#lmfao the way they only move in one picture

[vozchik]

[kavehater]

Stop ……. Rodrick from diary of a wimpy kid …

[peapod20001]

Sometimes I think about the girl in like 7th grade who was a furry and drew furries boinking it and apparently SO many people saw it and they were telling me about it and all I could think was how I, probably the only other open furry at school, wasn’t shown these

[daechwitatamic]

cherrybomb || csc

(banner by @sailorrhansol)

cherrybomb seungcheol x afab reader || angst smut fluff || exes2lovers, pacific rim universe NSFW - minors DNI

Summary: Piloting a jaeger requires a rare ability called drifting - a neural connection with your co-pilot. You and Seungcheol are masters of the drift... until you have something in your head that you don't want him to see.

wc: 19.5k

warnings: language, heavy angst with happy ending, fight scenes, fight scenes written by an author with zero fighting or martial arts knowledge lmfao thus they are vague as possible, feelings heavy plot light and smut light, kissing and pretty generic (and brief) p in v smut

Author's note: thank you for @sailorrhansol for 1) accidentally sparking this idea, 2) agreeing to collab with me, 3) reading this along the way and hyping me up, and 4) beta-ing my mistakes, a million smooches for you ily

This fic takes place in the Pacific Rim universe but I honestly don't think you need to know the lore, everything you need to know should be explained. If you think something is unclear without prior pacific rim knowledge, shoot me a message privately and I'll make some edits and credit you for the insight!

Also in this universe: storm breaker by @/sailorhansol

Teaser:

“Marshall, with all due respect, I don’t know why you’re calling me,” you admit. “You were there. You saw what happened. Seungcheol and I can’t drift anymore.”

“You couldn’t then,” he points out. “That was three years ago. Things that were once too painful to carry into the drift… they’ve had time to mellow.”

He’s wrong, and you want to tell him so. Nothing has mellowed. You love Seungcheol just as much today as you did then.

“Have you talked to him about this?” You’re afraid of the answer. 

The Marshall’s voice hardens, and you can just picture his eyes narrowing. “Mr. Choi will follow orders,” he says evenly, “and so will you. Asking is really just a courtesy.”

“You can’t order us into being able to drift again,” you snap, pulse suddenly pounding in your arms, your hands, your face, your chest. 

“No,” the Marshall says, and any previous friendliness is gone from his voice now, “but I can - and will - order you to try.”

Playlist: you're the smoke in my gun, blowin' like cherry bombs...

The first time you ever saw Choi Seungcheol, he was flipping a man four years his senior over his shoulder and slamming him into the ground. Satisfied, he staggered backwards, chest heaving from exertion, eyes narrowed in preparation for the next move.

That’s what Seungcheol did - he leveled whatever was in front of him, and he started watching for what was coming next before the body could even hit the ground.

That’s what made him a great jaeger pilot. Not the brute strength - strong men are dime a dozen, always have been - but the watching.

You’d marked him as your first choice.

You were both nineteen. You’d grown up in the Shatterdome, the only child to a couple who piloted a neon green jaeger named Charron’s Revenge. You knew everything about how jaegers and their teams worked by the time you were nine. You started training to fight years before that. There was never a question that you would follow in your parents’ giant, mechanical footsteps one day. You just needed the right partner.

You needed Seungcheol.

The jaeger program didn’t turn away recruits - everyone could do something - but there was an organized process to match up compatible pilots. Applying recruits would fight before an audience of previously-accepted but currently-unmatched potential pilots. The pilots would rank the fighters, choosing their top five based on perceived potential for compatibility.

Then, the roles would switch. The applicants became the audience. The audience became the show.

When it was your turn to fight, you silently pleaded with the universe that Seungcheol would mark you high as well. This was the only guarantee that you’d get a chance to spar with him, to test it out before the Marshall, who would make the final call.

Let him see, you begged. Let him see how perfectly we’d work together.

And, by some miracle, he did. In fact, he rated you first, as well.

Your sparring match went exactly how you expected - he barreled at you, and you dodged every move. He could easily take you out with a single blow, but he couldn’t get his hands on you, not when you used his own inertia against him at every turn. What you didn’t expect was your own inability to land a shot. For the whole fight, you were unable to move out of the defensive - keeping out of his reach took all of your effort.

It was a draw - the first sign of strong compatibility.

You didn’t talk after the match - your father whisked you away to recover before your second-rated match, and you didn’t see Seungcheol for the rest of the day.

The second-rated match was a dud. But you already knew, even then, that it didn’t matter.

You’d met your co-pilot. You’d found your partner.

—

He found you in the mess hall that night, dropping into an empty spot on the other side of the table, his tray in his hands. His black hair was loose and wavy, and his right arm sported a sizeable bruise that he definitely didn’t get from you.

“I know who you are,” he said by way of greeting. You raised a brow at him, waiting. “Your parents piloted Charron’s Revenge.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “That better not be why you picked me.”

He gave his head an annoyed little flick. “Of course not. I picked you because you’re fluid - and I’m not.”

Appeased, you felt your hackles settle back down. “That’s true,” you allowed. “You’re not fluid. But you’re purposeful, and-”

You were interrupted when Yoon Jeonghan dropped into the seat to your left, chuckling under his breath as he fixed his long, dark hair into a spiky ponytail at the back of his head.

“Cherry, did you hear?” he asked you, ignoring the new-comer. “The crew for Fatal Rapids got called back in for misconduct.”

“Choi Seungcheol, Yoon Jeonghan,” you said, introducing the two young men. “Hannie does more than gossip, I promise. He’s one of the pilots for Devil’s Advocates. Their drop stats are insane.”

“In practice only,” Jeonghan demurred. “For now.”

“Cherry?” Seungcheol parroted, raising a dark brow. “That’s not what I wrote on my paper earlier.”

“Just a nickname,” you explained. When you were very small, you’d struggled with the name of your parents’ jaeger, calling it Cherry’s Revenge instead of Charron’s, and the crew - who doted on you like their own - started the habit of calling you Cherry. Somehow, it had spread, and stuck. “Only my parents use my real name. But you can call me whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“No,” he said, frowning as if deeply considering his options. “I like it.”

You folded your arms on the table, leaning in to peer at Seungcheol. “So, what’s your story? You’ve heard of me. I haven’t heard of you.”

He shrugged, glanced around, then decided he could talk freely. There’s something about being in a room that’s positively teeming with people and conversation - it gives you privacy without feeling too intimate. You’re not alone.

“Not much of a story, not like you,” he admitted. “I grew up thinking I’d take over my dad’s business. We lost my dad… then, we lost the business. I have no marketable skillset, and university was out of the question. But…” He trailed off, then met your gaze firmly. Something in his look demanded you forgo any pity or sympathy, demanded you take him seriously. “I’m strong. So I came here. I came to fight.”

You sidestepped the bruises he’d bared. “Not like me,” you repeated with a bit of a scoff. “I hate to disappoint you, but my parents are the pilots - the story is theirs. I don’t have one, not yet.”

Something playful glinted in his eyes, the first true sign of personality you’d seen. “So all the rumors about the Princess of the Shatterdome aren’t true?”

Your jaw dropped. You’d heard the nickname before - it was never meant nicely. You tried to ignore it as best you could - people could think what they wanted. When you had a crew, when you had a jaeger, you’d be able to prove them wrong. “What rumors?”

“You’re spoiled,” Jeonghan supplied, having decided he was part of the conversation after all. “Entitled.”

You spluttered as Jeonghan stood, giving you a cheerful pat on the shoulder. “And bitchy! That’s just what I’ve heard. Of course I know better. Anyway, I’ve got to go. Love ya!”

You stared incredulously after him as he disappeared, your face burning with embarrassment and your heart hammering with adrenaline. Fight, your systems told you.

If only you could.

Seungcheol bit back a smile, reaching out to pat your arm placatingly.

“I don’t…” you started to say, but your voice caught in your throat. You cleared it, tried again. “I don’t think I really deserve all that.”

He nodded, lips pushed into a semblance of a thoughtful pout. “What I’d heard,” he said calmly, “is that you’re a hell of a fighter, scary smart, and that you take no shit. Unless it’s from your friends, apparently.”

This made a bitter little laugh bubble from you. You still simmered with humiliation, feared that maybe he’d decide he didn’t want to co-pilot with you after all.

“I think it’s up to you which story gets told,” he said finally.

“Yeah,” you said, nodding. “That’s what I always said. So… let’s get started.”

—

You and Seungcheol lucked out - the team that had been recalled for misconduct were terminated from their posts in the weeks following the sparring trials, and their jaeger Fatal Rapids had been disassembled, the parts up for grabs.

You and Seungcheol repurposed Rapids’s main frame, your crew working to individualize the bot to your needs as best they could. You splurged on quad-processors for her legs to allow your jaeger to keep up with how you move - quick and lithe. Seungcheol lobbied for (and won) some extra power in the top half, and you compromised and chose a mix of red and blue sections for her paintjob.

Duellona Fury, you named her. Duellona for you, the destroyer. Fury for Seungcheol, because that was where his fight came from.

You got to know Seungcheol’s fury very well. Especially when you started trying to drift.

None of it happened fast - not the building of your machine, nor your neural handshake. In fact, you didn’t pilot Duellona Fury together for a whole calendar year.

You started with physical compatibility - you sparred almost all day, every day. You fought - with each other and against each other - until all you could do was lay on the ground and pant, blinking to make the ceiling stay in focus.

Seungcheol may not have grown up training in the Shatterdome the way you did, but he kept up without complaint. You learned his way - force and strength - and he learned the way you favored - to weave and dodge.

The fighting was the easy part.

You had never drifted with someone you had true drift compatibility with. Seungcheol had never drifted at all. The Marshall wouldn’t even consider hooking the two of you up to the machine until you went through the proper training.

On the day you and Seungcheol were officially declared as co-pilots-in-training, you both stood below the half-built shell of your towering jaeger, sparks flying and drills screaming as the crew worked on her.

Your Marshall looked seriously at his new team-in-training. “Starting tomorrow, you’ll meditate together. Talk to each other. Get deep about it. If you’ve talked about it out here-” he swept an arm across the deck, “-it won’t take hold so strongly in there.” He’d jabbed a finger in the upward direction of Duellona Fury.

Seungcheol didn’t look at you, nor the Marshall. Instead, he kept his eyes on Duellona's unfinished frame, stories above you. “Yes, Sir,” he said steadily.

Your parents weren’t technically retired yet, the year you and Seungcheol started training together. Charron’s Revenge still sat in the well below the Shatterdome. They still lived on the base, still took part in daily training. They hadn’t been called into a fight in years, though; the assignments went to the younger crews.

You took dinner in their quarters instead of the mess hall, that night.

“Congratulations,” your father said warmly from across the table. “You worked hard to get here.”

“Thank you,” you said, feeling shy beneath the praise. “I hope the drift will work for me and Choi Seungcheol.”

“What do you think of him?” your mother had asked, her sharp eyes honing in on you, watching your reactions.

“I think he’s a great fighter,” you said. “The rest… I guess I’ll have to learn.”

“Do you trust him? Can you trust him out there, when the sea and the wind are trying to knock you down, and hell itself rises up from the depths?”

You swallowed. She’s right for her intensity - they will be putting their daughter’s life in her co-pilot’s hands, every time there’s a fight. You knew firsthand how terrifying it was to stand in the tech bay and wait, not knowing if your loved ones will make it back.

You thought about how you and Seungcheol fight together in the sparring rooms. You thought about how you weaved and your opponent followed your movement, only to be knocked sideways. You thought of how Seungcheol followed your motion backwards, ducked in tandem with you to avoid a hit, and how you followed his momentum forward and up to attack. Your bodies followed each other like they were magnetized. And Seungcheol was always watching for the next hit.

“Yes,” you said, so quietly that you cleared your throat and said it again. “Yes, I trust him.”

“Then we wish you luck,” your father said, and raised his glass. “To Duellona Fury.”

“To Duellona Fury,” you echoed.

On your way out of the quarters, later, you slowed as you passed the wall where they hung their accolades and awards, the newspaper clippings, photos, and medals. Before your eyes they aged - the photographs changing through the years, no longer showing a bright, fiery couple, instead displaying proof of passing time: a baby bump, then a toddler, then a child beaming alongside them as if she’d done what they had done; greying hairs, softening bodies, deepening of wrinkles. Then the pictures stopped.

You never asked them if they missed it.

—

You and Seungcheol started meditating together the next morning; it seemed logical to begin at the easiest step. In an empty sparring room, you sat facing each other, knees touching.

“Have you done this before?” you asked, as you both settled in, shifting weight and adjusting ankles.

“Not with someone else,” he admitted, lips protruding in a bit of a pout. “Only alone.”

You nodded. You’d grown up learning all of this - the right way to fight as a team member, how to be in tune for a neural connection. It led to you teaching Seungcheol often - yet when you fought together, any leadership fell away.

“Normally,” you explained, “you focus on your breath, keeping your mind clear. But for our practice, you want to focus on our breath. We breathe together. And when your mind wanders, your awareness should be coming to peace with my presence there. Like, making a path for the neural connection - for later. So there’s no resistance.”

“Have you done this before?” Seungcheol asked.

You wobbled your head around - not yes, but not no. “I’ve practiced it - I’ve done the meditation with partners. But I’ve never moved forward to an actual drift with anyone.”

This seemed to appease him, and he settled his weight backwards, letting his hands rest near his knees.

You let your eyes float closed and inhaled, listening and feeling for Seungcheol’s inhale to end, letting your breath out when he did. It took no time to match your breaths, to let your mind go blissfully quiet. You focused on feeling open, readable - any thought that floated through your mind, you pretended he could hear, too. You tried to feel and release any defensiveness, any urge to close off.

When the timer went off, it surprised you. You opened your eyes, and the feeling that struck you was this -

It was surprising to see Seungcheol before you. It hadn’t felt like he was beside you. It had felt like he was you.

You meditated, you fought, and finally, you talked.

Laying on the sparring room floor, your head somewhere near Seungcheol’s shins, he asked you, “Where do you wish you were right now? If you weren’t here.”

You laughed at yourself before answering, knowing how silly you would sound. “In a tree.”

A disbelieving smile played on his lips, almost as if he wasn’t sure you weren’t making fun of him somehow. “A tree?”

“No, really,” you insisted, still smiling a little. “There’s not a lot of nature here, in case you didn’t notice. I grew up in the Dome - never got to leave, much.”

Seungcheol didn’t respond to this, just nodded like he understood, his small smile going a bit tight around the edges.

You frowned, reading him exactly. “You think I’m sheltered,” you observed. It wasn’t a question. He couldn’t say no.

He looked at you, then. “You were sheltered,” he said, voice low. “But when I say it, I don’t mean naive. I just think… there’s a lot of world out there. A lot of things to see. You won’t see any of it if you spend your entire life under the Dome.”

You nod, accepting this. “I won’t see any of it if it gets destroyed, either. There’s a lot of world out there - that we’re trying to keep safe.”

Seungcheol watched you intently for a moment, lips downturned and gaze heavy. Then, he asked, “Have you ever seen a kaiju? I mean - in person?”

“Sort of,” you mumbled.

He’d rolled from his back to his front, closer to you, putting you shoulder to shoulder. “Kind of seems like a yes-or-no question.”

Your lips twisted. “Then, no. But I’ve stood in the bay and listened to Mission Control talk my mom and dad through a fight dozens of times, watched Charron’s Revenge on the screens and prayed I wouldn’t see her get sawed in half.”

You stopped, trailed a finger through the thin layer of dirt on the floor. “I know it’s not the same as looking one in the face myself,” you whispered. “But the fear… shouldn’t that fear count, shouldn’t it feel the same?”

Seungcheol swallowed, trailed his own finger through the dirt until his fingertip just barely touched yours. It felt like energy sizzled in the centimeter between your pointer and his.

“When Menaceclaw attacked,” he said, “he missed my home by one block. We watched him go by from the sidewalk. I wasn’t even as tall as his foot. But even with him towering over the buildings, taking them down without even trying, I don’t think what I felt was afraid. I think I just felt resigned. Like I knew, at seven, that even though we survived this one… nothing was going to be… the same, or okay. I don’t know.”

“You knew what you lost,” you said quietly. “Part of you did.”

He looked up at you, nudged his finger into yours. “You never knew anything different. It wasn’t a loss. The fear was just always part of the deal.”

You rolled sideways, laying your head on your bicep for a pillow, regarding the dark-eyed, dark-haired young man across from you. His face scrunched in a laugh, brows furrowing and lips pouting.

“What?” he asked through the quiet laugh. “Why are you looking at me?”

“What else?” you mused. “What else am I going to find when we go tiptoeing through your memories?”

He smiled faintly and then mirrored you, laying his head on his arm, his eyes swimming as he thought.

“A lot of my family, probably,” he said. “A lot of fighting. Menaceclaw. Probably some very mid sex.”

You laughed without meaning to. “My condolences?”

He grinned at you, pleased. “Eh, what can you do? I try to treat everything like a learning experience.”

You laughed again, and his smile grew, gums showing. “What about you?” he asked off-handedly.

“Mid sex?” you asked, eyebrows raising. “I hate to inform you, Choi Seungcheol, but I don’t do anything mid.”

“No,” he protested, laughing, reaching out to gently shake your shoulder. “I meant - what will we see when it’s your turn?”

“The Dome,” you said, half-joking - but it was true. “Training. My parents. Their fights, their accomplishments.”

And, as a true drift partner should, he understood what you weren’t saying.

“We’ll have our turn,” he promised, pushing himself to sit up, then stand, reaching down to help you up. “We’re gonna be fucking unstoppable. Let’s go again.”

Fire sparking behind your ribs, you nodded seriously, then reached up to take his hand.

—

Weeks of sparring melded into months of meditation and talking. The next phase of training co-pilots was learning to drift in one of the simulators - but not in a jaeger. Not yet.

You and Seungcheol finished training in one of the sparring rooms shortly before dinner would be served in the mess hall.

“Meet you there?” you asked, still half-breathless, your body starting to ache as the adrenaline from a fight melted away.

“Sure,” he agreed, and you disappeared into the changing rooms, scrubbing the sweat and dirt away as quickly as you could. You changed into something clean and made your way to the mess hall.

You scanned for familiar faces, frowning when your normal table seemed to be occupied by a team of new recruits that you didn’t know.

Seungcheol appeared at your elbow, frowning dramatically. “Our table,” he whined.

“There’s Chan and Wylie,” you said, nodding to another corner where your friends sat practically on top of each other. Chan and Wylie had never understood personal space, not when it came to one another. They barely noticed when you and Seungcheol plopped onto the benches next to them, but Seungkwan did.

“You’re bleeding, Cherry,” he said, before inhaling an entire mouthful of rice.

You started to scan your arms - you didn’t feel pain anywhere - but Seungcheol found it first, gingerly swiping his thumb along your cheekbone.

“Sorry, Cherry,” he murmured. “I should’ve pulled that punch.”

“No you shouldn’t have,” you grumbled, swatting at his hand and wiping roughly at the spot, your hand coming away with a small smear of red - nothing to be alarmed about. It would stop on its own. “You pull shots in practice, you’ll hesitate in the field.”

“She’s right,” Chan said from his physical tangle with Wylie. “What you practice will show up in your muscle memory. You’ve got to mean it, every time.”

Wylie reached across his arms and took a bite from his plate, then asked, “Did you guys see the new jaeger?”

“I did,” Seungkwan said eagerly. “Chaser Supernova, or something like that? She’s smaller, but she’s supposed to be fast.”

“Is that her team at our normal table?” you asked dryly, shooting the rookies a dark look over your shoulder. Seungcheol jostled you playfully, sending you a smile that brought you back.

The bench dipped to your left, and you turned to see Soonyoung - one of Seungkwan’s two co-pilots - settle in.

“Talking about Supernova?” he asked, hands busy opening his drink. “They seem okay - they’re a trio, like us.”

“Where is Seokmin?” Seungkwan asked, scanning the room. “I haven’t seen him in like two hours.”

“Talking to Jihoon, I think,” Soonyoung answered absently, focused on his meal. “He lost another co-pilot today.”

“Not again,” you and Seungcheol both blurted, matching levels of exasperation.

“That was freaky,” Wylie said, just as Chan told you, “You two are acting like us, now.”

“We do not need another Chan-and-Wylie,” Seungkwan said seriously, shaking his head.

Seungcheol sent you a sideways, sheepish grin.

“We won’t be,” he promised the group, but his eyes were still on you.

—

The simulators were built to be exact replicas of the conn-pod, so that trainees could get used to the feeling of being strapped in, of moving with the gear. But the real purpose was to practice the neural handshake without risking damage - to the jaeger, to the tech bay, to each other.

“Don’t be nervous,” you told Seungcheol as the tech team worked around you both like a choreographed dance.

“I’m never nervous,” he said, suddenly cocky.

If you could reach his hand from where you were strapped in, you would have. If you understood anything about Seungcheol - if any part of him mirrored you - it was the way he showcased bravado, the way he used it as his most-familiar mask.

“It’s only practice,” you reminded him. “And it’s only me.”

He licked his lips quickly, eyes darting to the side and then back to you. Then, he gave you a small nod.

“Normally,” your chief tech - a beautiful woman with jet-black hair named Nainsi - told you, “right now, you would be ready for the drop. In the simulator, we skip that step because we aren’t dropping onto a jaeger. Instead, we’ll engage the pilot to pilot connection protocol sequence.”

You and Seungcheol nod in tandem.

“You’re all good?” Nainsi checks. “Then I’m going back into the tech bay - you’ll hear me through the intercom.”

Alone in the simulator, you met Seungcheol’s gaze and couldn’t help the excited grin that spread across your face. Finally, finally you were here. Once you could do this successfully, the next step was to fight in your own jaeger - to drop into Duellona Fury and walk into the sea.

He didn’t return your smile, instead giving you a tight nod, expression serious.

Over the intercom, you said clearly, “Ready and aligned.”

Nainsi answered, “Prepare for neural handshake.”

You took a deep breath and steeled yourself as the artificial voice of the simulator’s tech system spoke around you, 3… 2… 1… neural handshake initiating…

At first, you thought something went wrong. Everything went red behind your eyelids, and you blinked, instinctively trying to clear it away.

The red faded, and you found yourself in Seungcheol’s childhood home. You didn’t know how you knew that - you just knew. It was as familiar to you, inside the drift, as your own. You knew that to your left was a small kitchen with two broken floor tiles; you knew - without having ever seen it - that to your right was a narrow hallway that led to a bathroom and two small bedrooms.

Two small boys played on the carpet; rather, the smaller one played with some toy cars while the other watched the television with rapture. Behind them, at the kitchen table, a woman typed busily on an outdated laptop, bags heavy under her eyes.

Somewhere around you, a voice floated by, telling you, neural handshake strong and holding.

You could see Seungcheol in your periphery - the adult Seungcheol, the Seungcheol of now - as he looked at his mother, his brother, himself.

“It’s not real,” you reminded him gently. “It’s just a memory.”

“I know,” he said back, voice hushed, as if he might scare them away. “It’s just… good to see them.”

The house evaporated as gently as morning dew under a mid-morning sun; you stood in a schoolyard. Seungcheol, the small one, had a bloody lip and a mean swing.

You felt a rush of affection for him - him, the child, face contorting with misplaced anger, using strength as a bandage. You wanted to stand in front of him, between him and the anger, him and the other kids, and let him take a breath. You wanted to tell him to step with his punch to get more power. You wanted to put a hand on his shoulder and tell him, you’re going to be fine.

And he knew all of it, because he was in your mind.

Seungcheol - your Seungcheol - walked away from the swarm of children egging on the fight and opened a door. You followed.

Inside was not the school, but a hospital room. Your body jolted forward, distracting and alarming. You heard, faintly, a series of beeps, that robotic voice needling in your ears, saying, calibration failure… recalibrating in 3… 2… 1…

“It’s only a memory,” you said again, but the warning beeps were coming stronger, louder, more clearly. The hospital room looked opaque, and Seungcheol walked backwards towards you, away from it, herding you both out of the room. The room - a bed, a pulled curtain, a lot of white - flickered, like a glitch, and then vanished, leaving you standing in the simulator.

Neural handshake disengaged…

“Seungcheol!” you yelled, pulling your helmet off and wheeling on him as best you could with most of your body still strapped in. “What the hell was that? You pushed me out!”

He was breathing hard, eyes a little wild. “Not that,” he said, a little ragged. “I’ll let you in but - not that.”

“You don’t get to choose!” you snapped. Part of you knew this was just growing pains, he’d never drifted before, he was learning. But the rest of you smarted and stung - both from his rejection and from your failure to train, to succeed, to check off this final step before you could get inside your jaeger. “It’s kind of an all-or-nothing thing!”

He let out a billow of air, reaching a hand up to rub at his face. “Sorry. I’ll… let’s try again.”

You didn’t answer, fuming silently instead.

“I’m sorry, Cherry,” he said. “The stuff with my dad…”

“You can’t cherry-pick what we see and what we don’t,” you fired back. His eyes shot to yours and his mouth quirked and you read the joke all over his face. “Don’t you laugh, Seungcheol, it’s not funny!”

But you were laughing through the scolding.

“Stop,” you whined.

Your anger defused, he looked at you again, taking a bracing breath. “It’s not about you,” he tried to explain. “I’m not keeping you out. I’m keeping me out.”

“Don’t chase the rabbit,” you told him, shaking your head. “See what it wants you to see and move on. Find the next door. If you stand there and let your hurt - or your, I don’t know… grief - rise up… that’s when we’re going to have trouble.”

“Find the next door,” he repeated, eyes on the floor. “Got it.”

“You can’t push it away,” you reminded him, “but you don’t have to stay in it, either.”

He nodded, eyes already lighting up, ready to go again.

The second time, you saw him steel himself before opening that same door, watching carefully as he shuffled inside, only looking sideways at the hospital room that materialized around you.

“Seungcheol.”

He turned to look at you, wide-eyed, but you hadn’t called him. The voice, weak and hoarse, had come from the other side of the fluttering curtain.

The glitching started almost immediately - the image around you flickering like a bad wall projection. Something rocked beneath your feet, an earthquake only inside your minds.

You opened your mouth, started to tell him, you don’t have to stay, to remind him that he could move forward. Instead, you heard yourself say, “I’m here.”

The tremors under your feet quivered to a stop. You watched with trepidation and Seungcheol closed his eyes and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. Then, he held his hand out, waiting.

You slipped your hand into his, and then he turned and continued walking, ignoring his father’s memory calling out to him. The flickering stopped, the picture you were part of brightening again as you found the next door, stepped through, left his pain behind.

—

It got easier quickly. Seungcheol’s ability to press on, to maintain focus, strengthened.

The strolls through your mind went easier - you’d had years to practice maintaining focus, waiting until after to let the emotions hit you.

Seungcheol learned to be ready for you, after. He’d sit with you, silent, and breathe in tandem as you worked to let go, to release the images of Charron’s Revenge on the tech bay screen, the sounds of your parents’ frantic communication as they fought together, the fear crawling its way up your legs every time until someone in the bay said, “Charron’s Revenge, cleared to return.” The loneliness of being the only kid in the Dome, having no outlet except fighting. Everything that threatened your mind while you piloted, everything that you had to save for later - save for him.

You were both freshly turned twenty when you got green-lit to drive.

“Seungcheol!” you called across the mess hall, practically racing to your table. He turned, eyebrows raised, as you crossed the large room.

“We’re approved to drop!” you told him excitedly. It churned in you - finally, finally you could fight, you could prove what you could do, you could help. “We’re on the drop schedule for tomorrow!”

His grin was unfettered, unfiltered, just for you. He reached up a fist and you bumped it enthusiastically. You were too excited to eat, too excited to sleep. You tossed and turned, imagining experiencing a drop for the first time, imagining striding through the mighty sea like it was nothing, imagining staring down hell itself and bringing it to its knees.

You were still awake when you heard the alarms down the hall. Yours didn’t go off, because you weren’t on duty, weren’t approved to fight.

Down the hall, there was a flurry of commotion - shouting, rushing, people pushing past you as they pulled on boots and jackets.

“Cat-3 in the west bay,” someone shouted.

“Deploying Devil’s Advocate!”

You reached the tech bay, trying to stay out of the way but not unseen. When the Marshall strode by, you stepped sideways.

“Let us drop,” you said quickly, knowing time was precious. “It’ll be like practice. We can be back-up. We’ll hang back.”

“Absolutely not,” the Marshall said, already moving to work past you. “You’re not approved yet. We don’t need a liability right now.”

“We’re scheduled for tomorrow!” you protested, and then you felt a hand on your shoulder.

“We’ll get our turn,” Seungcheol told you quietly. Of course he’d come out, of course he found you.

You deflated. “It could have been us. We are hours from approval.”

He gave your shoulder a tiny shake. “We’ll get our turn,” he repeated. “Don’t make trouble.”

You glowered, but you knew he was right. “Fine,” you grumbled as Joshua and Jeonghan slinked past you in matching jackets and matching shit-eating grins. You stayed out of the way as they prepared to drop.

You stayed through the fight, listened to the control room buzz and chatter, until you heard, “Devil’s Advocate, cleared to return.”

Only then did you try to go back to sleep. Seungcheol gave your shoulder one more squeeze.

“Tomorrow,” he promised.

“Tomorrow,” you repeated.

—

Some people feel God at church. The history of tradition and the sanctity of ritual speak to them, help them feel part of something, help them feel that unnameable swell of something spiritual.

Some people feel God in nature. The patterns of the universe, the way math exists without human touch, the harmonies and patterns that seem too intricate for coincidence help them believe in a planner’s touch. The beauty of the outdoors allows them to wonder, to feel like they belong as a piece of this clockwork.

But you - you felt God when you stood before your jaeger, marveling at the power, the beauty, how it feels like yours, how it feels like Seungcheol before you’re even inside it. Duellona Fury promises you power, promises you purpose.

That hand was on your shoulder again, and it slid down to the center of your back before removing itself.

Beside you, Seungcheol stared up at your glorious machine.

“She looks sick,” he said, the grin taking over his face.

“I can’t wait to fuck shit up,” you murmured, your reverent tone at odds with the flippancy of your words.

“Ready?” the Marshall asked you, coming up to your left. “We’ll get you calibrated and dropped, and then you’ll do a lap of the bay. We’re sending out Pretty Savage just in case you run into trouble.”

The defensiveness rose in you quick, like a snakebite.

“We don’t need a babysitter,” Seungcheol said, voice hard. You reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze - a reminder to watch it, just as his hand on your shoulder frequently did for you.

“It’s just safety protocol.” The Marshall was unphased by the outburst. “Have fun, you two. Enjoy your first joy-ride.”

You screamed when you dropped, the exhilaration rushing out of you as Duellona Fury fell story after story before slowing and attaching to your jaeger’s mainframe.

Goosebumps raised along your arms when the Shatterdome’s sea-doors slid open, shudders traveling your body as you and Seungcheol stepped together, Duellona Fury stepping with you, her gigantic, metal form following every movement.

For the first time in your whole, careful life, you felt powerful. Your jaeger cut through the ocean waves like they were nothing, making an easy perimeter of the bay. In your head, you could somehow both hear and feel Seungcheol’s delight, his low-simmering desire to fight, to do something a perfect mirror of your own.

“How is it?” Soonyoung’s voice crackled in your ears, reminding you that Pretty Savage wasn’t far behind you.

“Incredible,” Seungcheol answered him, at the same time that you said, “It’s everything.”

It didn’t matter that you came from a family of pilots. It didn’t matter that you were raised in the Dome, training since you were young. None of that mattered. You were born for this - born to fight for your planet, born for Duellona Fury, born for Choi Seungcheol.

—

The west bay became Duellona’s playground; you and Seungcheol were often assigned to patrol there.

It was only a few months in that you faced a kaiju for the first time.

“Come in, Duellona Fury,” Nainsi’s voice came through. “We have a reading just a few miles north of you. Cat-2. Approaching at -”

Duellona Fury was turning due north before the command was even given.

“Are you ready for this?” you shouted to Seungcheol as Duellona slid through the water, the adrenaline singing in your system already.

“You know I am,” he answered, something hard in it, and the thrill in your stomach sparked.

When the sea split in half, the kaiju rising from the depths with an unearthly roar, you sank into a defensive stance, feeling Seungcheol move beside you, doing the same.

“Let’s fucking go,” Seungcheol said darkly, and launched forward, your arms rearing back for momentum before the first swing. The punch landed solidly, your whole body shaking once as the kaiju faltered backwards a few steps.

It opened its mouth and you glimpsed three rows of teeth bigger than a cow before it was lunging at you; Duellona Fury lurched. You tried to duck sideways as Seungcheol tried to move towards your opponent.

The moment of indecision cost you - the kaiju got its teeth on Duellona’s shoulder, knocking you back several steps. Beside you, Seungcheol roared as sparks flew near the bite.

“Are we breached?” you yelled, trying to steady your balance again.

“Not yet!” he yelled back, and you swung again, a hit landing hard enough to knock the kaiju loose, spitting it back into the sea.

You tried to move into a defensive crouch again; again, the jaeger faltered.

“Cherry!” Seungcheol yelled, desperation laced in his voice. “Cherry, don’t fight me!”

“Move with me!” you answered, and he did, miraculously, Duellona dodging left before an incoming attack.

Don’t fight me.

You rocked forward with Seungcheol as soon as you were clear of the kaiju’s trajectory, just as you’d done in practice thousands of times. Back in sync, Duellona Fury landed a kick to the kaiju’s middle that sent it stumbling.

“We’ve got him,” you said, feeling a win.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Seungcheol warned you. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the kaiju exploded from the dark ocean, limbs flailing as it flew towards you.

Duellona’s arms came up and locked it in battle, the impact shaking you so hard that your teeth chattered against each other. You groaned with exertion as you tried to match its strength.

“I don’t think we can hold it,” you managed through grit teeth.

“We’ve got this,” your partner promised, and with a mighty shove, you managed to flip the beast over your shoulder and beneath the waves.

“Drop the bombs and head for the east side,” you said quickly, already moving. Duellona Fury followed your command, turning and starting an easy run through the bay’s churning waters, away from where the kaiju was struggling to its feet, furious and vengeful. As she ran, she dropped three small explosives, about sixty feet apart. The explosives slipped into the ocean depths.

“Ready?” Seungcheol asked, a little breathless. “Are we far enough away?”

“Light him up,” you replied. Seungcheol reached up and tapped the button; somewhere behind you, the ocean exploded.

—

“How’s your shoulder?” you asked, later, in the med bay.

“Not that bad,” Seungcheol said, but you could see the blood-stains on the bandaging.

“It won’t happen again,” you promised. “I think I just… practiced alone for so long. I forgot to listen. I’m sorry.”

Seungcheol shook his hand, eyes finding yours. “There’s nothing to forgive, Cherry. Forget about it.” Then, he brightened. “You know what I want to do?”

“What?” you asked, not entirely past feeling guilty.

His smile was devilish. “I want to go celebrate our first fucking kill.”

– 

You marked the passing of two years in statistics.

Three hundred and forty-six explosives detonated.

Two hundred and eighty-three drops. Two hundred and eight-three kills. 

Seventy-two mainframe repairs.

Twenty-eight achievement awards.

Nine television interviews.

Six upgrades.

One ill-informed “vacation” during which you both itched with anxiety, spending the whole time messaging your friends back in the Shatterdome desperately, praying you wouldn’t miss a fight in which you were needed.

Seven hundred and thirty days of living in and around Seungcheol’s mind and heart. But that stat should’ve gone first.

It was a good high. Your team had a good run.

It wasn’t a kaiju that reduced it to ash, not an attack that took your team out of the rotation of main fighters and sent your jaeger to gather rust and dust below the Dome. It was your own stupid heart.

There were a lot of moments that could have been it. Each time you walked into a fight knowing the danger, each time he ended up in the med bay reeking of antibacterial ointment and resentment. Each time you slid into your place beside him - space he saved only for you. Each time his voice bidding you goodnight from the bottom bunk was the last thing you heard at the end of the day. Any of these moments might have been the one to make you stop, gasp, suddenly slammed with understanding. That you loved him, that he was everything you couldn’t bear to be without, that he was part of you. But they weren’t.

There was no moment of realization at all.

Instead, it slowly seeped into your consciousness, as gently and naturally as morning dew collecting on pre-dawn petals. The knowledge clung to you, as impossible to ignore as damp feet after running barefoot through the yard just after sunrise.

If you knew something, that meant your co-pilot would know it, too.

Unless you tucked it away, pushed it down deep and cast his attention elsewhere, a mental sleight-of-hand. Look here instead. 

You were twenty-three, on a routine patrol, when Mission Control radioed Duellona that there was a reading in the bay.

“Looks like it’s only a Cat-1,” Mission Control told you.

“On it,” you told them, feeling your body already mirroring Seungcheol’s as Duellona picked up her pace, striding through the waves. 

You glanced sideways at him, and immediately wished you hadn’t. He was already zoned in, eyes focused and jaw sharp as he concentrated. 

He caught your gaze for only a second. “Focus, Cherry,” he cautioned. “Don’t get cocky.”

“I would never,” you retorted, and he laughed. You were both cocky; you both knew it.

For a second, things felt better. 

The fight was almost easy, when the ocean seemed to split in two and the waves fell away like wrapping paper to reveal the kaiju you’d been sent for. 

You swung and ducked, dropping explosives strategically, Seungcheol moving in unison with you. There was something graceful about it - something beautiful in the sync, something holy in the way your muscles mimicked each other’s. 

This is what happens when sunlight hits morning dew: it warms, lifts, makes the air humid and sticky until it burns away. 

It rose up in you, your love for him, infusing the air around you, infusing the neural handshake that he was deeply imbedded in.

No. 

You panicked, tried to do several things at once - tried to shove the feeling down, tried to think of something else, tried to push Seungcheol’s consciousness out of yours.

Duellona Fury lurched around you, shuddering. 

“Cherry!” Seungcheol screamed to your left, and then the kaiju hit, its full weight slamming into Duellona’s mainframe.

You both staggered, trying to right yourselves, as the machines around you blinked and beeped and rebooted. 

Seungcheol grunted under the neural weight of driving alone as you gasped and closed your eyes, trying desperately to fix it. Around you, you heard the floating words - recalibrating.

“Recalibrate faster!” you shouted, glancing sideways to see your co-pilot struggling to hold the monster in place, his face contorting with effort, arms straining against the machinery. He bared his gritted teeth, exhaling in a hiss between them. 

You gave yourself a shake, bouncing on the balls of your feet, desperate for the connection to take again so you could pick up your half, take the literal weight from him. As soon as you felt the neural handshake, you gave a mighty shove and Duellona flipped the monster backwards, the ocean receding and then coming back to slam her shins, swallowing the monster whole.

You both sank into a defensive stance, ready for the beast to rise again.

“What was that?” Seungcheol demanded, later, as he sat in the med bay, waiting for his nosebleed to stop. The nosebleed you’d caused by letting him carry a neural load meant for two.

“I don’t know,” you lied, still panicked and desperate. 

“Bullshit,” Seungcheol countered, eyes narrowed. He reached up and pulled the cotton away from his face, examining it. “I’m fine now,” he announced, and tossed the wad into a nearby trash bin, standing.

You fought the urge to cower, knowing he’d never let it go if you did. You followed him silently out of the med bay and back towards your dormitories. Halfway there, he slowed, then stopped.

Then, more calmly this time, he asked, “What happened, Cherry? You pushed me out.”

There was a slight pout to it, a sliver of hurt, and it sliced through you like something tangible, like you were actually wounded from it, like it might actually bleed.

“I don’t know,” you repeated. Guilt poked at you until you relented, gave him something that was at least partly true.  “I got scared.” 

“That can’t happen, and you know it,” he said seriously, his large frame casting a long shadow to your left as he leaned into your space. “You can’t keep secrets - that’s piloting 101. We’ve got to handle it. You know what’s at stake here.”

You did; you did, and that was entirely the problem. It wasn’t just feelings, it wasn’t just your relationship with Seungcheol at stake. It was your relationship with your co-pilot - your ability to fight was at stake, your ability to keep others safe. Your legacy.

Your parents’ wall of pictures flashed in your mind.

“I’m going to my mom and dad’s for a while,” you said quietly. 

He nodded, let you run away - trusted you to come back to him when you were ready, trusted you to let him in.

You weren’t sure if he was right or wrong, as you walked away and left him behind.

You didn’t go to your parents’, though. Instead, you went to the tech bay and sat, watching Duellona undergo simple repairs from her fight. You stayed there, the metal cold beneath your thighs, watching the tech team buff over a scratch on your jaeger’s torso, until someone dropped into the spot next to you, bumping their shoulder roughly into yours.

“Where’s Seungcheol?” Wylie, who co-piloted Fury Striker with Chan, was your closest friend in the Dome besides Seungcheol. 

“He’s pissed at me,” you answered, looking sideways, because the question had really meant, why isn’t Seungcheol with you? 

You weren’t sure she’d understand what you were going through - she and Chan had been obsessed with each other since they were kids. Neither of them had ever had to fear that their love for each other would mess anything up. It had been part of their deal from the start.

“What’d you do?” Wylie demanded, turning her full, unfettered attention on you. You wanted to shrink from the intensity of it - but that was always how Wylie worked: full wattage, all the time.

“Almost got us killed by a fucking Cat-1 tonight,” you muttered, angry at yourself, angry at your heart.

Wylie smacked your arm hard enough to send you sideways. “Cherry!” she scolded. 

“There was something I didn’t want him to see.” You said it in your head first, weighed the words, then forced them through your teeth. You hoped she’d just know what it was, hoped you wouldn’t have to force those words past muscle and bone, too.

Wylie’s face dropped into irritation. “Cherry,” she repeated, disappointment dripping from the two syllables.

You looked up at Duellona Fury again. 

“You can’t do that,” she told you, giving your ankle a little kick for emphasis. “You know you can’t do that.”

You can’t love him? Or, you can’t keep secrets from him?

You didn’t ask. You didn’t want to know the answer.

Seungcheol was waiting up for you when you finally returned to the dorm. You opened the door to find the first room - an entryway and kitchen, both - dimly lit. Beyond it, in the small sitting space, Seungcheol sat facing the door, his chin in his hand.

You knew the look on his face. You knew it so well that you almost ran from it, almost turned right around and went back out to the hallway.

Brows slightly furrowed, mouth a straight line, jaw tight. Eyes focused, locked in. It was the face he made in training before he bodied someone. It was the face he made in the field before an offensive strike. It meant he had his sights on a target, a problem, and he was about to throw everything he had at it.

And right now, you were the problem.

“Hey?” you tried meekly.

He nodded. Licked his lips. Stood. 

He’s pissed at me, you’d told Wylie. The energy radiating from your co-pilot was much more complex than that, the air around you palpably tense and teetering.

“How was it at your parents’?” he asked, voice low. 

You took one tentative step closer. “I didn’t go,” you admitted. One lie between you was already more than you wanted. “I watched them patch up Duellona instead. Talked to Wylie a little.”

He nodded, eyes still on you. Nervousness coursed through you, but it would be a lie - another one - to say it wasn’t laced with a little excitement. He was stunning, always, but like this - it almost took your breath away.

If he was in your mind right now, there’d be no question. He’d know all of it. The attraction, the desire, the fear, the affection, the love, the need. All of it. 

His eyes caught on a bruise peeking out from the short sleeve of your top. “You should’ve had them look at that,” he said, reaching out like he wanted to run his fingers over the dark splotch, but he was just too far away, fingertips closing around the air just an inch or two away. 

You shook your head. “You needed attention first. You carried the neural load alone.” Because of me.

“Only for a minute.”

“A minute too long. I’m… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

It hung between you. You don’t know if you’d inched forward or he had, or both, but you were close enough to touch now when you hadn’t been just seconds ago.

He lifted his eyes, his gaze locking on yours. In the dim room, his eyes shone black. “You pushed me out.”

It was an accusation, but it was also a question.

“I’m sorry,” you repeated, barely able to say it, your voice coming out in a hoarse whisper. “Seungcheol, I was scared.”

Maybe he was in your head. Maybe he did know all of it.

“Don’t be,” he told you. “Don’t be scared.”

His arms were around you though you didn’t see him move. It wasn’t the first time you’d let him embrace you - after a fight, in relief, or in victorious delight, or sometimes just in sleepy affection at the end of a long day. It was far from the first time that you’d found comfort in the space between his arms, strong and capable around your frame, your forehead pressed against his sternum as his heart beat directly into your bones. 

But it was the first time that his fingers, confident and sure, tipped under your chin, guiding you to look up at him, guiding your mouth to meet his.

You don’t know if you melted or exploded - it was somehow both at once. You gripped his back, feeling the muscles move beneath his t-shirt, relaxing into his hold and focusing on the feel of his full lips firm and hungry against your own. This was everything - everything you’d wanted, everything you were afraid of, everything you needed, everything that could rip your life apart.

You didn’t mean to whine, but it slipped up your throat and into the gasped space between your lips and his as you tried to pull in a desperate breath. He responded with a grunt, walking you backwards until the edge of the kitchen counter jutted into your lower back. His hands traveled, up to the back of your neck, back down to the slight curve of your waist, around to the back of your ass. He tugged your hips against his roughly, and you let your head fall back, panting, head spinning.

“Cherry,” he breathed against the newly bared stretch of your neck, his lips close enough to drag against your skin as he spoke.

Your hands found the back of his neck, gave the slightest tug upwards, and he followed, bringing his mouth back to yours. His tongue pressed yours briefly, your moan muffled entirely by his mouth as you tried to press him closer, closer, as if you wanted your rib-cages to meld, to slip together like fitting puzzle pieces. 

His hand slipped lower from your ass and wrapped around your thighs, taking only a second to lift you onto the counter behind you. You wrapped yourself around him immediately, pulling him into the space between your legs, arms around his neck, pulling him in, wanting to feel every bit of him against you. 

His hands found the hem of your shirt and lifted; you raised your arms in compliance and felt the cotton slip over your head and your hands.

“Yours,” you murmured, but he had already reached back between his shoulder blades, his own top joining yours on the floor.

Your hands found him on their own, sliding over his skin, fingers dipping between muscles, thumbs sweeping over shadows.

You kissed until you turned liquid, molten, your fingers wrapped in his hair. His fingers mapped every inch of your skin, as if his job was to report back on every previously unknown dip, every rough circle, every beauty mark or blemish. His fingers traced them all, his hands passing over you reverently.

The brush of his bare chest against your own was torturous; delicious until you were full, until you couldn’t take it anymore, until the electric-sharp thrill became uncomfortable. You tilted backwards, creating more space between your torsos but pushing your hips firmly into his.

You both groaned at the contact. You could feel the heat and weight of him now, and everything instinctual within you urged you to shift further, to bring that heat and heaviness closer to the part of you that ached for it. 

He pressed his hips into you without reservation, your core clenching in response to the movement and the friction. 

Then he leaned back, his hands gripping the edge of the counter, his arms bracketing you on either side, his chest heaving as he struggled to control his breathing. He drank you in, his eyes as molten as you felt. You leaned back on your elbows and met his gaze.

The moment expanded; nothing existed but his eyes and the pant of his breath and the way he smelled like he’d just finished a fight and the way he felt between your thighs, unmovable and steady.

Neither of you was connected to jaeger machinery, but you may as well have been, because you knew without a shadow of a doubt that your minds were connected, the drift be damned. Your eyes locked, you knew he felt everything you felt - the gravity of what you were doing, the love that drove you, the fire coursing through you. If there was going to be hesitation or questioning, this was the moment, this was the pause. But you were one, your minds were one, and there was none of that. 

His unvoiced question definitively answered by the certainty that flowed between you, Seungcheol moved to lift you again, taking you easily from the countertop into the dark of the room you share, settling you on your back on his bottom bunk.

Above you, mostly shadowed, was your other half, the only person who knew and understood every cobwebbed corner of your consciousness, the only person who had walked through your mind and found himself mirrored in every way that mattered. He was beautiful in the fractured light, his expression serious and gaze intense. 

You reached up to slide your thumb along his jaw and his eyes fluttered closed, his breath leaving him as in relief, as if you’d made some kind of admission. 

Making love to Seungcheol felt like drifting. His eyes on you as his fingers pulled you apart felt the same as the careful way he’d watch you when your memories got emotional, like he was watching for any sign that you weren’t okay, that you needed more or less or him. 

The way his breath and shoulders shuddered when he pressed into you for the first time felt the same as when he faltered in face of his father’s memory; both times, his fingers laced through yours and held tight until you could both breathe again.

He felt how you’d always known he would. Perfect - a perfect fit for you, a physical compatibility you had never tested but had always trusted would be there. He took you apart without even trying, and all you could do was hold onto him, feel all of him, feel all of it, and try to remember to breathe.

You didn’t speak as you moved together in the dark; the only sounds in the tight room were muted gasps, tiny moans muffled against necks, skin on skin, the obscene squelching sounds that accompanied each snap of his hips. You didn’t say the words that your lips tried to form - it’s so much, go slow for a little, Seungcheol, I love you, more - please, don’t stop. Maybe he heard them. Maybe this was a different way to drift, one that didn’t need wires.

You did your best to hold his gaze, losing sight of him only when you strained up to kiss him, when you nuzzled your face into the warmth between his neck and shoulder and gasped against a wave of sensation, when you couldn’t help but close them as they rolled back, your toes curling. 

He pressed his forehead to yours when he finished, your name slipping out of him, as if it had been literally squeezed from his lungs. “Cherry… Cherry…”

You lay together in silence for a long time, feeling your hearts slow, your skin cool. Your thumb traced his jaw again and again, slow, worshipful. “Cheol,” you whispered. My Cheol. My everything. You didn’t say the rest as you lay together in the quiet, in the dark, your heartbeats competing. 

You didn’t know that you’d drifted together for the last time. You didn’t know that your ability to neural connect could be broken.

–

The wind whips around you, stinging your face. You barely flinch. When you’d first relocated here, three years ago, the cold had made you literally cry during your first month. Just from having to walk from the door of the dormitory across the yard to the mess hall dorm, the intensity of it had sent you spiraling into misery - damning the circumstances that had sent you here, away from everyone and everything you knew and loved, to a place where the air hurt. 

You were sure it would hurt, this intensely, forever.

But time eased the sting, and despite your doubts you did adjust. Now the early morning wind feels bracing and refreshing rather than painful. You’ve adjusted to a lot of things since relocating to a small training center in Alakanuk, Alaska: the climate, the food, the no-frills campus you lived and worked on. Being away from your parents, from Wylie and Chan and Seungkwan and Jeonghan and all the other pilots you were friends with at the Shatterdome.

Being away from Seungcheol. Being partnerless, a half instead of a whole. 

Being unable to pilot, unable to fight. 

Being brokenhearted.

Just like the cold, the pain of your losses was the same - the sting of heartbreak and loneliness and homesickness faded to something ignorable, something you could keep tucked tight in the back of your mind. 

You can hear the noise from inside the mess hall before you even cross the courtyard. There are short of fifty girls ranging from ages seven to eighteen being housed here, but from the noise you’d swear it was at least a hundred. 

The buildings are single-storied, painted with a heavily-chipping grey-blue that sometimes seems to belong to the mist you often get rolling in from the ocean. When you’d first come, you’d legitimately thought they were painted that way as camouflage, meant to blend in with the sea. The other trainers had a good laugh about that. 

As you cross the courtyard between the trainers’ dorms and the mess hall, you breathe deeply, eyes on the birds alight above you. After a lifetime in the Shatterdome, you don’t take for granted the fresh air you’re afforded as you pass between buildings, outside, the sky open and changing above. You don’t take for granted the rhythm of the ocean, the cries of the gulls, nor the distant treeline.

It was Seungcheol who had noted that you were sheltered, having never lived outside of the Dome. 

It was Seungcheol you could blame - at least halfway - for your relocation here, where there wasn’t a jaeger or even a city for hundreds of miles. 

When you pull open the flimsy door to the mess hall, the noise triples. Several of the girls call out to greet you, and you give them a quick wave as you head to the table where the staff eats.

“You’re later than normal,” one of the other instructors notes as you reach for a piece of bread.

You shrug lightly, unbothered. “Still have plenty of time before the first class. What day is today, Thursday? I’ve got the little ones first, right?”

The all-girls training center is meant to teach fighting and the groundworks for drifting, but no jaegers are housed here, no teams launch into the icy bay. The girls here will grow up to pilot - if they get selected, if they get paired with a partner. 

You’re mostly here to teach them to fight, the way you trained in the Dome, but you do plenty more. Help brush hair in the mornings, console tearful faces, teach games and sports, mediate arguments. You also got sucked into running one literacy class a week, though you still haven’t figured out how that happened. 

It would be a lie to say this wasn’t fulfilling, that you didn’t love the girls you cared for, that you weren’t happy here with the ocean and birds and trees and laughter. In many ways, the seclusion of this training center is exactly what you needed to get back on your feet, to find strength in yourself, to heal with distance and time.

But, god, what you would give for a real fight. What you would give to feel both loved and threatened by Wylie, to rib at the guys, to hug your mom. What you would give to hear Seungcheol’s teasing pout, to catch his gaze across the span of your jaeger and know what his body and yours will do, to feel his fingers just barely graze your back when he knows you need to be reminded to focus.

The final time you’d tried, the neural connection never took. It was like trying to connect with a stranger. It had simply been still, a thing that was never alive.

“Don’t do this,” Seungcheol had begged, and that had been the nail in the coffin.

Don’t do this, he’d said. It had landed like blame. Like everything was your fault, and only yours. Like you had broken the connection on purpose, were keeping him out, barricading your mind from his when you desperately wanted everything to go right back to normal.

After that failure, you didn’t tell him you were asking to be reassigned. You didn’t want to give him the chance to say don’t do this a second time.

You’ve just ended a class, the girls starting to filter out through the training room’s side door towards the mess hall for lunch, when the center’s Administrator calls your name from the door.

“There’s a call for you on my line. I have them holding.”

A call? 

Adrenaline races through you; it has to be an emergency. Your parents and friends can reach you on your own device, which is tucked into your back pocket. To call the mainline here at the center means this is a base-to-base call, not a personal one.

You’ve only been in this office a handful of times in your few years here, and you shuffle awkwardly around the desk and pick up the receiver that sits abandoned on the chipped, wooden desktop. 

You greet the person on the line with your real name. 

“Cherry?”

Your Marshall - your old Marshall, from the Dome - sounds unsure if he has the right person on the line. No one has called you Cherry in three years. Even your parents have used your given name the few times they’ve said it on your weekly calls home.

“It’s me,” you affirm. “Is everything okay? My parents?”

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, and you heave a relieved breath. “Everyone is fine. This is official business. I want to call you in.”

You shake your head, frowning, well aware that he can’t see your reaction. Your body has said no, but you force yourself to ask, “Me? Why?”

“We’re down a few teams,” the Marshall says. “And -”

“You’ve got more recruits than places to put them,” you counter before he can finish. “Call one of the new teams up. Call three new teams up. You don’t need me.”

“We do - we need teams with experience, teams that are ready. Not rookies bumbling around looking for mistakes. We need precision. We need Duellona Fury.”

Your Marshall lays out the situation: the teams that are out, the problems they’re having at the breach - less time between attacks, more monsters at once. You’ve seen this before, you all have, and there’s protocol in place - protocol that starts with all hands on deck. 

You shake your head again. From the door, the Administrator of the center watches you seriously, like she knows you’re being taken away. 

“Marshall, with all due respect, I don’t know why you’re calling me,” you admit. “What can I give you? I can’t pilot Duellona.”

Not anymore. 

The Marshall sighs, like he knew this argument was coming and didn’t have a good response. 

“I think you can,” he says finally. “I’m not saying it will be easy, and I’m not saying it will happen quickly or without effort. But I think you can.”

“No,” you say, the first time you’ve voiced it. “You were there. You saw what happened. We can’t drift anymore.”

“You couldn’t then,” he points out. “That was three years ago. You’ve both had a lot of time to…. You’ve both had a lot of time since then. Things that were once too painful to carry into the drift… they’ve had time to mellow.”

This blow knocks you into silence. You sink your teeth into your bottom lip, eyes steadfastly on the warped wood of the desk, fingers toying absently with the Administrator’s pen. 

He’s wrong, and you want to tell him so. Nothing had mellowed. You love Seungcheol just as much today as you did three years ago. The splitting ache in your chest that you’ve felt every day since you became aware of loving him has only worked its way deeper with time. 

And Seungcheol’s anger? The anger and betrayal he’d leveled at you, when he was sure you were keeping him out of your head on purpose? You couldn’t speak for him, but if you had to guess, there weren’t enough years in a human life to let that hurt mellow into something safe enough to drift with.

“Have you talked to him about this?” You’re afraid of the answer. 

The Marshall hesitates. “Not yet.”

“You might want to do that first,” you point out. “Before flying me back only to have him refuse.” 

The Marshall’s voice hardens, and you can just picture his eyes narrowing. “Mr. Choi will follow orders,” he says evenly, “and so will you. Asking is really just a courtesy.”

“You can’t order us into being able to drift again,” you snap, pulse suddenly pounding in your arms, your hands, your face, your chest. 

“No,” the Marshall says, and any previous friendliness is gone from his voice now, “but I can - and will - order you to try.”

The girls cry when you tell them you’re leaving, and it makes you want to cry, too. You hold it together as you give them hugs, hold it together as you pack your single bag of belongings. You hold it together in the passenger seat of the center’s only beat-up van, waving out the back window as the training center fades away.

It’s standing on the deck of the ferry, the coast receding and the sea wind clawing at your face, that you let it go. You bury your face behind your hands and feel it release behind your ribs. You cry for all of it - for leaving the girls behind, for leaving a place that had sheltered you like a sanctuary. For the time you’d lost at the Dome, for the fights you’d sat out, for the years with your parents and friends that had slipped away like sand between your fingers. For your fear that Seungcheol will turn you away, just as hurt and angry as he was one thousand and ninety-five days ago. 

You’d been so determined to keep him from walking through the depths of your love for him, in the drift. You were so scared it would be too much, too intense, too much emotion for the drift. You’d been scared it would be too much for him - that the weight of it would inherently ask for more than he could give you in return. You’d been scared it would ruin your partnership, your compatibility, your capability to co-pilot.

But that had happened anyway. You almost have to laugh. 

As furiously as your tears begin, they peter out quickly. You take a few deep gulps of salty air, use the backs of your hands to wipe at your cheeks and beneath your nose. As you calm down, you keep your eyes on the horizon, your hands tight on the ship’s railing, and you let your mind wander back to Seungcheol. Here, thousands of miles away, you let yourself think back to those last weeks before you left the Shatterdome. You let yourself wonder, for the first time, what exactly caused everything to crumble.

You’d been so afraid to let Seungcheol into your head once the loving him had taken over. Why had it scared you so badly? As you keep your eyes on the grey of the horizon, you puzzle it out in your mind.

Had it been the uncertainty? That had certainly played a part. Did Seungcheol love you, back then? If he didn’t, everything between you could have changed - your friendship, your partnership, your ability to drift. It hadn’t seemed worth the risk to lose it all - his presence in your life, your ability to fight together. 

But maybe he had. If he did love you, back then… that would have changed things, too. What if starting something romantic affected your drift? There were too many maybes, too many variables. It had seemed safe to push it all down, to try and keep him away from it. To try and keep things the same.

Of course, you’d lost it all anyway.

Even if he did love you three years ago, you think as the sea air whips around you, did he love you the way you loved him? What if it had been too much - the way you could breathe once he was with you, the way you kept each other in check - what if he had loved you, but not that much?

Had it been a mistake to keep him out? Maybe. But it could have been just as catastrophic to let him in. There was no way to know, now.

You turn away from the ship’s railing, away from the horizon and the sea, away from your mistakes. There’s no use looking back like this. You can’t change it. You aren’t even sure you can fix it.

You were hoping to sleep on the plane, but you’re woefully awake well after take-off. Determined not to keep ruminating on what had happened before you left, instead you wonder what awaits you now.

The most-likely scenario, you think, professional and polite - but cold. Like you, he takes duty and responsibility seriously. The airplane bumps, a pocket of air jostling the small craft, and your hands find the armrests and cling tight until it stops.

The best case scenario, of course, would be that enough time has passed that Seungcheol’s hurt has faded. Maybe, you think, maybe he’s moved on from harboring that anger. Maybe he’ll greet you warmly, maybe you’ll pick up right where you left off.

This hope, this day-dream, aches, so much that you blink it away and turn to watch the clouds through the window, a desperate distraction. You crave Seungcheol - you crave feeling safe with his arms around you, you crave the elation you’d feel when he entered the room you were in, you crave the peace that comes with two minds engaged in neural handshake - the peace of someone’s mind interlaced with your own, understanding you, operating with you, picking up half of your mental lift.

You crave his giggle when you say something stupid in the dark of the dorm before bed, his pout when he feels like he isn’t getting enough attention, you crave his voice echoing in your head long after he’s gone asleep because you heard him talk to you all day long. 

You crave his lips on yours, his teeth on your neck, his hands on your body, even if you only had it once. You’ve craved it ever since.

You crave closing your eyes and pressing your forehead to his sternum, feeling safe and quiet and like you belong. You miss the sanctuary of that space, chest to chest with him, something sacred in the way it exists only for you.

You know you can’t have it - any of it. The daydream isn’t real. Your curse will be to crave it forever, alone.

When you arrive at the Shatterdome, it’s your parents who greet you just inside. For a moment, you’re happy to be back, overcome with emotion as you hug them tight. They’ve aged in these three years. You’ve missed them awfully. You only tell them the latter. 

They walk with you to the Marshall’s office, where you’re meant to report upon arrival. 

You hesitate, covering the moment by tugging your duffle’s strap higher on your shoulder. Your mother reads you anyway, reaching out and giving your shoulder a squeeze. 

“It will be okay,” she whispers. 

Your father catches on. “You’ve faced down worse,” he reasons. 

You disagree. There’s no monster in the sea bigger than your love for Seungcheol, no wounding possible that could hurt more than losing him has. But you appreciate the sentiment, so you give them each a grateful nod, tell them you’ll visit after dinner, and turn to knock on the door.

“Come in,” the Marshall’s voice carries through the door, and you turn the knob and step inside. 

All you see is Seungcheol; the Marshall, the office furniture, the flickering screens on the walls all snap into nonexistence in the presence of your former lover. He’s the only thing in the room that comes into focus. Everything else is just fuzzy noise.

His face wavers for a moment when your eyes meet his, the muscles rippling as he fights to get them under control. 

You don’t know what reaction he’s fighting. You don’t know if he’s feeling happiness or hatred. You don’t know if he’s fighting a smile or a scowl.

You give him a quick bow in greeting, and he returns it. His face is stone, now, his mouth tight and eyes flat. 

He turns to face the Marshall, to receive orders, so you do the same.

“I trust your travel went well?” the Marshall begins.

You nod, not trusting yourself to speak. Even the single syllable of yes will come out of your mouth like gravel and dirt and sand, getting everywhere, leaving a trail.

“Your orders,” he says then, a bit of a sigh on his tone - as if he knows the uphill battle this will be, “are to reconnect as best you can. You’ll follow your old schedule. You’ll spar, you’ll meditate, and you’ll talk. After some time, we’ll try the drift again, see if the connection has recovered any.”

Seungcheol’s voice startles you when he speaks. “How long do you imagine it will be before we try?” he asks, just cold enough to have a sliver of sarcasm in it. 

The Marshall’s eyes narrow, just slightly, as if he’d caught it. “That’s entirely up to you two,” he says evenly. “When you were young and hungry to fight, you trained yourselves into exhaustion. You spent every waking second trying to cultivate the bond that would carry you into your jaeger. With the same intention and drive, I imagine you could be piloting Duellona within the week.”

You fight to keep your chin up, your eyes on the Marshall, instead of ducking your head and watching the floor. The Marshall lifts his arm and glances at his watch. 

“Your allotted time in Sparring Room 7 begins on the hour,” he says. This is his way of dismissing you.

In the hallway, you pause. “I’m just going to drop my bag in the dorm,” you say quietly, not looking at Seungcheol. 

He gives a tight nod. “Fine,” he says, and turns to go the other way, towards the sparring and training rooms. Clearly he intends to meet you there. You heave a deep breath, and turn back towards the wing with the dorms.

Stepping into the dorm you used to share with Seungcheol hits you harder than you thought it would. You’re not sure what you expected - to feel like coming home, maybe, or perhaps to be slapped with the memories of you and Seungcheol together, dancing around each other as you hurried to get dressed for a drop, lazing around in the sitting area after a full day of training. And, of course, the single night you’d spent together.

Neither thing happens. You aren’t overcome by a feeling of nostalgia and love, nor are you inundated by memories of what you’ve lost. Instead, the room feels exactly as it is: empty and still.

Your footsteps’ echoes taunt you as you walk through the kitchen, the sitting area, and into the bedroom. It’s pristine to the point of detriment; it feels like no one lives there. You set your bag on the floor near the foot of the bed - you can unpack later, after training - and turn to go.

Strangely, it’s stepping into the training room that slams you with memory and nostalgia. The wood cool beneath your feet, the vague smell of sweat and citrus-y cleaner, the sounds of punches landing and grunts of effort from the training rooms on either side - they all cocoon you in history, making goosebumps rise on your arms as the emotions surround you.

It makes sense, you think, as Seungcheol glances over his shoulder at the sound of your arrival. He doesn’t speak to you, just swaggers to the center of the room and takes a stance you recognize from Form One. Your body leads you opposite him, muscle memory guiding you into the first form you ever learned with him. It makes sense that this would be what felt like home - your minds going empty together, your bodies following the steps in unison. The sparring forms are the closest you can get to drifting without an actual neural connection.

Well, that and sleeping together, but you don’t see that on your agenda.

You stare at him across the invisible circle between you and try to read him. His face is cold and empty, but that already tells you so much about what he’s feeling. Seungcheol was never cold with you. When you fought together he slipped into that mode you loved so much - ready to level anything, chin lifted, eyes narrowed, confident and so very strong. But it was when you were together outside the fights that you had loved him best - often pouting, lips protruding, voice lifting into a whine. And the best of all - that smile, dimples creating shadows that beg for your thumb to press them, eyes squeezing shut with happiness or laughter.

Something must show on your face, because you watch the muscles in Seungcheol’s upper body untense, as if he’d been ready to fight and recognized that you weren’t.

“I’m good,” you mutter quickly, before he can ask. It feels better to lie to him before he actually asks you, like that’s somehow less dishonest. “Let’s go.”

Form One is basic - no hits, no fancy moves. At the training center, you’d teach it to the littlest ones until they had it memorized. It was really about control and communication - precision and alignment with your partner. You had to breathe together as your feet traced opposite circles across the knots in the wooden floor. You had to rise and bend in unison. It was about watching and listening.

You and Seungcheol could - literally, you’d tried more than once - do it blindfolded in perfect step with one another. Before. You don’t know if you still can. But, now, unblindfolded, it’s too easy.

You move through forms one through six without incident - both of you flowing as easily as water.

Form Seven is the first form that incorporates actual hits and blocks. You’ll have to touch for the first time, even if it’s forearm to forearm or ankle to shoulder. You move right as he moves left, crouch and circle as his right foot flies over your head, stand and punch where you know his open hand will be waiting to stop you.

It is, and you press your fist against it for just a second before spinning away to continue the form. You ache, even as your body continues following the steps, to have him entirely again - to meet his eyes and smile the way you both used to, because you were pleased with what your bodies could do. Because you had each other, completely.

After the tenth form, you bow, turn, and walk out of the ring. You drink some water, your back to him. Years ago you’d have used this break to chat, but you don’t know what to say to him. You’re scared that he’ll shut down anything you say, whether you choose small talk or go straight for the heart of the problem, and you honestly don’t think you can shoulder his rejection right now. So you stay quiet.

After a few short minutes of rest, you return to the center of the room. This is when you’ll spar for real.

You and Seungcheol had done this for years before things went wrong. You’d long ago adjusted to how hard you should hit, how to dodge his moves, how to make this a dance as much as a fight. Now, you feel like it’s your first time again.

Seungcheol attacks as you’d expect - all offensive, pushy, succeeding in herding you backwards even as you dodge each blow. You know his goal is to flip you, and normally you can avoid that by forcing him to go on the defensive as he avoids your own hits. Simply dodging won’t be enough - eventually he’ll cage you in unless you distract him.

You throw yourself into a summersault and manage to get behind him - an opportune moment to strike. You shift your weight to follow the blow as you twist your hips to send a kick towards his unprotected head. He turns just too late - the blow will land.

You can’t do it. You freeze, your core working to keep you upright as you fight your own momentum, halting the kick inches from his temple.

You know immediately that pulling the hit was a mistake. His eyes narrow, and he sweeps his foot at the ankle you’re balancing on. You crash to the ground, heaving a breath and taking quick inventory.

You aren’t hurt. Not this time.

“Get up, Cherry,” he says darkly, moving back to the center to start again. “And don’t do that shit again.”

He comes at you full force in the next match, too. You dodge and weave, but you don’t try to strike. You know he knows it; this isn’t how it used to work. You can almost feel him get angrier as you fight, but you can’t make yourself hit back. You want him to knock you down, you deserve to take some shots.

You take two blows to the back and one to a shoulder; you fall back unsteadily but manage to find your footing and roll away from his next kick.

The match continues - you taking a handful of blows, though none with the force to level you, and Seungcheol with his lip curled in fury.

“If you’re not going to fight, then leave,” he spits.

“Would if I could,” you retort without thinking. You mean that you don’t want to be here like this - not talking, cold, at odds. But you know it reads as not wanting to be here at all.

It seems like everything you say and do only hurts him more.

“I didn’t mean -” you start, and Seungcheol takes your arms and flips you over his shoulders.

“Don’t waste my fucking time,” he says, brushing his hands together and stepping back to give you room to pick yourself up.

“Don’t curse at me,” you answer, pushing yourself to your hands and knees, pausing to catch your breath before rising fully again.

He shakes his head, rolls his eyes a little.

You hate this side of him.

You know you deserve it. For pushing him out. For leaving him here. For loving him, messing everything up, when he never asked for that.

“Seungcheol,” you say, but he ignores you, pacing a few steps and then turning to face you, lowering himself into a defensive stance, ready to spar again.

“Cheol,” you try again. “Listen to me.”

“Marshall scheduled us time to talk later,” he says flatly. “Right now we’re scheduled to fight. So fight me, Cherry. Let’s go.”

The rest of the hour continues the same. By the time it’s over, Seungcheol storms out without speaking to you, furious over every single pulled punch.

You don’t know what to do to make it all better.

You shower quickly, dressing in dry linens, and then re-emerge for the hours you’re scheduled to meditate together. You hope that maybe this will help the situation - maybe not talking will be good for you, give you a chance to feel your connection without the chance to fuck it up with words.

You’re wrong; trying to meditate together is just as desperately fruitless as sparring had been.

You can’t focus at all - can’t shift your attention to your breath, to your body, to the earth beneath you, to the energy of your partner.

Your partner is the distraction, though he sits perfectly still, eyes closed. He might as well be yelling. His shoulders are tight, his jaw still clenched. Anger radiates off him so strongly that it makes your stomach hurt, makes you want to cower from it. You can’t stop watching him, hoping you’ll see him relax, hoping you’ll see the moment that he lets go.

He doesn’t.

“Your eyes are supposed to be closed,” he murmurs, and you feel your face heat, embarrassed that he knew you were watching him.

“I can’t,” you admit. Maybe, you think, you should just be brutally honest, starting now. It’s not like you could make this worse. “I can’t stop noticing how angry -”

“Then stop pissing me off,” he snaps, eyes opening. “Just a suggestion.”

“Don’t talk to me like that!” you cry, and push yourself to stand. You’re not sure why - maybe just to pace. “You never used to talk to me like this. Who are you?”

He looks at the floor, the first sign of guilt you’ve seen since you came home.

“Fine,” he finally bites back, and you know it’s as close to sorry as you’ll get. “I’ll reign it in. Sit back down.”

You shift your weight, arms crossed defensively across your chest, and close your eyes, deciding.

“Sit down, Cherry,” he repeats, and it’s gentler now. That’s what makes you cave, and you settle back across from him.

He’s less tense this time, so you eventually manage to close your eyes and count your breaths. But you’re still feeling for him, reaching for him in your mind, and coming up with nothing between you fingers. Touching him is as possible as touching the fog that used to blanket the training center, thick enough to blind you but impossible to grasp.

The pain feels like a cramp, except it’s behind your ribs instead of in your muscles. The pain grips and tightens, takes over. You want him, you want to be his again, you want to be inside these walls - where you used to fit comfortably. The fact that you’re out here, without him, aches so badly it makes you nauseated.

You want to beg him - let me in again, let me back in, let me be close to you again.

It won’t do any good, and you know it.

He was yours - you had him, you knew him, you could reach out to him and he’d pick you up. You’d taken it for granted, and you’d run away from it. You’d chosen to let it go, and now all you get is this: Seungcheol, cold and closed. Seungcheol, hating you for everything that happened.

—

Dinner is just as bad.

You go to the mess hall eager to see Wylie and Jeonghan and Seungkwan and all the other friends you haven’t seen in years. Wylie screeches like a banshee when she spots you, crossing the mess hall in a blur and hugging you so tightly that you both stagger, off balance, until Seungkwan joins the hug and rights you again.

“I missed you both so much,” you whisper, the only vulnerability anyone’s going to get out of you today.

“Then don’t leave again!” Wylie snaps, but you know the admonishment is full of love.

“I can’t promise,” you admit. Honestly, you’ve already made up your mind - you want to go back to Alaska. You’re not wanted here, not by the person who matters. What good are you, taking up a bed, if you can’t drift?

You’ve already given up hope that he’ll come around.

Seated at the table, you listen while your friends fill you in on what you’ve missed in three years - the fights in the bay, the new teams of pilots, the illnesses and injuries. You almost don’t notice Seungcheol silently takes a seat on Jeonghan’s other side, but something in you prickles, like you’ve sensed him.

The tension around the table heightens; the conversation goes a little stilted. When it’s apparent that he’s going to ignore you two seats down from him, Wylie slaps her hand flat on the tabletop.

“Come on, Seungcheol,” she scolds, and you’re sure no one wonders what she means.

His face goes dark so quickly it’s alarming. “Don’t,” he tells her darkly, one finger coming up to point at her in warning.

Her own eyes narrow and dart to her fork. Beside her, Chan’s eyes pingpong between them. He’s probably wondering if he should hold her back or join her.

“It’s fine,” you mutter, grabbing your tray and making to rise. “I’ll go.”

“Cherry, no,” Wylie protests, and then turns a glower onto your ex-co-pilot as if to say see what you did?

“It’s fine,” you repeat, standing. “I told my mom and dad I’d come by.”

You slink out before anyone else can argue.

You can’t even be mad at him - you did this by pushing him away. You hammered every last nail in the coffin by requesting to transfer. You pushed him out and you left him behind and now you have to face the reality that you can’t have him anymore. He isn’t yours, not anymore.

When you return to your dorm, he’s already in bed, the lights out. He’s facing the wall so you can only see his back, can only see the angry, tight shoulder poking out the top of the sheets. It tells you everything you need to know.

You don’t try to talk to him. You just go to bed.

—

You spend four days identically - fighting while sparring, not meditating, and avoiding Seungcheol’s ice-out. On the fifth day, your Marshall loses patience and changes your schedule. Your entire day is blocked to working on Duellona’s mainframe - buffing, repainting, greasing, and anything else you’re able to handle on your own.

“Since you can’t do anything else useful,” he adds, and you avoid Seungcheol’s eyes, ashamed.

Standing under Duellona’s unlit frame fills you with guilt. It feels like you’re letting her down, disappointing her by letting her rust here, failing your half of the bargain. You run your hands gently over the metal, finding the rough spots that need attention. Somewhere to your left, you can hear the telltale sounds of Seungcheol tightening bolts.

You work in silence for hours.

Eventually, you crack. You’re not sure if it’s the monotony of the task, the tension woven into the silence between you too, or being so close to your jaeger but unable to fight in it - maybe a combination. Something pushes at you from the inside, like a balloon trying to inflate under your skin and running out of room.

You flop backwards on the metal walkway, the grooves digging into your back. “What are we doing?” you ask, and you hear the tool Seungcheol had been using cling loudly as he sets it down.

“Following orders?” he says, stepping around Duellona’s side to look at you. “Fixing up the jaeger?”

“Fixing up the jaeger we don’t get to pilot?” you ask, sitting back up to look at him better.

“Is that what you’re here for?” he asks, the sudden ferocity of it surprising you. “To fight? Is that why you came back?”

You reach up to the walkway’s railing and pull yourself up. You feel yourself frowning at his question, at the heat behind it. 

“I’m back because the Marshall gave me an order,” you say slowly. 

“And that’s it?” he demands. 

You stare at him. You feel sure there’s more to the question, more that he’s asking. You feel sure, after knowing Choi Seungcheol down to the last molecule, that he’s really asking, you didn’t come back for me?

And it confuses you. You try to think about your split from his perspective: you’d shut him out, then slept with him, and then vanished. You’d made a lot of assumptions about his anger since then. You assumed he was angry at you for pushing him out of your head. You assumed he was angry at you for sleeping with him and then leaving. You assumed he was angry with you for ruining your drift, for ripping him away from the ability to fight. You assumed he was angry because he never knew why - never knew what it was that you were so desperate to hide, never knew why sleeping together had made things so much worse that the neural connection had fizzled into nothing altogether.

Is there more to it, his anger?

Should you call him on it, should you ask?

You take too long deciding. Seungcheol scoffs, like he’s disgusted with you. “I should have known,” he says coldly. “Princess of the Shatterdome, I should have known you only cared about piloting - about your legacy.”

This is something you’ve never said to him - that your desire to shine as brightly as your parents has weighed on you. This is something he’d pulled from the drift, something he only knew from tiptoeing around your mind before a fight. 

“That isn’t fair,” you say, your voice hard. “Is there another reason I should have come back? I’d love to hear it.”

He hears the challenge as it is - you didn’t ask me to come back, the Marshall did. You let me go.

He has nothing to say for himself, just stares back at you, eyes narrowed in anger, chest moving too quickly as he battles with his temper.

“Exactly,” you say curtly. The victory stings. It doesn’t feel like a win at all. “The bottom line is I’m here now, and we can pilot again if we can get our shit together.”

He shakes his head. “You left,” he says finally. “That’s the bottom line. You decided you were out, you decided you didn’t want me in your head, and then you left.”

He watches you, waits for you to say something. When you don’t, he lets out a derisive little laugh. “We’re both wasting our time here. The drift won’t work. We aren’t going to fix it.”

For the first time, fear slices through you like steel. “You can’t know that,” you say. You hear the fear in the way your voice comes out low and rounded, barely sounding like you at all.

“I can,” he retorts. “You know how I know? Because I don’t want to. You wanted me out of your head so badly? You got it. Can’t turn back now.”

He heads for the ladder, swings around and finds the third rung down with ease.

“So that’s it?” you ask his retreating form. Your heart is hammering and you’re starting to get tunnel vision. 

The only answer he gives you are his feet hitting each new rung with a clunk and a vibration that rattles up your legs.

—

You go to the training rooms alone and run through the forms just to do something; your mind turns the problem over and over as your body goes through the motions. After, you take a longer shower than normal, letting the water run hotter than you normally would.

After, you go to the Marshall’s office, determined. Or maybe resigned.

When he opens the door, he already looks irritated, like he knew exactly who would be on the other side.

“Requesting an audience,” you say flatly, fighting the instinct to cross your arms defensively.

He glances at his watch. “Five minutes.”

You step inside but leave the door open.

“I’m requesting transfer back to Alakanuk,” you tell him as evenly as you can manage. You’re sure he’s not surprised. “Seungcheol has made it very clear that we won’t be fighting together again. If that’s the case, then I can’t do anything useful here. But in Alakanuk I can.”

You pause, looking to see if you can read anything on the Marshall’s face - any hint that he’s considering what you’re saying, or that it’s a lost cause. He gives you nothing.

“Please,” you say. “Those girls need me. If I can’t help here, I can help them.”

The Marshall tilts his head just slightly. “Surely anyone can teach little girls the forms.”

You shake your head. “It’s more than that, and you know it. It’s not about the forms. I love those girls. I came back here to follow orders, and I tried. But if it isn’t going to happen… Please, don’t make me waste time here if I can be with them instead.”

The silence when you stop speaking seems to last for hours. Your heart pounds, and you work on keeping your breathing even. If he tells you no, you might just lose it, just give up entirely.

Finally, he takes a breath and seems to consider you. “If,” he says, and your eyes widen with hope, “your co-pilot agrees, then I will reassign you back to Alaska. But only if he will agree.”

“No problem,” you say quickly. Seungcheol was the one who said it was over. He should have no problem letting you leave.

When you step out of the Marshall’s office, Seungcheol steps out of the shadows. You should be surprised to see him, but in the Shatterdome it feels right that he just is wherever you are. That’s always how it was, before.

You look at him disdainfully. “I assume you heard that conversation?”

He nods, once.

“So?” you ask. “Will you tell him you approve, so I can go?”

For the first time since you returned, Seungcheol smiles, tight and sarcastic.

“No,” he says easily, like it’s kind of funny.

Fury erupts inside you; you can’t even pinpoint where in your body it stems from. “Why?” you demand. “Because you feel like I took something from you, so you want to take something from me?”

He doesn’t respond to this. You know you’re right. You know him. You know his mind.

“I hate to fuck up your narrative,” you spit at him, “but I’ve lost out here just as much as you have. You’re not the only one who lost the ability to fight. You’re not the only one who lost their partner.”

You wish you could tell him the rest - you’re not the one who spent three years with a broken heart on top of it. He had lost you as a partner and a friend - you had lost him in the same ways, and you’d had to harbor your broken heart.

He shakes his head. “Poor baby,” he bites sarcastically, and then takes off down the hallway, into the dark.

—

You stop sleeping at the dorm. Sometimes you sleep at your parents’, sometimes on Wylie and Chan’s tiny couch, sometimes in bed with Seungkwan, who kicks at you and whines that you take up too much space. Sometimes you sleep inside Duellona Fury, sitting up, your back against her metal frame.

The Marshall seems to have taken some pity on you. He schedules your mornings training the Dome’s recruits, and lets Seungcheol get back to what he was doing in your absence - which seems to be on track to move up in rank, to maybe become a Marshall himself, someday. It isn’t quite the same as being back with your girls, but training recruits feels at least somewhat fulfilling. And it keeps you and Seungcheol busy - separately - until afternoon.

Then, he schedules you to spar.

In your first week, you’d been unwilling to hit Seungcheol. You’d been feeling guilty for hurting him, sad for your time apart, hopeful that if you were soft to him, then he’d be soft back to you.

Now, you’re fucking furious.

For the first time, when the match begins, you hit him first. He’s surprised for only a second, eyebrows shooting up as he stumbles for balance, and then you watch something delighted and devilish fall over his face. Like he knows exactly what dance this is, and he’s been learning the steps in secret.

The match is brutal, reminiscent of your very first one, when you were both nineteen. You throw hit after hit his way; he blocks or dodges all of them. But he can’t get a hit on you either - you’re too quick, spurred on by fury. You’ve been angry in a fight before. But you’ve never been angry at him.

You spin and throw up a kick, expecting his forearm to rise and block it. Instead, you knock him in the jaw.

He grunts, hand flying up to cover his mouth, and you drop your stance with a gasp.

“Shit!” you cry, hurrying closer. “I’m so sorry! Are you bleeding? Let me look.”

“‘M fine,” he mutters thickly from behind his hand, but you ignore him. For a second, things are how they used to be between you. He lets you peel his hand away, lets you gingerly turn his head this way and that, even opens up so you can check his teeth.

“You’re gonna have a fat lip,” you tell him regretfully. “But nothing’s bleeding. Teeth look okay. Anything loose in there?”

He pokes around his teeth with his pinky. “Nope.”

You take a step back, cowed. “I’m really sorry.”

He laughs a little, wryly. “I bet you feel better, though.”

You bite back a smile. “Actually…” you say, and he laughs again. You both do.

Somehow, this seems to be the thing that cracks the anger you’ve both been encased in, unable to move forward or backward. You feel melted, and you wonder if he feels freer now, too.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” you say. You mean the kick, but the words land heavy.

He avoids your gaze. “I need some water,” he says, turning and heading to the side of the room.

You do the same, sitting heavily on the bench where your water waits for you.

“Hey,” he says, and you look over, brows raised in anticipation. “Tell me about Alaska.”

You can’t help but smile.

“It’s so beautiful,” you tell him. “God, Cheol, the ocean there. And the birds, and the snow…”

He’s watching you, listening, but while he listens he stands and heads to the center of the ring, settling into a starting form. With a small smile, you follow, standing opposite him. He starts an easy match that’s mostly just following the eighth form. It includes some hits and blocks, but you both do them gently, easily, circling each other slowly.

“So you liked it?” he asks. You can hear how hard he’s working to make it sound casual.

“It was so beautiful,” you admit before ducking below a kick. “But it was also… really hard.”

“What was the best part?” he asks.

You smile, block a hit. He almost gets his hands on you for a flip, but you dodge around behind him. He turns to follow you. “Weirdly, it was taking care of them outside of class. We - the instructors - we kind of their moms, away from home, you know? I’m the one who knew Yejin won’t sleep unless someone sits by her bed for a while. I’m the one that knew that Farrah and Salome only argue because they’re competitive. I’m the one that knew that Maria and Anjali don’t know their times-tables, that Ximena can’t brush her own hair, or that Iseul is allergic to fish. I loved them. I loved knowing them.”

He looks at you for a long time. “Maybe you should go back,” he says finally.

It feels like a trap. 

You look at the floor, at the wall, then finally back at him. “If you’ll do this for real,” you say carefully, “then I’d rather be here. If we’re actually trying, then I don’t want to go.”

He’s quiet for a long time. Finally, he swallows hard, not looking at you.

“What was the worst part?”

There’s only one answer.

“Missing you,” you say. “Losing you.”

He manages to get both of your arms and hauls you over his shoulders. You land on your back so hard that the air is knocked out of your lungs and your eyes close protectively. For a second, you lay there panting, waiting for the pain in your back to settle down, waiting for the stars behind your eyelids to calm.

When you open them again, the ceiling coming into focus above you, the room is empty.

–

You have a hunch on where you can find him, and you head to the jaeger bay. Sure enough, he’s sitting below Duellona, knees to his chest, staring up at her.

You sit next to him and he doesn’t get up and leave, which you take as a good sign.

“I can’t do this if you’re not all in,” he tells you without looking at you. “You walked away from me once. I can’t let you back in my head if there’s any possibility you’ll walk away again. If you’re with me, I need you to be with me.”

Something prickles in the back of your head. You feel like you’re starting to realize something - the seed of an understanding is pushing delicately through the dirt, but hasn’t yet spread out its leaves under the warmth of the sun yet.

Something about his hurt. Something about why.

“I think we should try to drift,” you tell him.

This seems to startle him - he forgets to be cold, turns to look at you, eyebrows raised in surprise.

“I can tell you how much I missed you,” you reason, “and tell you about how I spent every minute just… steeped in regret. Or we can walk through it - you can see for yourself.”

You know what you’re risking. If he gets into your head now, he’ll see it all - he’ll know everything, he’ll be able to feel for himself the depth of your loss, the height of your love. 

But what’s the harm, now? You can’t lose him twice. Maybe it’ll be enough for him to realize you hadn’t left him because you didn’t care about him. Maybe it’ll be enough for his forgiveness. 

Maybe then, he’ll tell the Marshall to let you go back to Alakanuk. 

It’s Seungkwan you bother, since he’d been in mission control before finding his team of co-pilots. The sideways look he gives you as he walks to your conn pod is withering, but you know better than to take it personally.

You buzz with nerves. The last time you’d tried this, the neural handshake hadn’t even connected. There had just been nothing.

The second you hear neural handshake initiating, you almost sob with relief. You can’t even pay attention to the memories - Seungcheol’s memories - floating around you; you want to collapse, to press your palms to the ground and thank the universe for letting you back in.

His first memories are a breeze - the ones you’ve jogged through together hundreds of times: his first home, his school, his father’s hospital room, the Dome. Then you slow your pace, because this is new.

You’re facing the landing dock on the Shatterdome’s roof. Seungcheol stands with his back to you, watching through the glass walls as a helicopter waits, the pilot talking into his headset.

You watch yourself walk towards the chopper’s open door. You watch yourself leave, remember how hard it was to not look back.

You hadn’t known that Seungcheol had been there, that he had seen you go.

The pain that accompanies the memory hits you like you’re drowning, like it’s too deep and you can’t feel the bottom, and you feel the machinery falter around you.

“Hey,” you say quietly. “I’m with you.”

He nods, still doesn’t look at you. But the beeping stops, the connection holding. 

There’s knowledge in this memory, knowledge in this pain. Seungcheol’s thoughts in this moment read in your head as clearly as if he said them aloud - I did this. I pushed her too far; I made her run.

You can’t stay here, can’t let him wallow in the memory of pain. You had to move forward - that’s how the drift works. Reluctantly you step towards the door, glancing over your shoulder to see if he’s following. 

He is. His jaw is tight and fists are clenched, but he is.

When the next memory - not in order of chronology, clearly - appears before you, you want to vanish into the floor. You’re watching yourselves in Seungcheol’s bed. Thankfully, you’re sleeping - this was after. But in the memory, Seungcheol is awake, laying on his side, his eyes drinking in your sleeping form.

The emotions and the knowledge come with it in an instant. The tenderness and the love he felt in that moment surround you now in the memory, unignorable, impossible to mistake. 

He had loved you. He had known you loved him, and he was showing you how he felt. The understanding slams you so hard that you think you stop breathing.

“Seungcheol,” you whisper. Around you, the scene begins to flicker, the connection starting to react to the oversaturation of emotion.

“We can talk about it after,” he says, voice hard. “Don’t stay in it. Find the next door.”

Your eyes find the door, but you feel frozen. You want the connection to drop, you want to unlock yourself from the stupid drive-suit and throw yourself into his arms, you want to apologize for leaving him thinking he’d pushed you away, thinking that he scared you into running.

“Cherry,” he warns. “The drift can’t -”

You know. 

And you owe him your side of the story.

You take a steeling breath and head for the door. You don’t take his hand. You don’t know if you deserve to, if he’d want you to.

When you step through the doors, you’re confused - you’re still in your dorm. Your bodies are both in the bed.

Now, though, Seungcheol sleeps, and you - the memory of you - sits on the edge of the bed, your head in your hands. 

You feel the emotion the memory holds, which means Seungcheol does, too.

Fear. It’s still fear - fear that he’ll know, fear that what you just did together will make it worse, make it harder to hide. 

Beside you, Seungcheol’s eyes go wide. 

“We have to move on,” you tell him. He looks at you, then back at the memory. 

“You -?” he starts to ask.

“After,” you tell him firmly. “We’ll talk after.”

You open the door, and you’re suddenly outside, surrounded by white.

Alaska.

The emotion knocks you over with the fury of an ocean wave - even though you know you’re not supposed to let it. This was how you had felt every day that you were gone, and it screams at you now, determined to be heart, determined to be felt. The loneliness, the regret, the despair and heartbreak all rise up in you, overtaking you, as snow falls gently and silently around you.

And the love. That never went away. That never mellowed, as the Marshall had put it.

If he didn’t know before, he has to know now. There’s no way he couldn’t.

Seungcheol squeezes your hand, and you almost jump. You look down at your linked fingers in shock, then up at him, eyes wide.

“We should go back and talk about this,” he tells you, but his grip on you is firm, assuring.

“Okay. It’s this way,” you tell him, trying to breathe, and you lead him by the hand through the snow. The fog strengthens as you walk, until you can’t see anything but grey, can’t see anything but Seungcheol’s hand in yours.

You continue on. You know where to go. When you step through, the fog vanishes as if it was never there, nothing gradual about it. With the fog gone, you can see clearly where you are - inside Duellona Fury’s conn-pod.

As you begin to work on the straps, you call through the intercom, “Kwan? We… need some privacy. We’ve got to talk - alone.”

His voice crackles back at you. “Yes, I’m leaving, I’m already gone. If you hear popcorn crunching, no you don’t.”

Seungcheol gives you a flat look. “Let’s go home and talk,” he suggests.

Home.

You are so afraid and so hopeful. You don’t know how to juggle both.

Back in your small living space, you sit like you’re meditating.

“Let’s figure this out,” he says. “No lies.”

“No lies,” you agree. Your knees touch, and you reach to take his hands. He lets you, giving your fingers a squeeze.

“You knew,” you say first, bordering on accusation. “I was trying so hard to hide how I felt about you… but you knew.”

He nods, his eyes on you. “And you,” he says slowly, “didn’t… know? That I knew?”

You shake your head, confirming. “I didn’t know. I thought I hid it.”

He smiles at you, a little placating. “Not as well as you would have liked.”

“And you…” You chicken out, swallow, force yourself to be brave. “You… loved me, too?”

He nods. “I did.” 

The air leaves your lungs so forcefully that you bend over, pressing your forehead to the tops of your hands. He pulls his hands from yours and you feel his touch, firm and reassuring, cupping your shoulders and rubbing his thumbs along them.

“We felt the same,” you echo into your shins. “You loved me.”

“Cherry,” he says above you, his voice like a plea. “I don’t understand why - when we… when I… I felt like once I forced you to look at it, it was too much. You ran.”

You sit with this for a minute, stunned and processing. His hands are back in yours, which you take as a good sign. 

“You thought… wait. You thought, after that night, that I knew how you felt, too?”

He nods. “I thought you knew,” he says, confusion still present in his tone. “I thought we both knew. I thought if it was out in the open, the glitch in the drift would be fixed.”

You wipe at your face, trying to breathe. “And instead,” you realize, “we couldn’t even connect, because I was still trying to hide it from you, and then you were hurt. I thought it was broken. I thought we really broke it forever.”

He looks at you in wonder. “That’s why you left,” he breathes, and you know he’s understanding this for the first time. “You thought we made the problem worse.”

It’s your turn to nod. “After we…I mean, I knew if I couldn’t hide it from you before that night, there was no chance I’d be able to hide it after. I kept you out in the first place because I… was afraid. I was afraid for you to see how much I loved you. It seemed… hopeless to keep trying.”

The words lay bloody between you, but his grip on your hands is strong, and you take another breath.

You push on, adding, “I was afraid it would be too much. I was afraid everything would change.”

Which it did, you think. He nods, like he hears this, like he agrees.

He releases you and leans back, blowing out a loud breath. “We’re so fucking stupid,” he says, and you splutter out a laugh.

“We really are.”

“I can’t believe we lost three years over that,” he says.

“I can’t believe you thought it was your fault that I left.”

“I can’t believe you left in the first place.”

This makes you smile, guilty. “That’s fair.”

You push yourself to stand; Seungcheol mirrors you, as if you’re already in the neural handshake, bodies working in tandem. 

“Cherry,” he says quietly, stepping closer. “It could never be too much. I love you. I’m crazy about you. I’m only me when I’m with you.”

You remember him, the night you’d slept together, telling you, don’t be afraid. He’d told you, after all, and you’d missed it entirely.

You close the distance between your bodies and kiss him hard. His arms circle your waist immediately, like they were waiting for you. He kisses you back hungrily. His mouth meets yours eagerly, his tongue stroking yours confidently before he shifts his attention to your jaw, your neck, then your mouth again. His hands don’t wander this time - instead he holds you so firmly it almost hurts, like he won’t let you move an inch, won’t let you out of his grasp ever again.

You cradle his face between your hands, let your teeth gently scrape along his bottom lip. “Cheol,” you whisper, then kiss him again. “You’re everything.” It’s what you should have said aloud the night you’d slept with him.

When the kiss breaks, he presses his lips to the top of your head and holds them there, melting around you a little. You give his middle a squeeze, revel in his heartbeat surrounding you like music.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry I didn’t just say it.”

“Me too,” you tell him, holding him just a little tighter. “I should never have tried to hide it from you in the first place.”

He kisses your temple, and you hold each other, silently, each grappling with the time you’d wasted apart. 

You’re interrupted by a knock. You break apart, puzzled. You’re even more puzzled to see your Marshall at the door, and Seungkwan literally bouncing on the balls of his feet in excitement.

“I’ve heard your drift is working again,” the Marshall says dryly. 

You look over your shoulder at Seungcheol, grinning. “Seems like it.”

“There’s a Cat-1 reading in the bay. I was about to alarm for Pretty Savage to drop, but Savage’s team insisted I give you the opportunity first. They can follow as backup. How do you feel?”

Seungcheol is at your side. He looks at you, his face open and raw. “Well?” he asks you. “Are you in, or are you out?”

“I’m in,” you tell him seriously. “I’m with you.”

You thrum with excitement as a tech team helps strap you into the drive-suits, and you can’t help but shoot Seungcheol a wild grin, your happiness alive and unbounded. 

You tell mission control - Nainsi, probably, just like the old days - “Ready and aligned.”

Mission Control - definitely Nainsi - responds, “Prepare for neural handshake.”

The artificial voice bounces around you - 3… 2… 1… neural handshake initiating…

Around you, the machines flicker busily. Neural handshake strong and holding. Now calibrating…

You’re crying, but you ignore it. You beam through tears, looking sideways at your co-pilot. His eyes dance as he smiles back at you. You want to unstrap yourself to the drivesuit and go kiss his dimples, the dimples you hadn’t seen in years. You resist the urge.

“Ready to drop?”  He looks sideways at you, sly. 

You scoff at him, your own grin cocky and sure, like you’re twenty again, like nothing had ever been broken between you. “Been ready. Let’s light ‘em up.”

– end

thank you so much for reading!!!!

stay tuned for more fics in this universe! Wylie and Chan will get their own fic written by @sailorrhansol, as will Woozi! I'm also planning a Vernon x Reader in this universe, too! Should be a fun time!!

[dwaekkicidal]

👾 anon making a comeback!

what about 2min teaching another member who just got a gf how to fuck her properly? like, they have a toy or something for the other member to practice on while 2min demonstrates on reader?

i could imagine the other member thrusting into the toy wrongly and lee know just goes ‘nononono, like this’ and thrusts into reader for the nth time and overstims them.

while one of 2min is fucking reader, the other is trying to make reader stop being so loud and shoves their cock into readers mouth.

and to top it all off, since reader literally cannot stop convulsing theres a bit of collar play and 2min tugs on the collar when they need to and theyre unphased but reader is out here drooling all over themselves

im nasty, what can i say? 👾👾👾

oh my fucking god?? U ARE NASTY BUT THANK U FOR THIS

this is 1k words LMFAO oopsie..

something about them making the other member use a toy instead of their own girlfriend is so.... humiliation kink at its finest

like them saying something along the lines of "if you can't fuck her properly, you can't get her at all" and its not even their girlfriend to make such bold commands?? ugh

i can picture this being hard/mean dom! jeongin's awakening

so lets picture this. virgin!innie who hasnt even seen a vagina until the first time you two got intimate. and even then, the few times you two have been intimate only included mutual masturbation

so i bring you!! closeted mean dom 2min who offers their help to their poor maknae!

he goes to them first, expressing his worries about not performing well enough for his girlfriend- and about how he doesn't want to embarrass himself by not being able to pleasure you properly!

so he gets 2 of his favorite hyungs in his room seated on either side of you. their hands are all over you, from showing jeongin how to finger you properly, and describing to him how to curve his fingers the way you like it.

and how do they know he's performing well enough? well that would be all thanks to the fleshlight they bought him :)

its clear so they can see through it, watching his fingers every move. and he has such long, pretty fingers, so it would be such a shame if they went to waste? "thank god we're teaching him this too, right y/nnie?"

they make you cum twice on their fingers, one time each man so they can give their own two advice and show off their techniques. so can they really blame you for subconciously fighting back when seungmin slides his cock inside of you?

not really... but that wont stop minho from forcing both of your wrists into one of his. it also wont stop seungmin from thrusting even harder into you, quickly getting distracted with your tight cunt and forgetting the whole goal of the situation

he basically uses you as his own personal fleshlight until you both cum, jeongin cumming around the same time. you and jeongin are barely given a break before minho is pouncing with an order for the maknae to "get to it"

minho's a lot bigger and fucks into you faster and harder than seungmin, rolling his hips roughly and teaching jeongin to do the same. he sometimes even compares it to certain dance moves from their choreos and will slow his own thrusts to watch closely and make sure the maknae is moving correctly

once he's sure the boy has learned, minho's so rough with it that your eyes feel permanently rolled to the back of your head, his tip constantly pummeling into your sensitive walls.

it gets to the point where you cant control yourself when your nails start to rake down his arm! >< its just "too much!"

it makes him mad and he slaps your hand away, not wanting marks, only to be made even more upset when you push your hand against his lower stomach with begs for him to give you a break

but he has no plans to stop, not even after you've came yet again. and who are you to give him orders right now??? so he whistles for seungmin to help, and youre absolutely stunned when a piece of leather slides around your neck and gets buckled by the puppy man himself

he tosses the end of the leash to minho and helps him flip you over, manhandling you onto your hands and knees

at this point, jeongins completely zoned out. he's not nearly as overstimulated as you, but as his 2nd orgasm builds and as he's forced to watch some of his closest friends pound his dear girlfriend int his mattress, he feels like he's floating on another planet

so what happens when you're finally let go by seungmin and minho? what do you think happens when they leave your apartment, after teaching jeongin about aftercare, and you're left alone, still sensitive with your oddly quiet boyfriend?

not sleeping. thats for sure :) you're lucky he loves you and doesn't want to push your body too far, yet. so he'll only fuck you to orgasm once, but he's gonna be like a new man reborn, hips fucking into you faster than either of the men did earlier.

they didnt teach him this, but it comes all too naturally when he shoves his fingers into your mouth and pushes down against your tongue

the drool that drips down his wrist is almost enough to make him laugh, but the little semblance of jealousy in his veins tells him to do something more

he uses the spit on his fingers to pinch and massage one of your nipples, all while the other set of fingers are tangles in your hair and holds you flat against him.

he's so deep and your body has been through so much the last few hours that your own orgasm takes you by surprised, your legs shaking aggressively as your body convulses as best as it can with his iron grip on your head

& his mouth is so filthy as he uses you as his fleshlight- telling you that youre a little slut for enjoying the other men using you freely while he was forced to watch. he tells you how hes gonna use every last thing he saw you enjoy against you, from the leash & collar to the way your body was so happy at their rough hands on your- HIS pretty pussy

once hes finished he essentially redoes everything they did earlier for aftercare, adding in his own "spice" by running you a hot shower and kissing every inch of your body as he helps you wash off

he definitely gets hard again, but he'll deal with it himself while you sleep.

maybe if youre lucky, he'll wake you up with that pretty cock all up in your tummy again <3

Taglists: (red=can't be tagged)

@valkyriexo @lunearta @jabmastersupriseee @rylea08

@yaorzu-blog @amararosesblog @jiminssluttyminx @clemissleepy

@miss-daisy04 @kittyxnoa @dwaekkiiracha @bubblerizz

@mariteez @fun-fanfics @honeyybbuubblleess @kittycatkrissa

@nicora04 @chuuyaobsessed @moonlightndaydreams

[xo-cod]

a/n: might be super cringe lmfao ☠ rushed/ooc/nsfw ahead :) hope you enjoy 🤍

the not so sexy moments of sex with the 141 + könig :")

part 1

price going down on you and manhandling you in a new position though it caused you to move your leg a little too quickly and kick him right in the groin. you both chuckled after he was on the floor trembling in pain for a few minutes

simon not understanding how the pretty lingerie is supposed to loosen, spends 15 minutes trying to undo the buttons but scoffs and shoots you a small apology before he rips it apart

gaz almost going into the wrong hole, manages to stop himself in time but almost had a panic attack

soap needing to pee right before he cums and panicking on what to do

könig mid thrust taking a phone call from one of his soldiers, completely engaged with a brawl that took place while thrusting into you. takes a few mins to get his attention directed back again and he apologies profusely after

price getting a leg cramp halfway through and almost having a heart attack from how painful it was

trying to netflix and chill with simon only he ends up getting mad interested in the movie and forgets why he was there

gaz trying to secretly eat a snack while hitting it from the back, proved to make him slightly unsteady and ended up falling almost on top of you. lessons were learnt that day

soap not realising that while his family picture (bless his heart) is so adorable, it's not the most sexy when he's in the middle of pounding you and you're faced right against the frame

könig trying to dirty talk to go down in vain when he got confused with the word in english and sat there for a few moments stuttering and switching off trying to remember what he was trying to say

alternatively price when he was accidentally leaning over your hair not realising you were in pain and barely hearing him while he was telling you all the different ways he would ruin you with his cock

simon asking if he should really take off all his gear off, trying to justify that it looks good but secretly just doesn't want to take everything off and put it back on again

gaz in the middle of a heavy makeout, trying to unscrew your bra only for it to become stubborn and result in him getting flustered and wrestling with it to get off (bra totally wins)

soap getting so deep in his dirty talking, said something that made you "😐" and proceeded to crack out thesaurus with every synonyms for the word beautiful. felt so bad the days afterwards, couldn't look you in the eye

könig punishing himself by training intensively because he cummed too early, too embarassed to look at you for the rest of the day

[lovecla]

TAKE YOUR PAIN AWAY | quinn hughes.

epilogue:

➴ chapter warnings: mentions of abortion.

➴ word count: 2.9k

💌 from me to you: writing endings suck by the way. hope u enjoy tho :)

౨ৎ

madisonhughes

liked by haileybieber, gigihadid, nickharris_img and 789,101 others

madisonhughes one year ago i married my best friend. i love u _quinnhughes 🤍

View all 1,398 comments

user1 i still remember the fuss we made the day she changed her username to hughes 😭

user2 user1 no bc u just had to be there 😭 everyone freaking out and people asking if her wedding had been live-streamed

user3 user1 user2 omg and people trying to cancel her for changing her last name?? i was on twitter fighting for my life

user4 user3 AND THE DAY AFTER QUINN POSTED A PICTURE OF HER WEARING HIS JERSEY DURING THEIR HONEYMOON LMFAO

_quinnhughes Pretty sure i love you more

nickharris_img my favorite couple. Miss you Mads

user6 the day i had to change my @ bc i couldn’t be quinnybear43wife anymore 💔

haileybieber it was magical 🥹

canucks One year already? 😱

jackhughes best night of my life… got drunk after 3 minutes

౨ৎ

2034, OCTOBER.

YOU HAD just turned the cell phone off when you heard Lila’s first scream.

Out of your instinct, you quickly walked towards her bedroom, knowing that she would be there with Quinn, since there was where you left both of them before you answered Jim’s call, asking about what time you were planning on going to their house, where they’d hold a Halloween welcoming party, since you and Quinn had just bought them a house in Vancouver.

Ever since your daughter, Lila, was born, three years ago, they’d been traveling to Vancouver every other week, and even though they told you several times that they didn’t mind all the flying and the hotels, you and Quinn both decided that it’d be best for them to at least have a private place to stay whenever they wanted to visit their granddaughter.

And Lila, the always calm, adorable baby, had been laughing with Quinn before you left the room, so her crying now was worrying to say the least. As you got closer to her bedroom, the crying got louder and louder, and you were pretty much sure neither Quinn nor Lila heard you entering the room.

“Tell Daddy what’s wrong, baby,” Quinn’s sitting on the floor, his hands wiping Lila’s tears, uselessly. “I’ll fix it, I promise,”

“No princess!” She yells back at him, throwing the yellow Belle dress you bought for her last week, making you frown as you lean against the door, choosing to let Quinn deal with her before you stepped in.

Bella stares at her, hiding her nose between her paws, which distracts you momentarily.

“Lila, baby. What did we say about yelling?” He asks softly, blue eyes searching for Lila’s. “There’s no need to yell. Daddy just wants to understand why you’re so upset since you wanted to be Belle so bad. What happened?”

Somehow, his question only seems to upset her even more. “No want. Belle.”

He chuckles, moving her chestnut hair out of her cherubic face.

“I can see that. And I want to know why. Do you remember how Mommy is always telling you that we need to explain why we’re upset? She’s right, baby.”

“Mhm,” she nods her head, scratching her eye with her left hand. “Mommy’s right.”

“Mommy is always right, isn’t she?” Quinn jokes, making you smile.

You decide that it’s the right time for you to step in, since Quinn already calmed Lila down and you wouldn’t get in his way of teaching her manners.

Walking until you were in the middle of the room, you smiled at them before you sat down on the carpet, beside Quinn.

“Is everything okay here?” You softly ask, giving Lila a brief kiss on her cheek, before doing the same with Quinn, making him smile right back at you.

“Lila’s upset about her costume,” Quinn explains. “She doesn’t want to be Belle.”

“No Belle!” She says loudly again, stomping her little feet. You had to use all of your strength to not coo at her cuteness.

“Okay, baby. We understand, you don't want to be Belle. Want to tell mommy and daddy why is that?”

Lila sighs loudly, her face still red from all the crying, proceeding to point at Quinn.

“Daddy.”

“Yes, baby, that’s daddy,” you chuckle. “What about daddy?”

“Wanna be d-daddy.” She stutters, hiccuping right after.

You and Quinn stare at each other, confused, before realization hits you both.

“She wants to be you for Halloween,” you whisper to him, watching as his eyes immediately fill up with tears, just like yours.

It was one of the most precious moments of your life. After years of going to therapy and working on yourself, and after you and Quinn married each other, you finally understood that you could have a loving family. Something to call yours. And when you found out you were pregnant, it was terrifying, because all you could think of is that you were going to be just like your mother.

You still remember that day as if it had been yesterday, and not three years ago. It was winter, late night, and you knew Quinn wouldn’t get home from his away game until the morning after.

Bella looked at you with a stressed expression on her face, putting her paw on your thigh, as you were sitting on the toilet’s lid and staring at the plastic thing on your other thigh.

Positive, it read. And it couldn’t be, not with you.

You and Quinn had a decent amount of sex, but even though you ditched the condom a long time ago, you still took your birth control pills religiously, you hadn’t been sloppy.

And now, after two weeks of constant headaches, nauseous and sore boobs, you decided to listen to your heart and buy a couple of tests. Despite doing all of that, you didn’t expect them to turn out to be positive.

It was scary as hell. You pondered calling Emma, your therapist, but then you checked the time on your phone and it was already three a.m. Besides, you felt bad for telling her first, and not Quinn or Victoria even.

What the hell am I going to do?, you keep asking yourself. You knew that Quinn wanted to have kids, but what about those couples who fall out of love when they have kids? Or those people who start complaining about children all the time?

Or what if I turn out to be just like my mom, the hidden, dark part of you asks, and the thought sends you into a spiral. What if I turn out just like my mom?!

You rest your head between your hands, letting the first tears roll down your face, freely. For the first time ever you were happy that Quinn wasn’t around you because you don’t even know what you would tell him.

Bella continues to whimper beside you and even though you want to tell her you’re fine, you couldn’t. Because you weren’t.

“Sweets? What’s wrong?”

Quinn’s voice scares you so hard you get up from the lid, gasping as the test falls from your thigh, hitting the carpet underneath your feet with the softest thud.

“Quinn?” You ask, trying to wipe your tears as fastest as you could. “What are you doing here? You said you’d be back tomorrow.”

“We left the arena earlier but—” he steps closer, his hands finding your waist immediately. “What happened, baby? Are you hurt? Do we need to visit the hospital? What’s going on?”

His soothing voice only made you cry more, because you could totally picture him talking like this with a little baby, your baby. Quinn would be the most perfect father ever, and you had always known it.

He puts your head in the space between his neck and shoulder, rocking you gently as he often did whenever you had a meltdown— rare moments that happen from time to time, always with him by your side to take care of you.

He didn’t force you to speak, he never did. He respected your time, and even when sometimes you only wanted to talk about the things upsetting you days later, he’d respect your wishes. And you love him so much for that.

“I’m pregnant,” you say, the words coming out muffled since your mouth was hidden.

Quinn freezes for a second, pulling you just the slightest bit away, his blue eyes searching for something inside of yours. Whatever he found, it only made him frown.

“I think I misheard what you said. Can you repeat, baby?”

“I’m pregnant,” You finally say, feeling the tears that had stopped for a minute coming back with more strength. “I’m sorry.”

His frown deepens. “What are you sorry for, baby? Don’t say that.”

“I swear I took all of my pills,” you choke on your tears, shaking your head. “I did everything right but—”

“Maddie, look at me,” Quinn grabs your chin, forcing you to look at him. “This isn’t your fault, sweets, there’s no such thing as saying sorry because you’re pregnant. The moment we decided to have sex without a condom we knew this could happen. It’s fine, baby, we will work it out. It’s my responsibility too.”

“I know you don’t want this now,” you whisper. “I know the timing is bad. That’s what I’m sorry for.”

Quinn kisses your cheek before intertwining his hand with yours and getting you both out of the bathroom, with Bella following behind you. He took you to the kitchen, sitting you on one of the stools and filling up the baby blue kettle that sat on the counter with water. While he waited, he turned around and walked back at you, kissing your head.

“In what world do you live in, baby?” He chuckles. “Of course I want a baby with you, Maddie. You’re the love of my life.”

Your heart jumped inside your chest, the tiniest hint of a smile appearing on your face.

“I’m just— you’re in the middle of the season. I have work too. And—what are we going to do, if we decide to k-keep it?”

“I think it’s too soon for you to decide anything, mhm? I’m not an expert, but I know we have some time before deciding what you want to do. Either way, I’ll be holding your hand the entire time.” He smiles at you again, booping your nose, like he often did.

The kettle beeps, and Quinn runs straight to it, turning it off and pouring the water in your favorite mug, where he had already put a chamomile tea bag inside of it.

He also poured a little bit of cold water, just to get the tea’s temperature perfect for you to drink.

“No sugar for you, because you’re already sweet enough.”

You laugh between your tears. “Will you someday stop talking about the fact that I don’t like to drink tea with sugar?”

“I don’t think so, baby, but I’ll try.” He winks, the mood lighter.

You drank your tea with Quinn by your side, talking about his game and how things went. He knew you liked when he talked about his work, so the fact that he started doing it without you asking meant a lot to you.

As he talked, you tried to organize your thoughts inside your head. Which hadn’t been easy.

“I don’t wanna be like her.” You whisper, and Quinn smiles sadly at you, shaking his head.

You haven’t spoken with your family in years. You’d yearly text them on their birthdays, but you’d always block them right after, not wanting them to reach you. It was just still hard for you to understand how your own family didn’t want anything to do with you, so you kept doing that, just for your peace of mind.

It wasn’t like you missed having them in your life, because you reached a point where all the memories you had of them were bad. And when you married Quinn, and added his last name to yours? It was like your mom finally reached her breaking point and unleashed all of her disgust for you in one go, during a very harsh phone call, where Quinn had to intervene and turn it off. “It will be the last time you’ll speak to my wife like this, do you hear me? I don’t care who you are or what you do. This is the last time, Jessica.”

And it had been the last time indeed.

“You won’t ever be like her, baby.”

“You don’t know that,” you frown. “I’ve heard people talking before, y’know? I remember how they’d say my mom was different before I was born. And sometimes Peter would talk about it too. She might’ve not loved my dad, but she was happy before me. Will I be the same if we keep the baby?”

Quinn holds your hand and caresses it with his thumb. “You already know the answer to that, Maddie. You’re nothing like her, and you never will be,” he kisses your lips. “Besides, why are you so worried about being a mom? Aren’t you one already?”

You laugh, looking at Bella slaughter her tennis ball on the couch.

“I guess you’re right.”

Lila frowns at Quinn’s tears, looking at you for help, because she had never seen her Daddy cry before.

“Why daddy cry?” she asks, before taking little steps and stopping in front of him, little hands wiping his face. “Don’t cry, daddy.”

“These are tears of joy, babygirl,” he laughs, hugging her tiny body, their beautiful curls touching each other. “Of course you can be daddy, baby. In fact, we’ll both be daddy.”

Lila’s giggle fills up the entire room, and she runs around, happily.

“Be careful, love,” you tell her, resting your head on Quinn’s shoulders, watching as Lila sits on top of Bella, making her growl loudly. “We have to get going, though, baby. Grandpa is waiting for you with Grandma.”

“U-uncle Luke?” she asks, making you laugh and Quinn sigh.

“What’s up with that unhealthy obsession of hers with Luke?”

“It’s probably the curls,” you joke, teasing him. “And the smile.”

“I have curls and a beautiful smile too, Madison, I’m not following.” He furrowed his eyebrows, and you giggled at his jealous face.

“We have to get ready, come on,” you tell him, before getting up and searching for Lila’s jersey with Quinn’s name and number on it, while Quinn looked for his.

“Why aren’t you wearing a costume, Maddie? Lila, your mommy’s boring.” Jack rolls his eyes at you, his arms reaching out for Lila as soon as he opens the door. “And look at you, huh? Are you supposed to be Quinn?”

“Mommy’s not— boring. And I wanna be daddy.” Lila wraps her hand around Jack’s neck, holding him close. “Uncle Luke?”

“I’m here, princess,” Luke says, standing behind Jack and smiling at Lila, who makes grabby hands and jumps to his arms right away, making both Quinn and Jack pout. You laughed behind your hands.

Thankfully, Lila managed to distract everyone from the fact that you were the only person not wearing a costume. For your surprise to work, it wouldn’t make sense for you to wear anything. Earlier, you had told Quinn that you hadn’t had time to buy anything, which had been a straight up lie. But he didn’t question you anyway, just told you that next time you could ask him to buy it for you.

Jim and Ellen’s house was packed with people, some of the family’s friends and cousins, all dressed up and cheerful. You spent the entire evening making sure that everything was perfect for your surprise, while Quinn took care of Lila— or tried to take care of her, since your little girl hadn’t left her uncle’s arms yet.

“Okay, so, everyone,” you start, watching as Quinn’s family sits on the gigantic table in the backyard, with Lila sitting on Luke’s lap and Quinn beside Ellen and one of his cousins. “Last thing we’re doing before dinner is the pumpkin carving contest. The prettiest one will win.”

“Who will be the judge?” Jack asks.

“Me.” You grin at him, hearing his complaints.

Thankfully, everyone was very competitive, and seemed to be enjoying the little game. You eyed Quinn surreptitiously, trying your hardest not to catch his attention before he found your surprise, which happened ten minutes later, after he opened the pumpkin in front of him, suddenly interrupting his talk with his cousin.

You watched as he read the little card you left for him inside the orange fruit, his blue eyes immediately finding yours.

“Why is it so hot in here?” you say to no one, removing your hoodie and placing it on the chair beside where you were standing, stretching your shirt that read Growing Our Little Pumpkin, the cheesy line written with a funny calligraphy.

“Madison.”

Somehow, Quinn’s serious tone reached everyone’s ears, and now all of them, minus Lila who was very entertained with writing on Luke’s pumpkin, were staring at you and, well, your shirt.

You found out that you were expecting again two weeks ago, deciding not to tell Quinn immediately, this time not out of fear but out of want for doing something special, and since Ellen had already arranged this costume party, you thought this would be the perfect moment.

“Oh my God!” Ellen shouts beside Quinn, her smile brighter than the moon decorating the sky. “Oh my God!”

Quinn gets up so fast you barely have time to breathe before his arms are wrapped around your body, squeezing you tightly.

“Baby, are you serious? Is this a joke?” he asks, voice quivering a little.

“No,” you laugh. “I’m pregnant, love.”

“Fuck, I love you so much,” he glues his lips to yours, and even though you can hear his family’s cheers for you and Lila laughing somewhere, nothing else matters, except for how Quinn holds you.

And if you stop to think for a moment, nothing has ever mattered more than your love for him in your life. You weren’t exactly sure if that was healthy or not, but after caring about the wrong people for so long, you were happy to finally have found something that was yours to keep. Quinn, Lila, the baby growing inside you, his parents and brothers— they were part of you now, and would always be.

Loving Quinn was the best decision of your entire life.

And now you were the person who’d get to keep him for life.

౨ৎ

madisonhughes

liked by kyliejenner, lhughes_06, trevorzegras and 1,082,001 others

madisonhughes past few days :)

View all 2,013 comments

user1 HELLO??? SHE’S PREGNANT AGAIN!????

maddiehughes_updates SHE’S PREGNANT

lhughes_06 missing lila :,(

adrianalima Omg congrats!!!! 🥹

canucks Baby Hughes no 2 💙

vic_alonso can we name the baby victoria if it’s a girl and victorio if it’s a boy

madisonhughes vic_alonso no.

jackhughes madisonhughes vic_alonso don’t be silly. Jack if it’s a boy, Jackie if it’s a girl.

_quinnhughes jackhughes 🤦

nickharris_img i love u 😗😗

user2 Lila will be a big sister 😭😭😭

user3 I will kms right now so I can reincarnate as your kid

| THROUGH THE YEARS |

taglist: @hischierswhore @ru-kru @alwaysclassyeagle @he6rtshaker @nope-i-am-done @nngkay @urthem00n 🤎

[withleeknow]

fujifilm x100v.

pairing: minho x reader genre/warnings: established relationship, tooth-rotting fluff which i haven't written in a hot minute @.@ so i actually can't tell if it's that sweet but i hope it is lmao note: a spontaneous blurb written in one sitting because the message below gave me soft boyfie brainrot again lmfao thank you wifeu for sending me down a mini spiral

as always, i’d appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, and please drop a like and/or reblog if you enjoy reading ♡

navigation › masterlist › ko-fi

your fujifilm x100v, minho always says he hates the thing.

whenever you raise the camera to your face to look through the viewfinder in search of your boyfriend, he would glare at you like a disgruntled grandpa, though he never moves out of the way or diverts your lens elsewhere. he'd let you take your pictures, the cat-like frown still apparent on his face, and observe as you smile fondly once the shot has been snapped. sometimes, if he's feeling particularly generous, he would throw the camera a half-assed peace sign.

ah, your favorite muse.

"stop," he'd groan with an eye roll full of affection, "you have enough photos of me."

he'd complain like this every time you try to immortalize your moments together with your camera, but you know he secretly loves it.

how do you know this? because when you examine the pictures afterward, you would always spot a faint blush painting his face and the top of his ears.

"that's impossible," you'd tell him, then watch as the rosy flush returns to his skin until it matches the tint on the half-flustered minho in your camera. "i could never get enough of you."

the shade only deepens adorably when you press a kiss against his cheek before you show him the picture. he'd smile ever so subtly as he studies his photographed self, captured through your eyes. a smile that would be inconceivable if you weren't an expert on all things minho. his eyes would soften, almost glazed over with an absolute adoration only reserved for you.

love is gentle like summer rain.

love is synonymous with minho.

it's true what you always say to him - that you could never get enough. you could snap a million and one pictures of him and it still wouldn't be sufficient. you want to capture every second of every day with him. every soft dimpled smile. every laugh that takes over him entirely and turns his eyes into crescent moons. every grumpy frown whenever the alarm clock goes off and launches him away from saccharine dreamland. every petulant pout, every cute and harmless scowl, every display of sparkling boba eyes.

everything. every single thing.

your fujifilm x100v, minho always says he hates the thing.

but he was the one who got it for you in the first place.

permanent taglist: @onlyycb97wife @starsandrqindrops @borahae-reads @abbiestearsricochet @cutiespaghetti @anthropologykpopmultistan

all rights reserved © withleeknow. reposting, translating and/or modifying is not permitted by any means. [posted 13.12.2023]

[no-nameno-face]

Auburn Thoughts (Pt.5) WITH AUDIO

[READ STORY FIRST]

______________________________________________________________

Pairing: Reader x Ellie Williams

Summary:  With a hot shower, Ellie makes sure you feel better. Much, much better.

Warnings: NSFW, 18+ ONLY, minors do not interact. You will be blocked. Smut heavy, sub!reader, dom!ellie, Fingering (R!receiving), Choking (R!receiving), Praise, Commanding, Shower Sex

Author's Notes: basically just smut lmfao, sorry it took me so long to get part 5 out. I've been going through a lot of shit in my personal life so i wasn't able to write at all. Def in a depression but its okay lmfao. I kinda hate my writing in this but i wanted to push myself to start again, so this is me trying to get back into it. i think im gonna write a one-off next cause i really want to make an audio with ellie having a degradation kink... what do we think? anywhoooo... Thanks for being understanding. Love you guys <3 

PART 4

______________________________________________________________

 “Do you wanna hop in the shower?” she smiles before standing and walking towards my bathroom… turning to me when she reaches the door and tilting her head at me, playfully.

“Are you coming?”

______________________________________________________________

My body is on autopilot, hopping up and walking towards Ellie waiting in the doorway. My brain, on the other hand, is stuck on the idea of seeing her, exposed and drenched. Watching her body move through the water, seeing every part of her. My heart thuds in my chest.

Steam hits my face as I reach the bathroom door, slightly ajar. I take a deep breath and with shaky hands make my way into the bathroom. 

My shower is blurred with steam, I see her silhouette through the foggy glass. My eyes trace her contours. They follow the lines of her skin, the subtle curve of her hips to the toned muscles of her arms visible even through the vapor. I want to engrave this image in my sketchbook forever, in my mind forever. 

I turn and begin peeling off my shirt, then my pants. The pulsing in my ears is deafening, the tightness in my belly growing. As my clothes fall to the floor I look back to the shower, I see Ellies head snap away when I do. I flush at this. 

Steadying myself, I walk to the sliding door and let myself in. Ellies under the hot water facing away from me, It's hard to peel my eyes from her. I hungrily observe her shoulders, strong and muscular, leading to her petite waist then the swell of her hips and, oh jesus. Her ass. I choke on my own spit and start coughing, real fucking smooth.

“You okay?” She turns to me smirking, my arms shoot to cover my chest. How is she so brazen, confident? I mean shit with a body like that I would be too. My eyes dart to her newly exposed skin, her small perky tits that sit perfectly on her frame. Then they quickly shift down her stomach to her… “Take a picture, it will last longer” she says with a sideways smile. My eyes shoot up to meet hers. Then it's her turn to explore me, I feel her gaze burn my skin and my cheeks burn in response. Her eyes leave me, turning back to put her face under the water. The heat in me is searing now. 

“Your turn,” she says with a smile shifting so I could take her place under the hot water. I shift past her, feeling her nipples graze my back and my ass slide across her exposed skin. It takes every ounce of self control to not gasp at this small contact. The water hits me and it's warm, embracing. I relish in the feeling of it, pulling my hair over my shoulder letting it swell with water. Then I feel hands on my back, I startle at this.

“Woah woah, so jumpy.” she says with a smile in her voice. I turn slightly and see her with soap bubbles on her hands, “is this okay?” she asks.

“Shit sorry, yeah it's fine. Thanks El’s,” I turn back to the water, staring past the wall as her strong hands span my back. They shift down so slowly, she's paying attention to every part of my skin. As they approach my lower back she begins to circle over and around my hip bones, hands resting on my stomach. I wonder if she could feel the inferno I was radiating. Her hands went up my abbs circling the bubbles over my skin, now tracing under my boobs. I feel her body gently press against mine, I sharply inhale at the feeling of her skin flush with my own. 

“Can I?” she whispers into my neck, her breath and gentle touch sending chills down my spine. 

“Yes,” I sigh, barely audible. Then her hands, and the suds, are massaging my tits. My head tilts back onto her shoulder and I close my eyes as a small sound escapes my lips. She chuckles lightly at this. 

“You're so easy to please,” her finger flips over my nipple and I jolt slightly at this. A curse spills from under my now heavy breathing. After a moment of her playing with me she firmly turns me so I am pressed against the wall of the shower. It's cold against my back, the sudden sensation is shocking. Thrilling. I look up at her through my lashes, lust radiating in my eyes. They are met with devious amusement. 

Pinning me with one arm she traces the other hand across my collar, then down my sternum. She watches her hand make art on my skin.  I close my eyes, relishing in the feeling of her fingers on me, gentle as a butterfly wing. Her fingers trace down and circle my navel, then lower. My eyes open, nervous and they are met with green. Begging for permission. I smile at her shyly and shift slightly making myself a bit more open for her taking. A silent yes. 

She bites at her lip, her gaze darkens slightly and suddenly she's there, her fingers sliding through my slick, feeling me. My eyes shoot close at this unfamiliar contact. They run through my folds slowly then back to the top hitting my clit softly, I gasp at this. My hands grab at her, any part of her I can grab. 

[START OF AUDIO]

“No one’s ever touched you like this?” she questions, I can hear the smirk on her tongue. She circles my clit with her fingers and my responding sounds are her answer.

“You’re so Innocent…” she sighs. Then slowly begins tracing back down my folds, my eyes open at the change in sensation searching for her, I'm met with darkness. 

“Makes me want to wreck you.” suddenly her finger is pushing into me, i feel my walls tight around her. She pulls it out slightly and thrusts it back into me, firmly. 

“F.. fuck! Oh my… Oh…” she's going in and out now, curving her finger into me, it's a feeling I've never known but one I never want to stop. The sounds are graphic, I feel myself soaking her knuckles as she lays into me. 

“Does that feel good?” She asks knowing full well it does. She just wants to hear me say it. I can't get the words out. Her finger withdraws from me and she crooks her head, demanding a response.

“Yes! Yes it feels.. Feels so.. So good..” I say begging her to continue. I look at her with big eyes. “Please, please keep going.” she smiles at me, so ready for her taking. So eager for more. This time there's a soft stretch as she pushes two fingers into me, hitting my spongy spot sending moans from my mouth into the acoustics of the shower, they echo off the walls. She moves them at a slow firm pace. Harder. Deeper. My hips subconsciously rock into her hand, helping her reach further into me. 

“You're doing amazing,” she smirks before her lips dip into my neck, kissing and licking the sensitive skin. My hands tangle in her hair, pulling lightly as they fumble through her locks. “Taking my fingers so well.” she whispers against my skin, her hot breath branding my skin. Her lips return with a gentle kiss, then a soft bite. 

“Mmm… El’s” I say pulling her closer into me.

“Do you want me to go faster?” she pulls back and looks at me, one eyebrow raised. My eyes are wide watching hers, 

“Yes,” I plea. Her eyes don't leave mine as her fingers pick up in tempo, my slick sounds now louder than the shower water hitting the floor. Her gaze is drunk with lust, pleased with the power she has over my body. I feel myself quake against her fingers, she feels it too.

“You like that?” she says, her free hand skimming up my torso, running over my erect nipples until her hand rests on the throat. She squeezes lightly, pushing my head back into the shower wall. Hot water trickles down my face, the pressure making me a bit lightheaded, I feel my eyes roll back. 

“Yeah you do,” she sighs, tilting her head in amusement. Her assault on my cunt is ruthless, the rhythm, unbearable. My vision is turning blurry, with the stunted airflow. It's pure euphoria, but suddenly her grip on the throat loosens.

My hands shoot to her arm and pull her hand back to its place. Firmer than before, long fingers wrapped around the span of my throat. She huffs at this. 

“You want more?” her fingers tighten, cutting off all air flow. 

“Greedy girl.” her fingers swirl inside of me, my eyes open and everything is blurry and tinged white. My body is trying to gasp for air to no avail, and it feels so.. so.. good. My head is getting lighter, lighter, all I feel is her fingers, my ears ringing. Her hand releases and I take in a gulp of air. She grabs my jaw firmly.

“Say my name.” she commands. I am still gasping as her face slowly comes back into focus. Her fingers slam into me, hard. “Say it.” This time her voice is soft, this time it's her begging. 

“Ellie!” I yell, “ellie.. ellie..” my voice gets softer as the pressure builds in my core. I feel like I'm going to implode. 

“That's right,” she pushes her palm into my clit applying rhythmic pressure that creates a symphony with the beat of her fingers. I can't hold it anymore. 

“Ellie… P.. Please.. I'm gonna. I'm gonna..” 

“Yeah? You're gonna cum?” devious eyes. My body is clinging to the edge. “Go ahead baby,” she grabs my throat again and pounds into me. 

“Cum for me” I explode around her, cursing through the high that overtakes me. Her fingers somehow hit my spot harder, faster, intensifying the sensation. Pleasure surges through me and leaves me shuddering in its wake, my knees shaking. She slows when I relax around her and slowly, so slowly, pulls her fingers out of me. I shiver at the sensitivity. 

[END OF AUDIO]

She softly pecks up my neck, to my lips. Pulling back to look at me she brushes a damp piece of hair from my face behind my ear. “You're so pretty when you cum,” she smiles at me, holding back a laugh. 

“Fuck off,” I playfully push her shoulder, embarrassed by my show of desperation. Her laugh escapes and its music to my ears. 

“I'm just saying,” she says smirking, “It's hot.” she shrugs, turning to splash some water on her face. I cross my arms to cover my chest, oh my god. Thinking about her fingers, the feeling of them stretching me out. Her breath on my skin, her hand around my throat. “I'm gonna dry off, meet you out there” she says winking at me before climbing out of the shower and grabbing a towel off of the hook. I watch the silhouette of her leave and I melt to the floor. 

The water cascades down my shoulders and back, my skin is so sensitive. What the fuck. What is she doing to me? My heart is pounding in my chest, and somewhere else. I like her. I like her too much. What does she think this is? Am I just a easy fuck? Is she just an easy fuck? That thought is gone as quickly as it arrives. She's more than that to me. I feel it. And it scares me. What am I to her? I raise my head letting the water coat my face. It's not that deep, I reassure myself. It's fine. I'm fine. She's fine. We are fine. 

We?

Fuck.

[gunnrblze]

Roommate!Hesh

Hello friends. This is my first actual lil piece of writing I’m posting (in this fandom, on this account lol). I’m debating turning it into a full fledged fic, so if you’re intrigued by that I’d love to know! Not to abase myself or anything, but my writing is quite mid lmfao, I just enjoy my silly thoughts n ideas so here you go :)

•1k+ words, SFW, could possibly be read as some slight stalker-ish behavior if you squint, but nothing actually dark like that! The man is just down bad :(

You weren’t exactly sold on living with a stranger yet. Especially not some army guy, but you had little choice.

Desperately needing a roommate after moving to Santa Monica, a friend mentioning a friend of theirs who has a brother. A brother who happens to be looking for a roommate too.

You trusted your friends judgement enough to pursue the recommendation. Figuring that living with a special forces soldier could either be pleasantly uneventful, or a dumpster fire, based on what you knew of the type.

But David, or Hesh as everyone reportedly calls him, was decent. Clean, respectful, kind when he toured you around the apartment. The near boyish charm that laced itself between his heavy presence may have caught your attention.

But a fling, especially with a new roommate, was not what you needed.

Your room was smaller than his, but having gotten to the apartment second to him, you understood first come first served. You just enjoyed the in-unit washer and dryer and stainless steel appliances, if you were being honest.

The apprehension you had, the hang ups of starting a new chapter, moving in with someone you only just met through a friend of a friend, started to dissipate sooner than anticipated. Instead filled in by a dull surprise.

Hesh worked pretty often, but even when he wasn’t around, it’s as if he were still there.

His section of chores always finished, some of yours even started or done completely for you. You asked him about it after divvying up the household responsibilities, making sure you weren’t confused.

But he insisted it was “no biggie”, he’d just found himself taking the trash out on his way to work. Tidying the kitchen up after he got home in the middle of the night and cooked himself an impossibly late dinner.

Said dinner he left in the fridge the next morning, a sticky note on top explaining that you should finish it up so it doesn’t go bad.

Leftovers usually kept for days though, didn’t they?

His boots by the front door, the smell of his aftershave somehow lingering everywhere throughout the apartment, his hat left in the bathroom and the goddamned coasters that he insisted be used around the living room.

When he wasn’t there, it felt like he was. A ghost permeating the walls. His broad frame, tall and wide, voice deep, green eyes that somehow always landed on you when he was near. They weren’t quite unsettling eyes, they were penetrating. As if he could see what lie inside you, too.

But when he was there, it felt almost arresting. Interrupting. You barely knew him, only lived with him for a few weeks.

But you weren’t sure whether you could tell if it even felt that way anymore.

Anything he bought, you were free to use or eat. Was he just that nice? Your old roommates wouldn’t let you touch their things with a 10 foot pole. But what was his seemed to be yours in a way, too.

You chalked it up to him being an eldest child. But you weren’t merely being treated like a younger sibling.

Your Netflix subscription ended and you didnt want to spend the money to renew it, but it didn’t matter because Hesh had Netflix too. Which meant you had it.

Hesh had every kind of household tool one could need in his toolbox, which meant that you had them now too.

Except you couldn’t use them. Because he’d fix whatever you needed. Hang up any picture frame of yours on your wall as you started to decorate your space. And you merely let him, somehow unable to insist that you could indeed, handle it.

It was only natural when he’d asked if you wanted breakfast one morning, explaining that he made too much food. Too much of your favorite food. Or when he not so subtly watched how you made your tea, filing it away in his brain so he could bring you a cup one day when you were sick in bed.

And then some cough drops. And soup. And cold medicine.

Maybe you felt a bit like a guest at a bed and breakfast, or maybe he was just raised decently.

When the washing machine broke, he took a look at it before you could even bring it up to him, was he listening to you in the laundry room? Hard to say. Fixed it so you could do your loads of laundry.

But not before letting you borrow a t-shirt of his, since all your clothes were dirty, of course. You’d obviously have to wash the one you had on, too.

You thought you were surely screwed when your car broke down outside of work one day. But when you texted Hesh and asked if he knew of a good mechanic. he was, naturally, already in the area just running errands.

So he took a look at your car while you stood to the side and watched. Making a point not to watch his biceps flex around the ring of his t-shirt sleeve, or the way he brushed the sweat off his forehead.

Surely you were paying attention to his explanation of the drive belt in your car being too wore out, and not the way his fatigues stretched over the meat of his thighs.

Why was he in his work uniform if he was just running errands? You didn’t think about it very much.

Your job had been stressing you so much, and it appeared something like second nature for him to wrap you into a hug, rubbing his hand up and down your back, murmuring things that seemed too dulcet for a roommate of hardly even a month to soothe you with. Even though it helped.

He was always there, his magnetism suffocating. But not in the way that two hands might feel around your neck. But in the way the sunshine feels beating down on you. The way you feel tipsy before feeling fully drunk, charged but blissful.

Pleasantly inescapable.

You didn’t really stop to fully question his comforts though, not when he made you a cup of tea and put a movie on in the living room, sitting a bit too close to you.

Not that you minded of course, considering you fell asleep with your head on his shoulder.

And what kind of roommate would he be if he didn’t pick you up and tote you off to your bedroom? He knew you were half awake, and you knew he knew, but it didn’t matter.

With one arm hooked under your knees and the other around your back, your face that didn’t need to be pressed to his chest, it just didn’t matter.

Because what kind of roommate would he be if he didn’t lay you in your bed and cover you up, setting your alarms on your phone so you’d wake up the following morning?

How did he know your passcode? How did he know exactly what alarms you set?

It didn’t really matter to you after he kissed your head goodnight.

[kailoraurelius]

Okay, but picture it with me. 🧘 Eisa and Lin, feel free to call me, I got it all blocked out. Stage is set for Survive the Night.

Dj Pen is in the center, toward the back, on a raised platform. A set of stairs at either end of the stage, heading up to a long platform above the Dj towards the back of the stage.

Pen brings us in. As the music builds, more and more people start crossing the stage, whole gangs on the move. The representatives of the boroughs all come to form a line in front of the Dj's table. Then, bam. We get into the first borough. The Bronx jumps forward, rapping across the stage. But, right as we get to the end of his verse, he steps back as we get the, "Miracles can happen when we gather in the dark." x4.

But right as that first "Miracle" happens, a trap door opens center stage and Cleon and Rembrandt (or Cochise, I have my reasons for both of them) rise on a platform, facing away from the crowd so the first thing we see is their vests, with the red W of the Warriors. They high five, fist bump, whatever. Some acknowledgement of each other, then they split and jog off to opposite sides of the stage, where they both climb the stairs and make their way around to meet again in the center, all while the song continues.

Queens' verse. Their representative gets a moment in the spotlight. Then, as the repeating ending line comes on, that center stage platform rises again. Ajax and Fox, facing away from the crowd as, "Meet the wrong cop at night and it's brrap on sight" plays again and again. Same thing, acknowledgement of each other, split, up the stairs, meet up top.

Manhattan comes in, gets their moment. And as they step back, the platform rises with Swan and Mercy as the music repeats, "Survival all depends upon the corner you run to". Mercy, conspicuously, not wearing the vest. They have their brief (in my head, romantically charged) moment, then split and head up the stairs. However! As Swan turns the back corner to join the Warriors waiting, Mercy EXITS.

Staten Island takes their turn and, you may have guessed it, but Cochise (or Rembrandt) and Cowgirl rise onto the stage as it says, "Takin' a train to a boat to another train". Their moment, split, head upstairs.

Then the final verse, Brooklyn, ends with, "Clap your hands if you're ready to meet the Warriors!" At which point, the lights come up on the platform they're all on and we see them all in a line, backs to the audience. And as we move into Roll Call, each of them turns to face the crowd as they say their name for the first time.

Anyways, that's the stage play going on in my head lmfao.

"Miracles can happen when we gather in the dark"=Cleon, the believer, and Rembrandt because she is the one who saves the girls from the Bizzies later. They were trapped in a locked apartment, outnumbered, distracted, but Rembrandt gets them all out. Pretty miraculous. (Could also be Cochise because she, I think, believes the most in Cyrus after Cleon, as she's the only one in Roll Call that doesn't voice a complaint and sings most of Cleon's lines with her.)

"Meet the wrong cop at night and it's brrap on sight"=Ajax and Fox, pretty self-explanatory lol.

"Survival all depends upon the corner you run to"=Swan and Mercy because they repeatedly reference being in each other's/the Warriors corner throughout the play.

"Takin' a train to a boat to another train"=Cowgirl and Cochise 1. Because Cowgirl likes to ride, so her intro being about modes of transportation is a cheeky nod to that. And 2. Because this bit of the song is funny and Cowgirl and "That's high math for Rembrandt" Cochise are, undoubtedly, the funniest bitches in the crew. (Could also be Rembrandt because she's got some funny stuff too and Cochise would also fit with Cleon, so. Yeah. Interchangeable, but I like Rembrandt and Cleon, Cowgirl and Cochise.)

Anyways, enjoy this rambling. 🤙

[luvistqrzzz]

THE ACCIDENTAL POLAROID- a heeseung smau

we took a polaroid

capture the look in your eyes

PAIRINGS- heeseung x f.reader (slight sunghoon x f.reader)

SUMMARY- Lee Heeseung doesn't believe in love at first sight but what happens when he accidentally clicks a polaroid of a girl at the local diner? A girl he can't seem to get out of his mind.

Will he be able to return you the polaroid or will love follow him along the way?

GENRE- smau with written parts, college!au, strangers to lovers, fluff, crack, angst (veryyy slight), slight love triangle

FEATURING- 02z + sunoo from enhypen, yunjin and chaewon from le sserafim, beomgyu and hueningkai from txt and yujin from ive

WARNINGS- profanity, more tba in the respective chapters

TAGLIST- closed - @yenqa @xuimhao @ddazed-lhs @astrae4 @ghostiiess @seungminstaehyun @haechansbbg @chaechae-23 @ak-aaa-li @whippedforbeomgyu @ahnneyong @ineedaherosavemeenow @jhopesucker @j-wyoung @tnyhees @liliansun @rikizm @jadeluvsenha

STATUS- completed

UPDATE SCHEDULE- whenever i can tbh </3

STARTED- 25/04/2023

ENDED- 08/06/2023

NOTE- this is purely a work of fiction and it in no means represents the idol irl. also the pictures of yn are for reference purpose only. I have no intention of copying anyone, i really apologize beforehand if the idea or plot coincides with some other smau.

A/N- this is inspired by Jonas Blue's song Polaroid (check it out asap its a bop!!) ik ik i have another smau to update but i posted this one on impulse lolol... hopefully will begin with it soon <3! omg its already midnight here i think i really need to sleep lmfao😭😭

MOODBOARD | PLAYLIST

PROFILES- singlez+betrayer// young dumb stupid

CHAPTERS-

001- reason for my poverty

002- and i oop- (partly written::: 0.3K)

003- yunjin got brains

004- "responsible good friend" with a plot twist

005- Mr.H

006- plan failed? 100%

007- running late is not fun (partly written::: 0.2K)

008- simpsons minus the "son"

009- de-rizz someone with 0 rizz??

010- chaewon gets a happy meal (and third wheels)

011- HALF ver. - umbrella crisis

╰┈➤FULL ver.- weird feelings (partly written::: 0.2K)

012- ✨jEaLoUsY✨

013- 1/i■€h33$€♡&¿

014- Make dem moves

015- liquid courage gone wrong (written::: 0.5K)

016- smiley faced emoji

017- on read

018- FML

019- man w a mission

020- Love, Y/N ( written::: 0.47K )

021- it's like a polaroid love- FINALE- ( written::: 0.5K )

it's only a matter of time

before it starts fadin'

Enjoyed The Accidental Polaroid? Check out another smau L♡VE THEORY set in the same universe, starring Jake ^^!!

work belongs to @/luvistqrzzz do not repost, copy or translate my work.

reblogs are appreciated

[daydreamingleclerc]

our house // mick schumacher

all mick wants for his birthday is for you to move in with him, and so you plan to make it one he won't forget.

warnings: pwp, unprotected sex, dirty talk, dom!mick, sub!reader, daddy!mick, princess!reader, fingering, oral (f), breeding kink i guess lmfao, squirting, i think that’s it? the tiniest bit of fluff @ the end.

notes: this was written with a mid/plus-size reader in mind but its not really mentioned too much. this was a last minute after work writing session so its extremely rushed & not proofread. thanks to @landopeaches & @sainzcaleruega for once again helping w this and happy birthday to our darling mick xx

*

"happy birthday, baby."

mick dropped his bag at the foot of his front door to be greeted by you, standing in his hallway wearing what could only be described as the sexiest lingerie he'd ever seen you wearing.

he seemed to have a thing for black lingerie, and he loved the way strappy things looked on you because of your curves. your boobs spilled out of the lace that was covering them. "hi princess," mick cooed, allowing his arms to open when you walked into them, "what's all this? can i come in?"

you were wearing his favourite perfume of yours, and in the distance he could smell the familiar scent of fresh cotton candles. "i thought i'd surprise you by showing up and decorating the house," your arms wrapped around his shoulders, "but we can talk about that later, tonight's about you."

"in that set? i think tonight's about you, kitten."

mick's words gave you butterflies, and his hands found your bum, giving it harsh squeezes. you jumped up into his arms, and as a car turned the corner he kicked the door shut with his foot. his lips felt so soft against yours. you'd been apart for just over a week, and every day you yearned for him more.

mick pushed your back against the closest wall, and now you were balanced between the wall and him, with your legs still wrapped around his waist, he was free to roam your body. he didn't even notice the pictures you'd added to the wall, he was too lost in you.

"mmm, slow, baby," you tucked your finger under his chin, "we've got all night."

he sucked at the spot under your ear, and his hand travelled down to your clothed clit, "really baby?" he circled his finger over it a few times, and watched as your attitude completely changed, "because it seems like you want me now." a whimper left your lips and it finalised mick's statement. "that's what i thought."

"can we move to the livingroom? it's prettier in there," you half-whined when his fingers found your clit again, not wanting your days work to go to waste. "please, baby."

"i've got the prettiest view right here, darling," mick's hand found your neck, "now keep quiet so i can make you cum."

you weren't going to argue with mick when he was making you feel this good, and so you began to grind down on his fingers as he rubbed your clit, desperate for him to fill you up with his fingers. "such a dirty girl opening the door wearing this," he breathed against your ear and bit down on your earlobe, "what would've happened if i had the boys with me? hm? i bet you'd have loved that, wouldn't you?"

"fuck, mick," you breathed out, feeling your orgasm coming, "don't stop, please."

he bit down on your ear again, "don't stop talking or don't stop fingering?" he asked, looking up at you, "come on, baby, gimme an answer."

his fingers slowed but then you shook your head, a non-verbal beg for him to continue, and so when his fingers sped up, your orgasm hit you like a wave. mick pulled his fingers from your clit, and you whimpered, wishing they were still there despite the sensitivity.

he was rock hard in his jeans, and you bit back a moan.

"what's so wonderful about this livingroom, baby?" he asked, dropping you to your feet. his mind ran circles around itself when the sound of your heels hitting the floor wobbled because of the sensitivity. "what if i wanna unwrap my birthday present out here?"

"i promise you don't want to do that." you took his hand and guided him into the livingroom, and the smell of fresh cotton wafted through stronger now. candles were laid out across the entire room, and you'd put a makeshift bed down on the mattress -- your mattress that would very soon also be his -- opposite the television. rose petals were scattered across the room too, and there was a big pile of birthday presents in the corner. "this took me way too long for you to want to fuck me in the hall."

mick took an intake of breath, and pulled you around to kiss him. "it's absolutely beautiful, baby, thank you," he kicked his shoes off and made his way to the bed with you in tow. "now, please, come here so i can finally fuck you, i've been thinking about it all day."

you smirked and crawled down onto the bed, "oh, really? what have you been thinking about doing?"

mick's hands tugged at the lace of your g-string until it snapped, "been thinking about this perfect pussy," he laid you down on the mattress and climbed over you, "been thinking about how wet and warm it is," he pulled your tits from their lace prison and left kisses to the nipples, "about how it was made for me," his lips travelled down your stomach, and when his breath hit your pubic bone you struggled to keep composure, "about how fucking good it tastes."

he hardly finished his sentence before he was burying his face into your pussy, diving straight in as if he was a man starved. your back arched immediately off of the bed, and your hands found his hair in the midst of all the pleasure. you felt guilty knowing that it was his birthday and you were the one getting head, but the night was still young and mick knew you'd return the favor in the middle of a movie later.

"fucking hell, mick," you cried out, allowing yourself to be louder than usual. your fingers circled over your nipples and mick watched through hooded eyes as you touched yourself, his tongue lapping away at your clit. "you're so -- oh, fuck, -- so good at that."

his fingers teased at your entrance and you mewled at him as they pressed softly into you. "oh my... fuck... mick 'm gonna.... i can't, please," you cried, eyes finding his in the haze of your nearing orgasm, and all he did was hum against your clit, leaving you reeling. "oh, fuck!"

mick licked you clean and leaned up to kiss you, forming spittle in his mouth for you to hold on your tongue as he admired it. "god, you're fucking perfect," he clenched your cheeks together between his fingers, and you knew then that you could swallow. "good girl."

your hands absentmindedly wandered to the button on his jeans, and when you pushed the material down his legs and palmed him through his calvins he smiled. "what do you want, baby?"

"you know what i want, micky."

"not without you telling me, princess."

you pouted. mick loved it when you were in this mood, pushing your buttons. you were starting to become bratty, and thats when he could have hs real fun, but his favourite thing to do was make you cum, and he didn't want to punish you on his birthday.

"i want you to fuck me, daddy, please."

"see, baby, that wasn't so hard, was it?" he cooed, and positioned you exactly how he saw fit. your legs were up against either of his shoulders and he kissed you softly, "god, you're so fucking pretty underneath me, baby. the prettiest present i ever had."

you nodded, not even bothering to hide the blush on your cheeks because mick would’ve undoubtedly loved the way your cheeks lit up in his favourite shade of crimson.

“want me to go in like this, baby? hm?”

“mhm, yes daddy,” you replied, looking so innocent he thought he might combust there and then. “i thought it could be one of your birthday presents.”

mick slipped inside of you and you gasped at the full feeling, “you’re so considerate of me, princess,” inch by inch, he filled you up slowly until you could feel his pubic bone at your bum, and his hand caressed your legs, “i love you.”

“i love you, too, micky.”

the first drawback of mick’s hips left you reeling, and you fought to hold back your moans; until you remembered you didn’t have to. he always knew how to hit the spot, every single time.

“fucking hell, princess,” mick drawled, “i dont fuck you for a week and you’re so tight. did you miss me?”

“mhm,” you nodded, your throat already beginning to get dry, “i missed you so much micky, i’m so glad you’re home.”

he leaned down and his tongue swiped at your bottom lip, and as he thrusted inside of you deeper and harder, your mouth fell into an O shape, and he smirked against your lips. “there’s my good girl,” he hummed, “i love making you cum over and over, darling, it’s the only present i wanted today.”

his words triggered the orgasm to light up inside of your stomach again and you could feel the blood pulsing in your veins as it grew closer. “i knew you’d be desperate to feel me inside of you, princess,” he didn’t waver once, “the way your pussy’s clenching around me tells me everything i need to know.”

“fuck, mick,” you cried, “i don’t know how much longer i can hold it.”

“hold it, baby,” he kissed your nose, “wait for me.”

the orgasm crept closer and closer to the surface, “i don’t know if i can, daddy, please… i…”

“don’t you fucking dare, princess,” mick warned, slapping your clit, “you’ve been so good all evening. wait for me.”

mick wasn’t going to be much longer, you could tell because of his dip in body language. his arms began to shake and he’d started to watch his dick slipping inside of you, which meant he was close. he angled himself up slightly further and the new angle left you seeing stars. you really couldn’t last much longer.

“mick, i…”

“go on, pretty girl, cum for me.”

he didn’t have to tell you twice.

it rolled over you like a wave and left you screaming. you didn’t intend on squirting all over your new bedsheets and living room floor, but you did, and as you screamed mick’s name, his own orgasm washed over him.

his bottom half was almost entirely soaked, and you felt a red heat come to your cheeks once again, but this time you took pride in it.

“fucking hell, baby,” mick laughed as he pulled out of you, “your pussy is magical.”

“i know it is,” you shifted and rested your head on his chest when he flopped down beside you, not even bothering to clean yourselves up just yet. “well, that’s the new sheets ruined.”

“new sheets? what’s wrong with my sheets?”

you couldn’t believe he still hadn’t cottoned on. he was so invested in your stupid lingerie set like a teenager seeing boobs for the first time that he didn’t even clock the changes you’d made to his house. your house.

“baby, didn’t you ever wonder how i got in to decorate the room?”

“well.. no.. i thought..” mick paused, and then it clicked. “you’ve finally moved in.”

“i did,” you smiled and left a kiss to his puckered lips, “i wanted to make this your best birthday yet and i think i succeeded.”

he rolled on top of you again, “oh, princess, you definitely succeeded.”

[gogotti]

Simon “Ghost” Riley/Reader NSFW

Here I am again after being in the void for months, this time with a COD fic! I know, I know, you’re all proud of me for writing something other than Michael Myers porn but it won’t last long, I promise. If you want more Ghost porn send the petitions to my ask box! My Masterlist has much more 18+ stuff, you should look at it (if you’re old enough)

Anyway! Warnings: Stalker! Simon, dub-con, somno, reader orgasm, size difference, he gives reader head (if I miss any tags please tell me lmfao)

“G’morning, love.”

Simon softly spoke as he sat up in your bed, stretching thoroughly and peering over at your sleeping form as his body got used to being up. He let his eyes wander to you, sweeping your entire form methodically, a habit from being out on the field. You looked stunning while you slept, and Simon felt himself move toward you; keeping his hands off of you was hard enough when you were awake, but now? Impossible. As you lay there still, none of the stressors of the day weighed you down, you weren't as tense as you normally were; he’d define the word ‘peace’ with a picture of you sleeping, he’d probably use the same photo for the word ‘home’ too- you’d be the definition of many things for him, but that means he’d need more photos of you.

The thought, and the guilt it would bring, bounced around in his head as he positioned himself above you, his much larger form dwarfing yours completely and making him harden in his loose sweats, with, of course, nothing underneath. He leaned down, softly kissing your face before tracing the curve of your body down to the hem of your shorts; he wished he hesitated, that his fingers were shaking as he took them off completely, he wanted so desperately to hold his breath in fear that you’d hear the shakiness in each one. But he didn't. He was still, precise, and most worrying, calm.

It didn't take him long to get you worked up; he knew what you liked, exactly how to swirl his tongue around your clit and how to curl his fingers just enough to make you spill onto his face. Unfortunately, Simon is good at his job, and your calm dream is uninterrupted with a blinding orgasm that has your wholesome picnic turning into something you'd have to unpack later. Your body tenses as you cum, and your eyes slowly open only to roll to the back of your head and close again. When the ride was over, and your breath found you again, you sat up; it didn't take long to feel the sheets, and your racing heartbeat, to know that he’d visited again. You shakily stood, thoughts racing as you made your way to the bathroom. You’d have to triple check the house before bed to ensure no door or window remain unlocked again, and to make sure the spare keys are right where you left them.

[sunlightandsuffering]

The crazy Sacrilege fan here ! I LOVE THAT DRABBLE MIKASA IS SUCH AN UNHINGED FREAK I ADORE HER THANK YOU LYS THANK YOU !!! And Eren cares about her , « might even love her, just a little » LMFAO MR COP IS SO BUSTED !! If I may ask, how do you think they would react to a pregnancy scare ? I think crazy ass Mika might even like it, think it’s the Lord’s Will for them to be with child . Eren is head over heels for his little gf so he woudn’t mind giving her a child but he doesn’t want her to regret it later, she needs to go to college and start a career first!

AHAHAHA OMG ILY !!!! 💗💗 ur so funny lol!!! THEY'RE BOTH UNHINGED THO AND THAT'S WHAT WE LOVE THEM FOR, THE ABSOLUTE FUCKING CHAOS !!!!

omg okay, i can totally see this going like both ways, mostly bc I'm so anti religion bc of how much fucking shit it can create. So me, being a little shit, i'd love to go against the grain here and have Mikasa just be pRO CHOICE GIRLY !! Altho I do think she'd be like a little thrilled to have a child with Eren lol. LETS WRITE IT AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS!! bro tell me why they're so cute tho i like this drabble lol

Mikasa stares at the pregnancy test blankly, head knocked back against the bathroom cabinet of Eren’s apartment. Two little red lines to seal her fate, she should be thrilled.  

She isn’t. 

Contrary to her mother and every other girl in her church, Mikasa feels nothing but dread, cold, inescapable dread and suffocation. Because yes, a baby is cute, a baby is sweet, a baby would be the perfect embodiment of her and Eren’s love. They’d be the picture perfect happy family, the one people see on instagram, and she could be a stay at home mom and do all that ridiculous mom-fluencer stuff she sees.

The entire idea makes Mikasa want to throw up, and she’s not so sure it’s the pregnancy, because she isn’t that far along at all yet. 

She slumps, dropping the test to the floor beside her and blinking back stubborn tears, she wonders if this is God’s plan. Because surely, it must be? She wouldn’t be pregnant if it wasn’t His will. Hell, she’s already gone against the church by using birth control, condoms and the pill. 

So there’s really no other way she could have possibly gotten pregnant, right? Nothing else other than pure divine intervention would have allowed this. 

Mikasa sniffles meekly, a tear sleeping down her cheek despite her attempts not to cry and she wipes it away with her sleeve. Drawing her knees up to her chest, she crumples in on herself because what the fuck is she going to do? She’s not married, not yet at least, not in school yet –will probably have to drop out now actually– and her parents will most certainly withdraw what little support they were willing to provide her. She can hear it now, they’re going to call her sweet little baby a bastard, the church will gossip, her youth group will turn on her, and the pastor will look at her with eyes full of disgust at every turn. The tears flow faster now, slipping down her cheeks freely, and before she realizes it, she’s sobbing alone in Eren’s apartment bathroom, utterly alone. 

And there’s that too, isn’t there, how Eren will react. She doesn’t know, doesn’t want to lose him, but what if it’s too soon? Eren isn’t that old, only 24 and still working his way up in the force, he probably doesn’t want a baby yet either. 

He’s certainly never talked about it, and it has Mikasa tearing up all over again, because she’s going to lose him, and her parents again all at once. And she can’t lose him, she just can’t, she loves him. What had started as pure angsty rebellion had turned into love so quickly she doesn’t even know when it started. But he’s so supportive, hot, and so fucking good for her if she thinks about it, had told her just to fucking move in when her parents had gotten fussy over their break-up. He’d shrugged like it was no big deal, “Don’t worry about rent, Mika, just as long as you sleep in my bed.” Then, he’d left for work with a wink, and Mikasa for the first time in her life had real fucking independence, the very thing she’d been yearning for, begging for when he’d fucked her on that alter. 

And now here she is, about to lose it all again, her shackles renewed by the responsibility of a child and all the pressures that come with being a mom before she’s financially ready or responsible in the slightest. 

There is a click outside and Mikasa inhales sharply, glancing at her watch, because how long has she been in this bathroom moping? It’s 9:00 am on the dot, Eren is home, having just gotten off an overnight shift, and she can already hear him stomping around, seeking her out. “Mikasa,” He calls, and she slaps a hand over her mouth to keep quiet, for what she doesn’t know, he’ll find her eventually. “Baby where are you, I can see your shoes by the door, come out.” She doesn’t, fear paralyzes her, this agony of what to do, to tell him, not to tell him, to just run away and give it up for adoption, show up again in nine months and hope he doesn’t hate her. But Eren is a cop, surely he’d find her no matter where she went? And he does, just like he’d find her if she ran away, sweeping the apartment methodically before coming to the bathroom door, just off his bedroom. 

He knocks, “Miki, what are you doing?” She doesn’t answer, just grabs the pregnancy test, holds it closer as the two positive red lines blur together, tears flowing freely again. It takes Eren one attempt, one fucking shot to jimmy the lock open, and he’s leaning against the door frame like an avenging angel as he looks her over. He’s terrifying, clad in his police uniform, black cargo pants with so many pockets and that tight long sleeve shirt that goes under his body armour. 

He quirks a brow up at her as he notices her tears, eyes scanning her over, and she can pinpoint the exact moment he notices the pregnancy test, his teeth coming down to bite into his lip, his only nervous tic. “So,” He asks casually, “Pregnant?” She nods meekly, a sob working its way up her throat, all she can think to do is apologize, because obviously it’s her fault, “I’m so sorry Eren.” 

She should have never slept with him, never disobeyed God like this, it’s her punishment, and she just spirals, ugly crying in her boyfriend’s bathroom at 8 am on a wednesday. “Oh Miki no, it takes two, okay,” Eren half laughs as he kneels down next to her, tucking a strand of hair out of her eyes. He wipes the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs, cupping her face with more love and affection than she’s ever known in her life, “It was definitely more me if I recall correctly, in the back of my squad car, in the kitchen,” He smirks, looking down at her, “Yesterday morning in the shower.” Mikasa smacks him for that, choking out a laugh, “Stop it, I’m sad right now.” Eren chuckles, sitting down next to her and grabbing her hand with the pregnancy test to look at it himself. “You don’t have to be sad Miki, it doesn’t have to be a big thing you know.” 

She leans into him, her head on his shoulder as she thinks about it, “Eren I’m gonna get huge and fat, it’s definitely gonna be a thing and people are definitely going to notice.” He bumps her with his shoulder lightly, “Nah you’d be cute pregnant, and fuck,” He groans as if he’s thinking about it, “Your tits would definitely get even better.” Mikasa gasps, smacking his arm again, and before she can stop him he’s going in for a squeeze that has her yelping because yeah, she’s already a little more sensitive. He smirks, more smug than he has any right to be in this situation, ten minutes ago she was crying her eyes out. 

“So does this mean you want it, then, that you’ll support me?” Mikasa asks hopefully and Eren squeezes her thigh, looking down at her with more intensity than she knew him capable of, “Mikasa of course I’ll support you in whatever you decide to do, this would be my kid too.” He pauses and Mikasa waits, looking up at him earnestly, ready to accept whatever else he has to say, because he’s Eren and he so obviously loves her. “I know it’s a little taboo in the church community, but have you thought about getting an abortion?” Mikasa cracks, heaving out a great sob, and before she knows it she’s in Eren’s lap with him shushing her as she whispers all her fears into his neck, “You don’t want it, you’re lying you just- you just want to appease me and –” “Mikasa,” Eren kisses his way up her neck, voice right at her ear, “I’m not lying, but look at me.” He cups her chin roughly, tilting her head up so she’s forced to look into those pretty green eyes, “Baby you’re in school, you haven’t even started yet, and I’ve heard you, fuck baby I’ve heard you talk about school so many times and how much you want to be a nurse.” He leans down, so their foreheads touch, and he leans into her, “And as much as I’d love to see you pregnant, how fucking pretty you’d be, cute as hell waddling around my house knocked up with my fucking kid, it would also suck a lot because I know Mikasa that you’d be miserable, would be delaying your dreams for several years at the very fucking least and I could never ask you to do that.” Mikasa inhales shakily, relaxing into him now, the hand on her thigh, the other at the nape of her neck, how warm and solid he is against her, Eren. 

She tilts her head up for a kiss, something soft, chaste, comfort. 

He kisses her softly, all gentle affection, his hand rubbing over her thigh to keep her calm and when she pulls back she’s calmer, more stable in his arms. 

“Is it allowed?” She whispers, almost nervously, afraid she’ll be shot down by the universe at the mere suggestion. Eren laughs, his hand drifting up to her hip to tug her closer in his lap, “Of course it’s allowed Mikasa, no one has to know we have free health care you know, we’ll just you know, schedule you an appointment, I don’t think it’s that hard.” “Really?” she mumbles, “Just like that?” “I think so, I mean obviously I haven’t had one, but I don’t think it’ll be that difficult, we can call in a minute.”

“Okay,” she mumbles and Eren kisses her again, nipping her cheek as he demands her attention, “But I want to know you’re doing it for you, not because of me or anything else, this has to be your decision Mikasa and I’m just along for the ride.” She sighs, “I think you’re right, I just didn’t want to be the one to say it, but before you got here all I could think about was how much it was going to fuck up my life.” Eren gasps, and she looks up, suddenly afraid, does he think she’s disgusting, a worthless human being because of it? His eyes are alight with amusement, “You swore, what a naughty little church girl you are.” 

She smacks him and violently, which has him cackling, and he uses his leverage to go in for another kiss, which she accepts gratefully. “As long as it’s your decision Mikasa, I don’t care, hell I kind of agree, I’m not sure if I’d be a great dad right now, I’m too selfish. I wanna keep you to myself for as long as I can.” Mikasa laughs, “Then maybe we’d better start using better protection.” “Yeah, we’re also scheduling you for an IUD appointment, because fuck are you bad at taking those pills.” She winces, “I took it this morning.” Eren looks at her in disbelief, “Miki you’re already pregnant.” “Well, I tried not to be,” She tells him poutily and Eren pinches her waist, “You did a shit job.” “We just agreed it was your fault!” 

Eren smiles deviously, “Yeah it is, and it’s about to be my fault again.” 

He yanks her down against him, a devilish gleam in his eyes, and she can feel his very obvious erection right against the soft of her cunt, separated only by the thin layer of her pyjama pants. 

“Have you been hard the entire time?” “I’m not a monster, just since you swore, it just does things to me, it’s not my fault, really it’s yours.” “Oh my God,” Mikasa groans, and she can feel Eren below her, grinding her down against his cock, that guilty look on his face, “Holy fuck does it turn you on when I’m like bad?” “Is that blasphemous of me?” 

“God yes,” She tells him and then she’s kissing him, because no one else but Eren Yeager has ever made being bad feel so good.

[piastrisversion]

morning haze | matty healy x gn!reader

warnings: smut, morning sex, unprotected sex (wrap it before u tap it!), language

a/n: this might seem out of pocket (esp for someone who hasn't posted in months) but i was tried of only finding matty x f!reader shit so here i am LMFAO i still wanted female aligning readers to enjoy this so hopefully gender neutral is good! also elinore....don't be mad at me (also pictures aren't mine!)

the story will continue once you click "keep reading"

Matty always wanted to savour every miniscule moment with you. The way you felt. The way you both moaned at a single thrust. The way you would wrap round his throbbing cock. Everything, and I mean everything, he wanted to remember. That's why he never did quickies (unless on tour) or morning sex. His brain would be to foggy and if he came too fast, he would feel embarrassed. You didn't blame him. In fact, you felt the same way.

Most days started out the same. You both would take turns showering and do your respective skincare routines. He would always wake up first, you would follow a solid 5 to 30 minutes later. But this time, you woke up first. You turn over to check the clock, it's 6:42am. Jesus Christ, you think. You've never been up this early. You turn back over to see a half awake Matty fighting the warm embrace of the sheets clung to his half naked body. You feel the wave of lust wash over you. It's too early. He would never say yes. At least not this early.

You turn over and fall back asleep. About an hour later, you wake up to the bathroom light illuminate the rooms. Matty, still shirtless, starts brushing his teeth as you feel the same wave from the hour before consume you. God how much you wanted him to slid his throbbing hard cock inside of you. It wasn't a want, it was a fucking need. You tried to shake the feeling off but it wouldn't go away. You finally decided to cave in and ask. What's the worst that could happen.

You walk up to the bathroom and hug your handsome boyfriend from behind. You weren't over how pretty he could be. He was fucking gorgeous and he's all yours. "Mornin' babe." he mumbles with toothpaste still fresh in his mouth. "Morning" you respond back. You feel so embarrassed asking for him to fuck you, at this point you were debating on just forgetting about it and masturbate when he was having breakfast with the boys a few hours later after saying just one word to the man. He spits out the toothpaste and scans your body language. "Why so nervous, darling?". "Nothing" you stumble out. "It is something. Come on", he touches your arm, "Tell me, love." You check him out before doing something you thought you would never do. Make the first move.

You push his lips into yours as you begin to caress his freshly shampoo-and-conditioned hair. At first, he was shocked but he grew to like you in control. You thought he would push you away yet, that never happened. He runs in fingers through your hair as you start to position yourself for him. You touch his hardening cock. Feeling his head throb in your hand as he whimpers for you. "Baby, I really fucking need to be inside you". "I thought you didn't like fucking in the morning". "I guess I lied" he moans out.

"Fuck, stop teasing me." he says as he pulls down his pajama bottoms and boxers. "Fine." you say with a lust filled smile. You prop yourself back on the bathroom sink as you pump his cock with your hand. This is all you wanted. If sex was an art, this is your guy's magnum opus. "Please, love. Let me in." he begs. You nod and literally the next millisecond he thrusts himself inside of you. You both moaned at the initial thrust. He felt so good around you. Your tight hole pleasuring him just right.

You pull his hair, and by proxy, his head back as he continues to fastly make you love him even more. His large cock beating inside of you as your heads glisten in sweat. "Fuck, this position is uncomfortable" you somehow get to say in-between moans. "Well then, why don't we move". He picks you up and takes you from the bathroom to the bedroom with his cock still inside of you. He drops you onto the bed and lifts your legs. He stops himself before telling you to get on your knees. You gladly do so before Matty grabbing your hair and pulling you into his cock. He yanks your hair up and down while you circle your tongue around his cut cock.

Your worshipping everything about this man, his body, his cock, his personality, his pubes, his music, everything about him just with a flick of your tongue. You use one of your hands to play with yourself but you feel yourself climax. "Baby, baby, i'm about to come" you say between tugs of your hair. "I am too, darling.", he whimpers, "Get on the bed and open your legs for me, angel". You do as he says and the moment your legs are up he's back inside you.

You knew it would take less than 5 minutes for the both of you to come. But those 5 minutes were about to fucking count. He bucks his hips as you both moan in perfect synchronization. "Oh fuck Matty, i'm gonna come". "Me too, me too. Fuck, fuck, fuck". He puts his hands on the back of his head as he continues to thrust inside you.

"Ok baby, on three?" he says. You nood as he begin counting down. "One...". You swallow. "Two...". "Three! Oh fuck, babe. Yes, oh fuck, darling" he whimpers. "Yes, babe. Thank you" you moan. "No, thank you" he says as he falls on the bed next to you.