

He tugs on some more comfortable clothes before returning to the living room, where Shizuo is still standing, his head looking around like he's trying to take in all the sights of Izaya's apartment.

“I bet I could find you something to wear,” Izaya says, and Shizuo turns to him. “I have some sweatpants that are too big for me.”

“No, it's fine. I should be going anyway. No point in putting on dry clothes when it's still pouring rain,” Shizuo says.

“You don't want some tea?”

Shizuo pauses, and then he shakes his head.

“No, I need to go. I just wanted to make sure you got home okay.”

Izaya snorts and pads into the kitchen to make tea for himself. He hears the door open and close, and then he leans on the counter wearily, exhaling a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He doesn't blame Shizuo for not staying— Izaya wouldn't have either, if their situations were reversed. He doesn't know why he offered in the first place.

***

The next time he sees Shizuo is outside Shinra's building.

Izaya is shuffling by, on his way to Shiki for a briefing on his newest assignment. Shiki offered to come to him, but Izaya refused, citing he needed to get out of his apartment for a while. He's been holed up for days, working diligently on different things. He hasn't been to any of his chat-rooms for a while. Some of them have been messaging him privately, asking if he's okay, but Izaya doesn't bother responding.

It's a nice evening. The sun is dipping below the tops of the buildings, illuminating everything in an orange haze as the skies darken with nightfall. Izaya always enjoys seeing the neon lights of the city shine and outline everyone bustling around in their colors. He glances up at Shinra's building and is grateful he has an excuse for not stopping by. Shinra has still been messaging him and leaving voicemails. He's been threatening to come by, but Izaya isn't concerned about it. He's used to Shinra barging in on him by this point.

He pauses when he sees Shizuo step outside. Shizuo is dressed in casual clothes, and Izaya remembers it's the weekend. It's hard to keep the days in order since he's been so caught up with work. Shizuo stretches, reaches in his pocket and pulls out his cigarettes. He pauses when he sees Izaya.

Izaya considers running for it, but then he would just look guilty. He's really just passing by, and he doesn't think he has the energy to run right now. Shizuo is fast, faster than Izaya gives him credit for. Izaya doesn't think he has it in him to be faster.

Shizuo lights his cigarette and walks towards Izaya, his hands going into the pockets of his slacks.

“Flea,” he says in greeting.

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya returns.

“What are you doing in Ikebukuro?”

Izaya snorts at the question. Usually, Shizuo would be yelling that at him and throwing something by this point. As it is, Shizuo doesn't look mad or even irritated. He looks like he's genuinely asking.

“I've got somewhere to be and I thought it was a nice night for a walk. How about you? Were you seeing Shinra for an injury?” Shizuo doesn't look like he's hurt or sick, but it's also hard to tell with him. Shizuo walked off gunshot wounds once.

“Huh? Oh, no. I was having dinner with them. A lot of people are up there, actually.” Shizuo stiffens after he says this, like he thinks maybe it was cruel to tell Izaya Shinra is having a party and didn't extend an invitation.

“Leaving the party early, Shizu-chan? Maybe you should go back up to your adoring fans.” Izaya turns to leave, ready to get away from this conversation, but of course Shizuo follows him.

“You could go up. Shinra's been babbling about you nonstop, saying you aren't talking to anyone. He'd be glad to see you.”

“He wouldn't. And anyway, I told you already that I'm busy.”

Izaya gets more and more annoyed as Shizuo walks beside him. Shizuo's apartment is the other direction, and Izaya bristles when he thinks that Shizuo might be walking with him out of pity.

“I don't need a babysitter,” Izaya snaps at last, whirling on Shizuo, who blinks at him.

“I'm not babysitting you.”

“Then what do you want?”

Shizuo takes a drag of the cigarette and looks down at Izaya with a scrutinizing expression, like he either doesn't know what to say or how to say it. Izaya withholds a comment about how that's probably commonplace for an imbecile like Shizuo.

“You don't look good,” Shizuo says at last.

“Fantastic. I look bad so you're following me. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?” Izaya asks, and Shizuo grunts, narrows his eyes.

“You look sick,” Shizuo amends. “You look like you're about to fall over.”

“Well, I'm not. So get away from me and leave me alone.”

Izaya walks faster, his hands curling into fists. It's unusual for Shizuo to get under his skin like this, and Izaya knows he can chalk it up to a lack of food and sleep. His head is pounding, and he just wants to get this stupid meeting out of the way and go home and sleep an entire day if he can. To his chagrin, Shizuo is still behind him. When a hand closes around Izaya's hood, Izaya turns quickly, knife in hand. Shizuo lets go immediately.

“What's wrong with you?” Shizuo spits, and finally he looks angry.

“Lots of things, just like you always thought. I'm the worst person you've ever met and I'm going off to ruin some lives and kill some people.” Izaya backs away, still holding the knife threateningly.

“Izaya—“ Shizuo starts, stepping forward. Izaya throws the knife at Shizuo's foot, stabbing through his shoe and between his toes. Shizuo scoffs and then swipes at Izaya, who already has another knife in hand. “Would you fuckin' quit it? I'm trying to talk to you!”

“Go back to your stupid fucking party, Shizuo,” Izaya says, and when he turns and runs for it, Shizuo doesn't follow him.

***

Afterwards, Izaya packs some things and goes to one of his other apartments. He doesn't want to be barged in on, and he definitely doesn't want to see Shizuo again any time soon. He stays a little over a week, messaging Namie and Shiki and no one else. He avoids his personal phone like the plague, and after about two days and a message from Shizuo of all people, he turns it off, not bothering to read any of the messages.

By the time he's back in Shinjuku, he's feeling worse somehow. Going away usually refreshes him, but he just feels like he's been running from everything, and feeling like the coward he is never fills him with anything but disgust.

He unpacks his things and starts some coffee before he finally turns on his personal phone. Messages flood through one after the other, but it's not like a lot of people are sending him things. It's almost all Shinra, who is sending one word messages at a time to flood and annoy Izaya with notifications. Mairu sent him a message saying they want to see him, which translates to they need money for something. Shizuo sent only one message.

Can I see you?

Izaya stares at it for a few moments before he tosses his phone on the desk, ignoring all the messages. He takes his coffee to the couch and curls up, turning on the TV and accomplishing absolutely nothing.

***

Another week goes by. Finally, Shinra fulfills his threat and barges into the apartment while Izaya is showering.

“Izaya-kun!” Shinra calls. “Ah, are you showering?”

“If you come up here, I'm stabbing you,” Izaya says. Shinra laughs.

“Trust me, I don't want to see you! I'll be down here when you get out.”

Izaya considers locking himself in his room until Shinra leaves, but eventually he gets out of the shower and dresses himself. He towels through his hair and tromps down the stairs, glaring when he sees Shinra sitting at the table.

“I brought Russia Sushi. Simon says he hasn't seen you in a while.”

Izaya's stomach growls. It has been too long.

“I'm sure he's been reveling in the quiet,” Izaya says.

“It's unsettling, actually. Everyone thinks you're plotting something. Well, some people are just saying you died.”

“The city is full of wishful thinkers.” Izaya grabs two bottles of tea from the fridge and pours them over ice before settling at the table with Shinra. “Thanks for the food.”

“You look terrible.”

“Can we start this conversation later? Mealtimes are supposed to be enjoyable.”

Shinra makes a noise of disapproval, but doesn't push it. They eat in silence for a while, but of course Shinra breaks it.

“Have you spoken to Shizuo-kun?”

“Why would I want to speak to that invalid?” Izaya asks.

“It wouldn't kill you to be civil to him. He's got a good heart, and you freaked him out when you fell off that building.”

“He does not have a heart,” Izaya says instead of, I tried being civil to him once, and he hated me on sight. “Don't grace him with basic human anatomy. He's like a jellyfish.”

“Izaya-kun,” Shinra says exasperatedly, “he's trying to bury the hatchet with you. He's tired of fighting. Isn't that good news?”

Izaya doesn't say anything, but his chest clenches. So that's how it is, huh? Shizuo is done with him, done with their feud. If they pass each other, Shizuo will ignore him, go on like Izaya truly is nothing more than piece of trash in the street.

“Izaya-kun?” Shinra asks, and Izaya realizes he's been quiet too long.

“Yes, that's great news. I can finally go on about my business with no interference. Let him know I'm on board with his peace plan and we never have to see each other ever again.”

“Don't be glib,” Shinra says. “You could try being his friend.”

“I don't do well with friends.”

“Lucky for you, Shizuo-kun is way more stubborn than I am. He won't let you withdraw too much. I see now that I waited too long before coming here. You dug yourself into a pit.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Izaya,” Shinra says, dropping the niceties. “You can't punish yourself forever for what happened to that kid. It wasn't your fault.”

Izaya chews his ootoro, but suddenly it tastes horrible. He pushes the rest of it away from himself and drinks his tea instead.

“Who told you?” he asks.

“Does it matter? I wish I'd heard it from you.”

“Whoever told you neglected to mention it was my fault.”

“You can't control what people do with the information you give them. He paid you, right?” Shinra asks.

“No, he was in debt. I gave him what he wanted for free. He was eager, but he was an idiot. I didn't think he'd do what he did. I underestimated him.”

“Still,” Shinra continues. “I give medical care to all sorts of terrible people. If I save someone's life, and that person goes out to kill someone later, does that make it my fault?”

“It's different. You're a doctor. You're not supposed to discriminate against anyone, no matter what they do,” Izaya says. “I can control who I do and don't give information to.”

“As refreshing as it is to see your conscience for once, I think you're twisting this into more than it is. You send people into danger all the time. What makes this one so different?”

“He actually died, for one,” Izaya says instead of, “I don't know.”

“I've killed people before, too. I was trying to help, but I've made medical mistakes that cost people their lives. You can't shut yourself down every time something doesn't go your way.”

Izaya doesn't respond because Shinra doesn't get it. He doesn't expect anyone will, and there's more he's unwilling to say. When Shinra realizes he isn't going to get anything else out of Izaya, he sighs and begins prattling on about Celty, and Izaya manages to eat the rest of his sushi.

When Shinra leaves, he pulls Izaya into a tight hug, and Izaya leans into him, closing his eyes.

“Come over soon. We'll have dinner. We can invite other people, too,” Shinra says. Izaya laughs, shaking his head.

“What is it with you and dinner parties?”

“It's what friends do. Now that you and Shizuo-kun aren't fighting, I can invite you both. Also, hey, try to stay on Shiki-san's good side, okay? I hear he had someone who works with him killed recently, and you're always causing trouble.”

When Izaya is alone, he goes to his computer and starts working, shutting everything else out. He tries not to think of who was killed on Shiki's orders, has a pretty good idea already who it was.

***

When he sees Shizuo again, it's Shizuo who spots him first.

Izaya forces himself outside on another walk. Shiki has flat-out refused to give Izaya anything else to do, stating Izaya needs a break, and Izaya has decided not to work on anything else until his head's clear.

He makes his way to the Sunshine 60 building, sneaking past security as he usually does to reach the roof. It's his favorite view and it's quiet, no one else around. He goes to the edge and looks down, thinks of how it would feel to jump, how weightless he'd feel before reaching the ground.

He turns when he hears the door to the roof open behind him. It's Shizuo. Of course it is.

“Why are you up there?” Shizuo asks, freezing. Izaya blinks, not getting it, but then he realizes he is standing on the ledge of the building. He must have climbed up.

“Best view,” Izaya says, shrugging. He hops down and sits with his back facing the edge, enjoying the way Shizuo seems unsettled on his behalf. “Did you come up here to push me?”

“What? No! What kind of shitty joke is that?” Shizuo snaps, moving towards Izaya.

“You could. You could push me and tell everyone I jumped. With the way the rumors are circulating, they'd believe you.”

“Did you come up here to jump?” Shizuo asks, and he looks so concerned that Izaya laughs until his sides hurt and there are tears in his eyes.

Shizuo settles next to him, their arms almost touching, and he lights a cigarette. Izaya turns so he can look back over the city, and they're both quiet for so long that Izaya is almost able to forget Shizuo is there.

“Where have you been lately?” Shizuo asks.

“Around. Home, mostly.”

“I texted you,” Shizuo says, and Izaya can't help but laugh again at the absurdity of it all.

“Shizu-chan, what the hell do you want from me? You wanted me out of your city and then I actually complied and you had the gall to miss me? You're a walking contradiction, but I guess I knew that already from your name and personality.”

“Fuck off. Shinra said—“ he stops himself, and Izaya glares over at him.

“What did Shinra say?”

“He said you're depressed.”

“Well, you know he's an idiot. And didn't anyone teach you it's wrong to gossip?”

“Izaya—“

“I'm not depressed,” Izaya says, louder than he means to. He scoffs and moves away from the ledge they're leaning on, keeping his back to Shizuo.

Shizuo doesn't say, “Of course you're not depressed. I've met you, and you don't have a conscience or feelings.” He doesn't say, “What are you, some kind of wuss?” He doesn't storm after Izaya to punch him. Shizuo stays where he is, says nothing. And when Izaya finally looks back at him, he thinks Shizuo looks a little sad.

This entire thing couldn't get more fucking ridiculous.

“You wanna come to my place?” Shizuo asks, and Izaya decides he stands corrected.

“Why would I want to do that?”

“What else have you got to do? You're already in the city. You might as well.”

“That's the definition of going into the lion's den. Or maybe the belly of the beast is more fitting.”

Shizuo glares at him. “How about you don't be an asshole, and I won't hurt you?”

“I don't always try to be an asshole,” Izaya says, but when Shizuo shoulders past him, Izaya finds himself turning and following Shizuo anyway, too curious for his own good.

They stop at a convenience store for cigarettes and alcohol. Izaya shells out the money for a nicer bottle of sake, ignoring Shizuo's protests. If Shizuo snaps his neck tonight, Izaya wants to be drinking the nicer stuff before he dies. Besides, it might culture Shizuo a bit. Their banter remains light as they make their way to Shizuo's building, passing by plenty of incredulous people who clearly recognize them.

Shizuo's apartment is as charming as it is small. It's clean, and somehow it doesn't reek of smoke. Izaya wonders if Shizuo usually smokes out the window.

Izaya settles on the couch while Shizuo goes to get them cups. He decides he'll have one drink to placate the monster, and then he'll leave. It'll be short and simple.

An hour later, they're completely sloshed, laughing about stupid things like they're actually friends. Izaya's never seen Shizuo like this, completely at ease, especially in his presence. Izaya can't remember the last time he felt so relaxed.

“You ever done this before? Drank with...uh. Someone till you really overdid it?” Shizuo asks, and Izaya giggles when he realizes Shizuo stopped himself from saying 'friend' in case it offended Izaya. It helps distract from the painful memory of the last time he drank too much and someone else was there.

“I got Shinra drunk in high school,” Izaya says instead of the most recent time. He wants to keep this light.

“Oh, fuck. I bet he was obnoxious.”

“He was. He locked himself in my bathroom and cried in the tub. After a while I kind of forgot he was there, and then Mairu yelled at me to get him out so she could shower.”

Shizuo laughs, and they fall back into a companionable silence.

“Why'd you invite me over, Shizu-chan?” Izaya asks.

“Why'd you come?” Shizuo counters defensively.

“Relax, I'm only curious. You sent me a message and asked to see me. Did you want something?”

Shizuo huffs, tries to refill his cup, but the bottle is empty. He gets up from the couch and grabs a beer from his fridge.

“I don't want to fight with you anymore,” Shizuo says at last, and Izaya snorts.

“Yeah, Shinra said as much.”

“God, he's a fucking blabbermouth,” Shizuo grumbles, and Izaya laughs so hard he falls over into the vacant space Shizuo left. It's warm.

“I just...” Shizuo trails off, and when Izaya looks up at him, he finds Shizuo hovering awkwardly over the couch. Izaya quickly sits up so Shizuo can reclaim his spot. “You almost died in front of me. It made me think about how stupid the whole thing is. What if I actually kill you one day and have to tell your sisters?”

“They'd be ecstatic,” Izaya says as Shizuo flops back down. “Mairu might send you flowers.”

“Fuck that. They care about you, even if they don't say so. I thought a long time about it, and the truth is, I don't wanna kill anyone. So then I realized I can't keep fighting with you, or else one day, I really might kill you for real.” Shizuo sips at his beer and looks over at Izaya. “I don't want that.”

“I always assumed one day we'd either kill each other, or you'd outgrow me,” Izaya says, and his tone is so bitter that it startles him. He forces a smile when Shizuo keeps looking at him. “I guess that's why I'm not surprised.”

“We can't just fight forever. You could try being less of a dick, and then, I don't know. We could be friends. Or at least not antagonize each other all the time.”

“I don't know if you've noticed, Shizu-chan, but I'm not exactly good at having friends.”

Shizuo laughs. “Yeah, me neither. It'll be great.”

“Whatever. You have all kinds of friends. Lots of people care about you. It's almost sickening,” Izaya huffs. Shizuo doesn't look angry, though. He looks pensive.

“It's all surface stuff. I can't let go for even a minute, or I'll hurt someone. It's just kind of exhausting engaging with people.”

“Well,” Izaya says, very out of his element here, “you'll never find yourself a housewife with that attitude.”

“No shit,” Shizuo says, and they both laugh again. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“No housewife prospects?”

“Ah, afraid not. As surprising as it may be to you, I'm not likable to many people.” Izaya expects Shizuo to laugh, but he doesn't. Shizuo frowns like he doesn't get it.

“Yeah, but you're... You know.” Shizuo waves his hand.

“Huh?” Izaya asks.

“You look— You know. Like you do.”

It takes Izaya a second to realize Shizuo is complementing him. Then a wicked grin splits his face. Shizuo glares in response.

“Are you saying you find me attractive?” Izaya asks.

“Besides your shitty as fuck attitude, yeah, sure,” Shizuo says. “Don't act like you don't know how you look. It's obnoxious.”

“How do you think I look?” Izaya asks as innocently as he can. Shizuo clearly isn't buying it.

“Fuck off,” he spits, taking another gulp of beer. Izaya reaches over, puts his hand over Shizuo's on the can and takes it from him. He takes a sip of the beer, finding it disgusting, but he keeps his expression level and licks his lips before holding the can out for Shizuo to take. Shizuo just keeps staring at him.

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya purrs, ready to tease him more, but then Shizuo's mouth is sealing over his. He gasps into it, opening his lips for Shizuo's tongue. It's sloppy and wet, but Izaya can't even think of how gross it is. He's hot under Shizuo's touch, and when Shizuo yanks him into his lap, Izaya accidentally drops the beer in the floor. Neither of them really notice in their haste to get to each other.

Izaya winds up with his pants and underwear shoved clumsily down his thighs, his face buried against Shizuo's neck as Shizuo wraps his hand around them both, pumping them together until Izaya is coming first, panting hard against Shizuo's skin. Shizuo joins him a moment later, shuddering underneath Izaya, his hand stilling when Izaya starts trembling in overstimulation.

Izaya expects Shizuo to throw him out or...something. He's waiting for some sort of freak-out, but instead Shizuo lifts him up and carries him to bed, undresses them both entirely, and presses down against him until they're both coming again, Izaya's moans muffled in Shizuo's mouth because Shizuo won't stop kissing him.

In the morning, Izaya wakes to a pounding headache and feels like he's going to vomit. Shizuo is spooned behind him, strong arms wrapped around Izaya's waist. Izaya carefully untangles himself and watches with interest as Shizuo immediately cuddles into the pillow Izaya was using in his absence. Izaya dresses quickly and cleans the spilled beer before slipping out of the apartment. He makes it halfway home before he ducks behind a building to throw up.

***

He doesn't see or hear from Shizuo for a while.

He wonders if Shizuo is just mortified that it happened, or if he's mad Izaya ran off. Either way, Izaya thinks it was a mistake on both their parts, just two lonely people falling together because they fit in the moment. He decides to put it behind him.

When someone knocks at his door, he grumbles, expecting an unannounced client, or perhaps Shiki, who has been uncharacteristically nice to him lately, but when he opens the door, Shizuo is standing there, his mouth a hard line.

“Shizu—“ Izaya's cut off as Shizuo pulls him into a kiss, lifts him up and kicks the door closed behind them as Izaya melts against him.

“Fucking flea, stop running from me,” Shizuo growls, and he carries Izaya up the stairs to the bed, making good use of the lube Izaya keeps in his bedside table.

They spend the day in bed, alternating between fucking and dozing off. Izaya sleeps with his head against Shizuo's chest, wakes every now and then feeling like he should get up and do something, but he always ends up curling more into Shizuo, who snatches him closer as if daring him to try and get free.

It's dark outside when they finally get out of bed. Izaya takes Shizuo to a great ramen place down the street. They don't talk much, just focus on the delicious food, and when they're done, Izaya expects Shizuo to turn and head back to his own place, but he doesn't.

“You don't have any clothes at my place,” Izaya says, amused.

“What about those sweatpants you said would fit me?” Shizuo counters, looking defiant, and Izaya laughs until Shizuo kisses him to shut him up.

***

Izaya resumes working, and he meets with Shiki to go over a new assignment. It's a simple job, merely gathering information from various people about one target. Shiki scrutinizes him while they speak.

“You look better. Did you go to that onsen I suggested?” Shiki asks.

“No, but I'll definitely get around to it,” Izaya says.

“Well, whatever you did, I'm glad you're more focused.”

“Shiki-san...” Izaya pauses before continuing. “May I ask you something?”

“Sure.” Shiki leans back in his seat, takes a swig of bourbon. Izaya has opted not to drink, and likely never will again at one of these meetings.

“I know you know I'm responsible for what happened with Akane-chan,” Izaya says, and Shiki's gaze sharpens. “You knew the whole time, and you didn't kill me.”

“You serve a purpose,” Shiki says. “When you're not being a shady brat, you're useful to us. And Kine is fond of you. If I had you killed, he'd likely bitch at me about it.”

Izaya grins, thinking of Kine.

“Was that what you wanted to ask? Why I didn't have you killed?”

“Ah, no. I learned recently one of your colleagues was killed. Yasuhiro-san. We both worked with him before.”

“Did you have a point?” Shiki asks, raising his eyebrow.

“Did you have him killed because of what he did to me? Did you know?” Izaya asks. Shiki sighs, drains his glass, and sets it on the table.

“Izaya, your life would get a lot easier if you learned to be loyal to me. You can confide in me, and if not me, Kine.”

Izaya decides it's as good an answer as he's going to get from Shiki. He stands, bows, and turns to leave.

“By the way, stop fucking around with kids,” Shiki says, and Izaya stiffens. “What happened to that teenager wasn't directly your fault, but you've meddled with plenty others in the past. If you keep at it, I really will kill you, Kine be damned.” When Izaya turns back to him, Shiki is grinning.

***

Shizuo seems to have a thing for Izaya's couch. He's always lounging on it when the opportunity presents itself, and Izaya isn't surprised to find him there when he returns home.

“Shinra called,” Shizuo says, lifting his head to look at Izaya as he enters. “He said he's glad we're in the 'throes of hot passion', but that we have to see him soon.”

“Shinra doesn't have the right to boss either us or our passions around.” Izaya goes to the couch and flops on top of Shizuo, who grunts at him and wraps him up.

“You look like you had a bad day,” Shizuo says. Izaya nuzzles at his throat.

“It wasn't bad. I found out someone who wronged me was killed. I'm a little...put off that I didn't get to watch him suffer, but I'll survive.”

Shizuo stiffens underneath him. “Yeah? What did he do to you? Set you up or something?”

Izaya sighs softly, is grateful Shizuo can't see his face.

“Do you remember when you found me in the rain and asked if I killed someone?”

“Yeah,” Shizuo says, rubbing his hands down Izaya's back.

“I did. Well— I didn't kill him directly. It wasn't on purpose. But he died all the same.”

“What happened?” Shizuo asks, and Izaya is immensely relieved Shizuo didn't throw him across the room and actually wants to hear him out.

“He was this kid who wanted to make some assholes pay. Loan sharks, you know. They were going to run his family's business into the ground, so I gave him some information on the owner of the company, some unsavory things he'd like to keep secret, and that gave the kid leverage. Only, he didn't do it the way I said. He went to the guy's house and pulled a gun on him like some hotshot, and then the guy killed him.”

“Shit,” Shizuo says. “Yeah, that doesn't sound like it was your fault. You didn't give him the gun, right?”

“No,” Izaya says.

“Well then, it was his own damn fault. That was probably his plan all along, whether he went to you first or not. Kids like that are always going to find a way.”

“Yeah,” Izaya says, closing his eyes. He breathes in Shizuo's scent, can't believe Shizuo is actually comforting him about this.

“So is that the guy who was killed? The owner or whatever? You wanted to see him suffer?”

“Oh, no. He's alive. I'm going to use my own resources to blackmail him and make him wish he'd never been born. I'm talking about...someone else. A man I've been in meeting rooms with many times, and never thought much of.

“I got pretty drunk at a meeting with the Awakusu. It was in bad form, but I wasn't happy about that kid, you know? I'll be the first to admit I've had a hand in a lot of the goings on in this city, teenagers included, but those kids are different. They're all desperate to find a way to stand out and be something extraordinary, and like you said, they'll find a way whether I help or not. But this kid, he was an idiot. I gave him something foolproof to use, and somehow he fucked it up. He was never going to live anything other than an incredibly boring life, and he's dead now. Apparently my sisters knew him pretty well. At least, they went to his funeral, but they could have done that just to get out of school.”

“Sounds like something they'd do,” Shizuo says. He hugs Izaya to him, and Izaya feels bolstered enough to keep going.

“Anyway, I got drunk and Shiki-san was pretty annoyed at me. He ordered one of his men to drive me home, but the guy didn't drive me home. He took me to his place, and—“

Shizuo is squeezing him tightly now. Izaya gasps for air, and Shizuo releases him, goes back to petting his back.

“Fuck, I'm sorry— That bastard.”

“For a while, I wasn't even sure it happened. And then I thought I deserved it. I learned Shiki-san killed him not long after it happened. I don't know how he found out, but if I had to guess, it'd be that Yasuhiro-san was bragging about it. He was an idiot.”

“I'm sorry. God, that's so fucked up. And then you came home to drink with me, and I just grabbed you like that. You must've been scared,” Shizuo says.

“Of course I wasn't scared. I've been wanting you to grab me for a long time.”

“Still.”

“Why did you grab me, anyway?”

“I told you, I did a lot of thinking when you busted your head open in front of me. And then, I don't know. You were so sad and you were all by yourself, but you were making yourself be alone. I didn't like it.”

“I should know better than to ask you for a legible explanation,” Izaya jabs, and Shizuo grumbles at him and kisses his hair.

***

Izaya wakes up the next morning to an empty bed.

He rolls over onto his back and stretches out, wondering to himself if Shizuo left for the day already. He can't help the wave of anxiety that hits him. He unloaded a lot of things on Shizuo before. He doesn't guess he would be able to blame Shizuo for running off.

He sighs and forces the worry away, gets out of bed and dresses. No matter what, he still has work to do, and he refuses to wallow about any of this any more than he already has.

As he makes his way downstairs, he blinks in surprise when he finds Shizuo in the kitchen, wearing Izaya's favorite frilly apron. It was a gag gift from his sisters, but Izaya truly likes it and the material it's made of, likes to wear it when he actually bothers cooking.

“You need to go grocery shopping,” Shizuo informs him. “You barely have anything here, but I made you an omelet.”

“I thought you left already,” Izaya says.

“It's Saturday,” Shizuo says, and Izaya frowns, reminds himself to keep better track of the days of the week.

He makes his way to Shizuo, tuning out Shizuo's nagging. Shizuo shuts up when Izaya hugs him from behind, holds on tightly in wordless thanks. Izaya doesn't know exactly what he's thanking Shizuo for, but decides it's probably a bit of everything. Shizuo doesn't ask for an elaboration.

“I'll make dinner,” Izaya murmurs between Shizuo's shoulder-blades.

“Then we'll definitely have to go grocery shopping,” Shizuo says. “You should make breakfast tomorrow, too.”

Izaya smiles, hugs him tighter, never once asks when they decided Shizuo was staying so long.

“You've got a deal.”

[kzzzo]

chapter 5 - don't let it bring you down

"but don't let it bring you down and turn your face into a frown"

series masterlist - here

previous | next

a/n: wrote this right after i posted chap 4 and it's already 4 am 😃 im still not sleepy rip. so as i said, ive been writing the whole night so i don't know if this chapter makes sense sksksks

-

Kuroo had a volleyball game coming up in two weeks which made him busy after school. He hadn’t been able to pick up the triplets from daycare and look after them. As for you, he only saw you in the mornings and briefly during classes as they had volleyball practice even during class hours. To say he misses you is an understatement. He even went as far as setting the picture he secretly took of you as his lock screen wallpaper so that you were the first thing he sees when he turns on his phone. He made sure to be careful as to not let a stranger who doesn’t know of your circumstances see it.

Akaashi approached Kuroo who was sitting on the floor with his head tilted back. The curly haired male handed him a bottle of water before sitting down next to the bed haired one.

“Bokuto and I could feel how much you miss (Y/N) from a mile away.” Akaashi bluntly stated.

“Really, now.” Kuroo replied, too tired and (Y/N)-deprived to think of a snarky reply. He chugged down the water Akaashi gave him and stood up to leave. “Well, I’m going first.”

“We’ll be going, too.”

With that, all three of them went back to their respective homes. Upon arriving home, Kuroo went straight into the bathroom to shower in able to go straight to bed. Stepping out of the shower topless while drying his hair off with a towel, he fishes his gym bag for his phone only to be met with anything other than the said device. He felt his heart race. Just when he had something to hide in there, he just had to lose his phone. He poured out the contents of his bag into his bed and he felt the fatigue in his body leave him.

Meanwhile back in the university, a student who had business in the gym saw a phone light up. She picks up the phone and turn it on to try to identify the owner. The lock screen was a photo of a woman carrying what seems like a two-year old baby. She takes a closer look and was finally able to identify that it was you.

Back home you were doing your homework when you hear a series of knocks on your door. Opening it, you were met with Kuroo looking quite jittery and pale. You furrow your brows before asking him what was wrong.

“I, uh. Can you do me a favor? My phone’s missing and I’m pretty sure the location’s on.”

“Oh, sure, sure. Come in. Do you want some water?”

“I’m fine but thanks anyway.”

The two of you work together to locate his phone and he was so relieved to find out that it was just in the university, most likely in the gym. Then he remembered what he had set as his lock screen a few days ago. He quickly thanked you then rushed to pick his phone up, silently praying that no one saw his wallpaper. He didn’t think that you’d be ashamed of your sons, but then you didn’t really seem like you intended to tell people you’re not close to seeing as people usually don’t have anything nice to say. He wanted to respect that decision of yours but because of him losing his phone you might have a hard time. When he got to the university his phone was at the lost and found which only means that someone had seen his lock screen. Fuck.

The next day rolled around and you were in Kuroo’s backseat with the triplets as usual. The two of you drop them off at the daycare and when you went back to his car, he seemed paler than before. He was also tapping the stirring wheel repeatedly, something he does when something is bothering him.

“Tetsu,” the way he flinched at the sound of your voice had you even more worried. “Are you okay?”

He debated whether he should tell you what he’d done. If by chance someone did see it and the news had spread, it’d be his fault and there was a big chance that this would be the last time you’d talk to him. However, he didn’t want to keep it from you and wait before you find out yourself. He sighed, here goes.

“Listen, (Y/N). I just want to say that I’m sorry in advance,” your brows furrowed, heart beating faster. “Why don’t you go grab my phone then turn it on.”

You do as he says, eyes widening at the candid photo of you and Masao. It was surprising, but you didn’t get what was making him so troubled.

“Remember when I left that behind at uni last night?” He glanced at you to check your reaction. Your expression remained confused. “I got it from the lost and found. So, that being said… it’s highly likely that someone saw that lock screen.”

It took you a few more seconds to get what he was saying and then, oh. Oh. You got it. There’s a big chance that at this very second, people would be talking about you and your sons. You didn’t know whether to laugh or what. It was like high school all over again. You were sure of one thing, though. You were scared. Scared of having to walk through the hallways with all eyes on you, hearing their whispers. The disgust and disappointment evident in the way they looked at you.

Your silence made Kuroo even more tense. He couldn’t read your expression from the little glances he’s taking as he drives. You carefully place his phone back where it was before speaking.

“Oh.” You reply shortly. Tears were starting to pool around your eyes and you were sure your voice would break if you speak. You didn’t want Kuroo to see you being weak and worry so you turn your head away from him. He took this as a sign that you were indeed mad at him, his heart broke thinking about how he ruined everything between the two of you.

When you arrived you quickly stepped out of the car and walked ahead. Usually, Kuroo would open the door for you then you’d walk together, but of course, today would be different. Maybe even the following days, weeks, months, years. Who knows? All Kuroo knew was that he fucked up and he’d driven you away from him.

You wiped away your tears before entering the building. Just as you’d suspected, almost everyone was looking at you weird and whispering amongst themselves. You were even able to hear one of the few things they said.

“I heard that the child looked like it was already at least two, that means…”

You clenched your fists and carried on. When you entered the classroom, you were surprised to see people sitting down in their respective seats quietly. Too quietly. You expected the classroom to be the place where there’d be more people talking about you. It still didn’t change the fact, however, that some others have their eyes on you.

“Mornin’, (Y/N)!” Bokuto greeted. You smiled back at him curtly. Akaashi was looking at you with worry but you didn’t notice as you immediately sink into your seat.

Classes dragged on longer than it used to and lunch became unbearable as you decided not to join your three friends. Instead, you lock yourself in a bathroom stall, head tilted back as you try to stop your tears from falling. You thought you’d be safe there but you were proved to be wrong when at least four girls entered, gossiping about ‘that freshie who already has a child.’

‘Please, let this day end already.’ You thought.

When the classes were finally over, you went straight home instead of at work, wanting nothing else but to wrap yourself in your blanket and cry yourself to sleep. You didn’t even realize that you haven’t picked up the triplets from the daycare when you’d fallen asleep.

Kuroo was staring at your number on his phone, debating whether to call you or give you space. When he was about to turn his phone off and shove it into his gym bag, he felt it vibrate. However, instead of your name popping up like he hoped, it was an unknown number.

“Hello?”

“Ah, Sir Kuroo! I’m the triplets’ teacher. Ms. (Y/N) hasn’t come to pick the boys up. I know it’s only been twenty minutes but Ms. (Y/N) is never late unless she calls to say so. She wouldn’t answer her phone either. I was hoping you could check up on her.”

He felt his heart beating faster. “O-okay. I’ll pick the boys up on the way as well. Thank you for calling me.”

“Okay, I’ll have the boys ready. Have a safe drive, sir.”

The call ended and Kuroo slung his gym bag on his shoulder. He turned to Bokuto and Akaashi who were also taking a break from practice.

“Guys, I’m going ahead. The triplets’ teacher called, apparently they haven’t been picked up yet and (Y/N)’s not answering her phone. Cover for me.” He didn’t even wait for their response when he practically sprinted to his car.

When he picked up the boys, they were staring at him with a curious look on their faces. Kuroo wasn’t able to pay mind to it as he couldn’t stop thinking about you. After the three were safely seated in their car seats, they drove to where you worked but alas, you weren’t there. Your boss explained that you didn’t come in that day and that usually you’d call when you weren’t coming in. This didn’t make Kuroo feel any better at all. The only place he knows to check was your apartment.

Back at your apartment you’d just woken up, panicking when you saw that it’s already dark out. You tried to recall if you even picked up the boys. When you remembered that you didn’t, you sprung up. Muttering a string of ‘oh shit’s, you run out of your room. You were about to open the door when someone from the other side beat you to it. Kuroo was standing in front of you, hands on the triplets’ shared stroller. Without a word, you grab the stroller from him and slammed the door on him. You were 100% sure that there were clear traces of the breakdown you had earlier so in fear of having Kuroo see you in that state, you had no choice but to cold heartedly slam the door on him.

Once again, Kuroo Tetsurou’s heart broke.

[kimnjss]

for part 22 !! this is long im srry ahfduhdfu

“Now laying in his lap felt like a crime. As if you were stood in self-checkout, constantly glancing over your shoulder as you scanned an expensive pair of shoes as one of those 79 cent candy bars.”

said it a couple of times, i’ll say it again. the way you write is SOOOO SOOOO good. we can feel so much and see so much which are prolly like ,,,, the most important things in writing ?? also, poor y/n. POOR POOR Y/N . she cares so so so much for miju like bruh their friendship rlly b toxic like this huh :--(

“But you can’t shake the look on Miju’s face you conjured, watching the two of you with that pouty frown of hers, arms crossed over her chest.”

the fact that this whole girl bestie crush issue is sooooo shallow but bec miju has so much issues (she needs help), y/n finds the need to constantly feel guilty ??????????? i so so so feel bad. not @ me being a miju apologist before yIKES cant believe she made our girl try to drop out of ballet ????? fucking dumbass bitch im gonna slap her so strong

“As if he’d let it go. As if he’d pick up on the slightest abnormality in your mood and just let it slip. Let you drive yourself mad with your racing thoughts and not let him in, not let him take on some of the weight. As if.”

so this is where i started crying !!! i think it’s like the nature of people to just ,,,,, idk ask when they feel something’s wrong but they dont really care enough to actually CHECK up on you ??? if that makes sense ??? i’ve had my fair share of people doing this. they’d ask but then get sidetracked and forget you were someone to worry for. this is probably why this y/n and this jimin might be my favorite. they feel so real, the emotions are so raw. i’m rlly glad our girl has jimin by her side now. he’s exactly what she needs. not just as a lover but ,,,,, as a person. yknow ??? like someone to just ground her whenever she’s so high up her mind. someone to be with her as in WITH her. i love love love that.

“No idea what’s wrong with you, but safely relieved that it’s not him. That he could help you work through whatever it is.”

i hope u know my standards for ppl is so so so high bc of ur au-s i SWEAR to god where r the fellas like this huh ???? hUUUUH ?????

“’I don’t know… I just… keep thinking about Miju.’ Jimin lets out a scoff, rolling his eyes in a really exaggerated way.”

jimin, u, me, same

“You’re really thinking about a girl while I got my hand on your ass? Is there something I should know?”

I LOVE HIM SM PLSSSS *INSERT CRYING EMOJI IM USING LAPTOP SO* I LOVE HIM I LOVE THE HUMOR I LOVE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

“His face softens at the sound of your words, becoming serious for you.”

i nominate loy! jimin for best boyfriend PERIOD if he doesnt win, RIGGED

“That’s a terrible idea.” The door slams behind the new voice, your body instantly lunging from Jimin’s lap to the vacant space behind him”

like everyone else, i tot this was miju too HAUFHDIUHFUDHUF

and then we came to the part where jimin was having his crisis bc he wants The Sex but our baby is just not having it. i actually really like the way you portrayed it. whenever he’ll talk about wanting to fuck, he’d always say but he understands and he respects. that’s reality baby. he’s a man of honor but obv he has his ~hormones~ and i cANT STRESS ENOUGH how much i love you for writing that !!!!! they jus feel real ok like . how do u even do this ???? HOW IS YOUR MIND CAPABLE OF WRITING THINGS LIKE THIS YOU TALENTED TALENTED BABY

  // ok now that i just reread it, i jus found out that they talked abt the ballet thing in this chap LMAOOOOO i thought it was when they were in the dance room ajidjfijoifjafiodj //

“Can’t wait to fast forward past all this shit. Feel like I haven’t seen you smile in a while.”

cried to this too. like ,,, cried VERY HARD. i turned my phone off AHAHHAHAHA this is pAINFUL . y/n’s going through so much and i jus feel feel feel so bad (also hits close to home) . i feel like im always gon think of this line now whenever i feel a small inconvenience afiudhuihdui . CANT WAIT TO FAST FORWARD PAST ALL THIS SHIT . WANNA SEE MYSELF SMILE AGAIN

“Surprised that he even cared about the difference, but he did.”

when i read this, yes, i cried HARDER . we all need a loy jimin in our lives huh ?? . he's just ,,,, It. like It . jimin loy best boy !!!! also @ yn. DESERVE !! youve always been the older sis, the good good friend, with jimin, u can rest bby. u can lay low, u can do whatever u want :--( u deserve it

“Did you just call me your girlfriend?”

AFHUDSHFJKAHDFJKSHAJKDHFJKAHFKJDSHFJ THERE WE HAVE IT FOLKS BYE

“No.” There’s an exaggerated roll of his eyes. “I’ve only been referring you like that in my head for the past month for fun,”

im having so much fun imagining a jimin in my life FOAHDSIFHIDSHOIFHIO ihy sm for making me realize how dry my love life is CAN I PLS LIVE IN THIS UNIVERSE N TRY TO FIT MYSELF IN BETWEEN THESE TWO AJAJAJAJA (no i wont yn deserves this but whatever mom i wANT HIM)

“I want you to be my girlfriend. So that I can be your boyfriend. And we can be boyfriend and girlfriend to each other, together.”

look at them go :--( cringey babies idk theyre so so so so so so so so nd i cant stress enough SO SO SO SO ADORABLE

“Go ahead. I’ll protect you.”

IM FUCKING SCREAMINGAHDHUFDHUSHIUHAFUIHDSFUI I LOVE HIM OKAY MUM I LOVE HIM CAN I PLS HAVE HIM WHERE DO I FIND (but also, IVE BEEN SAYING IT but like thank thank thank thank fuck they found each other. though y/n has kook, jimin is jus different ,,, i mean obv right but yes im just so so so so glad. y/n doesnt need to always be strong and dependent now. she can just be her and jimin loves that. SIGN ME UP UHUH UHUH

and then we have this whole talk with the moon and y/n quoting him back. i think loy yn and jimin best couple ????? I WILL FRAME THE WHOLE MOON TALK OKAY BYE ,,,,,,,, but fr thats so wholesome and i feel so honored i get to read this FOR FREE. it’s just soooo *insert that aww-ing emoji the one w big eyes* . i love them so much im willing to risk it ALL. theyre so so so so amazing. YOURE AMAZING. i LOVE IT.

[chicgeekgirl89]

A Little Bit Broken: Chap. 10- Let the Sun Shine

Fandom: SEAL Team

Characters: Lisa Davis, Sonny Quinn, Eric Blackburn, Clay Spenser, Ray Perry, Trent Sawyer, Brock Reynolds, Jason Hayes

Summary: Lisa and Eric take an unplanned walk through the desert.

Read Chapters 1-9 Here (All one-shots)

                                      XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“Totally flat,” Eric said from where he crouched, inspecting the truck tire. “D’you find the spare?”

“I found it, but you’re not going to be happy,” Lisa called from the back of the vehicle, holding up the donut which was also sporting a big hole. 

“Well that’s not great,” he said. 

Lisa smiled. Eric Blackburn had to be the most level-headed, calm person she’d ever known. If it were any one of the other guys out here with her they’d be swearing up a storm, kicking the dirt, and vowing vengeance on whatever maintenance guy had left them alone in the desert with not just one, but two flat tires.

Instead, Eric just got to his feet and reached for his radio. “I’ll call it in and have them send somebody out.”

It had been a simple errand, a quick supply run through the safe zone and back in time for a briefing in the evening. They’d both needed some time away from the base so when Eric volunteered to make the trip Lisa had jumped at the chance to go with him. “Havoc this is Blackburn, how copy?” Eric asked.

Static. Eric frowned. “Havoc Base this is Lieutenant Commander Eric Blackburn, do you copy?”

Again nothing but static. “Are you serious?” Lisa asked incredulously. A flat tire was one thing, a broken radio on top of it was verging on unbelievable. 

Eric turned the radio off and back on again with the same result. “Try yours?” he asked.

She handed it over and he tried again with the same results. “Either we’re out of range or something’s interfering,” he finally said. He put his hands on his hips and thought for a second. “Well okay then.” He grabbed his pack from the truck and handed Lisa hers. “I guess we’re going on a little walk.”

“I cannot believe this is happening,” Lisa said falling in step beside him.

“Sometimes on the battlefield you have to deal with the unexpected,” Eric said.

She spared a second to narrow her eyes at him. “We’re not on the battlefield. We’re running an errand. A simple, easy errand.”

“And sometimes when you run errands, things don’t go according to plan.” Eric clearly wasn’t going to let the fact that they were walking alone through the desert in the heat of the day get to him. “They’ll send somebody out when we don’t check in on time.” He looked at his watch. “Probably meet ‘em about halfway back.”

Halfway back. So a good, two hour walk through the blazing hot desert, and that was if they walked at a brisk pace. Delightful.

They spent the first hour chatting companionably, as much as their quick pace would allow. Both of them were sweating, the heat and uneven terrain requiring a lot of their attention. “We’re making good time. Should meet up with whoever they send out in about an hour or two, depending on when they leave,” Eric said encouragingly.

“And how long if they don’t send somebody?” She was panting a little bit, trying her best not to stumble and fall on her face in the sand.

“They’ll send somebody,” Eric assured her. “Come on Davis, we’ve been through worse than this.”

“Yeah but usually there’s air conditioning on our end of things,” she said with a smile, pulling at the neck of her uniform. 

Her body felt too warm, her throat dry, her eyes gritty with sand. “Drink,” Eric said, pulling out his own canteen.

She did. It was only half full and the water inside was tepid, but she took a couple sips. “They guys are never going to let us forget this,” she said, working hard to put one foot in front of the other.

“Oh don’t I know it,” Eric said. “Sonny’s going to be all over this. I think I’ll take a vacation until he does something stupid that I can hold over his head.”

Lisa let out a snort of laughter. Sonny would certainly be the most likely to remind them of this incident every chance he got. Clay a close second. Those two thought they were one half of the Marx brothers sometimes.

“I feel like I understand him a little better now,” she said. “He’s right, the desert does kind of suck.”

Eric shrugged. “Depends on your point of view.”

“My point of view is that we’re dragging our butts through a pile of sand at noon because of a series of crazy unfortunate events.”

“Well in that case I can see your point.”

Their conversation came to an end as they continued to trudge onward. It was too hot to talk, or even think. Lisa found her mind drifting and then sort of going empty, all her energy going to putting one foot in front of the next. 

“Don’t forget to drink,” Eric reminded her again and she opened her canteen for another sip only to find it was nearly gone. There were maybe two swallows of lukewarm liquid left inside. “I’m getting low,” she said.

“Me too,” he said a little grimly, checking his watch again.

“We should have met someone by now right?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yep.”

She knew they were both trying not to think about what that meant. Arrivals and departures at the base were carefully monitored. For them to still be on their own meant something had to have gone wrong either at the base or with the search party. “Maybe I estimated wrong,” Eric said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

They lapsed into silence once more. Lisa found she was no longer sweating and her throat felt thick and dry. Walking seemed like a huge chore and she was struggling to focus. She was just so damn hot.

Without even thinking she slowed to a stop. Her legs no longer seemed capable of moving. “Lisa?” Eric realized she wasn’t alongside him anymore and turned back. “You all right?”

Her head was swimming and she leaned over to vomit up watery bile. She wiped a shaky hand across her mouth and felt Eric come alongside her, sliding an arm under her shoulder for support. “Come on Davis. We gotta keep going.”

                                     XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“Ain’t like either of ‘em to be late,” Sonny said, looking at the door for the hundredth time in the last twenty minutes.

“Maybe they’re still dealing with the outage,” Ray said, arms crossed across his chest.

A massive power outage had taken down half the base for several hours and left everyone scrambling for back-up generators and supplies. The power had only been restored thirty minutes prior and the room was still stuffy from the air conditioning’s little break. Sonny checked his watch. The whole team was assembled for a briefing on a new target package but Lisa and Eric still hadn’t shown.

“Anybody seen them today?” Clay asked.

“They were going outside the wire last I knew,” Trent said. “That was earlier this morning though.”

“Does anybody know if they came back?” Jason demanded.

There was silence in the room. Jason reached for his radio and within minutes it became clear that trouble was brewing. “Gate crew has no record of them coming back,” Jason said when he rang off. “Is it possible they slipped in while the power was out and no one recorded it?” Ray asked.

But they all knew that if that was the case, their teammates would be in the room with them right now.

Sonny was rising out of his seat, the rest of the group doing the same. Hours. They had been missing for hours and no one had known. “Ray get transpo alerted that we’re coming. We’re out of here in five,” Jason ordered.

It took less than that for them to arrive at the vehicle pool and they were loading into the trucks when there was a shout from the gate. Sonny paused as they opened and two lone figures stumbled inside. His heart lurched and he immediately broke into a run, the rest of the guys right behind him.

Sonny reached them first. “Take her,” Blackburn said hoarsely.

Sonny grabbed Lisa, whose body was almost completely limp, and lowered her to the ground. “Lisa, Lisa, hey wake up,” he urged.

She moaned, her eyelids fluttering up and down.

“Hey sit down,” Jason told Eric.

“It was a flat tire,” Eric said, his voice raspy. “The spare was bad too. And something happened with the radio.”

“Okay, we’ve got you,” Trent said, coming to Sonny’s side. “I need ice packs, wet towels, whatever we’ve got. They both need to be cooled off now.”

Clay and Brock tore away from the group at a dead run. “Sonny,” Lisa muttered, her hands fluttering aimlessly.

He caught one, his fear jolting through him when he touched her heated skin. He hadn’t known people could feel this hot. Trent began to loosen her clothing and ordered Blackburn to do the same, Jason taking over when Eric’s fingers fumbled fruitlessly with his buttons. Within thirty seconds they were both stripped down to their undergarments. 

Clay and Brock returned in an impressively short time, handing over a dozen ice packs that Trent immediately began packing into Lisa’s armpits and groin, adding another to her forehead before jumping to Eric and laying him out to do the same, despite his protests.

Base medical arrived with stretchers and other supplies, forcing the guys to pull back as their teammates were bundled off to the infirmary. “Shit,” Jason muttered, shaking his head and running a hand over his face. “God damn it. I want to know how this happened. Now!”

“I’m on it,” Ray said tersely, stalking away toward the gate.

This had been a huge fuck up and Sonny felt sick thinking about what could have happened to their teammates alone outside the wire. The reality was bad enough, but his imagination was doing so much worse. “Hey,” Clay clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Come on.”

He followed the boys to the infirmary. Lisa had been taken back behind a curtain but Eric sat on a bed near the entrance, two IV’s stuck in his arm, his face sunburnt and exhausted. “How you doing?” Jason asked, all of them a little solemn.

“I’ve been better,” he admitted. “What the hell guys?”

“There was a power outage while you were gone,” Trent said. “Nobody realized you hadn’t checked in.”

Eric let out a humorless laugh. “Well don’t that beat all. Who the hell did we piss off upstairs for all this to happen?”

“Sometimes that’s just the way it goes,” Clay said. 

“Well thank god it doesn’t happen very often,” he said. “Any word on Davis yet?”

Sonny shook his head. “Still waiting.”

Blackburn sighed. “I shoulda made her drink more water. It was just so damn hot and she’s so tiny. Damn it all to hell.”

“Hey,” Ray said. “Davis is a tough lady. She’ll be all right.”

                                       XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Lisa’s head felt fuzzy and her throat hurt so much she was afraid to even try to swallow. She was vaguely aware that she was drifting in and out of full consciousness. She suspected maybe she didn’t really want to completely wake up and face reality at all because if she remembered right, she and Eric were stuck in the desert with no hope in sight. 

“I told you the fucking desert was going to kill one of us sooner or later.”

Except that was Sonny’s voice. So unless she was hallucinating, which wasn’t unlikely given the situation, maybe they weren’t in the desert after all?

She cracked one gritty eye open and recognized the ceiling of the infirmary, relief crashing over her so quickly she felt tears prick her eyes. They’d made it. Or maybe they’d been rescued? She was a little fuzzy on the details.

“She waking up?” That was Clay’s voice.

Perfect. Just what she wanted. To wake up with the whole team staring down at her. “Davis?” Sonny’s voice was closer now and she could hear worry coloring it.

Reluctantly she opened up both eyes to indeed find the entire team staring at her in clear worry. “Howdy boys. What brings you to this neck of the woods?” she rasped, wincing as the words scraped out of her raw throat.

“Just the fact that you and Blackburn decided to take a walk on the wild side,” Jason said. 

Lisa pushed herself upright, ignoring her throbbing head and stiff body. “Is Eric all right?”

“Eric’s just fine,” Blackburn said, as he joined them. He was walking a little stiffly and it was going to take time for that sunburn to fade, but other than that he looked all right. “Rehydrated and officially okay for duty. The question is, how are you?”

“Fine,” she said, ignoring the sick feeling in her stomach, the pounding in her head, and the tightness in her sunburnt skin that made it feel like old leather. “Totally good. No need for you all to stick around and watch me sit here.”

After a little more chit chat the guys left to continue their briefing with her assurances that she’d join them shortly. But it turned out that she was maybe a little less fine than she’d thought. When she was visited by the doctor he wasn’t happy at all. Her blood pressure wasn’t where he wanted it and her temperature hadn’t come down enough for his liking so it turned out that instead of rejoining the team, she was going to spend the night in the infirmary. Perfect.

But she had to admit, she did feel pretty terrible. The thought of getting off the bed made her head pound harder and her stomach turn.

It was after 10:00, the lights had been turned down low and she stared up at the ceiling, unable to sleep. The curtain was pulled aside and Sonny slipped in. “Hey,” she said in surprise. She hadn’t expected him to come back. They’d been keeping things extra professional in country, which it had been harder than she’d thought.

“How are you really?” he said, his voice low, eyes serious as he studied her. 

“I’m fine.”

“Lisa.”

She closed her eyes. “I’m hurting. But I’ll be okay.”

“Why are they keeping you in here?”

“My blood pressure and temp. And I’m still dehydrated.”

He nodded, processing the information. “You know you’re already a looker. You didn’t need to go working on your tan.”

She smiled and then winced as her swollen lips split and pulled. “I’ll remember that next time.”

“Oh there ain’t going to be a next time,” Sonny said darkly. “You and Blackburn are only allowed outside with babysitters from now on. The team agreed on that.”

“That seems fair.”

There was the soft noise of a doctor or nurse bustling around nearby. “I should let you get some rest,” Sonny said.

She squeezed his hand. “Thanks for coming back.”

He leaned over and cupped her cheek, pressing a soft kiss to her hair. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

[bangtanficrecs]

Lost & Found Batch #19

Can’t start up the blog again without posting the newest batch! As always, if you happen to know the fic the ask is looking for, reply to this post or send us an ask with the request number and title/author. If you happen to know any fics from Past Batches, those are more than welcome as well. Thank you!! ~ Admin P

1)  There are werewolves and hunters. Jungkook and his dad are hunters. The rest of BTS are like a pack. The people close to Kook and his dad Is VIXX 95% sure. Hunters have jobs like police and Kook started his job. Meet Jin who works in the morgue also meets v. Accidently finds out jin is a Wolf. Jin dosent come in for work. Meets V again eventually falls for him. Dad locks him in his room. Escapes from window to save the other BTS. His dad shoots him making VIXX distrust his dad. VKook/Ao3

I'm only human (after all) by Lalaithwen

2)  Hi! I want to ask if you know this fic. The members where assassins or something? And they were separated into groups with OCs or other idols. There were three people in a group with a person from rach classification. One of the classifications was named epsilon(?) Like I think the classifications were based on eyesight, accuracy, and intellect. I would really love if you find this!

3) Hello! I have lost a fic I was reading. It is a mafia au with supernatural elements where suga is the boss and rest is working for him and jimin was a succubus working in his brothel and then he was a witness suga was protecting him in his apartment so its mainly yoonmin and taekook was a side pairing. It was a long and chaptered fic and was soo good. had bunc of other kpop characters. Can you please help me find it thank you so much 😊 🙏🏻

浮世 U K I Y O by Sharleena

4) hi loves ♡ I'm hoping you could help me find a fic? it's basically namjoon/everyone but each chapter is a different storyline with a different pairing. in each story namjoon is homeless or really really poor and the member in that chapter helps him and they fall in love. and joon is always rlly bad at his jobs. one chap I remember was with hobi and he owned a dance studio that joon worked at and joon started sleeping in hobis office ^°^ hope you can help find it ~

Phosphenes by CynoDemure

5) Hi, I’ve been trying to find a fix where Taehyung isn’t a part of BTS, but suddenly they respond to his tweet and shit goes down and they offer him a ticket to tour and room with them. Tae is a YouTuber or has a channel and he lives in a really nice apartment and blasts BTS music to the point where someone comes up and yells at him? I think that happens, and BTS watch his videos. It’s on AO3. If you do find it then thank you so much.

Perfection by orphan_account

6) Hi hi! I was trying to find a fic. I think yoongi had gotten a tattoo and it was of a tiger?? And I think kookie was the artist??? That's all I remember sadly :<

watercolor by TheHalesNyx

7) Hi! I'm looking for a fic I lost track of a while ago. It was Namkook, & what I remember is that they didn't get along bc NJ makes JK feel inferior, but ot7 go on a trip & they end up rooming together. They all get drunk, & NJ ends up offering at some point to have sex with JK. It was ongoing, & the last part I remember is JK going off on NJ & walking onto the balcony & NJ follows. Super vague & probably unhelpful but does anyone know?? Any help is appreciated please & thank you!! ♡

8) Hi! Can you help me find a story?? I’m looking for a story where Jungkook moves into an apartment building where the rest of BTS lives after leaving a traditional family, might have been ABO. He meets taehyung and eventually lives with the rest of them, I remember that two of the members adopt two children and jungkook accidentally gives one of them food they’re allergic too. Thank you for the help!

dust by lotuschae (orphan_account)

9) Hi! I'm hoping you guys could help me find a fic? i'm looking for a taekook fic where they meet again at an event and taehyung didn't expect jungkook to present as an alpha. in the fic mates mark each others with scars and jungkook still has the scar that tae gave him when they were young (tae didn't have a scar cos they got scared from the blood). In the fic jimin is an alpha and the very start of the fic was vmin rushing to the event cos they fell asleep.  [cont] seokjin and namjoon are betas in the fic if i remember correctly. Also, i'm not sure if this is the same fic but jk set suga's contact image as yoonji and when he bumped into taehyung and jimin at the market yoongi called him to ask him to hurry and jimin saw the contact photo and was interested lol so he asked jk for yoongi's number thinking he was a girl. When tae and jm go to jk's dance studio he sees yoongi there with jk and thought they were twins lol. [cont] SORRY FOR SENDING SO MANY MESSAGES but i would be really grateful if you guys knew which fic (might be separate fics?) i'm looking for. I've tried searching tags and scrolling through my history but i couldn't find anything :( thank you so much in advance and sorry for spamming your inbox :')

10) Hello! I'm looking for a fic I read last year. It's a Namgi that I think is set in college. I don't remember much but it has a scene where Namjoon is getting beat up in a locker room/gym at high school and Yoongi finds him because he's going to basketball practice. Yoongi runs to get the principal and the bullies get expelled. Namjoon tells Yoongi/he figures out, that Namjoon planned it to get the bullies expelled. It's a how-they-met story. I think Yoongi was class president too. Thank you! :)

11) I looked through you tags and tried to find it on ao3 too but I can’t :( can you help,,,, it’s a junghope where (I think) Jungguk is having a hard time in college and Hoseok is like “hey make a bucket list of things you want to do” and so they do and then find feeling along the way. I very specifically remember two of the items on the list,, 1) riding a Segway 2) being fucked against a wall Thank you!!!❤️❤️

12)  Hi! I've been looking for a 1 (or 2) chapter jikook fic. Jimin recently broke up with an asshole. Jungkook works at some kind of gun range/shooting place. JM is convinced to take a class there, and JK asks him on a date. After the date, JM never calls JK, and it upsets JK because he feels like he was led on. Actually, JM's ex had been bugging him and emotionally abusing JM into thinking he wasn't good enough. In the end, JM explains it, and jikook get together. Thank you for your help!

13)  Hi, I'm looking for a age swap fic where the members wake up with their ages swapped. I remember the first one was Jimin and Jungkook waking up with their ages swapped, and then after that it was Yoongi and Taehyung, and then they would eventually forget that they weren't actually that age, and the other members were the only ones who knew that they weren't actually that age. Also there was Taekook (I think). Can anyone help me find this fic? Thanks

im not gonna call you hyung by aprofessorstale

14)  Hi! Could you please help me find a fic? I read this awhile ago and I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s a Yoonseok fic where Yoongi and Hobi got into a fight because I think Yoongi had a soft spot for Jimin and tried comforting him and Hobi was jealous or so. They decided to take a break from the relationship and all of the members urged them to talk it out but they were stubborn not to. Also Jimin and Yoongi were never dating. I’m sorry if it’s vague and not making any sense.

15)  Hey! Looking for this Jikook fic where they're both sons from rival companies but have been in a sexual relationship since boarding school? Can't remember the name. Thanks!

All Your Glory by eumorious

16)  Hi I'm not sure if you can help me find this since it's a smau and now a fic. Its jikook, hs. I think jm is rich and jk is a hockey player or something. But jm likes tae and asks jk to teach him how to do sexual stuff but also fake dates him and they end up real dating.

17) Hello, I've been searching for this one fic on AO3 where Jimin gets betrayed/stabbed? by Taehyung. Taehyung seemed to be really skittish and was freaking Jimin out. I also know Jungkook ends up marrying a detective? If you guys don't know it's okay!

18)  Hi! I’ve been looking for this one fic- I think it was Yoongi/Hoseok/Jungkook? And Yoongi was a tattoo artist along with another kpop singer (not BTS). I also remember at some point Yoongi gets a birthday cupcake that says “Hyung loves you” and he ends up attempting suicide too? Thanks for any help! 😭

Pati by signifying_nothing Note: The fic is locked and requires an AO3 account to view

19)  For the love of my sanity please please help me find this fic. Its taekook, bottom kook top Tae. Its either a two part chapter fic or two part serious. The first part I belive is a fic where taehyung does freaky ass shit to Jungkook so in the next part, jungkook gets revange on Tae. But more importantly, the second part features Taehyung being hand cuffed to the bed, and Jungkook is teasing him. Taehyung is very dom and frustrated at his sub. (A03) Thank you

Things To Do Before You Die by SevenSoulmates Note: The fic is locked and requires an AO3 account to view

20) I'm not sure if this account is still alive, but I'll give it a try. I'm looking for a bangtan fic where one of them lost his pregnant wife and after her funeral he went to the bar. He got drunk and got into one night stand and that person got pregnant. I don't remember the paring, but Jungkook might be one of them. I'm sorry for my English.

21)  hello! im looking for a series of one shots all in the same universe, its ot7 smut and was on ao3, with i believe 60+ parts? and it had hoseok as straight in the first few parts. ive been looking for ages but cant find it 😭

[eleanor-devil]

Naruto Fanfic - Boruto: Sacrifices - Chap.27, The Breaking Point

IMPORTANT: It would be very very appreciated if you reblogged it and left a comment. We get lots of likes/favs but almost no comments, so please everyone, leave a comment, it encourages us to continue.

We’re only three chapters away from the end!

Written by my friend @mirage-05

Cover by @eleanor-devil

prologue, chap.1, chap.2, chap.3, chap.4, chap.5, chap.6, chap.7, chap.8, chap.9, chap.10, chap.11, chap.12, chap.13, chap.14, chap.15, chap.16, chap.17, chap.18, chap.19, chap.20, chap.21, chap.22, chap.23, chap.24, chap.25, chap.26, chap.27, chap.28

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Chapter 27 - The Breaking Point

Mitsuki felt his heartbeat fastening now more than ever, his instincts (although he didn't understand how) kicked and before he knew it, his hand had removed the IV and he was standing up on the sill. Catch him. He just had to catch him. That was all. Crouching slightly, taking a deep breath and feeling like he was doing this naturally, like he had been doing this since birth... he jumped forward. He tucked his arms close to his body, gaining even more speed to catch up to Boruto, who was getting closer and closer to the ground... He was not gonna let it end... this was all he had in mind... And then he was there, holding on to Boruto, making the blond's scream cut abruptly as he... did another move out of pure instinct... one hand sign, and suddenly, they were caught by what seemed to be the air currents themselves. Gasping, Boruto opened his eyes... and their eyes met.

Yellow with blue met, the sapphire widened and the gold, although surprised, was staring endlessly in that ocean. It was like... this had already happened before... this familiar sensation was back... Soon the two boys met solid ground with a soft thud as the air current stopped, they landed on their knees and Boruto was still grasping what had just happened. "M... Mitsuki...? What-" Before he could even finish the question, he saw Mitsuki grabbing his shirt right over his heart, panting, sweating, his expression was one of pain. "M-Mit..." Boruto's worried look immediately left in its place panic as his friend's expression turned blank, his eyes rolled backwards... and in the next moment he slumped in his arms. The blond tried frantically to hold onto him, his surprise over the whole situation evaporating. "Mitsuki!!" There was a thud right next to them, and Boruto looked over to see his other teammate... she should've finished with the thugs they were chasing. With a worried look cast over at Mitsuki, Sarada asked no more as she helped Boruto to steady their friend, and they began carrying him to the hospital as fast as they dared to. To say Sakura was shocked when she was called to the hospital's entrance was an underestimation... the woman looked shocked, angry and despaired (after all she had come to check on Mitsuki and saw the room empty). "What in the world happened!?" The Uchiha asked when she saw her daughter and Boruto walking in with Mitsuki unconscious in their arms. "He..." Boruto gulped. "He saved me..." And the medic didn't even know what to say for a moment... instead, she sighed. "Lay him down here." she said briskly, indicating a stretcher. She then arranged it so that he was taken to a nearby emergency room. The children refused to leave the room, and this time Sakura didn't have the energy to tell them to get out - she was too worried of how "saving Boruto" affected Mitsuki... and she had told him no rash actions... this kid, honestly... And just like she had suspected... the readings from the machine wasn't good... He had gone over his limits and of course his heart gave in to it. How he had managed to escape a heart attack was beyond the Uchiha medic. Just as she was finishing reading the results of the machine, Sakura heard Mitsuki stirring and starting to wake up. She immediately approached him, forcing him to stay still although she didn't immediately scold him right after he woke up. "M-mm..." Mitsuki rubbed his eyes to look well at Sakura. "Uchiha-san...?" The way he referred to her had taken Sakura aback... ever since he woke up, he had always called her angel... "Yes... it's me Mitsuki..." She put her hand on his arm gently, still being careful, trying not to rush into things. "How do you feel?" The boy flinched slightly but visibly before he could answer. "I... my chest... hurts..." The medic sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. "Do you remember anything?" The boy frowned a bit at the question, like he was making an effort to answer it. But then his eyes widened and he looked back at the pink haired woman urgently. "Is... Is Lord Seventh alright...!? H-he has to be warned there are people after him!" The look in Sakura's eyes softened as she saw the haste in the kid. Seeing him, one wouldn't imagine he was just recently out of coma, the way he worried about apparently everyone else but himself... selflessly so. "He is alright, Mitsuki." she sat on the edge of the bed, looking directly in the boy's eyes. "And he will be glad to hear that you're back among us." A small but genuine smile settled on Mitsuki's face, he was so relieved at the news. Sakura's expression took a more serious note when she next spoke. "Honestly, the one you need to worry about the most is yourself. What you just did caused a problem with your heart, and if I didn't intervene immediately, things could be bad. I don't think I'll have to stress any more how you shouldn't tire yourself any further today. In fact, I'm gonna have to ask you to remain in your bed all day except for bathroom breaks." The boy nodded solemnly - he had conceded that he wouldn't take his life for granted. He wasn't about to go back on his words. "That being said..." and the Uchiha showed her soft smile again. "I believe this reunion was long since awaited." She stepped aside to reveal two of the most important people in his life. For a moment, as he looked into their anxious, expectant faces... Mitsuki didn't know what to say, a huge burst of emotion spreading in his chest. He had no idea, until this very moment, of how much he really missed them... "Boruto... Sarada..." No more words were spoken as the duo both rushed forward. In less than a minute they threw their arms around him, careful but tight. "You have... no idea how good it is to see you again..." Sarada said in a low, fierce tone, shaking a little. Noticing that she was crying, Mitsuki held onto her tighter. "Don't you ever imagine pulling off something like that again..." "I will try," the young bot said with a bit of a smile. Feeling that Boruto pulled back - slightly, that's to say - he turned to face his best friend. "You will try? That's the best you can say?" he was shaking slightly too... but Mitsuki knew that it wasn't just over joy. "Boruto..." "Don't go 'Boruto...' on me! I can't believe you are still going on about how everyone else is doing! I can't believe you just jumped from a window to catch me, disregarding your health! Why can't you just stop for a minute to consider yourself for once?!" "This is not really the time," the Uchiha said in a small voice, but Boruto wasn't listening - and frankly, Mitsuki just let him be. He was prepared for this... deserved this, even. "No, I will never allow you to do such a thing ever again, do you understand me?" Boruto leaned forward, their faces were now up against each other. "Not if my life depends on it. That's a promise." "Boruto..." "What?!" A soft smile spread across the blue haired boy's face. He had missed his friends... so, so much... "Thank you..." The Uzumaki was so taken aback that he just stared at his friend for a moment, not even knowing what to say. And then, without hesitation, he was once again hugging Mitsuki, the slight shaking being the only give away of his emotions. "It's so good to have you back, 'ttebasa..." ... Sakura had not wasted any time to get the amazing news to spread... and they were spreading like wildfire. Naruto was looking through some of the trivial paperwork he had left from the other night, going through the motions of being the Hokage almost automatically by now. He wasn't really expecting any visitors, nor would he have expected them to burst into the office all out of a sudden. When he saw it was Shikamaru, he felt his heart skip a beat - especially after he saw the urgent look on his friend's face. "Naruto..." Shikamaru exclaimed, slightly out of breath. "There is word from the hospital..." Naruto gasped as his eyes widened, and he immediately jumped to his feet. "What is it?" he asked. And then Shikamaru broke into a smile, his features softening. "It would seem that the boy's amnesia is completely cured." Naruto wasn't sure if he heard him right, and just stared blankly at his advisor for a moment. Then, heart racing, he grabbed his phone. ... As she listened on to her husband on the other end of the phone, Hinata felt relief and happiness like she never felt before filling her chest, and she breathed out in relief. "Thank god..." When they ended the call, she felt Himawari tugging at her shirt. "Mama...?" "You better go get ready, baby," Hinata turned to her with a warm smile. "We are gonna go visit your Mitsu-nii... He has apparently missed you a lot." Himawari's blue eyes widened as much as her smile. Did that mean that Mitsu-nii remembered her...? She was so happy that she was already sprinting to her room to get ready. As her daughter ran upstairs, the woman quickly dialed a number. "Hello? Hanabi... is Konohamaru-kun with you..?" ... Hanabi's eyes went wide as she listened to her elder sister, and she softly laughed to herself. "Of course I will tell him nee-san... Thank you..." She ended the call and immediately ran out, where Konohamaru was about to step out for a training session. "Konohamaru!" she called out in joy, and saw surprise filling his blue eyes as he turned to her. She practically ran into him and hugged him, this day couldn't have started more beautifully. "Nee-chan just called!" she breathed joyfully. "His amnesia is cured! You can go visit Mitsuki!" And suddenly the training with Ichiro was completely forgotten as Konohamaru kissed Hanabi out of pure happiness before he sprinted off towards the opposite direction. Towards the hospital... ... He never knew even a hospital building could look like a happy place to him before. As he sprinted through the main doors, everything and everyone seemed livelier, more joyous, and a general aura of calmness lingered over the whole area. Konohamaru practically ran down the corridor to his student's room, and he came to an abrupt halt outside as he took the scene in... His two other students were side by side, their eyes seemed to become red  as they had obviously been crying, but their faces were lit by a smile. And Mitsuki... he was sitting upright... joining in their conversation, even with a small smile of himself... The jounin then felt that he couldn't wait any longer. All three heads turned to the door as it burst open. The three students fell silent as Konohamaru made his way in slowly, as if in a trance. The sensei found himself kneeling down by Mitsuki's bed and putting his hand around the boy's... compared to his it was small, so Konohamaru's covered it all. A smile made its way to the sensei's face as he whispered the first words. "Welcome back, kid." Mitsuki's smile turned brighter, now they were all complete, like how it was supposed to be. He wished he could express to his sensei how grateful he was... for everything... but he didn't know how to. "Konohamaru sensei..." he said instead, hoping that those two little words channeled enough. For the sensei though, it was more than enough. It took every bit of his self-control not to break down in front of the kids as he slowly, gently took Mitsuki in his arms, and hold him tight. He had not realized until now how he had missed the sound of the kid's voice. "You have... no idea..." he whispered fervently. "How glad I am that you finally made it through." Mitsuki felt his eyes burn slightly, he couldn't be happier but he didn't let any of the tears fall, he didn't want to ruin the moment... But he felt so happy that he just knew, and hoped, he had made the right choice in coming back. Instead he wrapped his arms the best he could around his sensei and whispered. "Thank you... sensei..." When he pulled back after a few minutes, though, there was a serious and thoughtful look on the brunette's face. Mitsuki knew what was coming... "Kid..." his sensei began slowly, looking at him in the eyes. "Do you remember what I told you all in our very first serious mission?" There wasn't a single noise in the room. The blue haired boy's gaze wandered to the bedsheets. "You... did say many things, sensei." "You know very well what I mean." Mitsuki remained silent for a while more. His sensei was patient in waiting. "You said that... we should never act alone when we're faced with danger." "Precisely." The look in the jounin's eyes softened a little as he considered his next words. "I didn't think we needed a demonstration on how crucial that warning was..." "That wasn't my intention," the boy murmured softly. "And then what was?" "I never imagined I had to warn you out of all people not to be reckless, Mitsuki..." the Uchiha said, shaking her head. "And all the times I gave Boruto grief for it..." "I didn't do it because of recklessness," Mitsuki said again, this time louder. "I... it felt like I could stop them... no, stall them enough... for..." and his shoulders slumped, his gaze drifting to the bed once again. "...for the reinforcements to arrive. I didn't have the intention to fight to the end." "And that's where you made a mistake. Not knowing your enemy's true strength, you just acted on assumptions." Konohamaru sighed, the look in his eyes turning sad. "Ninjas don't make assumptions, kid. You don't have the luxury for that. You don't chase down possibilities, you will be given clear missions and carry them out. You don't act solo." "I couldn't just sit around and watch them attack the village." Mitsuki protested, looking up. "When you know you can't win against an enemy... you just should." "I'm sorry, sensei." the boy finally muttered. "I should've thought of the consequences." The brunette patted his youngest student's hand, this time with a fond smile, easing the atmosphere a little after his serious talk. "Just concentrate on resting and getting better from now on. We have been incomplete without you..." He didn't see any need to mention to him that he might be forced to leave his ninja life behind depending on the circumstances... no need to stress out the boy right now while he only just regained his memories. ... Izumi wasn't really feeling too good about this decision. Karin had just called this morning and told her that she had something important to discuss with her about the medicine. The redhead had no idea if she had tried out the cure already, but was glad nonetheless that the pregnant woman was true to her words about keeping her updated on the process. It just wouldn't feel right if she had to leave for Kiri without knowing anything. It still didn't ease up the feeling in her chest though. She was still going to... well, uncharted territory, and as much as she wouldn't ever regret her actions, the idea that she might come face to face with the sannin still unnerved her... No, she thought firmly, there was no need to act so ridiculous. She was only going to talk to Karin after all, and even if she did see Orochimaru, there was nothing wrong with just giving him the cold shoulder, just like how he did so many times. She took in a deep breath, looking at the door in front of which she was standing for about five minutes now, and finally knocked. It wasn't answered immediately and Izumi suddenly remembered that the only woman in this household actually had... sensory abilities. Then why... why on earth wasn't she answering the door already...? She got her answer as the door opened. The redhead felt her eyes grow wide. In front of her stood the reason of her uneasiness. Izumi didn't quite understand why she was feeling so nervous by the very idea of coming face to face with the sannin - she had never classified herself as someone who is easily intimidated by the others after all. But something about this man triggered that unknown feeling within her, in ways which also made him more intriguing... Why did she only feel like this around him...? For a moment, neither of them did or say anything, her almost frozen under the full weight of his almost cold stare. He was completely blocking her way in, his hand on the door sill and the door only barely open. Well, she had to start somewhere. "Doesn't look like you're gonna invite me in." she said haughtily, none of her nervousness seeping into her tone. Taking a step forward, she casually slipped under his arm and into the house, knowing that she had just thrown him off guard. Good. "That was the point." she heard him hiss after a minute. She had decided some time ago that the best way to deal with the anxiousness he brought... was to just keep on being herself. It seemed to annoy him to no end, but made her feel better. "Did you even eat anything yet?" she asked casually, as if the general air around the room wasn't unwelcome at all. She turned around to look him up and down, going out of her way to not meet the gaze that was slowly turning into a scowl. "Nope... you didn't." Of course not. She made her way to the small kitchen, aware that he was right behind her, although the sannin's steps hardly made any noise. Keeping herself busy was another way of dealing with her nerves. "Do you have some-" Just when she reached for the refrigerator, the black haired man put his hand on its door to stop her. "This is not a restaurant." "Oh chill. One bite probably won't kill you." "You can drop the act." His tone was that much calmer, but for some reason it unnerved her even more. He leaned a little more forward. "Karin told me all about your little scam." He didn't even bother to hide it - he was angry. It was a different kind of angry than what the woman was generally used to, more of a calm-before-the-storm angry, but the emotion was crystal clear in his eyes. Izumi tried her best not to gulp. She had no problems dealing with violent anger. This kind? She could think of nothing else but to play it cool herself. "And so?" Orochimaru closed his eyes briefly in a moment of bidding patience. This woman... he chose not to associate himself with her but somehow she still managed to involve herself... and get on his nerves. A lot. "One would think you could take a hint." Izumi squinted her eyes. Two could play this game. "Say I'm blind. Say I'm a numbskull." She inched closer to him, too, their faces now barely inches apart. "I still saved your son's life." "Not that I know of. Karin still didn't deliver your cure." That took the redhead aback for a second, she was kind of expecting otherwise. But it didn't last long. "I'd keep a close eye on the news in a few days, then." "If you expect me to offer thanks..." "I don't," she reassured him. "I'm not delusional." Her next words were probably taking it a little too far... but she didn't care less about that right now. She crossed her arms over her chest, now looking at him squarely in the eyes. "But honestly... if you should be thankful to someone, it's your..." she reconsidered her words as she thought of the blue haired young man. "...sons." A dangerous glint shone in his eyes... god, she was pissing him. "And what, do you believe you have a say in this?" "It's not much about me as it is about them." she countered. "Maybe you can't see it clearly, so let me enlighten you. Your boys... love you." What she could only classify as a sneer began to form on the man's lips. "They do. Maybe they show it on different degrees, but it's a fact." "You have no idea what you are talking about." He certainly didn't raise his sons to be that way... although thinking about Mitsuki, he had to grudgingly admit that he could see her point. Her next words were confirmation as such, and the sannin... didn't like that this woman came to know them... good enough. "I know Mitsuki. I know he has great respect for you." Without even putting a lot of effort in it, her mother instincts were taking over. "And Log..." "Oh? Now you're gonna claim that you know him too?" The sarcasm was heavy. The redhead sighed, half from frustration and half from exasperation. "No. I'm not. But if you treat him the same way as you treat a stranger like me... I can see the reason why he is so uncooperative with you." "You are crossing the line." "Well, someone has to open your eyes to it. It's not too late to take matters in your own hands." "I'm not taking advice from someone like you," Orochimaru finally said in a tone that was putting a definite end to the conversation. "I don't consider Log as my son, and he knows how to act accordingly." Izumi was finally rendered speechless, the animosity and the delivering of the words only too shocking. She wouldn't have expected this... even from someone like the sannin. They were so... cold, so emotionless.. One part of her almost wished that he didn't mean it... But the cold, hard truth was staring at her right in the face. "You're welcome to show yourself to the door." Without saying another word, she walked out of the kitchen and to the doorway. She wished for nothing more but to just get out of here herself. But when she put her hand on the doorknob... she couldn't help but turn back for a few last words. "You really are a snake, aren't you? Even your love is poisonous." Without giving him any other chances to reply, she exited the house and onto the street. ... Log's eyes followed the woman only for a minute as she walked out of sight, before his thoughts pretty much went blank. So... that was what his creator really thought of him... It was just like the other day all over again. He didn't even know why he was getting so worked up, so... upset... about Orochimaru's words. Anyone who had heard him talking about the sannin would think Log himself didn't ever see him as a father figure himself. He didn't know why but... hearing the same thoughts, reflecting from Orochimaru... suddenly almost made him question his existence... his purpose... What purpose did he have...? A clone, a mere copy, shadow of someone who only had the motive of pursuing someone else's dreams... Closing his eyes momentarily, the answer to that question finally came to the young man. Opening his eyes, Log started to walk away, in a different direction than he originally intended. ... The boy didn't even realize he was dreaming until the serene one he was having changed... for the worse. To be fair, until about a year earlier, he wasn't much of a dreaming type. If anyone was to question him back then whether he could distinguish a good dream from a bad one, he would say he had no idea. But surely, a dream in which he and his friends were together, laughing and altogether enjoying their time would classify as a good one. But then it changed. Little by little, like dark clouds covering the sky right before a storm... Feeling a sudden chill in the air, Mitsuki glanced up from where he sat and looked at his friends, who were close to him. Boruto smiled when he caught his gaze and started to say something... only no sound came out, even though his lips were moving. Finding this rather strange, the boy glanced over at his other friend, Sarada. To his surprise, the girl's words were also muted... although neither Boruto nor Sarada seemed to notice this oddity... and her image was flickering, like that of a genjutsu or some sort of visual delusion. Mitsuki tried to speak himself, trying to understand, needing to know what was going on... but when he opened his mouth, no sound could be heard, either. Maybe that was something normal in dreams. It was actually his first time dreaming after he woke up... for all he knew, his time in the coma most likely addled his brain. One more look at his friends and he did a double take. Sarada's form... was actually shifting between her and... a buff man with dark colored skin and spiky blond hair. The blue haired boy immediately felt terrified of the man, a need to escape from him almost drowning his other needs... but he couldn't remember why... "Do you realize it now?" With the sudden return of voice, Mitsuki nearly jumped and turned to the source. He thought he might have gasped, but still no sound from him. Across from him... sat his perfect replica. If he didn't know any better, he would say it was one of his father's clones... but this one had red eyes instead of the gold that ran through the family. He was sure he had seen him somewhere before... but wasn't exactly sure where. Then he felt a searing pain on his back and this time a scream left his mouth as he was pushed forward. Stopping his fall with his hands, the boy turned to look at his attacker, and now saw the blond man had completely taken over Sarada's familiar appearance. There was a glowing, blade-shaped lightning bolt in his hand. Mitsuki tried his best to dodge the man's next attack, but for some reason he was sloppy on his feet, none of his previous agility when he rescued Boruto remaining. He heard the... other Mitsuki laugh in response of this. "See? Your so-called friends had abandoned you... just like how they abandoned you back in the attack." As if on cue, the next attack made contact, making the boy cry out in pain. "Who are you?" he gasped out, needing to know more than the obvious. "What do you want from me?" "Oh wow. Still as rude as ever. You don't even remember me." The image of his... double flickered for a second, and then he was right in front of him, in his face. "While I never left you, y'know? Even when you were at your worse, I was always there for you while no one else was!" Giving him a good hard shove, the other Mitsuki pushed him off himself and onto the ground. In the next moment he was on top of him. Before Mitsuki realized, he received a punch in his stomach, winding the air out of him. "But make no mistake, I'll always be here. You may try to forgive and forget," the tone in his replica's voice made the phrase sound almost dirty, "but I'll remind you what it was like to be abandoned to one's own fate time and time again!" Glancing sideways... Mitsuki saw his friends again, Boruto and Sarada... but they seemed oblivious to him, talking and laughing among themselves, their voices still muted... He needed to go to them, too, certain that if he was with them, everything would be alright... He would have no worries... but he just couldn't push his... evil self back... In his peripheral vision, he saw dark Mitsuki's fist flying towards his face... and then it all went black. ... Mitsuki's eyes flew open as he jolted up in his bed, out of breath. Feeling a pang in his heart, he brought his hand over it. He didn't even notice Sakura-san had walked in - not until he heard the hurried footsteps approaching the bed. "Mitsuki? Is everything alright?!" He didn't know what to say, or even what to think... What had that dream... no, nightmare... been? Even though he had woken up now, he couldn't help but feel... terrified... utterly terrified... when he thought back to it... A gentle hand was placed on his shoulder. "Mitsuki...? Does it hurt...?" The accepting and motherly tone in the medic's voice made Mitsuki both warm and... inexplicably sad and he had to look away from those merciful green orbs as he shook his head. It didn't escape Sakura's attention, though, that the boy was slightly shaking. Sighing, she sat on the bed close to Mitsuki, hesitated just for a second, and then took him in her arms, holding him tight. The shaking grew more noticeable as slowly, the boy snuggled into her embrace... ... After that, he kinda lost track of the time. Many visitors came and passed.. and even when the pink haired medic deemed it was enough and prohibited the visits, especially his friends kept rolling in - even through the window or as a nurse at times. Mitsuki had actually understood what Sakura-san meant by he should really get some rest - he was beginning to feel really tired. And yet... through all these people, the one he most wanted to see still hadn't come yet. His father. He sighed inaudibly. "Tomorrow..." he thought. "He will definitely visit tomorrow." He finally turned the TV off, to be honest the shows at that time were extremely boring, and put the remote back on the bedside table before he laid comfortably against the couple of pillows and pulled the covers up his chin. He needed sleep... although he kinda didn't want it either. Suddenly there was a knock on the door which caused the blue haired boy to quickly sit up, was it him?! Had he come?? The door of the bedroom opened... to reveal the Hokage, peeking his head in. "May I?" He noticed how the boy had the covers around his body which caused Naruto to give him a sheepish smile. "I'm sorry, were you going to sleep?" Mitsuki's eyes widened slightly as he saw who there was - the Hokage himself visiting him out of all the people? This was... unexpected... And still, despite the pep talk a few seconds ago, the child couldn't help but feel a little bit disheartened. "Lord seventh..." he mused, surprised. "Um... no, please, come in." He drew himself up slightly, and tried to not make a face as the movement gave him slight discomfort. The Hokage walked in the room and closed the door behind him. "How are you feeling?" he asked as he grabbed a chair and sat down next to the bed. "I would have come earlier but office work got me tied down." The boy looked at his hands on the sheet, unconsciously fumbling with them a little. "I'm fine I guess... I just try not to do too sudden movements." He smiled a bit as he looked back up at the blond man. Naruto's sweet and welcoming smile turned into a serious expression. "Mitsuki..." he began, looking straight into the child's eyes. "I don't think I'll need to remind you just how reckless your actions had been and I'm sorry that you had to go through all that... what those... bastards told you." His eyes softened as he recalled what Sakura told him, that even after he had just regained his memories, Mitsuki's primary concern hadn't been himself. "But I also want to thank you, for what you did... you protected the village - and me - nearly at the cost of your life. I don't think I will ever be able to repay for what you have done." Maybe it was his weird way of concentrating on many things during a single time space... Mitsuki gasped lightly as he looked at him closer. "Sarada was right, Boruto's eyes are indeed bluer than yours." Then he realized that he had just said that out loud, and felt himself getting embarrassed all of a sudden. Really? In the middle of a serious conversation? "Uh... I mean..." Not knowing what else to say, he left the end of the sentence dangling. Naruto's soft look was now mixed with a surprised one, and he laughed lightly. "Well, yes I had noticed that myself, too." For a moment there was silence. "I'm glad my son has a friend like you, Mitsuki." "He was my first friend ever..." The blue haired boy mused softly. "You... don't need to thank or repay me, lord seventh." He gave a small smile. "If that means my friends and family are safe... I would do it again. I guess I learned that from you." Naruto smiled some more, the soft look intensifying. "You are indeed an amazing person, Mitsuki. Don't ever forget that, no matter what other people may say, what always matters is what this..." he stretched out his arm to touch the boy's chest, right on the heart. "...tells you to do." The boy's smile softened a little more as he understood what he said perfectly, and they were silent for a brief moment. The drowsiness was really beginning to settle in now, but the thought of sleep was still intimidating, especially after this talk. What... did his heart tell him? "Lord seventh... can I ask you something?" he said quietly, his gaze once again wandering down on his hands. "Of course," the answer was almost immediate. "What is it that you need?" The blond was clearly curious and rather interested in what was the boy's request. "How..." His hands tightened a little more on the bedsheets. "How did you deal with... the loneliness...?" He was trying to not let it show how much it still hurt... the feeling that he was unwanted, unnecessary, a burden... How he really dreaded to go back to sleep... To say Naruto was caught by surprise at the boy's question was not enough but... slowly the Hokage understood where this was coming from and couldn't help but feel... sorry for the boy, sorry that he had to go through something like he had. And he couldn't blame him for feeling like that... he had every reason to. His expression was still soft but the look became sadder. "It's unbearable... I know it is... to be blamed for something beyond your control. There were times I really resented the people who despised me, in the deepest corners of my heart." He looked at Mitsuki. "Thankfully I slowly overcame that, thanks to the Third Hokage, my friends, Kakashi and Iruka..." He stopped for a moment. Should he say the rest...? "It felt so weird... when people started to treat me like a hero..." "I... don't really want that... I didn't do what I did to be praised, it was just the... right thing to do, but..." It still didn't make everything alright, believing that he did the right thing. The other Mitsuki wouldn't have it. He had come to the realization in the past hours that he indeed saw his other half before, before waking up, in the limbo... He would call him weak, a loner... "Was... was that ever enough?" he asked at last. "Was that ever enough to repay for what they did to me for years? No... no it wasn't..." He answered with all honesty. "But the part of me that always woke up and faced them ignored it all, ignored what they did, ignored how quickly they changed their opinion when I saved the village, but deep down... I still resented them. And at some point I had to literally face my inner dark self." This whole conversation did make him think as he looked at the boy. "Tell me, Mitsuki... is something bothering you...?" Just like his father, Mitsuki wasn't one that asked or did something just because he wanted, there was always a motive behind. Mitsuki felt his hands shaking a little, and tried to control it. His darker inner self... It made sense. Of why that self was so resentful, always fighting... "I..." he hesitated for a second. "I don't know what to do... I fought him twice now and... I can never win..." he finished in a whisper. Naruto didn't need any more words to understand what Mitsuki was talking about. He sighed before he moved from the chair to the bed. "I know how hard it is... I lost many times too... but I realized that in order to find inner peace... I needed to find closure. Meeting my mother did help me, it cleared my heart in so many ways." "Your mother...?" It all made sense, in a way. His father could indeed be the last piece in that puzzle - it felt like he could do anything, endure anything if he found peace with him... the one person he needed to be proud of him. The one person that really, truly mattered, from the very beginning. Naruto noticed the boy's troubled expression, an expression that he was clearly trying to hide but failed. Or perhaps it was the Hokage's experience in noticing those kinds of looks... Sighing Naruto put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Mitsuki... tell me what's bothering you." The child sighed almost inaudibly. He didn't realize... didn't know he wanted to talk about it. And the hokage readily accepting to listen to him... broke exactly that kind of obstacle. "You know... There is nothing... nothing I want more..." He hesitated. "...than my father's approval... Him being proud of me... but..." his voice faded away. Maybe he was telling too much... But all this time, keeping all those emotions bottled... They were taking their toll on him - like they did when he fought the rogue nins. "He never..." He couldn't complete the sentence. Naruto didn't need the boy to say more, he understood exactly what he wanted to say. "Mitsuki..." He wanted to find the correct words to comfort him, he deserved that much... "Your father cares about you, in his own way of course but he does care. I saw it with my own eyes, although he didn't show it on the outside, I saw the broken look on him when we were told that you fell in a coma." "Then why wouldn't he come visit me?" There, he said that. He realized too late that he couldn't keep the broken tone out of his voice. "That was the second day since I woke up, and even with my amnesia, I have had my family visiting me. I kind of hoped... I really rather..." He gulped. "He was the first person I had hoped to see." So that was the problem here... "I'm sure your father wants to visit you but you have been receiving a lot of visits. And he is currently hiding in your apartment, he might just be waiting for the best moment to come and see you." he said with a smile, hoping those words would reassure him. His dad was hiding in his apartment? Or maybe he shouldn't be surprised about this since obviously his brother and the Taka was in the village too... And of course, not being allowed in Konoha under normal circumstances, it sounded reasonable that his father was biding his time. Mitsuki felt his heart feel a little more relieved, and all of the worries lifted from his expression as he gave a warm smile to the hokage. "Thank you, lord seventh. That... helps a lot. Thank you for your help." Naruto smiled and moved his hand from Mitsuki's shoulder to his hair, ruffling it a bit. "You get some rest." He pulled the covers up to the boy's chin and for a moment he remembered how he used to do that to his own kids when they were sick. "Remember Mitsuki, whenever you need your answers can always be found right here..." He touched the boy's heart. "And no matter what, you are always welcome in our home."        

[cardshcrp]

'five times kissed'

FIVE TIMES KISSED.

@trickarrowd // ROY HARPER // always selectively accepting !

                                                                                                                  i.

          Remy doesn’t take constant lovers. It’s something of a rule. He barely takes any at all, really, because it reminds him too much of when he hadn’t been fine, when he fucked his way through everything, let go because he couldn’t take much more. He’d been an animal because he had to be, fucked nonstop because it felt alright and alright was better than nothing. These days, he figures it’s better to be alone, for him and everyone else - he’s got too many secrets, and he’s too hard to pin down. 

He’s a great fuck, a beautiful distraction, a charming shadow at night. He isn’t made for soft morning light or sleepy kisses or familiarity, so he doesn’t let it happen. He still leaks sex, knows he does; he knows the mansion still whispers playboy, nympho, slut when his clothes are too rumpled and he’s a little too languid. 

It doesn’t bother him too much (anymore). They can think what they want. He knows sex doesn’t work, so he doesn’t have much. And he sure as shit doesn’t allow repeats.

He makes an exception for Roy, mainly because he’s got a sneaking suspicion that Roy knows a little something about cutting off bad behavior and because he’s familiar enough with how shit works in the back alleys that he doesn’t ask a lot of questions. He knows that Remy’s something, somewhere, for sure; they’ve seen each other naked, and there’s pieces to their bodies that don’t come without being a super something. But it’s better not to ask which side, so neither of them do.

So it’s extra surprising when there’s a soft whistle from an alley when he’s passing through Winnipeg and one of the kids he’d shifted off the street and into the Guild just last month slides up, says hey boss, some redhead guy was lookin’ for you down at the Rose, y’know - 

But it’s enough that he’s at the New York bar he owns under another name not quite different enough to matter the next night against his better judgment, and it’s enough that he doesn’t ask why Roy looks a little sad when he buries his face into Remy’s shoulder all panting and want want need, and it’s more than enough that he lingers late into the morning after Roy’s sound asleep and presses a warm kiss to the corner of that slack mouth, a careful thumb smearing balm over chapped lips before he slips away with only the barest creak of the motel door.

                                                                                                                  ii.

          Oh, man, oh man but Roy looked good like this. It’s a thought Remy has a hell of a lot when they’re draped over each other searching for air, bodies sweat-slick and faintly sticky, or when Roy’s got his head tipped back and his throat bobs in a quiet moan and Remy’s got his fingers dug into wiry hips or that pretty hair wrapped around his fist in a pull that’s more like a promise.

He looks good all the time, really, even when he keeps his eyes open to continue the spell that holds Remy there for a while longer, watches him breathe out smoke with a faint, satisfied grumble like he’s found inspiration in the greasy guts of a classic car. 

So it’s not really all that surprising that Remy obliges a question that’s never asked every goddamn time, lets his spine bow so that too-warm lips can press up to Roy’s mouth and leave behind a sharp little spark of energy like a quiet thank-you. 

“We should really make a trip for Mardi Gras.” He likes saying that, a secret between them, a plan that’ll probably never happen and sure, Roy might not know how much an offer like that means coming from him, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that he says it and he means it; he thinks Roy would fit right in to it, be swept away in the wild beat, learn the words real fast. 

I-ko i-ko un-day, and when Roy inevitably laughs and says “Yeah, maybe,” Remy always has to give him another kiss, just ’cause.

                                                                                                                 iii.

          He’d kinda known before. Mostly because he was damn familiar with the way Roy looked and moved, and as much as he thought hero politics were dumb as hell even he watched the news sometimes. It was better to know. 

(And the dork wore the same damn hat.)

It’s the usual stupid, outlandish circumstance that calls for whatever larger team-up, something about giant, rampaging spider robots that wasn’t enough for him to call in his own contacts but enough for the long, long lecture about cooperation and playing nice and together we will prevail, and to be entirely honest he’d been about passed out on the floor with the lingering remnants of a hangover when he’d noticed a real familiar tattoo and smile flash through the door late. 

And he has to kind of think, ah, shit, because maybe their silent agreement is going to be broken by the for-sure knowing but it’s not like he can really pretend Roy’s not there, and he doesn’t want to when his day already involved giant fucking spiders, so he might as well be glad maybe someone will watch his back for once.

Though knowing Roy it was more likely to be his ass, but still.

It takes a hell of a lot of effort not to cackle, though, when he sneaks up behind Roy and drapes an arm around his shoulder and murmurs hey dere, cher in his ear, ’cause Roy about jumps out of his skin and it’s satisfying, somehow, that he gets a half-shocked, half-warm glare and a smile of pleased surprise. 

He tucks a little kiss to Roy’s cheek, quick enough that nobody else spots them, and somehow the prospect of dealing with rampaging robots isn’t so bad even if he’s forced to pull his arm away and just lean back on the wall beside him until it’s time to get to work. 

Doesn’t feel so bad when Roy says see you when I see you after with a cheeky grin and a little wave, either.

An invitation is an invitation, after all.

                                                                                                                 iv.

          Gambit doesn’t like being accessible. It’s something that drives everyone around him fuckin’ nuts, that they can’t call him when he disappears, that they don’t know where he goes but that he just pops up when they need him - but at the end of the day they put up with it because he doesn’t give them a choice, really.

He likes to say that if he’s in one place enough to be tethered by a landline, he’s probably in his grave and not climbing back out.

He isn’t completely behind the times. He’s not totally lost it yet - when you’re a man with as many affairs to juggle as he is, you had your ways, and he does keep a cell phone. Two, actually. One for business and those scared scared messages that get him up and on the way, and one that matters.

Remy doesn’t answer the one that matters, never, and he doesn’t make calls from it either. The list of people that know its number are so short it’s almost sad, really - the father who’s taken him in and cast him out as he must. The woman who was as close to a mother as he’d ever had. The sister-in-law he hasn’t spoken to in four years. The wife he’d never truly been married to. Laura, because no parent could live without giving their child an out - not Gabby yet, because if Gabby wasn’t with Laura, there were worse problems than a phone call and Gambit was already at work. Storm and Rogue get the business number. None of them call him or text him.

Roy Harper does, and Remy isn’t entirely sure why the hell he’d given Roy this phone and not the other to tap his number into with his face scrunched up into that sunny grin of his, all freckles and sunshine and doing better, and Remy isn’t sure why he never tells him that he’s not the sort to text or call for shits or giggles or anything else. He just answers.

He’s spacing out, can’t really remember what the hell they’re chatting about anymore, too much tired in his veins and the faint sticky sweet of blue curaçao on nicotine-smeared lips, so he just raises the silly little glowing screen that reminds him that he isn’t entirely alone in the world and squints at the words swimming in front of him, faintly recognizes the cheery red heart emoji hanging on the tail end of some joke. 

Scarred fingers hesitate for just a moment, but his eyes are so very soft when he blows a little kiss back, just a stupid little bit of pixelated nonsense that’s as damning as any confession to his sometimes-lover’s face.

                                                                                                                  v.

         “Hey,” he says, without looking up; he doesn’t have to. Even quiet, Roy still makes more noise than a master thief, and Remy’s put enough of them through their paces that he’d know. Red eyes stay glued to the laptop resting atop the kitchen table, slim fingers tapping at a muscled thigh rather than the keyboard; as easygoing as he could be, not even Remy could think of reading reports in the early morning as enjoyable, but it’s preferable than meeting Roy’s groggy stare and acknowledging that there’s been a definite change in their routine. 

Roy’s slow surprise is evident, red brows furrowing as he takes in the full coffeepot, the ridiculously high stack of pancakes on the table and the absolutely destroyed remnants of what Remy had already eaten on the stack of plates in the sink. His gaze finally land on Remy, and there’s a faint clearing of scratchy morning throat - it’s enough for Remy to glance up finally, half guilty, looking at Roy like he’s done something wrong because maybe he has. He just doesn’t know for sure yet.

“You stayed,” he says, and it’s puzzled, questioning. Remy shrugs, points at the pan on the stove with still-warm bacon in it because it’s easier than actually answering that on any level. “Eat,” he orders instead, dragging out the neighboring chair with his bare foot and shoving himself upright to start cleaning up. “If you don’t get it in ya soon you’re gonna fuckin’ ruin lunch.”

Implying he’d also be there for lunch, which is enough to make him want to kick himself - but he doesn’t.

He washes the dishes and cookware he’d dirtied in the sink, slow and methodical, letting the sound of running water swallow up anything else between them for the moment. It doesn’t last long, of course.

Ten minutes later, when he passes behind Roy and brushes tentative lips over the nape of his neck, he feels the archer freeze, just for a moment. 

And then the rough screech of chair leg on tile breaks the ice, shatters it quick and lets it splinter, and Remy isn’t entirely sure but he thinks maybe his heart thaws a little when Roy turns to give him a proper kiss, or at least he can admit that it’s been warm for a while now, but thinking is overrated at the minute anyway.

Roy’s grinning at him like an absolute idiot by the time he pulls away; it’s enough to make him roll his eyes, not that it stops him from stroking an affectionate thumb over the redhead’s jaw. “Stop lookin’ at me like that. If you don’t eat that bacon in the next five seconds, you gon’ have to fight me for it.”