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marvelwitchergilmore · 3 days ago

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Friendship In Escape

Summary: Steve Rogers x fe!Reader -> After escaping a party, you meet Steve Rogers. It's in a simple conversation, you and him find common ground and from that a friendship grows. Question is, will either of you ever find the courage to act of the underlying feelings?

Disclaimer: This is a LONG one. Spoilers ahead for most of the main Captain America/Avengers films from The Avengers. Also, there's probably a lot of plot holes in this fic so we're just gonna ignore them. Slow, slow burn. Angst-y moments. Found family, fluff, taking care of each other. Some swearing. Reader helps Steve adjust to the modern world. Lots of hugging. Probably spelling and grammar mistakes but we're gonna ignore them, too (it's late and I'm pretty sure my brain is fried). Hope you enjoy it <3 Not proof read.

The party had been humming to life for an hour or more before the honorable host finally showed his face. Dawned in a big name branded suit, Tony Stark stood at the top of the stairs, calling for people to start the party.

There was meant to be music, laughter, too many drinks and a fight he’ll be able to tell a story about at the next party. And you were sure, by the end of the night, he’d get his wish.

This party in particular had been the third you’d been dragged along to in the space of a month. It hadn’t changed since you were a child.

Posh names belonging to posh people with deep pockets and, when the time called for it, had long arms, too. The amount of money that was gathered from parties like this were worth the events being held.

But never once had you felt comfortable.

It wasn’t the shoes or the dress. In fact, getting ready was the best part of the night. But being dragged to the same people, with the same stories, being told about the same single people in their family, their sons, nephews, cousins. Being told to stand and take a picture with a smile that will let everyone know how fun the parties are.

But they weren’t.

For others they were. But for you? You had more fun spending time alone in the libraries at University, studying, answering company emails and working, mostly, from behind the curtain.

If you could have done that, you would have avoided the parties all together. Relationships with other businesses were already solidified and had been for almost fifty years.

So, after the fourth hour of walking around the gala room, standing and being forced to listen to the same conversations that you’d heard your whole life, listening to people be more interested in what Tony Stark had placed around his hosting room, and being introduced to another twenty something with a multi-billion dollar company behind his family’s name, but no integrity, you found your escape.

“Darling, where are you going?” Your mother asked as you handed her your drink.

“Just to the bathroom.”

She gave you a smile. “Hurry back. Sandra told me she’s bringing her cousin. Special invite from Mr Stark himself.”

You forced your millionth smile of the night and nodded. “Will do.”

As you took the stairs up towards the upper floors and bathrooms, you looked down over the edge of the balcony. They were preoccupied, listening to somebody’s story.

Rather than taking a right, you took a left, bumping into a waitress.

“I’m so sorry. Are you alright?”

She nodded. “Can I help you with something?”

You looked around you. “Just promise you didn’t see me. I need a break.”

The waitress just smiled. “There’s some rooms that haven't been decorated yet. Just take a right at the end of the hall.”

You looked down the hall, looked back and smiled at her. The first genuine smile of the evening.

“Thank you.”

She shrugged. “This is my fifth party helping the host. We all need a break every once in a while.”

You thanked her again before walking down the hall. The minute you turned the corner, the party seemed like it was miles away. Every once in a while, you heard a roar of laughter but it never got any louder than that.

With a sigh of relief, you decided to explore the different rooms. Some had tarp over the entrances, the insides not being suitable to survive at least an hour in. From holes in the floors to fresh paint fumes and drying plaster.

But then one at the very end of the hall had a door. So, taking your chance, you opened it.

“Oh!”

Inside stood a man dressed in a woolen style suit, his tie loose around his neck. He looked as if he’d been pacing and deep in thought before you’d opened the door.

“I-” You looked around you, fearful you were about to get into trouble. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone- Sorry.”

“Trying to escape the party, too?”

You stopped trying to close the door and looked at him. You couldn’t put your finger on it; maybe it was the way he stood, maybe it was the tone in his voice or maybe it was the way he was looking at you, but you saw something trustworthy in him.

An unlikely friend in a place where you had none.

“What gave it away?”

He smiled, softly. “You’re welcome to stay, if you’d like.”

You stepped inside. “Thank you.”

“I- I’m Steve, by the way.” He held out his hand and you shook it.

“Y/n.”

“It’s nice to meet you.”

For the second time that evening, you gave a genuine smile. “Likewise. So, what are you hiding from? A match-making mother, or a business minded father?”

“Neither.” Steve laughed a little.

You walked further into the room before finding a spot with less sawdust on the ground. You’d been on your feet for a long time. You found the perfect spot against a wall between two windows.

“Wow,” you brushed what sawdust you could with your feet before turning around and tucking the skirt of your dress down. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”

He chuckled. “Not a big one.”

You shrugged, stretching your legs out and crossing them at your ankles. You patted the ground beside you. “My parents want me to socialise. I’d say talking with you qualifies as that. I’ve got time.”

Steve smiled as he watched you, finally agreeing to sit beside you.

And for the first time in almost a month, you weren’t bored.

Talking and listening to Steve didn’t make you so bored out of your mind you would have rather ran a cross country race. Talking with Steve was the first time you felt comfortable at one of these fancy galas.

You’d come to learn that he was, in fact, the man they’d dug out of the ice. That he was the soldier lost to time, being forced into a new century without any idea how to deal with it.

“I know a little of what that’s like,” you admitted to him. “To feel lost. I’ve been attending different parties like this since I was a kid. And never once have I felt comfortable attending them. I can talk to everyone in the room and feel completely loney, but I can sit on my own in a quiet place like this and…feel comfortable and be myself.”

“I had that once.” Steve told you. “I’d say back home, but I’m still in the same country. To be honest, I don’t know what anything is outside of this room.”

Then an idea popped into your head. “I could help.”

“How?”

You shrugged. “I could help you adjust. I’m no therapist but I know how most things work in the 21st century. Movies, media, books. You said they gave you a document packet?”

Steve nodded, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a folded over thick document.

“With all the stores and street names, I don’t recognise anything anymore.”

Opening it up, Steve handed it to you. It had an address, some pictures, different appointments and different wifi codes.

“I know where this is.”

“You do?” Steve seemed surprised. They’d given him the address three days ago with no instruction on how to find it. They just told him something about Google Maps. Whatever a Google was.

You nodded. “It looks kinda old.”

Steve shrugged. “��Guess it’s their way of giving me some familiarity.”

You shook your head. “When do you move in?”

“End of the week.”

“I’ve got a meeting in the morning, but I can take the rest of the day – help you move in, if you’d like.”

Steve looked at you. “You’d really do that for me?”

You handed his document back and nodded. “I would. Just because you were given an image for them to control, doesn’t mean that they should take advantage of the person you are behind it all.”

“That’s really kind of you, ma’am.”

You smiled. “Don’t mention it.”

For an hour more, you and Steve just talked. Filled with quiet laughter and genuine smiles, you and Steve found an unlikely friendship in each other that evening.

A friendship that would only grow stronger and stronger over the years.

At the end of that week, you met Steve outside the SI building before walking with him towards the underground and pointing out different landmarks for him to recognise. A university campus, a museum, a deli store that served the best sandwiches. You explained about the times for the trains that headed towards the different states. Finally, walking down the different streets, Steve started to recognise a few different places. New businesses stood in their places, but the bricks around them were the same.

“Pretty sure I got beat up in that alley.”

You followed Steve’s eye-line before looking back at him. “Bet your mom was beside herself with the amount of times you came home with a black eye.”

Steve held a reminiscent smile on his face as he looked at his shoes. “Just a kid from Brooklyn who was too dumb enough to run away from the fight.”

You watched Steve for a moment; something in his tone told you those weren’t just his words.

“Come on, we’re almost there.”

You took Steve’s hand, leading him down the street before you both arrived at the apartment block. A couple of younger kids were playing out in the street, kicking a football around until they scored it round the corner of the building, one of their mother’s yelling to play in the back.

A guy with a coffee cart served passers by heading back from their lunch break, on the corner.

Unlocking the front door, you and Steve walked up the first few flights of stairs before finally reaching his new home.

As Steve opened up the door and walked inside, he was met with a living space that probably hadn’t had someone live there…maybe ever. The furniture seemed old, the kitchen table was rusting a little at the bottom of the legs and the curtains had seen better days.

A few boxes had been stacked by the entrance way with different labels scribbled on them.

You rifled through them. “Bed sheets, books, clothes.”

You took a note of the size label. “You know, I think one of my friends might have some clothes you’d like. She runs a clothing company that does everything from a vintage style to modern day. I’m sure she’d love to let you rifle through her products; see if there’s anything you’d like to take off her hands.”

You turned around but Steve hadn’t been listening. Instead, he’d been focusing on the case files that were strewn across the kitchen table.

Standing beside him, keeping your eye on his reactions, you looked down at the table before you came across a picture. You had to take a breath.

Steve had told you a little about his friends from the war. The Howling Commandos.

“Is that them?”

Steve nodded.

It took Steve a while to get used to his new apartment, but with your help, he found it becoming a home. You helped him change the bedsheets and work out his washing machine before putting your phone number into his phone.

“Think of it like a telegram,” you told him. “But rather than waiting weeks to hear back, it’s almost instantly.”

In the weeks that followed, you met Steve at his apartment every few days. On the weekends, you showed him around some of the thrift stores where he’d found a new kitchen table and some dishes to use in the kitchen.

One of your friends – the same friend that ran a clothing company – had delivered some new curtains. They were plain, but they were better than the ones Steve had been left with.

Meanwhile, Steve found an old gym where he could spend his evenings and, with your help, had figured out the basics of a phone and computer.

The one Shield had given him was far too high tech, even for you. So, you had brought Steve one of your old ones. It was still pretty modern, but it was a lot simpler to use than the Stark Industries issued one.

Then he got pulled into helping Shield with a threat that, to him, would have been best left in the ocean.

News reports came in thick and fast during the attack on New York. You hadn’t heard from Steve during it, until you nearly ran into him in the middle of the street as mechanical…whatever the hell they were, were flying through the sky.

“Why are you still in the city?! Everyone needs to get out.”

You nodded. “I know, but people needed help.” You looked down at his shield. “You know how to use that?”

Steve nodded.

“Can you break a lock with it?”

Steve followed you as you ran down an alley before disappearing around the corner and to an employee entrance. Neither you or Steve could tell what had welded a lock shut, but considering some kind of blue weapon lay not too far out in the middle of the street with similar residue being left of the door, you could only gather it had been some alien technology.

It took a few tries but the lock finally busted open and a bunch of parents with their kids came flooding out of the doors. As you and Steve started directing people to safety out of the city, you saw the way the kids looked up at Steve.

The whole image of Captain America had been controlled by the government, making him an image away from Steve Rogers. But nothing could control the way those kids looked up at Steve as their hero.

A comic book hero that existed in real life.

“Ma’am, is that everyone?” Steve asked one of the women that left the room.

She seemed distressed as she looked around. “I-I think so.” Then she ran off with the others.

Something in your gut told you to check the rest of the room, and Steve followed you inside.

“Go! Help the others! I can look after myself.”

“But-”

“Steve.” You looked at him. “Go. They need you.”

It took him a minute but he took your word for it and ran back out of the door. Meanwhile, you checked under every table and desk before something caught your eye at the side of one of the cabinets.

A kid, no older than six.

“Hey, honey.”

“Mommy was meant to pick me up.”

You looked around, hearing something hit a building nearby.

“I’ll help you look for her. Can I pick you up?” The kid nodded. “I’m Y/n, what’s your name?”

“Sophie.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Sophie. Come on, let's go and find your mom.”

After three hours of destruction over the city, and countless injuries being collected by people, it wasn’t until a mom came running through the crowds of EMTs and doctors, screaming out for her child that you and Sophie, sitting in the back of an ambulance, looked up.

And Sophie called out.

Jumping from the bench, Sophie looked outside and saw her mom running through the crowd. You watched as they collided and sank to the ground.

“I’m so sorry, baby. Are you okay? Are you hurt? Why aren’t you with the rest of your class? Where are they?”

“Hey,” you said, walking behind Sophie. “They got separated when trying to clear the city.”

“Did you save her?”

“I got her out-” Suddenly, the mom crushed you with a hug.

“Thank you. Thank you so much. I don’t know what I-” The tears continued to flow from her eyes.

“It’s alright. All that matters is that she’s safe.”

“Thank you so much.”

Hours later, you had finally made it back home, had showered and switched your TV on. The news had been following updates and different people’s theories of what had happened.

Then a knock came to your door.

Upon opening it, you were greeted with a fresher looking Steve Rogers.

“Shouldn’t you be with a medic?”

Steve smiled, “Shouldn’t you? Between the pair of us, I’m the one who has a serum running through their veins.”

You looked in his hand. “Is that a pizza?”

Steve nodded. “Didn’t know which kind you’d like, so I got the classic. Figured you haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

Inviting him inside, Steve laid it on the coffee table.

“Shouldn’t you be helping The Avengers or something?”

“Avengers?” Steve looked at you with a curious look.

You just pointed at the screen. “Oh, right. Yeah, we’ve all decided to take a break. But Shield tells me they’ve finally found me a job.”

“That’s something to celebrate.”

Steve shrugged. “Kinda hard to celebrate when an entire city almost got levelled to the ground.”

You understood. “I’m gonna head back tomorrow and see if they need any help.”

“Can I come with you?”

“You don’t have to ask, Steve.”

He smiled, if a little sheepishly.

For the rest of the evening, you and Steve shared a pizza and talked until neither of you wanted to say anything else.

So, you picked out a film and placed it into the DVD player. And you and Steve just sat and watched it.

As the months passed, you and Steve slipped into a familiar routine. He got better at texting, but you’d come to find he preferred to call. And during the days he was at the training facility in Washington and devoid of signal, he’d write you letters.

And you wrote them back.

He’d also started keeping a list, you’d noticed, of things you’d say in passing or you’d tell him to listen to or watch.

On the quiet afternoons you spent together, Steve would open up more. He told you more about the 40s and being in the army. He told you more about his childhood and his best friend, Bucky.

You’d surprised him one afternoon by taking him to the Smithsonian. They had a new exhibit put up – one pillar being dedicated to Bucky and his friendship with Steve.

In one of his final letters, he’d told you of a man he’d basically been trolling on his morning runs. You’d come to find out his name and you smiled.

Outside of you and the members of his team, Sam Wilson was the first friend Steve had made.

However, you didn’t get to meet him in person until you got a call from him, under Steve’s contact. Of course, the minute the headline had flashed on your screen, you’d tried to get into contact with him. He’d fallen, or rather, jumped, from an elevator and fallen a hundred feet or more to the ground. His own work seemed to be after him.

So, when you were told he’d fallen, once more, from one of the jets and had been in surgery, you rushed to him.

Entering his room, Natasha had been the one to take you to his room after two nurses read your name on his file but wouldn’t let you through.

“He’s alive, as you can see.”

“If I get a call like this again, telling me you’re dead, I’ll kill you myself.” You warned Steve before you walked to his side. The bastard had the audacity to chuckle.

“I promise. If I’m gonna die, I’ll ask your permission first.”

From behind you, you heard a voice smile. “I like her.”

“Y/n, this is Sam. Sam, this is Y/n.”

From that day on, the movie and pizza nights came to include both Sam and Natasha. However, unbeknownst to you and Steve, the movie nights also came to include the rest of the team.

Natasha had been trained to read people. And she’d never read anyone easier than you and Steve.

And her information soon became Clint’s information which soon became everyone’s information when he accidentally let it slip to the others.

Tony had been planning a party. Rather, he wanted to throw one and Pepper had come up with a list of people to invite. And when she read out your name, Steve had looked up but Clint had spoken first.

“Is that Steve’s girl?”

They all looked around at each other before looking at Steve. He had a girl?

Steve faltered. “Yes, well, no. She’s my friend. We’re friends but-”

Tony turned to Pepper. “Invite Steve’s girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend. We’re just friends. And she doesn’t really like big parties so-”

“Invite her anyway. I can’t believe Clint knows about her before we do.” Then he turned to Natasha. “I suppose you already knew.”

She just nodded.

And that was just the start of it.

A few nights later, Steve had given you a heads up which you appreciated but it did put you on edge a little. But all in all, it was…fun.

It was the first time you enjoyed yourself at a party and didn’t hate every minute of it.

Firstly, the attire was fancy but not gala fancy. It was a celebration of Hydra finally being overthrown from Shield.

You arrived in your heels that didn’t hurt your feet so much, wide legged trousers and a graphic t-shirt.

“Now, who is that?”

At the bar, Rhodey, Thor, Tony and Maria all stood watching as you entered the room, clearly looking for someone. Tony and Rhodey had met most of the building at the party. Maria had met them all – at the very least, she had a file on them all.

But not on you.

From behind the bar, Natasha leaned over. “That’s Steve’s girl.”

From the bar they watched as Sam noticed you first and called you over. You looked relieved at seeing a familiar face. Even more relieved at seeing Steve. Tony watched as Steve noticed you, too.

The game of pool Steve had been winning at suddenly took a dip as his aim went off kilter, his attention immediately going to you.

“Steve has a woman?” Thor asked, the other just nodded. “Well, we must meet her.”

However, as they all went to walk towards the pool table, Maria reached her hand out. “You boys swarm her, Steve will make sure you never get to speak to her again. I will go.”

And so she did.

The others watched on as Steve introduced you to Maria, every protective instinct a man got when introducing his girlfriend to the rest of his family going up. And somehow, with simple ease, Maria had gained a small part of your friendship and led you towards the second bar.

Meanwhile, Steve watched as you walked away, the heart in his eyes never leaving. Not even when Sam nudged him and they got back to the game.

Throughout the night, Steve kept his eye on you.

He almost broke the sound barrier by how quickly he turned up at your side when you were dragged into the conversation circle with most of them.

“So, tell me.” Tony said, sitting beside you. “How did you meet our fellow Captain?”

“Tony.” Steve warned, though no true malice could be traced in his voice.

You smiled. “It’s okay. We actually met at one of your parties.”

Tony sat back. “Really?”

You nodded. “Some fancy gala a few years back.”

Conversation between yourself and the rest of the group seemed to take a natural flow until eventually, all your nerves had subsided.

But that didn’t stop you from needing a break by the end. Between talking with Natasha, Maria and Thor for most of the night, and beating Sam at a few rounds of pool – something Steve found incredibly entertaining,

Tony had backed Sam on his idea that you were cheating. Nobody won that many rounds of pool one after the other. So, as the others gathered and watched the game, Steve stepped forward and he covered your eyes.

For a moment you looked up at him and smirked, and he smiled back with a light shrug of his shoulders.

“Yes, thank you, Cap.” Sam said. “See. This will prove that she’s cheat-”

As you hit the white cue ball, everyone watched and was left speechless as every ball suddenly found its home in the pockets, leaving you with an automatic victory.

Opening your eyes once more and standing up, you looked at the pool table with a proud look before looking at Sam. You’d never seen him as shocked. Looking at Steve, he seemed shocked but also proud.

“Still think I’m cheating?”

Tony just looked at you. “She’s a witch. She had to be. Were you cursed as a child? Born to some Vampire in Europe or something?”

Steve chuckled, as did you.

“Come on, Tony. Accept your defeat.”

As the hours passed, eventually you found yourself outside on the balcony, taking a breather from the party.

“Figured you’d find some place quiet.”

You stood back up, holding onto the balcony bar. “Hey.”

Steve smiled. “Hey. You okay? They can be a bit much.”

You shook your head. “No, it’s not that. Just needed a minute. You know, this is the first time I’ve enjoyed myself at one of these?”

Steve looked up at the building before looking back at you with a smile on his face. “It is better when people aren’t trying to show you off.”

You nodded with a smile. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“Thank you for escaping the last one and finding me in that room.”

It was in that moment that you realised the last time you’d gone to any kind of gala or party of the same scale was the first time you’d met Steve.

You smiled fondly at the memory. “Thanks for not being mad when I opened the door.”

“I could never be mad at you.”

“You didn’t even know me.”

Steve shrugged. “I’ve got a good judge of character.”

You felt yourself chuckle before you looked out across the rest of the city before a cold wind blew through making you shiver.

“Here,” Steve shrugged off his jacket but before you could tell him you were fine, he placed it over your shoulders.

It smelt of him.

“Thanks.”

Steve just nodded with a smile watching as you placed your arms through the holes and wrapped it a little tighter around yourself before you looked out at the rest of the city with him.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Is something going on between Maria and Sam?”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh. “She’ll eat him alive.”

“He might be into that.”

Steve laughed and closed his eyes in disgust. “What makes you ask?”

You shrugged. “Just something I’ve noticed. He looks at her like she hung the moon. Though, of course, that’s when she’s not looking. When she is, it's like I’m back at school rehearsing for Much Ado About Nothing.”

Steve’s joy widened. “You were in a play?”

You laughed. “I wasn’t any good. I was only put on stage because my folks donated so much money to the school. All I wanted was to work with Tech.”

Steve chuckled. “I’d pay good money to see that. But, I get what you mean about Sam and Maria. Who knows? If the timing is right…”

Steve looked at you and you felt something bigger was being hidden behind his words. Part of you certainly held out hope that there was.

“We should probably get back inside.”

An hour later, most people had gone home so it was left with just Steve, yourself, Clint, Natasha, Bruce, Maria, Tony, Rhodey and Thor.

Still wearing Steve’s jacket, you were sitting in the middle of the sofa, your legs curled towards your chest. After he stood up, Steve came back and handed you a beer before he nudged your legs allowing him room to sit down before he pulled them across his lap.

It was the standard procedure for you and him to sit on a sofa together. Mainly because his sofa in his old apartment had been small enough to do so.

Despite changing apartments and the sofa, it was just something that stuck.

The others took silent note of it as the debate continued between Thor and Clint over his hammer.

By the time everyone was trying to lift it, Steve became one of the last. Sharing a look with you before looking at Thor, Steve stood up and tried to lift it.

You watched as it squeaked on the table for a moment, but moved no further. However, your knowing grin – despite it never truly lifting from the table – caused you to look at Thor.

He looked panic stricken.

But Steve stood back and held his hands up.

“Or…you’re all not worthy.”

“It’s still a trick!”

In the moments that followed, everyone turned to their own conversations; including you and Steve.

But Clint and Natasha kept their eyes on you and Steve. Your legs over his lap, wearing his jacket, his focus solely on you, his hand rubbing lightly against the bottom of your leg that was exposed under your wide-legged trousers, your ever loving gaze on his that matched yours, light and soft smiles on your faces.

“Ten bucks says they’ll be married in two years.” Clint whispered up to Natasha.

“Deal.”

Something that Clint didn’t know, that Natasha did, was that you and Steve were fucking oblivious.

They’d all be lucky if it happened in two years.

Quite frankly, it should have happened two years ago.

Suddenly, a high pitched noise rippled through the room.

“Of course you’re not all worthy…”

Your eyes landed on an oil leaking…zombie robot?

His voice was deep and menacing and nothing about any of it felt comforting.

“Steve?”

“Stark?”

“Jarvis?”

In a single turn of events you’d gone from laughing and joking with each other to suddenly defending yourself against a robot who claimed he’d killed someone.

A swarm of them flew in through broken glass panels and Steve kicked up a table before any of them could hit either of you.

You landed on the floor beside him, a little winded.

“Are you okay?”

You nodded. “I’m okay. Go, go, go. I’ll be fine.”

Steve helped you up before running off in the other direction. It was a whirlwind of blasts, bullets and shattered glass.

At one point, one had you cornered as Tony unhooked another. And for a moment, you thought you’d be sent flying out of the window and out into the open before Steve took hold of it, throwing it back towards Thor before Clint threw him his shield.

And it all ended as Thor sent his hammer flying through Ultron.

“What the fuck was that?”

“Banner.” Tony called him over before they headed towards their lab.

Meanwhile, Steve turned around before heading straight towards you and holding you in his arms, almost lifting you from the ground.

“Are you okay?”

You nodded, letting the scent of him, his clothes, his jacket, calm you.

“Yeah. Thanks for saving my life.”

Steve truly breathed for the first time since the high pitched noise had rang through the room. With a hand at the back of your head, he pressed a kiss to your temple and he closed his eyes.

“Come on, let's go and find the others.”

However, as he took your hand, you pulled him back. “Steve.”

“Right, you-you’ll want to go home-”

You shook your head. “It’s not that. You’ve got glass in your arm.”

“Oh.”

“Does Tony have tweezers in his lab?”

Steve nodded. “I think so.”

Less than five minutes later, you sat Steve in one of the chairs, Bruce handing you and Maria a set of tweezers each.

Staring with his arm, you plucked out the small fragments of glass before his skin healed over them, before holding his palm up to face you. Meanwhile, they began discussing the extinction of The Avengers and the possibility of nuclear codes getting out to the rest of the world.

Then rage got passed around the room.

By the time morning rolled around, Steve drove you back home.

“Whatever happens…” You looked at Steve, a small voice in the back of your head begging for him to be imprinted in your memory as if he hadn’t already. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

Steve nodded. “I promise. You’re the only one that can kill me, remember?”

You felt yourself laugh. At least he remembered.

Looking at him again, you hugged him. “I mean it, Steve. Please be safe.”

He hugged you back, the feeling of him strong enough for you to still feel hours later.

“I promise.”

Each day you didn’t hear from him was a little more worrisome than the last. And then when the media reported Shield helping evacuate people from a floating country…all you could do was hope Steve wasn’t one of the casualties.

“Maybe I’ll take a leaf out of Barton’s book.”

“The simple life?”

“You’ll get there one day. Maybe you could get there with Y/n?”

Steve couldn’t deny he hadn’t thought about it once or twice. You and him. Together. More than friends. A part of him did think you felt it too. The same spark. Familiarity. The same love.

“If something was gonna happen, it would have happened by now.” Steve told him. “Besides, I think the guy that wanted all that went into the ice seventy five years ago.”

Tony shrugged. “Don’t count on it. That guy is still there somewhere. See you ‘round, Rogers.”

As Tony drove away, Steve took in the building in front of him. And despite the acceptance he felt of being home, the idea of you and him…he figured that would always be with him.

Even if it never happened.

That night, Steve turned up outside your apartment with the next movie on his list and a case of soda. However, when you didn’t answer, he went in search of you.

Opening the door to the roof, he looked around before spotting you in the very corner, sitting on the table of the picnic bench.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Looking around, you gave a sigh of relief at seeing him. He dropped the case on the table before you reached for him.

“Thank god you’re okay.”

“How long have you been up here?”

“Since Nat called me and told me you’d landed. I couldn’t sit in my apartment anymore so…I came up here. Last time I looked out at the city was before everything went to hell.”

Steve looked out at the city himself before looking back at you. “We’re not out of the woods yet. Ross is probably about to reign hellfire down on…everyone.”

“What about the girl?”

“Wanda?”

You nodded.

“I don’t know. She went through a lot, losing her home and her brother in one fowl sweep.”

“You should train her.”

“What?”

“Train her,” you repeated. “You’re the only one who knows what it’s like to be in a war, to sign up to be experimented on. She’s gonna need someone who actually understands some of what she’s going through.”

Steve agreed with you. You had a point.

“Tony can have a lot of influence and his heart can be in the right place but he doesn’t always remember that people didn’t have his childhood or his life.”

“He’s been through a lot.”

You agreed with Steve. “He has. But he’s never lost a brother, or his life to somebody’s cause. She’s gonna need help.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

The rest of the evening was spent talking over what had happened, what Steve had thought when the earth quite literally started to lift from beneath him, what had happened with Banner and Nat and then you gave him your news.

Bucky had been spotted.

The next time you saw Steve was at Agent Peggy Carter’s funeral. You sat at the back for most of it, watching as Steve helped carry the coffin and as people gave their eulogies.

You didn't know much about Peggy Carter personally, though you could remember learning about her in school. The founder of Shield, working alongside Captain America in her early career. And from meeting Steve, you’d come to know more about her. As well as how deeply both she and Steve were in love.

You’d seen the clips at the museum, and with Steve beside you, it gave them a whole other meaning. And even though Steve living through the ice and landing himself in the 21st century had given you one of the greatest friendships you’d ever had, part of you felt angry for him.

Angry at the fact he missed out on his chance with Peggy and that she had to live a life where, as far as anyone knew, Steve was dead.

A soldier and a love story left stranded in time.

You could remember when Steve had first visited Peggy, again.

And now he had to say goodbye, again.

“It was a beautiful service.”

Steve looked up and down the aisle to where you were walking towards him. He felt the breath get knocked out of him. Or maybe back into him.

“Hey, what are you doing here?”

“Thought you could use a friendly face?”

A silent conversation then took place between you and Steve. Silent conversations weren’t unusual between you. A thousand words could be said in a look, but you’d both understand.

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen after I leave here-”

“No, I know. I know.” You understood completely. After he walked out of the church, Nat would be leaving without him.

“Today’s been a lot. Tomorrow’s gonna be a lot.” You looked back at Steve. “Right now can just be…right now. You’ve lost someone, Steve. Right now you don’t have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. You don’t have to be Captain America right now.” Your gaze turned to Peggy’s picture. “I might not have met her, but I know you and I both know she would be telling you, you don’t have to be Captain America right now. At this moment, you’re just Steve: World War Two veteran who has just lost a great love in their life and deserves a moment to breathe.”

Steve gave you a weak smile, his emotions building up in his chest. “Thank you.”

Stepping forward, you wrapped Steve in a comforting hug and for the next twenty minutes, you both stayed inside the church.

There he told you the smaller facts about Peggy – the ones he’d learnt when she was with him and his Howling Commandos.

But then the time came to leave.

Walking down the different streets, hearing time tick away, you and Steve soaked up what time you could before everything was about to go to shit.

And on a bench beside the River Thames, you and Steve said your goodbyes. Both of you knew something was going to go wrong. What that was exactly, neither of you could put your finger on it. But something was going to happen.

It was only a matter of time.

“Here.”

“What’s this?”

Steve read the piece of paper. It was a set of coordinates.

“I own a house. It’s in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in Europe. If anything happens, Ross can’t touch you. The house had been in my family’s name for generations but one of my great aunt’s left it to me. It’s yours to use.”

“Y/n-”

“Take it, Steve. Nobody knows it exists so they won’t find you. It’s run down but there should be running water.”

Steve finally accepted it. “Thank you. You know, if Tony ever finds out about this, he’s gonna believe that you are a witch from a vampire family.”

You shrugged. “Maybe I am, you just don’t know it.”

Steve shrugged, pocketing the paper safely.

“I’m gonna miss you.”

You took his hand. “I’m gonna miss you, too.”

You tried your best to avoid the tears, but they were trying their hardest anyway.

“Just promise me one thing, Steve.”

Steve nodded, squeezing your hand a little tighter. “Be safe?”

You nodded. “Be safe.”

Your eyes locking with his, Steve decided to take a risk. There was a chance he might never be able to see you again. Whatever was going to happen, the first person they’d put a tail on would be you.

He kissed you.

With your hand on his lapel, you held him closer. It was short and bittersweet, but the memory of him and his kiss would forever be seared into your brain.

And for a few moments, you just held onto each other, fearful of opening your eyes and accepting that one of you would have to walk away.

With his finger, Steve gently brushed the stray hair from your face away and behind your ear before kissing you quickly for a second time.

“One of us has to say goodbye.”

“I know,” you sniffed. “I know.”

“If there’s one thing I’m grateful for, it's that you walked into that room when you did. You were the first person to treat me like one and to help me. Thank you for wanting to escape that party.”

You laughed through the tears. “You never have to thank me for that. It’s crazy to think I almost didn’t go.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“So am I.”

Looking at each other for one final time, you leaned in and kissed him. You prayed that his hand by your waist would leave a brand – a different pain to carry with you than the one in your heart.

Feeling yourself stand, the kiss broke away and you were the first to say goodbye.

Walking down the stone pavement, you looked behind you before you turned a corner, only to find Steve had already gone. Between the bustling people, the bench you’d both just been sitting at was exactly that.

A bench.

Going home, you tried to find a way to keep yourself busy but no matter where you looked, everything reminded you of him. The movies you’d watched with him, the ones you didn’t. The pizza’s shared, and soda spilt, the curtain, bedsheets, books, clothes, pictures.

You had some of his artwork in your house. Some of them people, most of landscapes – people and places you’d seen together.

And in an album under your bed, you had his letters.

Each one in its original envelope on one page and the pictures he’d drawn of the skyline from wherever he’d been.

Some evenings, you’d reread his letters – still able to hear his voice.

Then the headlines started to roll in.

Captain America was a fugitive and had broken his team out of a high secure facility.

And for almost two years a hunt was put on for him. You were interviewed every couple of months with the same questions.

Did you know where he was? Had he contacted you? What information did he share with you?

Just because you’d given him a set of coordinates didn’t mean he’d use them. The last time you’d heard from Steve was in London and the only information he’d shared with you that day was about Peggy Carter and some of the old stories of when he was first in London in the 40s.

In the meantime, your parents had convinced you to attend different dinner parties, charity shows, fundraisers and galas, all the while helping you find a date.

Most of the people your mother had first introduced you to years ago, they were recently married. But the single ones she’d found; you dated some, though it never went any further than a sixth date – usually the date after your parents invited them to attend dinner.

But no matter the fancy meal, or the conversation, or the man; none of them could beat a pizza, soda, a movie and…

Steve.

None of them could beat Steve.

But that all changed one afternoon when you were gardening.

Living in the city had reminded you too much of Steve, and with the constant reminders of the memories and new threats and superheroes popping up, you decided to find somewhere nice to live.

Someplace…simple.

So, buying a house outside of the city with a few acres of land, you started renovating. Any business meetings you had could be done online which meant you had more time to fix your new home up.

The smell of plaster, paint and sawdust filled your home for most of the days until finally things started to come together. New windows and locks were installed, the faulty taps were fixed and finally the entire place was given a new lease of life.

And just as you were half way through with fixing your garden; planting some flowers and digging patches for a small allotment, a car pulled up outside your drive.

On your knees in the dirt, it took a moment for your eyes to focus on the person climbing out of the car in the distance.

They were tall, broad and had a beard.

However, the closer they got, memories started to kick in. The walk, the frame…

You stood up and walked closer until you stopped again, feeling the breath being knocked out of you.

“Oh, my god…”

He watched as you stopped in your tracks, your brain confirming who he was. Then you started running. Across the grass and onto the gravel path, you collided with Steve.

“This is you, I’m not dreaming, am I?”

Steve shook his head and he held onto you, the essence of you filling his senses.

“No, you’re not dreaming.”

You leaned back and looked at him before hugging him again.

Finally, Steve set you back onto your feet and his hands remained at your waist.

“Why are you back? Last I heard…”

“The team and I are keeping our distance for a few days. Nat’s headed to Ohio and Sam is trying to see his sister. It’s the best way to avoid Ross.”

You nodded, checking him over. He didn’t seem like he was dying.

With a hand on his cheek, you smiled a little, pointing out the obvious. “You grew a beard.”

Steve smiled a little. “Helps me blend in.”

You looked into his eyes and smiled. “It suits you.”

Holding gently onto your wrist, Steve turned his head and kissed your palm and for a second you closed your eyes, leaning into him.

“I’m really glad you’re okay.”

Placing your hand over his heart, Steve seemed to bear into your soul. “So am I.”

What followed was two hours of conversation around where he’d been and what he’d been doing since he left, and what you had been doing.

Then he started to help. Painting the porch on the back of the house as you continued planting in the back garden, you spent time together.

Time that was all too precious knowing he was on a clock.

“Where did you learn to cook?” You asked Steve as you helped him chop up veg.

With a smile on his face, Steve continued to prepare dinner. “I have a contact in Scotland. Their aunt runs a cafe and needed a few extra hands in the kitchen.”

As you helped Steve prepare dinner, you listened to the stories he’d gathered over his time away. Scotland, Spain, Germany, Italy, England, Poland, Norway, and many others.

Once dinner was finished, you started to clean up. But from the table, Steve looked at you standing by the sink in front of the window.

You’d never left his thoughts.

Sat on that bench in London, he watched you walk away and for a moment, he remained where he was. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to see you again – not without heavy restrictions.

He wanted you so desperately to turn around, but if you did, he would have followed you. He would have stood up and ran after you.

So he left.

He left before you could look around, he left before he would stop fighting himself and follow you.

And each day he woke up, for the few moments in the morning where he would forget what had happened, where he would forget the world he’d been found in, he thought about you. He thought about calling you or writing you a letter. He thought about seeing you when he’d roll over in bed. But each time…

You weren’t there.

You weren’t with him.

You were at your home, thousands of miles from him.

And he had no way of talking to you.

Walking across the kitchen floor to you, he placed a hand on your waist before reaching across to the window cill.

“What are you doing?” You smiled.

Looking at you and turning up the dial, Steve smiled. “Come with me.”

Taking the cloth from your hand, Steve dropped it back into the bowl of soapy water and took your hand in his. Then, pulling you into the middle of the kitchen with him, you both started to slow dance.

“What’s this for?”

Steve shrugged, holding your hand over his heart once again. “I don’t know how long I’ve got with you. Figured we could spend it not washing up.”

You felt yourself smile. “I think I like that.”

It was soft and slow. Swaying with the beat until the radio turned static, you and Steve remained in each other's arms.

“Can you stay the night?”

Steve nodded.

“Good.”

The night soon settled over your home, the stars slowly emerging from behind the clouds. With your porch taking on a blue hue in its own shadow, you and Steve sat side by side on your porch swing.

Your hair still a little damp from your shower, Steve continued to run his fingers through it. And with your head on his chest, you let his heart beat calm you. For a moment, Steve turned his nose into your hair and pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

After a few moments, he didn’t say anything. Not that you would have heard anything considering your body was begging for sleep.

Carefully standing, Steve slipped one of his arms around your back and one under your legs before carrying you inside. He tucked you under your bed covers before making his rounds, locking up the doors and windows. Finally, he got in beside you.

For years, he’d dreamed of it.

Being with you, by your side, a domestic and loving day before laying beside you knowing he would be waking up beside you every morning.

And Steve smiled as in your sleep you moved closer to him, your arms wrapping across his middle.

You couldn’t remember when you’d gone from the porch to your bed, but you could remember Steve. Feeling his arms around you, his heartbeat under your cheek, his lips on yours…

“Hey,”

Steve was sitting on the edge of the bed by your legs, fully dressed.

“Hey, what time is it?”

Steve kept his eyes on you. “A little after four.”

You gave a groan and closed your eyes again. Steve chuckled. Reaching out, he gently swept the hair from your eyes, your head turning towards him. With his hand on your cheek, he felt your smile.

It was your turn to hold onto him and kiss his palm.

And just as the knowing sadness started to grow, Steve still smiled, leaning forward and kissed you.

You would never get bored of his kiss.

Peppering it out, you held onto his face before your hands slipped around his back and you held him closer.

With a sigh, Steve held you closer to him, trying to imprint the feeling of you in his arms.

Trying your best to ignore the growing tears, you spoke.

“Just promise me you’ll be safe?”

Steve chuckled a little. “You know you’re the only one who's allowed to kill me. But I promise.”

“Good.”

Holding on a little tighter, you silently begged for more time with him. But the clock was ticking.

From above, there was deep rumbling.

“You better go,” you told Steve.

It took him a moment before he let go and with one final kiss, it was his turn to say goodbye.

Hearing his boots walk across the floor of your bedroom, down the hallway, through the living room and towards your front door.

You heard his pause for a moment and in that moment, you wondered what he would do if you called out for him.

But he couldn’t stay any longer.

People needed him.

The world needed him.

Hearing your front door click open, Steve’s footsteps trailed off as it closed once more until eventually the only sound that was left was the ever quieting sound of a rumbling jet engine.

Six months later, half of the world disappeared.

With a snap of Thanos’ fingers, Steve watched as half of his team, his family, disappeared. And upon returning back to the Avengers’ compound, you were his first call.

Only, you never answered.

“Go.” Natasha told him.

He didn’t need to be told twice.

Making a break for it, Steve ran down into the garage before hopping on his bike. He’d made it to yours in half the time.

Pulling up, he started calling out for you. His voice filled with desperation and fear, he ran up to your front door.

It was unlocked.

He almost tripped inside as he tried the door, the hinges getting stuck.

“Y/N!”

He raced around your home; checking the kitchen, living room, pantry, washing room, office, bathroom, and the bedrooms before finally reaching yours.

The bedding was strewn a little, the soft lines of the fitted sheet folded into where you would have been laying. The pain in Steve’s chest seemed to grow heavier by the minute.

You weren’t here.

One hand on his hip, another covering his mouth, Steve turned around in a slow circle. Tears pricking at his eyes, his mind had gone from running a thousand miles a minute to…being completely overrun by pain.

He had nearly a thousand chances to be with you, to share a life with you that he’d always dreamed of – all before everything went to hell.

But it was too late.

You were gone.

Just like half of the world, you were gone.

Gripping onto the cold metal of your bed frame, Steve tried to steady himself.

You were gone.

Somewhere behind him, he heard a click.

His entire body stilled.

Slowly turning around he found…

No one.

Somewhere down the hall, a door closed.

As quietly as he could, Steve walked from your bedroom and down the hallway. The noises started to compile together.

Shoes shuffling, a bag being thrown onto a counter, a bucket handle rattling against itself.

From a corner, Steve saw an apron thrown across the back of a kitchen chair. A tap started to pour before someone switched it off.

Then someone started to hum.

You started to hum.

Fully stepping into the kitchen doorway, Steve felt the entire life get knocked back into him.

Then you turned around.

He scared the shit out of you.

The bucket slipping out of your hand, it knocked against your sink, the water spilling down the drain.

Just as it did, you recognised him.

Rushing forward, Steve enveloped you into his arms, your feet lifting from the ground.

“You’re alive,” you breathed.

“I thought you were gone.” Steve mumbled into your shoulder, holding onto you tighter.

“Steve, what’s going on?”

“He won.”

Steve set you back down on your feet and for the first time in almost seven months, you finally got a good look at him. He looked tired, worn. Beaten.

“We almost did it, but he won.”

“Whose left?”

Steve tried his best to name those who were left.

“We think Tony’s gone but we can’t be sure.”

The tears were falling from Steve’s cheeks as he told you. Wiping them away, you pulled him back into a hug.

“I tried calling you but when you didn’t answer…” You could feel Steve’s entire body shaking under you. “I thought I’d lost you, too.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t answer. Steve, honey, you need to sit down. Let me get you some water.”

As you sat him down, Steve watched as you moved around your kitchen. Grabbing a glass from the cupboard, running the tap until it was cold before handing it to him.

“I’ll make you some food. When did you last eat? You should call Nat.”

“Right.”

After calling and updating Nat, Steve hung up the phone. And for the next few hours, Steve talked you through everything he could; right up to him running through your door.

In the months that followed, a transition started to take place. People had to get used to a world where half of the people they loved were gone.

And somewhere between Steve finding you in your kitchen and Tony and Pepper having their daughter, yourself and Steve finally came together.

Properly.

This time there were no goodbye kisses and fear of never seeing each other again. That biggest fear had been and gone.

What you were left with was…acceptance.

Acceptance that you had both almost completely lost each other for good. There was no point in avoiding feelings, or being scared of what might happen.

You both had a chance at a life together.

So you both took it.

From then on your home with Steve became interchangeable between the Avengers compound and your house. Saving her from the lifetime supply of peanut butter sandwiches, you dragged Natasha when you could to your home with Steve and made her a decent meal.

Being out in the open also gave her a breath of fresh air away from the training facility walls that never changed colour.

And eventually things…settled.

People found a new way of life, coming back each year to celebrate those who were lost. And then new life was brought into the mix.

Not too long after Pepper had given birth to Morgan, you were faced with a positive pregnancy test result yourself.

And Natasha was your first call.

“What’s going on? I have an extra gun in the car if we need it.”

You showed it to her. “What does that show?”

“Holy shit, you’re pregnant.”

A small whimper left your lips as you handed her the test stick and started pacing around your bathroom.

“Are…are we not happy about that?”

You whimpered again as you paced up and down. “I-I don’t know. We-we haven’t planned anything. I mean, we’ve talked about it a few times but what if something goes wrong? Are you sure it was positive?”

Natasha looked back at it. “Well, it’s got a plus sign so-”

“It’s the third I’ve taken this week. The other two came up invalid but that one was like a bright flashing light.”

Reaching for you by the shoulders, Natasha sat you down. “Okay, first off, breathe.”

You did so.

And then some more.

“Okay. Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna go and get you another box of tests. Proper ones, not these things. And you’re gonna call Steve.”

“He’ll probably pass out. Why do you think I called you?”

Natasha laughed. “Just call him. I’ll be right back.”

And she was.

Walking back inside, she called out and Steve called back.

Three minutes later, you were all huddled in the bathroom waiting for the result to finally show.

“What if it’s a false positive? If it’s positive-positive, will I be able to carry the baby?”

Crouching down in front of you, Steve held your hand. “Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. Together. Okay?”

You took a breath and nodded. Leaning up, Steve kissed you and you kissed him back.

You’d been having conversations about starting a family together for a while, but neither of you had started planning it just yet. Mostly because you hadn’t gotten around to it. And you didn’t know if you could even carry Steve’s kid. For all either of you knew, the serum would carry onto your child.

Natasha looked at her phone.

“It’s time.”

With a shaky breath, you and Steve stood. However, you paused as you reached for the test.

“Count me down.”

Steve chuckled softly, counting back from three.

After one, you turned it over.

Pregnant 3+ weeks

You felt yourself smile and laugh a little before showing Steve.

“You’re gonna be a dad.”

Taking the test from your hands, Steve took one look at it before the water-works started.

Nine months later, inside the Avengers compound, Natasha was walking with you.

“Once they started arguing over what the manual said, I made a break for it.”

Tony had surprised you and Steve at your home and after an hour, Steve had wrangled him in to help build the crib. It was the final thing that needed to be built and since Steve had banned you from lifting heavy things since you had elected to ignore your midwife and pushed the crib from the living room and into the nursery. You couldn’t help.

“Have you decided on a name yet?”

You shook your head. “Not yet.”

“Well, I might be biassed but Natasha is a really good name.”

You laughed a little. “I’ll think about it.”

Natasha smiled, holding onto your hand as she helped you down one of the narrower steps.

However, halfway around the building, you stopped.

“Everything okay?”

You nodded. “Just a bit of cramp.”

But it wasn’t just cramp.

Barely a second later, you felt water trail down your leg until there was a louder splash against the tiles.

“Oh, shit.”

You looked down. “Oh, my god.”

“Okay, okay. We’re okay.”

You nodded, taking hold of her hand as she walked you down the hall.

“Steve’s old room is just down the hall. Once we get you there-”

“Call him.”

“I know, I will.”

“No, call him now. Please.”

Twenty minutes later, Tony’s car was kicking gravel up and onto the windshield. Steve ran inside, nearly taking out a few employees on the way.

Almost fifteen hours later, a healthy baby girl was delivered.

With her in Steve’s arms, bundled in a fresh baby blanket, everyone stood around the bed.

“Only took you a decade.”

Steve chuckled, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from his daughter. And neither could you.

And for almost four years, it was blissful.

As your daughter grew up, Steve told her stories and showed her pictures of the 40s. Even at the age of three, she seemed wise beyond her years.

Then one night, everything changed.

Recently, she hadn’t been sleeping. So, lay in bed with you whilst Steve was still at work, you told her a few bedtime stories but when Steve came in an hour or so later, he found her still awake.

“You should be asleep,” he whispered to her.

“I tried. Mommy fell asleep, though.”

Steve looked over and smiled. “Come on, let your mom sleep.”

Picking his daughter up, Steve carried her down the hall, leaving his jacket on the bed beside you. Making sure to close the door behind him, Steve started to talk to his daughter.

Their conversation eventually turned to someone from Steve’s past.

“Daddy, whose that?”

Steve looked at the photo. It was him and Bucky during his army days, though both were out of uniform and in civilian clothing. There weren't many pictures of Bucky in normal clothes.

“That’s Uncle Buck.”

“But he’s not in green.”

Steve chuckled. “You’re right, he’s not. That was when we were in London. Pinky, one of the Howling Commandos, decided to take us on a tour of London.”

“Wow.”

She was awe-struck.

“Does he know I was born?”

Steve felt a pang in his chest. “Maybe. I don’t know if he can hear me, but I’ve told him.”

“Would he like me?”

Steve smiled. “He’d love you.”

Kissing her temple, Steve sat down in one of the chairs. “Try and get some sleep.”

Steve himself must have fallen asleep because next thing he knew, you were waking him up. Your daughter was still fast asleep, he carried her to bed before you led him down the hall and he collapsed onto your shared bed.

The next time he woke up that morning, everything you both knew was about to change.

Time Travel.

There was a chance everyone could be brought back.

And after a long conversation, one that was overheard by your daughter who had been playing in the back garden with the family dog, Steve accepted what he had to do.

“You and Aunty Nat will have pictures again.”

Handing Steve a slightly mud scattered, crinkled, crayon drawing; your daughter had drawn a picture with everyone on it.

Herself, you, the dog, Steve, Nat, Bucky, Sam with his wings, Clint with his bow and arrow, Thor and his hammer, Tony, Bruce…the stick men with different items, standing on a green field with a corner sun, continued on and on.

It was that night you kissed Steve and he said what could have been his final goodbye to your daughter. She held onto him tightly, telling him she loved him. The only thing that carried him on his feet was the thought of going through what Scott was.

In the time he got stuck, he thought his daughter was gone.

Steve would have done anything to get his daughter back.

And it didn’t take much for him to remember the pain that washed through and over him when he thought he lost you.

Scott, like many others, had lost someone they loved. So had Steve. But he hadn’t lost you, though he thought he did.

People needed their families back.

And that’s what they got.

At the cost of Tony’s life.

After everything had settled, you drove as fast as you could to find Steve. And you found him far outside of the Avengers compound, crouched on the floor.

“Steve!? Steve!”

Looking up, he spotted you amongst the grey smoke. A shining light in the darkness.

Running as fast as you could, you eventually reached him.

“I couldn’t wait any longer. I needed to know if you were okay. Are you okay?”

Steve’s voice was quiet. “He’s gone.”

“Gone? Who’s gone?”

Steve’s voice broke. “T-tony. Tony’s gone.”

“Oh, my god.”

As Steve hugged you, you held him as tightly as you could. He asked about your daughter.

“She’s with my dad back home. She’s safe. She just needs a cuddle from her dad.”

Steve nodded. “I think I need one from her, too.”

Two weeks later, Steve brought Bucky and Sam home.

“Honey, come here.” Your daughter ran to her dad’s side. “Sam, Buck. I’d like you to meet Aurora. Rory, honey, this is Sam and Bucky.”

Sam knelt down and shook her hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you, miss.”

Meanwhile, Bucky was in pure shock. Slowly, he knelt beside Sam and Bucky felt his life flash before his eyes.

“Steve…she looks like your mom.”

As Rory studied Bucky, she decided to hug him. Sam smiled and so did you and Steve. And eventually Bucky hugged her back, frightened he might break her.

“Can I show them my room?”

The consensus was yes and whilst Sam was dragged towards her bedroom, Rory shouting for you to follow, Bucky and Steve followed behind.

Inside her room, her walls were covered in different pictures she’d drawn of the different stories Steve had told her. Of course, most of them were stick men, but the message was still clear.

A week later, a funeral was held for Tony and the Stones had to be returned.

Standing beside Bucky as Steve stood on the platform, Aurora stood and waited in between both of you.

And in what was a few seconds later, Steve returned with Natasha by his side.

Aurora gasped and bolted forward.

“Aunty Nat!”

“Careful, kiddo.” Steve warned just before Aurora collided with her, but Natasha shook her head.

“It’s okay.”

Lifting her into her arms, she hugged her tightly.

“You’re back.”

Natasha smiled. “Thanks to your dad.”

Looking at her dad, she smiled before hugging Natasha again.

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

Natasha nodded and carried Rory back towards you before everyone started running over. Meanwhile, you watched as Steve walked over to Sam.

Ten minutes later, your daughter bolted from the crowd and towards her dad who was finally out of his protection suit.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

Seeing you again, Steve kissed you before kissing Rory’s cheek.

“Everything okay?”

Steve watched as Fury made his way over to Sam, and he smiled.

“Everything’s good.”

Kissing you again, Steve smiled. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For walking into that room when you did.” Steve told you. “I’m just sorry it took me so long to do something about it.”

You shook your head, looking from him to your daughter and back to him. “It happened when it was meant to.”

Steve smiled before he kissed you. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Tony was right; Steve found the life with you he’d always wanted, even if it did take him a decade to do something about it.

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dpr-moni · 1 day ago

Text

Pairing: Namjoon x reader (afab, she/her)

Genre: angst, friends-to-almost-lovers?

Summary: No matter what you do, no matter what he does, you can't not love Namjoon. His girlfriend can't stop it, his baby, a thousand miles between you, your fiancé. Nothing makes it any less painful. Nothing makes it go away and nothing can give you the happily ever after you both want.

Word count: 20.7k

Content: INFIDELITY, pregnancy, baby, marriage, divorce, morning after pill, mild smut, lots of angst, not a happy ending, member pov

A/N: for @kkaetnipjeon who likes to hurt Namjoon as much as I do. unbeta'd * * *

Namjoon was late.

“I really should go,” he said, taking his phone from the table and slipping into his pocket.

You laughed.

“Yeah, you said that twenty minutes ago.”

“Oh, well, sorry for enjoying your company. Fuck me, I guess.”

“Exactly. It’s all your own fault.”

It was. When it came to you, time went out the window. Even when he told himself he only had an hour, or two, or times when he actually had somewhere to be, you were just more fun. He tried to leave. He really did. Always said, up front, he had to be gone by 2 or 4 or 7. Always pushed it a little. ‘No, I’ve got a little more time,’ he always said. He always had a little extra time for you it seemed.

Today, he was only going home to his girlfriend; it wasn’t a hard deadline which made it all the harder to enforce.

He pulled himself up from his chair, thanked you for the coffee that you had paid for, and made it home.

“Joon?” Hayeon called as soon as he’d shut the door behind him. “Can you get that please? I have my hands full!”

Somewhere in the apartment, her phone was ringing. There was no contact information on the caller screen, just a number he didn’t recognise.

“Hello?” Namjoon said into the phone.

“Oh, uh...”

The pause went on for long enough that Namjoon was halfway to hanging up when the man on the other line spoke again.

“I’m calling for Hayeon?”

As if it were a question.

“She has her hands full right now; I can take a message.”

Another long pause.

“No, no, that’s ok.”

“Shall I tell her you called?”

“No, no thanks. Bye.”

They hung up first. Namjoon shrugged and carried the phone into the kitchen, where Hayeon was up to her elbows in washing up. He put it on the counter beside the sink and gave her a quick kiss on the temple.

“I’ll dry,” he said.

“Who was calling?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Some guy-”

And Namjoon hadn’t thought anything of it. Would probably have forgotten all about it, except that Hayeon paused, just for a second, her body frozen with tension before she shrugged it off herself.

“He didn’t want to leave a message or anything,” Namjoon finished, watching his girlfriend a little more closely.

“Weird.”

“Yeah, weird.”

And he would have forgotten it. In truth, had forgotten about it, but then he got out of the shower and heard Hayeon speaking on the phone.

“-ere you thinking? Why would you call this phone?” she hissed viciously, her voice quiet but her anger clear.

She had her hand cupped around her mouth, shoulders rounded—defensive, protective—as she stood, leaning against the fridge, her back to Namjoon.

Namjoon was not interested in spying on his girlfriend. He turned into their bedroom and got dressed, content to ignore whatever that was.

As he lay in bed, though, he found he couldn’t ignore it. It was one thing to get a call from someone you didn’t know – spam, voice phishing, a genuine wrong number – but those people didn’t usually ask for someone by name, by first name alone, as if they knew you. The way Hayeon froze when Namjoon said it was a guy. Whatever secret conversation she was having when she knew he wouldn’t be able to hear it.

He was not a suspicious man. Had no reason to be. He and Hayeon had been together for so long, the thought of there being anyone else was inconceivable. They were Hayeon and Namjoon; they came as a pair. Never one without the other. It just was. So there was no way, he concluded, that she would be cheating on him. Yet he could think of no other reason for her behaviour.

He took Hayeon’s phone from her bedside table and pressed his thumb against it to unlock. It didn’t. He tried again. And again. He tried enough times that the phone refused biometric unlocking entirely and prompted him for a passcode. Well, he knew that, too, so he typed the numbers in—incorrect. When had Hayeon changed her passcode? Had she removed his thumb print? They’d always had—and almost never needed or wanted to use—access to each other’s phones. Now he did not.

He looked down at Hayeon, sleeping peacefully, face squished into the pillow, lips pouting. He rolled his eyes: she wasn’t cheating. It was an absurd conclusion to come to on the scant evidence he had. Evidence! It wasn’t evidence. It was nothing. He kissed her carefully on the forehead, and settled down to sleep. He would forget all about it.

It came into his head when he got a call himself from an unrecognised number (it turned out to be someone offering him a new credit card). He remembered it again weeks later when Hayeon asked him to change the music on her phone and he, once again, couldn’t unlock it.

“Oh, it’s been doing that to me, lately,” she said, when his thumb was denied entry. “I think it’s the screen protector or something.”

She came over and unlocked the phone herself—worked first time.

But, for the most part, he forgot about it.

Spring was meekly peeking from behind the curtains of winter and it was the first day warm enough to allow eating lunch outside. So Namjoon took himself out of his desk chair and walked to the nearest green space with a bench. They called it a park though it wasn’t really, but it was enough for Namjoon. It had been trapped for too long in construction, with scaffolding at all sides, precluding entry, but late last year, the buildings surrounding it were finally complete and the park was free to enter again. This had come as quite a relief to Namjoon, who loved the city, but loved nature, too. A relief it was to have green grass under his feet, sun on his face, nature’s fractals everywhere he looked. He liked it all the more for its contrast to the beige-grey buildings, the chrome, the chaos of the city. The traffic noise was loud and unceasing but the birds sang, too.

He was halfway through his sandwich when he spotted Hayeon. He reached into his pocket for his phone, to call her, to say ‘I see you!’ and watch her look around herself in confusion until she saw him. Until she smiled and came over and they had lunch together. He abandoned that idea when he saw a man come up behind her. He touched her lightly on the lower back and they walked together.

Probably nothing, he said.

Then he remembered the phone call.

Probably nothing, he repeated to himself. Still, he watched them until they were out of sight, out of the park, probably finishing their own lunch breaks, heading back to their own desks.

Namjoon had decided that he had to ask. He had to find out because he’d started adding things up and, well, he was usually very good at maths but he didn’t like the answer he’d arrived at.

The phone call. The way his thumb no longer unlocked her phone. Her changed passcode. That guy. The way she was always on her phone these days, but jumpy about it. Her increasing disinterest in him; how much quicker she was to anger; how things that had always playfully infuriated her now genuinely pissed her off. She had claimed work stress, having started a new job last autumn. Was it?

He couldn’t go in half-cocked. If he was going to confront her, he needed better ammunition.

That was why he was digging around at the backs of drawers, rooting around in every bag she owned, hunting for some unidentified smoking gun. Something that would confirm everything.

The bedroom carefully ransacked, he was still empty-handed. She had told him she would be working late that evening, so he decided to do the good-boyfriendly thing and take her dinner. That is what he would say, anyway, assuming that he would find her there.

“Hayeon? She’s already left for the day,” the receptionist told him.

“Oh, really? Do you know what time she left?”

“Mm, one second.”

There were security gates just three feet from the desk, into and out of which everyone who entered the building would swipe their access cards. The computer would know, down to the minutes and seconds, when she left. He had familiarity on his side—people knew him, knew he was Hayeon’s boyfriend, would share this sort of information with him. He was lucky.

“It was 5:15. Early today,” she said.

“Right, ok, thank you. Must have got our wires crossed.”

He pulled out his phone and checked his messages.

[13:04] Hayeon: remember I'm working late today, babe. Have dinner without me! 😘

Not a smoking gun, but getting warmer.

He checked bank statements—his, hers, their joint account. Nothing really seemed off. Nothing jumped out at him, but he kept looking, whittling down anything he could twist into infidelity until he was left with only a handful of transactions.

The nails. True, she’d only started having them done recently. She and Namjoon had been together for years and she’d never gone to the expense or effort. Also true, her salary increased, which meant her disposable income had increased. It was a popular thing to do. Didn’t necessarily mean anything.

Some expensive perfume. See above.

A store name he didn’t recognise until he searched online and discovered they sold lingerie—amongst other things. He tried to remember the last time Hayeon had worn anything sexy. He couldn’t. A piece of information was trying to float to the surface of his brain, and without being conscious of it, he followed it into their bedroom and her underwear drawer. He’d fished around in here not long ago, looking for something like a burner phone, or condoms (that they hadn’t used for a long time, since Hayeon switched to hormonal birth control). He hadn’t been looking for lace or satin so hadn’t seen it, but there it was. Lingerie. That he’d never seen before, though she’d had plenty of opportunities to wear it since she bought it: Christmas, New Year, Seollal, Valentine’s day, White Day just passed.

It wasn’t a smoking gun, but he was getting hot.

He might not have gone to any effort at all, in the end. Looking back on it, he had had to laugh. She must have been trying to get caught. After months of hiding it all so successfully, maybe she had got complacent.

Namjoon had arrived home to an empty apartment—Hayeon was away for the weekend with some friends. That was what she had said. Namjoon ordered dinner and lounged in front of the TV. He luxuriated in the space and the silence. The world was his own. Unshared. There weren’t many moments like this.

His phone buzzed.

Jang Yijeong: Hey, man hope youre good

Jang Yijeong: idk if this is weird and i might be totally mistaken, i only met her a couple of times but

Jang Yijeong: im in jinhae with my girlfriend and

Jang Yijeong: is this your girlfriend?

Jang Yijeong: [attached a picture]

Well, it certainly looked like Hayeon.

Namjoon’s screen was interrupted with more messages.

Jang Yijeong: my girlfriend says its weird for me to take photos and shes probably right and im way off and this is just a weird thing to do!

Jang Yijeong: maybe im mistaken! Hope so, dude, but thought you should know if not. i know id want to know

Namjoon stared at the photo and then at the second one Yijeong sent. It was her. Undoubtedly. He would know her face in twenty pixels but the photos were clear as day. Hayeon holding some other man’s hand. Hayeon posing for a photo, kissing his cheek.

A third arrived. Well, he’d wanted a smoking gun. They didn’t get much more smoking than a video of your girlfriend kissing another man. All this time that he’d been actively searching for evidence of this and now, here it was, presented to him on a platter. All this time, he’d been looking for something that—he realised now—he didn’t want to find.

He was furious. Livid. Could feel the vein in his temple pulse as adrenalin coursed through him. A smoking gun. A man kissing his girlfriend. His girlfriend kissing a man who wasn’t him.

He sent a text back before he could forget.

Namjoon: that’s her. Thanks man

He put his shoes on and went straight out. Hayeon didn’t know he knew. Namjoon decided, through a red haze of rage, that there was about to be a lot more than Hayeon wouldn’t know.

“Are you ok?” you asked, opening the door to Namjoon, who had shown up unannounced, sounding agitated.

Everyone had always told him you liked him. Liked him. They said it was obvious. They told him to be sensitive when they thought he’d overstepped in some way—with you, with Hayeon in front of you. He had never been sure if he believed them. You and he were just friends. Had always just been friends. You’d never said a word to him of anything different. Now, he was going to find out for sure.

“What would you do if I kissed you?” he asked.

He didn’t wait for an answer. Before your face had rearranged itself from shock to confusion, he was kissing you. He half-expected you to slap him, push him off, ask him if he was crazy (he just might have been at that moment), but you didn’t. You kissed him back. Snaked your arms around his neck, opened your mouth when he brushed his tongue against your lips. More, you pulled him forward, into your apartment, so he could kick your front door shut, so he could follow you into your bedroom.

Namjoon didn’t stop to ask questions. Neither did you. He put his hands on a new body for the first time in almost a decade; for the first time, touching someone who was not Hayeon. He learnt that your skin was soft and your mouth was sweet. He discovered the pitch to which your voice raised when he found just the right motion. He found his own body responded to yours with swift alacrity. He discovered different things that other people did, that you did, which Hayeon did not. Found that he preferred them. With adrenalin surging through him, he found the newness exciting; he was hungry for it, desperate to learn how to use your body, how to make you tick, how to time the implosion carefully so that you came as he sank his teeth into the soft skin around your nipple.

He did not forget, in all this rage, in all this lust, to use a condom.

Spent, but not in any way sated, Namjoon lay for two seconds on his back next to you, before rising to clean up the evidence.

“I’m sorry,” was what he said to you when he sat down on the edge of the bed, his back to you.

“It’s ok,” was what you said back.

It wasn’t what you wanted to say. You wanted to say that it wasn’t ok. You wanted to have said no back at the front door. To have not let him kiss you, not let him into your house, into your body. You wanted to be the sort of person who would have said those things.

But you loved Namjoon. Had loved him as long as you’d known him. Had known also all that time that he would never leave his girlfriend for you. Would never leave his girlfriend full stop. Sometimes you were at peace with that. Found that it was ok, really, didn’t much bother you. Other times, you ached with it, burnt with it, cried from it. And he had shown up at your front door, asked to kiss you, kissed you and what else could you have done?

You would have liked to have been a better person, but there he was, finally doing the thing you had wished he would more times than you could count. So you didn’t say no and you didn’t ask questions. You just kissed him back, poured as much of your love as you could from your mouth to his, your body to his.

Did he know? How you really felt? He must have known. Why else would he have come? Why else would he be apologising to you now?

“Hayeon is cheating on me.”

You closed your eyes, tried to swallow the tears that pricked in your eyes. Of course, it wasn’t about you. You weren’t suddenly the object of his affections; you were subject to his hurt, wounded pride, betrayal, anger, what else? When he fucked you, just now, on the bed where you still lay, was he thinking of her? Of course, he was.

Was it not also true, though, that you knew that? That you knew, when he was kissing you, that it wasn’t about you. Couldn’t have been about you because you and Namjoon had been friends for years and he’d never once as much as hinted that he might have wanted to kiss you—as much as everyone knew that you wanted him to. Did you let him touch you, did you touch him, thinking that it meant something? Or did you take your scraps eagerly, desperately, like a stray dog, not asking what they were or where they came from, just eating hungrily, quickly, until they were gone?

“I’m sorry,” you offered him. “That sucks.”

Namjoon stood and redressed. You lay still on the bed, watching him. Waiting. For something. Anything.

Before he turned to leave, he inclined his head slightly towards you (not looking, not looking at you, naked still, uncovered, for his eyes).

“Could you-... I mean... would i-”

“Relax, Namjoon. I won’t tell anyone.”

The relief washed out of his body on a sigh. He nodded.

“Thank you.”

If you had been a better person, you wouldn’t have let him kiss you even once. Definitely would not have let him fuck you whilst he was still in the maelstrom of reacting to finding out his girlfriend of nine years was cheating on him.

Definitely definitely would not have let it happen again. And again. And again.

Because it kept happening. He kept coming. To you. He said it was only you. You had no choice but to believe him because you wanted him to come again. Even as the door shut behind him on his way out, you wanted him to come back.

You told no one, as you had said you wouldn’t. You betrayed nothing, except all your morals and principles, except Hayeon (who was kind of your friend, too). You found it hard to look at yourself in the mirror: hair messy; purpling bruises on your breasts from his teeth, yellow and green bruises on your thighs from him in times before; still flushed, heartrate still high, skin still warm, sticky with drying sweat.

You never told yourself that it would be the last time. That this time you would put your foot down. You knew you wouldn’t. Couldn't. You had opened the floodgates and here was the deluge: the feelings you had known you had done your best to hide from now dancing in the spotlight. You loved him. Oh, you loved him. Would have done anything for him. Including and not limited to fucking him behind his girlfriend’s back and keeping it a secret.

He never spoke about her. Never once said he was going to leave her, was thinking of leaving her, wanted to leave her. You knew he never would. They had grown up together: all the way through school, spinning in the same orbit. When they got to taste independence and adult life at university, their friendship had become something more. Then her parents had died in a car crash that almost killed her, too, and Namjoon knew he would never leave her. That was how the story went, how his friends told it.

So you kept your mouth shut and your legs open. Told yourself you a thousand lies to make yourself feel like maybe you weren’t the worst person in the world for it.

Namjoon would have told the story a little differently. Hayeon had almost died in a car crash that almost killed her, too, and that was when he knew he could never leave her. He was the only family she had left. She was the only love he had ever known; he her only love. He would not, could not, abandon her. Even if he wanted to. Even when he wanted to.

He told himself this was why he hadn’t confronted her about cheating yet (that, and of course, he had gone and done the very same thing. Done it over and over again, so many times that he didn’t even think of Hayeon when he was with you anymore. That it wasn’t about her anymore). Because, despite how they may have appeared, despite what anyone might have said about them as a couple, they weren’t perfect for each other. She wasn’t his soulmate. He couldn’t blame her for cheating when, frankly, if he’d been honest with himself, he wanted out, too. He wanted out but couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger, to be the bad guy, to break her heart when he was the one who had to put it back together all that time ago. There was tragedy between them that would last forever; to Namjoon, that meant they had to, too.

You were something entirely different. All his friends’ words resounded in his head after the first time. How much you cared for him. How sad it was, how well you bore it, this unrequited, doomed, desperate love for him. He had expected this to make you weak, somehow, to make you feel too soft, too pliable, too malleable under his hands. He felt bad the first time, for using you, for burning you up in his roaring rage, but then he came back to you and you opened the door as if you knew exactly what he wanted—because you did know exactly what he wanted—and let him in. He had expected to feel as if he was taking advantage of you, of your weakness for him, but he didn’t. You weren’t pliable and malleable and pathetic. You didn’t get on your knees and prostrate yourself, offer yourself up on a platter for his delectation.

He loved the taste of your moans in his mouth. He loved the smell of your lotion, faintly lingering on your skin as he kissed, licked, and bit his way across your body. He loved the hot, wet slip of your tongue, the tight, slippery clutch of your cunt. He even loved the way you were careful, dug your nails into his back, into his thighs for a microsecond before releasing him, leaving no marks. Sucked on his skin so his eyes fluttered closed and his breath caught, but not so that the tell-tale bloom of burgundy and purple would give you away.

“I should go,” he said quietly, lying naked on your bed, sweat dry, heart rate steady.

“Yeah, you said that,” you replied gently, naked next to him, on your side, head propped on your hand, watching him, taking him in, the man you loved and could never have outside of these moments.

He turned to look at you, eyes catching his, and he felt desperate suddenly. Desperate not to leave. Not to go back to his house made of straw, house made of lies, to a girlfriend who maybe didn’t love him anymore. To a girlfriend he didn’t love, whom he hadn’t loved—he was sure—for some time. To a girlfriend he wouldn’t leave.

So he left you. Returned home, with heavy feet and a heavier heart. Returned, angry, frustrated, all his old fury bubbling up again, a rolling boil threatening the edge of the pan.

“We need to talk,” he said in greeting to Hayeon, who was making tea in the kitchen.

“Yeah, we do.”

His surprise made him pause for a second—was she about to confess everything?

“I know we haven’t really talked about the future much recently,” she began, leaning with her back against the counter as the kettle rumbled slowly to a boil. “Things have been crazy with work and I feel like we’ve just been kind of missing each other, y’know? But that’s why I think this will be great. This is a good thing. A really good thing.”

“What is?”

And nothing could have prepared him for the words that followed.

“I’m pregnant.”

A cloud of steam rose from the kettle beside Hayeon, the noise of the water roiling inside grew louder. So did Namjoon’s rage. So did he sense of betrayal. The injustice (of what? He couldn’t have said, could barely manage conscious thought). The inescapability of a child. His child. His anger surprised him, the strength of it, the speed and ease with which it rose inside him. He bit down on his tongue to stop all of his worst instincts taking control of it. He reminded himself this was as much his fault as hers. Then he wondered if it was.

He did his best to school his features into neutrality, to keep his voice level when he spoke.

“How do you know it’s mine?”

To her credit, Hayeon did not immediately launch into a wounded, defensive howl. She did not cry big, fat crocodile tears. She flinched, swallowed, opened her mouth and closed it again. She took a deep breath, eyes shut, and looked at him again, nodding silently to herself, but she didn’t lie. She knew Namjoon too well for that. Knew him well enough to know that he knew. And that was when it crystallised inside him: the knowledge that their relationship was fucked. Was fucking over.

“How long have you known?” she asked.

“How do you know the baby is mine?”

A crease flashed across her face – concern? Anger? – and was gone again in a second. Part of Namjoon wanted to have this fight. To force a showdown and make her confess everything she’d done and who she’d done them with. Maybe he would confess, too; maybe he’d tell her all the things you did to him, all the things he did to you; maybe he’d tell her just how much you wanted him.

He didn’t, because most of him just wanted this to be over.

“You’re the only person I’ve slept with without protection.”

Her voice was small, eyes downcast, her fingers picked at her fingernails, at the skin around them. Namjoon was furious at himself for the tiny spark of pride that ignited within him at her words. Sure, he was being cheated on but that guy never got to fuck his girlfriend raw.

He was pathetic. Pathetic, too, the way he thought of you, of what you would do or say. Would you end it all? Refuse to see him again? Would this change things? A sliver of panic slid down his spine at the thought, his fingers grasping air when trying to grab the life rope.

“You’re definitely pregnant?”

She took three pregnancy tests from her pocket. All different brands, all positive.

“I took three more at work earlier,” she said. “False positives are extremely rare, apparently.”

Namjoon looked at the tests, unseeing. What he was seeing instead was a closing door, a lid on a coffin, a baby growing inside his girlfriend that neither of them had planned, neither of them had expected. Neither of them had wanted.

Namjoon didn’t come over for a while. You saw him, socially, as you saw your other friends, and he seemed tense. There was something hiding behind his smile that you were sure everyone else could see, too; it couldn’t just be you that noticed that it didn’t quite reach his eyes, didn’t last quite long enough to be genuine. That noticed that he was checked out of conversations. That noticed his jaw tense, just a little, when Hayeon was around, when someone mentioned her name.

You hadn’t seen him, one-on-one for a couple of weeks when he messaged you.

[20:31] Namjoon: can i come over?

As if you had ever said or would ever say no.

He had fire in his eyes again, when you opened the door to him, but it wasn’t blazing, raging, out of control. This was a rich, deep smoulder; darker, burnished light glinting at you. He didn’t ask any questions, just took your face in his hands and kissed you, far more softly than you’d expected. More slowly. He shut the door behind him, but he didn’t drag you to the bedroom; he wrapped his arms around your body and held you close to him; he rolled his tongue into your mouth and gave a quiet, contented hum when it met yours.

It wasn’t always urgent and hurried with Namjoon. It wasn’t always needy and aggressive and high-geared. It often was, but not always. Never, though, had it been like this. Slow. Intense. Your bodies pressed together; fingers twined in fingers, twined in hair; lips brushing lips, brushing skin. It was indulgent. Wanton, with his mouth between your thighs as you whined, as your breath caught in your throat; with his head clamped between your legs as you writhed, squirming as you came, your body contorted with pleasure and your face the perfect picture of ecstasy. And later, with his length stuffed down the wet tunnel of your throat, when he was lost for words and could only moan, could only utter slurred vowels that sounded like your name. When he came for the first time and whispered quiet praise to you. When he came for the second and held you so close you could feel his heart pound. It was the kind of sex people had when they had all the time in the world and nowhere else to be—no one else to go home to. The kind of sex that made you fall in love—as if you hadn’t already. The kind of sex you assumed he had with Hayeon, had assumed before now that he would never have with you.

When he came for the final time—sitting against the headboard with your backside in his hands, with his hair in yours, with his tongue in your mouth—and you moved to get off him, he held you tight against his chest. Whispered, ‘just give me a minute’. He cradled your head as it rested against his shoulder. He rubbed your back. He sighed heavily, closed his eyes.

“Hayeon’s pregnant.”

“Fucking hell!”

You sat up with a start. You had known there was something. You had never imagined it would be this. Namjoon smiled grimly.

“Uh, congratulat-... um-” and you didn’t know how to continue, how to ask the question on the tip of your tongue, but you didn’t need to because Namjoon had already heard it, seen it coming.

“She says it’s mine-”

“You asked?”

He nodded.

“So... she knows you know.”

Nodded again.

“And...”

“And she’s pregnant,” he repeated with a shrug that looked effortfully casual. “She’s agreed to a paternity test, though she says I’m the only one who...”

He cleared his throat, as though this was awkward, as though you weren’t sitting with his cock, soft now and still inside you.

“She’s on birth control, so we don’t use other protection.”

You stood, trying to understand how you felt. Trying to understand how Namjoon might feel. He moved, too, disposing of the used condom, cleaning up, pulling his boxers back up his legs.

“You’ve always wanted to have a kid,” you offered, not knowing if he wanted this kid, at this time, with this girlfriend.

“Yeah,” he said, but he was still facing away from you, so you couldn’t see his face, couldn’t tell what myriad things his one word might be saying.

“Is that why...”

But you didn’t finish the question because you didn’t need to ask it. Of course, that was why he hadn’t come to you for weeks. Of course, this would change things. It already had. It was a child—there was no question of keeping it or not, you knew that—and they would be a family.

Namjoon sat at the edge of your bed and spoke the words you were thinking.

“What about this?”

“This?”

“Us?”

You laughed. Laughed because tears pricked in your eyes and the only other alternative was crying.

“Is there an us?”

And he couldn’t answer because he knew as well as you did that there wasn’t. That, whatever you were, it wasn’t real, wasn’t lasting, wasn’t love. Not for him.

“Why do you let me come?” he asked, sounding as sad as you had ever heard him, no hint of recrimination, accusation.

You laughed again, weaker, wetter, tears on your waterline.

“You know why,” you answered thickly. “You know and everyone else knows, too. You know how I feel about you, Namjoon. Beggars can’t be choosers. They can be pathetic and cruel and selfish and wrong, but they can’t be choosers. I don’t get to choose, Namjoon. To love you or not love, to be with you or not be with you. I'll always say yes.”

You bit your bottom lip as it wobbled, as the tears made tracks down your cheeks.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” his voice a mere whisper.

“Of course it hurts,” you whispered back. “It hurts you too, doesn’t it?”

Namjoon was a father.

A baby boy, 7lbs 7oz, born (unlike most babies) on his exact due date, in the final days before Christmas. Namjoon laid his eyes on the bloody, screaming gargoyle that was his son and his fate was sealed. A love the likes of which he had never known burst his heart apart. That was his son and he found he had no interest in a paternity test. Biology wouldn’t take anything away from him, couldn’t change what he knew he felt. The request for a paternity test was in Hayeon’s medical notes and it was done without anyone having to mention it. Two days later, results confirmed that the probability of Namjoon being the father stood at 99.9999%. He threw the letter in the bin.

He had tried to tell himself throughout the pregnancy that he’d stop. He’d put an end to it for everyone’s sake. To see you was equal parts joy and heartbreak. To have you, knowing you weren’t truly his. To love you, without telling you. He kept so much from you during that time because you were his friend but you were so much more than that now and you didn’t deserve to hear him talk about the baby his girlfriend was carrying. You didn’t deserve to see his excitement, despite everything, his wonder and awe and anxiety. You deserved far more than he could give you.

So he told himself, after the baby was born, he’d end it. It would be a fresh start, a clean slate. The baby, brand new, didn’t have to know anything of his father’s sins, his flaws, his shame.

Namjoon ushered you into the apartment with the baby asleep in his arms.

“Ohh,” you cooed, almost silently. “He’s so cute.”

“You don’t have to whisper,” Namjoon told you, his voice loud in the silence. “He’s out like a light.”

You followed him to the sofa and sat next to him, staring down at his son.

“I didn’t really know they were so small,” you said. “So much smaller than I was expecting.”

“Right?” Namjoon smiled, couldn’t stop himself. “He’s light, too. It’s almost like there’s nothing there at all.”

“Yeah, they lose weight after being born, don’t they?”

Namjoon blinked, exhaustion slowing his brain, so that he took a few seconds to process the question. He didn’t know you knew anything about babies.

“Yeah, about 10%,” he answered, watching you carefully, trying to gauge what you felt about this child and balance it against what he thought you felt about children as a concept. “He’s 5 days old now so he’s stopped losing weight but it can take a few weeks to gain it back. Want to hold him?”

You looked surprised then but nodded tentatively. Namjoon still wasn’t used to this manoeuvre; he and Hayeon hadn’t quite nailed the transfer yet but he was getting better. Slipped his son into your waiting arms without too much physical awkwardness. You were quiet as you watched him sleep; Namjoon watched you watch him, felt his heart drop into his guts and those guts start to churn.

“His name is Hajoon,” he told you.

You were the first of his friends to be told. He saw the moment of tension in your body, the bob of your throat as you swallowed. You smiled, unable to tear your gaze away from the baby, so he couldn’t see your face properly, couldn’t look you in the eye and see into your soul.

“Hajoon. Kim Hajoon, nice to meet you,” you whispered.

Namjoon let his head drop, not sleeping but not quite awake. Minutes passed, he couldn’t have guessed how many. Then he felt your hand on his leg and he opened his eyes.

“How are you?” you asked with a grin. “You must be pretty wrecked.”

He nodded.

“Hayeon is so jacked up on hormones that she’s fine. She’s sleeping right now but she said she honestly doesn’t feel tired most of the time. She feels normal. Whereas I am the most tired I have ever been. I don’t know if I will ever feel normal again.”

“I expect you won’t. Everything’s changed now, hasn’t it?”

You turned back to his son and Namjoon saw your smile drop, saw it twist into some kind of sad resignation. He didn’t argue that it hadn’t changed.

“I have news, too,” you announced quietly, Hajoon still snoozing.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I got a new job.”

“Oh, that’s great!”

“In Hong Kong.”

“What?”

“I’m moving to Hong Kong.”

“Why?

“I got a job.”

Thinking for Namjoon was like swimming through molasses; he was sure he had somehow misunderstood.

“You’re moving to Hong Kong?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“Just after the new year.”

“Shit.”

You laughed and it was generous of you. Words wouldn’t come to Namjoon. He knew he should be saying things like: congratulations! That’s amazing! What a great opportunity! I’m so happy for you! He could only think things like: don’t go. What about me? I’ll miss you. Please don’t leave.

“Obviously I wanted to meet Hajoon first and, y’know, let you know. I’m going to tell everyone else at drinks tonight.”

“Right... Yeah...”

“It’s a really good opportunity for me.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I think I’ve been coasting at work here; it was time for something new.”

And Namjoon didn’t know if you were trying to convince him or yourself. He didn’t care. He didn’t care how great an opportunity it was; any opportunity that put a thousand miles between the two of you was not worth it. Not for him.

He knew he wasn’t allowed to think that. He didn’t get a say. He didn’t get the privilege of being heartbroken by this. Not after everything he had done. Not after deciding that he was going to end things himself anyway.

But he did think it. And he was heartbroken. He could feel it, cracking in his chest, trying to contort itself around this new knowledge, your approaching absence. He could feel it, fighting with his resolve, losing. His heart, so full, fit to burst, overflowing with love and gratitude because his son had arrived safely in the world; his heart, torn in two, slivers and shreds of it going with you to Hong Kong... Would they ever return?

He opened his mouth to say something he shouldn’t. He hadn’t planned what but if this was the last time he was going to see you (and it probably would be because you were leaving in a week and he had a newborn baby), he couldn’t let you go with everything unsaid like this.

Hayeon opened the bedroom door and walked out, rubbing her eyes, looking a little dozy, hair mussed and face pillow-creased.

“Oh hi,” she said with a smile, seeing you on the sofa.

“Hi,” you returned, standing. “Congratulations. He’s beautiful.”

“Thank you, we certainly like to think so.”

“I was just heading off.”

“You were?”

Namjoon and Hayeon simultaneously; Hayeon politely curious, Namjoon urgent, panicked.

“Yeah, you know how it is this time of year. Lots to plan for.”

“Of course. It was nice to see you; thanks for coming.”

Hayeon approached and took Hajoon from you, turning back towards the kitchen, while Namjoon stood by and wondered how he could stop you leaving. His apartment, Korea, his life.

“Well,” you began. “I guess I’ll go. Congratulations on the baby, really. I’m really, really happy for you. You’re going to be a wonderful dad.”

It was testament to his exhaustion that tears stang in Namjoon’s eyes. He wasn’t really a crier. Certainly not in front of other people. But he couldn’t swallow down the lump in his throat—the lump of words stuck there, that he wouldn’t say, couldn’t say; the words he wished he could transmit to you without saying them aloud.

You stepped closer with your arms out and he enveloped you, crushing, too tight, too hard, too long. The smell of your hair, the lingering scent of perfume on your neck, your fingers lightly gripping the hair at the nape of his neck the way you always did, the slight overbalance of your weight against his as you rose onto your toes.

Then, too soon, far too quickly, you pulled back; you said goodbye; you walked out of his apartment and his life.

Namjoon heard Hajoon stir before the crying started because he wasn’t asleep anyway. He should have been but he didn’t want to go to sleep and wake up in a Seoul that didn’t have you. Even though you had already gone. Had left this afternoon after a raucous bottomless brunch that Namjoon saw the photos from but hadn’t been able to attend. If he didn’t sleep, the world wouldn’t settle into its new formation; the city wouldn’t bend and twist to cover the gap you had left. If he didn’t sleep, he would go mad enough to truly believe it hadn’t happened.

So he heard his son and went to his cot in the nursery, picked him up, checked if he needed changing, held him close to his chest as he looked out of the window at the city, newly empty or so it seemed.

Hajoon began to cry, a sweet little mewling racing into full-bodied screams. Namjoon prepared a bottle, one-handed, as he had already learnt to do, but Hajoon didn’t want it. He wanted to kick and scream and Namjoon couldn’t blame him.

“Don’t worry, baby,” he said quietly, his own voice breaking, tears rolling down his cheek. “We can cry it out together.”

Namjoon sat in the outrageously expensive rocking chair they had bought but not, at that point, yet used, and he and his son cried their hearts out.

Hajoon settled before Namjoon did, crying himself back to a newborn’s dead sleep while Namjoon’s breath still shook, came in snatches, tears dropping from his cheeks onto Hajoon’s swaddle. He didn’t put him back into the cot; he rocked, slowly, gently, intent on spending the rest of the night there.

Hayeon crept in just as Namjoon’s eyelids were dropping.

“Hey, why are you awake?” he asked, voice thick and groggy.

“I had to pee. Thought I’d check on him. And you.”

“We’re fine. Go enjoy some sleep.”

“Ok.”

She hesitated at the door and Namjoon wondered what she’d heard, what she’d been woken by but he was too tired to follow the thought to its end, to worry what she might know or suspect. He rested his head back against the chair and closed his eyes, sleep coming swiftly this time.

The next morning, Namjoon handed Hajoon to Hayeon for his second breakfast, and was stopped in his tracks on the way to the bathroom when she asked him,

“Did you love her?”

Like a punch in the gut. ‘Did’ was the wrong question. He had loved her and loved her still. There was nothing past about it; it was all too present, all too painful.

Could he tell her that? He hadn’t known that Hayeon had known about you, but it didn’t surprise him. It didn’t surprise him that she knew and didn’t confront him about it, that she was willing to let it all be swept under the rug for the sake of their family. Guilt ate at him, suddenly, sharply. Maybe they could both benefit from a little bit of honesty.

“Yes.”

“Hi.”

It had been almost two years. Two really good years: you thrived at your job, had made good friends, had established a real, proper life for yourself. And had hardly missed Namjoon at all. That was your story and you were sticking to it.

His social media were rarely updated—the occasional story of his son, ‘now listening’ songs that you did your best to ignore when you were doing well, that you did your best to decode when you weren’t. It made things easier that he wasn’t there every time you picked up your phone. It made things harder, gave you all sorts of space to imagine his happiness. You knew the big facts: he was happy; his son was beautiful; he and Hayeon were still together. As they would ever be.

Her instagram was busier. Hajoon. Namjoon. Friends. Family holidays. Hajoon. Namjoon. Namjoon. Hajoon. Namjoon.

You couldn’t unfollow her; you were supposed to be friends still. So you prodded your bruises, picked at your scabs, looked so closely at photos of him you could have recreated them, pixel for pixel.

Now he was here in front of you and you had to face the devastating reality that he had the same effect on you as he ever had. You had never seen Namjoon and not loved him.

“You finally made it back here.”

That surprised you and you wondered how it was possible that no one had told him. Of course you’d been back to Seoul before now. You just hadn’t seen him, hadn’t wanted him to know while you were here. You hadn’t expected your friends to keep their mouths shut. You were grateful that they had.

You shrugged.

“Guess so... Happy birthday.”

It was pure rotten luck that meant your visit for Chuseok coincided with this. That gave you no excuse at all to not attend. Whilst Namjoon was the birthday boy, it didn’t mean you had to spend any time with him. He was popular and there were more than enough people filling the space; you could avoid him easily. You’d ripped off the plaster, seen him again, said hello and acknowledged him. That was enough.

You thought. He was somehow always in your line of sight. Somehow waiting for the bathroom at the same moment you needed to go. At the bar buying another drink as you stood there, emptying yours. With every encounter, you grew surer that this had been a mistake. You shouldn’t have come. You should have pretended to be stuck in Hong Kong, pretended your family were visiting you instead, pretended you’d died, who cared? You just needed to get away from him.

How had the bar become so crowded? Why were there so many people and why were they all in your way? You forgot your manners, left them somewhere on the bar, and pushed, feeling claustrophobic in their presence, in the clinging love and pain that was suffocating you again.

“Woah, hey!”

An arm grabbed at you; you struggled, pulled back.

“Let me go!”

“Where are you going?”

Jimin. Interfering.

“I’m going home. Let me go.”

“What’s going on? Are you ok?”

“I’m going home! Don’t try to make me stay.”

“Good lord, girl, I'm just asking if you’re alright.”

“No! I’m not! This was a stupid fucking idea! Now let me go!”

He did. You ran. Ran into him, Namjoon, literally; the force of your body against his sent his drink sloshing over the rim, soaking you and he both. Namjoon laughed.

“Someone’s keen.”

Was this funny? Could he really laugh? You thought later of all the witty putdowns you might have thrown his way, something cutting and sharp that would show him just how over him you were, how unbothered, that he had no effect on you whatsoever. In the moment, you just looked at him pleadingly, trapped, unable to look away, to move, to continue your trajectory out of the bar, out of the city, out of the country, back to Hong Kong, where you were safe, where Namjoon was not.

“Are you ok?”

No. God no. Was it that obvious?

Namjoon took you by the arm and steered you to the back, outside where it was dark but still close and muggy. Where there were fewer people. Where you could be alone. You covered your face with your hands, regretting whatever number of drinks it was you’d had that night.

Namjoon said your name, soft and sweet and concerned, his hand on your arm.

“How’s Hajoon?” you asked, abruptly, anything to avoid a real conversation.

Namjoon could not stop the smile that stretched his face wide. You were happy for him, you really were. Happiness was all you’d ever wanted for him so you’d got your wish. If only you had been more specific.

“He’s so funny,” Namjoon began. “Kid never sits down for a minute. He’s really into tools at the moment—tries to hammer anything long and thin into anything wide and flat. He’s making a mockery of our deposit.”

“Can’t believe he’s going to be two soon.”

“It’s scary how quickly the time goes. It feels like yesterday he was brand new.”

It felt like yesterday to you, too. How raw you felt, how fresh the wounds you’d moved a thousand miles to lick.

“I’ve missed you,” he said and you physically wilted.

“Have you?”

His face fell, softened. He looked at you for a long time, a tiny crease between his eyebrows, a tiny twitch in his jaw.

“You know I have.”

“Do I?”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t know, Namjoon.”

You looked at each other. You wanted him to say something, to fix this, to do something that would mean you could stop loving him, stop missing him. You wanted him to throw his entire life away and kiss you, then and there, onlookers be damned. You expected he wanted no such thing.

“Hong Kong is treating you well?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

You didn’t want him to be glad. You wanted him to be cut to ribbons. You wanted him to feel skin-stripped and naked.

“I was on my way out,” you said, when no more words passed between you, when you were standing in an endless silence. “I really should go.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I have to go.”

“It was good to see you again. Don’t leave it so long next time, yeah?”

“Yeah, sure.”

And you stumbled away from him, through and out of the bar, walking as fast as your feet could carry you back to the subway.

You made it back to your parents’ house, took your make-up off, and brushed your teeth. You made it all the way back to the bed you slept in when you were still a child. Then you cried. Then you curled yourself up in a ball and cursed yourself for this. For being this way. For not letting him go. For somehow still being in love with a man who had never been yours and never would be. For all the things you did two years ago, for how many times you did them, for every opportunity to be the better person you didn’t take.

It was close to midnight when your phone began to buzz. You stretched yourself across the bed and checked.

Namjoon.

You put your phone back down. It continued to buzz. Then it stopped. Then it started again. On and on and on, even when you shoved it under the spare pillow to stop it juddering against the wood.

It stopped. Two short bursts followed: a message.

[23:58] Namjoon: please pick up. I'm outside

You did not pick up. You exchanged your sleep shorts and vest for a T-shirt and joggers, slipped your feet into slides, and snuck out.

He was waiting underneath the lamppost three metres away.

“What are you doing here? Did you get the last train? How are you going to get back?”

He shrugged.

“I had to see you.”

“Why?”

He almost laughed in his surprise.

“Why? Because two years ago, you moved a thousand miles away, and you’ve been back here so many times but this is the first time I’ve got to see you. You’ve been avoiding me even from Hong Kong. You were avoiding me all night; every time I tried to talk to y-”

“We talked.”

“No, we didn’t. Not really. Not properly.”

“Well, what do you want to say to me? What’s so important that you came all the way here to tell me?”

He looked lost, maybe even hurt. You fought the urge to push on his bruises, too. It would only make you feel worse.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“I have missed you.”

He took a few steps closer to you, within arms’ reach now. He lifted a hand, brushed your cheek with his thumb.

You took a step back.

“Namjoon.”

Plea or warning, you weren’t sure.

He returned your name, closed the gap between you. Before you could move back again, he held your arms, held you still.

“I have missed you,” he repeated as if it meant anything. “Of course, I’ve fucking missed you—Jesus, I...”

He moved closer, cupped your cheek in his hand.

“You just fucking left,” he whispered. “Just like that. Dropped the bomb and didn’t stick around to observe the wreckage-”

“Namjoo-”

“I was a wreck. I think I cried more than Hajoon did! One second you were there, and then you weren’t. You didn’t even warn me. I didn’t know you were looking for jobs in fucking Hong Kong!”

“So what if I had told you? What would you have done? Would you have stopped me?”

“Maybe!”

“Namj-”

“Maybe I would have stopped you! Or at least I would’ve tried.”

“For what? To what end? Were you going to leave her? Leave your newborn baby? Drop your own bomb and destroy your whole life? You know you weren’t going to. I knew you weren’t going to.”

“Bu-”

“Have you left her, Namjoon? Hayeon? Did you leave her?”

“No,” he answered and you could taste the reluctance in it, the bitterness, see it in the way he refused to meet your eye.

“Still together?”��

“Yes.”

“See? We were never going to make it out alive. For all intents and purposes, we never were. Never were anything at all. We existed and left no mark. Move on.”

“No mark? No mark? Is that why you’ve all but cut me out of your life? Is that why you had our friends – my friends – lie to me whenever you visited? Because it’s left no mark on you? What we were?”

“What we were was nothing!”

You were trying not to shout on this quiet residential street, where houselights were off and traffic noise was no more than the sound of water rushing.

“You’re not going to leave her, Namjoon. You and I both know it. You’re never going to leave her. That means there is nothing for us. We aren’t an ‘us’. Never were. There’s nothing between us. Understand that.”

A beat passed.

“What would you do if I kissed you?”

His name was on your tongue but before it could make its way out, he did just that. Kissed you as he had done two and a half years ago, without waiting for an answer. And just like that day two years ago, you wished you could have said no, wished you could have done something other than kiss him back, than uncross your arms and wrap them around his neck. Your chest felt as though it would cave in, your heart collapsing in on itself—too heavy, too full, too wounded to sustain itself.

He tasted a little drunk; you could still smell the beer that you had made him spill on himself earlier that evening; his hair was shorter now, short even, nothing to grab at the nape of his neck like you always used to.

“See?” he asked, a little breathless, lips still touching yours. “How can you say there is nothing? It’s not nothing. This isn’t nothing.”

“Namjoon.”

You hated yourself for the way your voice broke. You pushed him away, extricated yourself from his arms, scrubbed a hand over your face.

“No,” you said, sounding surer than you felt. “No, god, no, we can’t do this.”

You shook your arms, paced in a tight circle, tried to blow away all the Namjoon-sized, Namjoon-shaped, Namjoon-scented cobwebs in your heart and mind.

“Namjoon, in about one minute’s time, you’ll be going back to your girlfriend and your son; in four days’ time, I’ll be going back to Hong Kong. Can’t we just leave it at that? Please.”

“I don’t want to.”

“There isn’t any other option and you know it. Go home, Namjoon.”

You turned around and did just that, shutting and locking the door behind you, shutting and locking the door on your heart that housed your love for him, too.

You didn’t know how you would be able to come back again. This had taken everything you had.

Namjoon married her. Hayeon. His mother’s taunts had moved from ‘when are you going to make an honest woman of her?’ to ‘when are you going to give Hajoon a little brother or sister?’ so he’d married her just to put it all off, to stop people asking. They’d organised it quickly—there was nothing like a spring wedding in Korea. Cherry blossom everywhere, warmer weather, unlocking as he locked himself down.

He did it a little to convince himself, too: that they were happy. That he was happy. That they were a perfect family unit, the stuff happily-ever-afters were made of.

He wasn’t unhappy. He loved his son more than anything in the world and got no greater pleasure than the moments when he would stretch up his tiny arms to be lifted, to wrap them around Namjoon’s neck and cling to him like a koala. The pride he felt when Hajoon learnt something new, when he finally said a word correctly, when Namjoon saw him do something he had no idea he’d learnt already—applying lip balm like his mum, reading a book (albeit upside-down) in his dad’s reading chair.

Hajoon had started going to nursery. He would begin going full-time next term and everyone kept telling him that it must be great having his time back. Having his freedom back.

Free? Was that what he was supposed to feel? Free, knowing that his son was in the care of other people, people he didn’t know; free, worrying about whether his son was making friends or being bullied or learning enough; free, sending his baby into the world, watching that world expand around him, watching his baby understand that there was so much more than Mummy, and Daddy, and their little house? Free?

He’d never felt more trapped.

He set a timer on instagram on his phone and, every few days, would ignore it a hundred times just so he could look at you. Now you were free. Free to travel (most recently, Malaysia, but also the Philippines, Australia, Fiji, amongst others). Free to love (your boyfriend, Namjoon had suspected from your stories, and then had it confirmed by his friends). Free to be anything but his.

“Congratulations,” you said, with a smile that looked too big to be insincere. “I’m sorry I missed the wedding. You didn’t really give me much notice, though, so that’s on you.”

Namjoon tried to return the smile.

“Yeah, sorry about that. We just kind of decided, wanted to do it quickly, y’know? It was pretty overdue.”

He watched you carefully, desperately hunting for clues, sure that he used to be able to read you much better than this.

“Of course. You had perfect weather for it, too. The pictures were beautiful.”

“Thank you... Your boyfriend seems... nice.”

He knew that that smile was genuine. He had watched you, with him, in the minutes since you’d arrived at the restaurant and sat down opposite him, and you really did seem happy. He really did seem like a nice guy, which made Namjoon hate him. Made him hate himself a little, too. Because he had locked himself into a loveless marriage. Because he couldn’t have you. Because of everything that he had done to you.

“Yeah, he is. I’m really happy.”

“Good.”

And then Namjoon felt like he needed another drink, though the first courses hadn’t arrived yet.

He stumbled outside, onto the roof terrace of the obnoxiously lit, trendy bar the group had chosen. He wanted to go home. He wanted to go anywhere but home. He wanted to go back three years ago, more than that now, and make different decisions. So many different decisions. He wondered just when exactly it was that his life had started spinning out of control. It wasn’t you. Wasn’t Hajoon. Wasn’t even Hayeon cheating on him. Did it go all the way back to the accident? The one that he was convinced had tied him forever to Hayeon, had made him family, an exclusive club of one.

He had loved her. He absolutely had loved her. She was his first love. He knew that they had been happy once. Once. For a long time. He had never confronted Hayeon about her cheating, as she had never confronted him. When she was pregnant, Namjoon assumed that, whatever sort of affair it had been, it was over; she’d never given him any cause to think otherwise, nor any cause to think something new had started in its place. A blip. Maybe that’s what it was.

It wasn’t over for him, though, was it? It wasn’t a blip for him. It was the sharpness he felt in his chest when he saw you. The low swoop of his stomach when he pictured you, all those miles away, happy without him. It was the way his brain automatically turned on the fantasy of his life with you whenever he stopped, even for a second. What you could be. What you could have. He knew it was a fantasy, but when he saw you, in person, when you were right there in front of him, radiant and fresh and just as beautiful as you had always been, he knew it could be real, too.

“I’m the search party,” you said in way of greeting, sitting on the stool opposite him. “Jin went to search the toilets, too.”

“Found me.”

“Are you ok? Just wanted some air?”

Namjoon laughed. Air was the least of his concerns.

“Are you happy?” he asked, demanded.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

He saw you put your guard up, saw the way it fell across your face just as it was starting to look sad, concerned. Saw it turn that face neutral, suspicious.

“Yes, Namjoon, I’m sure. Are you happy?”

He tipped his head back and sighed at the sky.

“No.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He scoffed.

“Fuck that.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re sorry to hear that? What are we, coworkers? Surely you have more to say than that.”

He wanted you to be happy that he was miserable. He wanted you to understand. He wanted you to take him in your arms and make him not miserable.

You bristled beside him, sat a little straighter.

“What do you want me to say, then?”

He felt desperate when he looked at you, dead in the eye, your eyes doing their best to keep him out.

“You want me to tell you to leave her,” you continued. “You want me to say, do it, Namjoon. Leave your wife and be with me. Come and be happy with me... I’m not going to do that. You know I’m not going to do that.”

“Why not?”

You laughed. It hurt.

“There are a hundred and one reasons, Namjoon. First and foremost: you don’t actually want to be with me-”

You held your hand up, pre-empting his interruption, holding it there until he shut his mouth, until he gave you the slightest nod to say fine, ok, he’d be told off. He’d take his lashings.

“You never wanted to be with me, Namjoon. Be honest. That first time, when you found out Hayeon had cheated on you and you came to my house? I could have been anyone. It wasn’t about me at all. It’s still not about me. Do you know what that does to a person?

“I’m not blameless: I let you. Sat myself at your feet and ate the food you dropped. I knew it wasn’t about me and I let you have it anyway but do you not understand what that did to me? How hard it has been to build myself back up? How difficult it was to love you when you were my friend and how much more difficult once you were more than that? How much it hurt me every single day? Reduced me to nothing. No self-respect, no self-esteem, just a gaping wound where my heart should have been because, every time you came, I ripped it out and handed it to you.

“Why do you think I left? You must know. You knew how I felt about you and you knew you didn’t love me and then I come back here and you try to open it all up again. You knew why I had been avoiding you, so why did you follow me? Why? Why do you sit there, indulging in your misery, and try to drag me down too?

“I’m not doing it, Namjoon. I've spent too much fucking time getting over you. It’s not fair for you to do this to me.”

He sat. He took it. With his head down, empty glass in hand, he acknowledged the truth of almost everything you said, felt his shame outgrow his pride, felt tears (that were always too close to the surface these days) burn in his eyes.

“I love you,” he said, lifting his head to look at you. “I love you.”

“No, you don’-”

“I do. You’re right, I’ll admit it: to start with, it wasn’t about you. You couldn’t have been anyone but it wasn’t about you. Until it was. It wasn’t about Hayeon; it wasn’t about anything but you and it’s been you ever since. I loved you then and I love you now.”

You covered your face with your hands, fingers pressing into your eyes. You shook your head.

“You can’t say that to me, Namjoon.”

“Why not?”

“Becaus-��

You stopped, tears spilling down your cheeks, lips pressed tight to stop the wobble.

“Because I’m over you, ok? I have a boyfriend.”

“And I had a girlfriend. I have a wife.”

“Exactly! GOD-”

You stood, started pacing in front of him, hands shaking at your sides.

“You have a wife, Namjoon! And a son! What are you doing? You can’t say this shit to me, ok? You can’t. I won’t let you; I don’t have to listen to this.”

His hand had wrapped around your arm before you’d taken your first step. He turned you to face him, held you too tight, held you still. There had to be something he could say that would at least make you stay to talk a bit longer. There had to be some way he could get through to you. That he could convince you he loved you, if nothing else. You turned your head away, closed your eyes, face tight as if anticipating impact. Your hands still shook.

Namjoon saw your fear and instantly his hands fell back to his side. You tentatively opened one eye, swivelled it to look at him, not asking permission but checking if it was safe. You took a big step back from him.

“Uh, guys?”

Both of your heads whipped around: Tian was standing in the doorway, looking a little surprised, like he’d walked in on something he shouldn’t have.

He had.

“Um, the group is ready to head to another place; I was sent to round you up. Everything ok?”

You nodded, turned quickly to swipe the tears from your eyes, and then smiled at your boyfriend, walking with a skip back to him.

“Of course!” you answered, suddenly perky. “Where to next?”

Namjoon sent a text to Hayeon. He was going to go home early and relieve the babysitter. He had a headache.

You had been determined to pretend it had never happened. You took your boyfriend’s arm and smiled at him, rejoined the group, and walked to the next bar, aware of Namjoon’s sudden absence. You didn’t want the entire night ruined because of him.

Your efforts were in vain. You excused yourself to the toilet once your order had been placed and tried some deep breaths. Tried some grounding techniques. Tried to will your heart to slow, your tears to stop pricking behind your squeezed-shut eyelids.

It should not have been like this. You had been sure. Confident. Smug, even. Tian was a great boyfriend and you liked him a lot. Loved him, even. You had looked at Namjoon’s wedding photos with a pit in your stomach but then you had gone to dinner with Tian and had a lovely time and reminded yourself that there were people in the world (at least, there was one person) who wanted you around, who was prepared to say it, to live it, to love you out loud in front of everyone. You deserved that, you reminded yourself. You were happy.

But your heart still raced and your stomach still churned and your heart still called for Namjoon: wanted to check if he was ok, wanted to run to him, wanted to tell him to leave his wife. That was the worst part: you wanted to do all the things you’d said you wouldn’t, all the things he wanted. Instead, you had to go back out to your boyfriend and your friends and pretend you were fine. That you were where you wanted to be.

Because Tian was a good boyfriend (he was and it hurt you all the more now that you knew you weren’t over Namjoon. Might never be), he picked up on your mood, asked if you would mind going home a little early, because he felt tired.

“It was Namjoon, right?” he asked, as he shut your hotel room door and slipped off his shoes.

“What?”

You sat down heavily, not ready for the rigmarole of getting ready for bed.

“You said you left Seoul because of a bad relationship.”

You had said that. Had told Tian that you needed to take things slowly because you weren’t confident you’d glued yourself back together securely enough. So he had taken things slow, really slow, with you, because he was kind and patient and deserving of a far better love than you could give him.

Your body sagged. You nodded.

“Are you ok?”

You held your arms open to him and he pulled you up into a hug. He stroked your hair and rubbed your back.

“Yeah.”

Pressed so close to him, you could feel the tension build in his body.

“I was talking to Hayeon; she said they’ve been together since university.”

“Yeah.”

You felt him nod and he said nothing more for a few minutes; he just held you close and you finally found your heart begin to slow, your panic subside.

“I’m going to wash up,” he whispered, pressing a kiss into your hair.

You undressed, put pyjamas on, and swore to yourself that this was an end to it. No more. No more Namjoon. It was done. There was a man in the bathroom who accepted you, loved you, didn’t cheat on you (hadn’t cheated on anyone), and you loved him. Namjoon was in the past; Namjoon didn’t even live in the same country as you; this didn’t have to be hard (though making these declarations in his absence felt easy, easier than holding to them in his presence).

It wasn’t long before you were back in Seoul again. Namjoon found excuses not to see you. He knew the things you said were right. He didn’t want to know it. Didn’t want to face it.

Had not wanted to face anything difficult in his life for a long time, he realised.

Then, one day, he checked your instagram and there it was: an engagement post. A diamond ring on your finger. Two smiling faces.

He carried the heartbreak around as rage, impatience, irritability. Scolded his son for making a mess (as if that weren’t what kids were for), snapped at Hayeon so many times, she snapped back. It wasn’t their fault. It was his. All of it, his.

“I’ve been thinking,” Hayeon began, sliding into bed next to him. “Hajoon is almost four now-”

And Namjoon thought it was going to be about school or extra-curriculars or maybe she was just being very efficient about planning for his birthday. The moment she said the words ‘little brother or sister’, he stopped hearing anything at all. A light-headedness rushed through him, roaring in his ears.

“I want a divorce,” he said, cutting her off mid-sentence.

And that was how it was. Long talks. Lots of tears. A better understanding of one another than they had had for years. An easing. A settling. No longer the feeling of walking on eggshells. No longer the weariness, the misery, the emptiness of their relationship echoing in their bed.

They were polite and civil and organised. Agreed the splitting of the assets. Agreed 50-50 shared custody of Hajoon, who didn’t understand and found the transition, when Namjoon first moved out, difficult but adjusted quickly (as children are wont to do) and continued to thrive. There were still legal things to be finalised, a long process made longer by paperwork, but the practical things were achieved quickly and their separate lives began.

Namjoon, sitting in his new apartment, much smaller than the old one, much neater, quieter, cried. He cried a lot. Some of it was sheer relief. Some of it was terror of something he had never known. Some of it was regret that it had taken him this long. Some of it was heartbreak. Some of it was because he didn’t know what else to do now. Didn’t know if he could fix it. Didn’t know if there was anything left to fix.

Because it wasn’t about you. Not really. Or not entirely. It was about Namjoon doing what he should have done years ago. It was swallowing a bitter pill to cure his ills. Not just his, but Hayeon’s too, and Hajoon though he was too young to have them yet – preventing his future ills, making it so he didn’t grow up with a fucked-up view of what a relationship was, what it was supposed to be.

It was better for everyone. It was. After the initial surprise, everyone else agreed, too. His friends finally confessed that they’d wanted to ask him for years, was he happy? Did he want this? When he had got a little too drunk and said things they didn’t know how to take and they had just let them drop, should they have picked him up on them? Had they done badly by Namjoon for not pushing the issue? He wanted to be angry with them. To say, ‘why didn’t you tell me?! Why didn’t you make me leave?!’. But it wasn’t their fault and, if they had said those things, he’d have hurt them, too. So he reassured them; it wasn’t their fault and they couldn’t have fixed anything. It was Namjoon’s problem and he had to be the one to realise it, to do it. That it had taken him so long was his own fault and no one else could have made it happen any quicker.

“I left Hayeon, did you hear?”

And you didn’t know what you had done to deserve this. Didn’t know quite how it always ended up you and Namjoon alone. You and Namjoon having this conversation. Namjoon digging up the past, expecting to find life in it, expecting to find what he had convinced himself it was, not what it had actually been.

“Yeah, I heard.”

You moved away from him, out of the room, without a backward glance.

You had heard: a message coming in whilst you flicked through a bridal magazine. You were getting married and you shouldn’t have cared. It should not have opened a crevasse inside your heart. It should not have seen a tiny butterfly of hope flit from that deep wound. It should not, in turn, have made your blood boil. You should not have put the magazine down, hands shaking with rage. You should not have cared.

You did.

It made you furious: that he’d finally left her when it was too late; that your reaction to the news was hope. That, after all this time, since the moment you fucking met him, he had this hold on you, this choking grip that would not let go. You’d moved a thousand miles but it stretched across the ocean, eternal, endless. You decided to make your fury endless, too.

“How are things with you? How’s the wedding planning?”

“Leave me alone, Namjoon.”

Your name. You ignored it.

Your name again. You left the room.

“Are you just never going to speak to me again, is that it?”

“No, Namjoon, that’s not it.”

“Then what?”

You turned to face him, exasperated, terrified.

“Then what do you want me to say? I know you and Hayeon are getting divorced. Of course, I know that and you know that I know it, so why ask?”

His face twitched, in surprise, confusion, irritation.

“Well, don’t you want to say anything?”

“No, I don’t. Enjoy your divorce. Goodbye.”

Then, weeks later, a letter arrived for you. It languished in your postbox for almost a fortnight, because you received post so infrequently that you almost never checked it. Somewhere underneath piles of leaflets and advertising was a handwritten letter addressed to you. You didn’t recognise the handwriting but it didn’t matter because you knew who it would be from. Knew it in your guts.

You were grateful that Tian was out, that you had time to sit and read it properly.

You may want to burn this, it began, but please at least read it first. I have a lot to say and I know you won’t let me say it to your face—I may not be brave enough to say it to your face after all this time—so I have written it down. I wrote it once and scrapped it, wrote it a second time and tried to make myself sound resolved and wise and like I knew, at any point, that I knew what I was doing, but I can’t hide from you and you already know all my worst traits, every bad thing I've ever done, so I’m just going to state things plainly and show myself as I am.

I love you. I’m not sorry for it. I’m sorry for all sorts of things but I won’t apologise for loving you, not now, not ever.

You were right, when I came to you that first time, it wasn’t about you. It was about Hayeon and my own ego and a destructive need to fuck things up (I’m good at this, as you already know). It was not about you but I need you to believe that it couldn’t have been just anybody. I came to you because I was wounded and hurt and angry and I knew you would ease that pain. I liked you and trusted you; you were my friend.

I hadn’t known what I was going to do. I didn't have a plan. I don’t think you will believe that, but it’s true. Everything I had, everything I was, as a person, a human, a half of that whole, was tied up with Hayeon; we had been together for so long, even before we were together-together, and I felt as though she had spat in the face of that. She had. She had denigrated and undermined the foundation of our lives—hers, mine, ours. I was angry and I wanted to do something I couldn’t take back. I wanted something that was mine and mine alone. I wanted something that had nothing to do with her (though, of course, unavoidably, it was to do with her, that reaction in me, that impulse). I felt I would never forget the images of her with another man and I wanted something that I could think about, when that image came to me, something that would replace it, would remind me that I had something of my own, too. I had something special with someone special. You.

So you see it could never have been anyone. I am glad that it was you. Looking back on it, it feels inevitable, that I came to you and that you let me in. I am grateful to you. Despite everything that I have done and you have done, everything we’ve said, I am grateful. Even if you rip up this letter, if you burn it, tear it to shreds and soak it in water, I am grateful to you.

I have done everything wrong. I see that now. I have done wrong by everyone: me, Hayeon, you, even Hajoon, though he is still so young and understands so little, I hope it doesn’t affect his future. I am sorry for that. Please believe me: I am sorry.

In my first draft of this letter, here I wrote all the things I wish I had done or said. There were a lot of them. I won’t do that in this one, though, because it doesn’t matter now, does it? I can’t take any of it back. I can’t make better choices in the past. I can only make better choices for the future.

So I separated from Hayeon, a thing I should have done many, many years ago. We are both much happier now. She has a boyfriend, I don’t know if you know. He is a good man and he is kind to Hajoon and I thought I would be jealous, would be inclined to find fault where there was none, but I haven’t. Hayeon and I get on better now than ever. Co-parenting is sometimes hard and often complicated, but we are better parents because of it. We are able to be better people because of it. And Hajoon gets to see his parents happier than they were; Hayeon and Minho can show him what a happy relationship is like.

I know you are happy. I am as happy for you as I can be, though I am also sad and lonely and I miss you more than I have any right to. I know and I accept that I have done so many things wrong and I have hurt you, not just once but repeatedly, and I am sorry for that. Truly, deeply, eternally sorry. I love you. I will always be here for you if you ever need anything, even from a thousand miles away.

Now this letter is in your hands, to be dealt with however you wish. So am I.

Yours always,

Namjoon.

It took you a long time to read. Because you hesitated over reading it, unsure if you really wanted to know what he had to say. Because your eyes were blurry with tears. Because there were never enough nails in this coffin. Namjoon, wherever he was, whatever he did, you loved him. Had never stopped, not for a second since you started. Since you met. Since your heart fell at his feet. You’d done everything you could to fight it, to hide from it, to kill it. It would not be suppressed.

Namjoon never received a reply from you. What would you have said? What could you have said? There was nothing in the letter you hadn’t really already known. He knew everything you could say, too. So you hid the letter in a diary and tried to forget its existence.

Minho had proposed to Hayeon. She had said yes. They were planning a wedding—a proper one this time, a big event with everyone they knew in attendance, not the tiny, family-only, rushed job that she’d had with Namjoon. Namjoon tried, in his worse moments, not to be happy for them, but there was no denying that they were a beautiful couple and Minho was great with Hajoon (as were his parents, who didn’t seem to care that their son was marrying a divorcée with a kid). In the absence of a father, Hayeon had asked Namjoon if he would walk her down the aisle; he had been unexpectedly touched and was genuinely looking forward to it. He loved her, in a sweeter and deeper way than he had before, and he was so glad that, whatever he might have done wrong, she had this happiness now.

You had been invited. You had RSVP’d yes. That had surprised Namjoon because, according to everyone else, you had fallen off the grid. Responding to messages vaguely and intermittently, socials all dead. Despite the fact that you were supposed to be planning your own wedding. He tried not to worry. Tried and failed. Tried and failed, too, not to be anxious about seeing you again.

Would you be happy? Would you want to speak to him? Would you still be angry? Would you ignore him and walk away as you had done before? How had his letter been received? He still didn’t know. As far as you were concerned, it seemed, Namjoon did not exist, but you wouldn’t be able to avoid him at the wedding.

“Look at you,” Namjoon cooed, beaming at Hayeon, in her dress and veil, clutching her flowers tightly.

“Do I look alright?”

“You look beautiful.”

“I’m really nervous, is that weird?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I don’t remember being nervous when we did this.”

Namjoon laughed.

“We didn’t exactly do this. A quick trip to the district office isn’t really a wedding.”

Hayeon smiled but didn’t laugh.

“It felt like a wedding at the time, though. I liked it.”

Namjoon nodded, knowing that he couldn’t lie and that she would see through it if he did.

“I’m really happy for you,” he said instead. “Minho is a good guy and I’m glad you found him.”

Her eyes sparkled with tears she tried to blink back, tipping her head as if to tip them back inside.

“Thank you,” she replied, her voice watery, too. “We’ve been through a lot and I’m so grateful to you for everything, especially Hajoon, and divorcing me, and being friendly to Minho. You know I could never have said yes to him if I didn’t know you would be supportive. You’re still my family and I love you.”

They hugged, careful not to smudge make-up, not to step on her dress.

“I love you, too,” Namjoon said, a lump forming in his own throat, grateful that something good had come from all his mistakes, that they hadn’t ruined her the way they had him. “Ok, shall we do this?”

He looked for you as he walked down the aisle. Waved back at Hajoon waving from the front row, but scanned the crowd for you. Couldn’t pick you out on the short walk to the altar. Tried not to be obviously distracted as he stood at the front, next to Hayeon, handed her off to Minho, who looked as handsome and happy as he ever had.

He spotted you, towards the back, eyes determinedly forward while everyone else let their gazes roam: Hayeon, Minho, the flowers, the other guests, the gardens outside. His heart squeezed. It was a wedding, for fuck’s sake. If he didn’t take this opportunity, on this of all days, he would be a bigger idiot than he thought.

You weren’t easy to catch, though. He knew you were doing it deliberately. Maybe that should have stopped him. It didn’t.

It was long into the night, booze flowing, disco dancing, when he finally caught you, waiting for the bathroom.

“Can we talk?” he asked, cutting through the niceties, which would only have given you a greater opportunity to tell him to go fuck himself.

“No. I have to pee.”

“Ok, you can use the bathroom in my room.”

You scoffed.

“Nice line.”

“It’s not a line. I want to talk to you.”

“No.”

And you stalked off, apparently no longer in need of a bathroom.

He caught you again, outside this time, leaning against the wall, looking up at the sky.

“Wondering when is an acceptable time to leave?” he asked, not sure if he was joking or being kind of a dick.

“Oh, I’m long past that, no worries. Not that anyone would have missed me even if I’d left early.”

“I’d miss you.”

“Don’t start.”

Namjoon moved closer, touched your arm with just his fingertips. Spoke softly, tried not to sound as desperate as he felt.

“Please can we talk?”

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath. Then you said yes. Well-

“Ok, you talk,” is what you said. “What is it you have to say to me, Namjoon? Got some magic words that’ll fix my life? Because that’s pretty much all I want to hear. If you’ve got some other shit to say, I’m not sure I’m interested.”

“How’s Tian?”

He thought he was treading lightly on safe territory but you whipped your head around to face him with rage in your eyes.

“Are you fucking joking?”

Your voice was strained with anger.

“What?”

“Fuck off, Namjoon!” you shouted. “Just fuck off!! Forever!!! Ok? Fucking leave me alone!!”

But he wouldn’t. Should have. Might have on a different day, if he were completely sober, if he were a different person.

“No.”

And you looked angrier still.

“You can shout at me if you want,” he continued. “And kick and scream and whatever, but you can’t just avoid me and ignore me for the rest of time. Even if you live in Hong Kong, you have family and friends here and we’re going to fucking work this shit out. Ok?”

He couldn’t read the look on your face, then, but you weren’t arguing or walking away, so he took you by the hand and waited for you to pull it back. When you didn’t, he wasted no more time and led you back inside, up the stairs to his hotel room, where you could kick and scream to your heart’s delight and it wouldn’t ruin the party.

When he shut the door and turned to you, your face had settled into something mean.

“You know I don’t live in Hong Kong anymore, right?”

No, he did not know.

“Uh, no.”

“You know whose fault that is?”

He felt like it was probably his, though he wasn’t sure why.

“No.”

“Of course you don’t! Because it couldn’t possibly be your fault, could it? Couldn't possibly have anything to do with you! Because nothing is your fault! You’re just a fucking bleeding heart, aren’t you, Namjoon?”

He didn’t really know, now, what he had been expecting. Could see that maybe his hopes had clouded his judgement. He had told you you could kick and scream but he hadn’t realised that you really were going to. You weren’t usually this angry and he had no idea what you meant: not living in Hong Kong? Then where? Seoul? And he didn’t know, hadn’t known; no one had told him?

“That’s not what I think at all,” he answered, voice calm, trying not to respond in kind, not to let the strength of his own feelings escalate this. “Lots of it is my fault but I didn’t even know you had moved back here—when? When did that happen?”

“As if you fucking care!”

“Of course I care! I love yo-”

“DON’T!”

With a finger raised against him, shaking lightly.

“Don’t you fucking dare with that shit, ok? Stop fucking lying to m-”

“It’s not a lie! Why would I lie?”

“Because you can’t love me! Don’t you get it? We were nothing! Nothing! A fucking distraction for you and nothing m-”

“Now you don’t.”

Namjoon could feel his blood heat, feel the anger rising in him. He didn’t want to be angry with you; he didn’t want to have this argument but how could you still be saying this? Still be saying that what you had with him was nothing? It wasn’t nothing to him and he knew it wasn’t nothing to you.

“Who’s the one lying now?” he asked. “You know it’s not nothing. If it were nothing, you wouldn’t be here spitting fucking feathers at me! Tell me: why are you back?”

“Why do you think?! Because I fucked it, Namjoon! Because of you! Because it’s always fucking you! Jesus Christ, I moved a thousand miles away and it’s still you! Still you that I let fuck up my entire life over and over again like some insane moron! And you stand there, have the fucking gall to ask me why? How? What happened? You happened, Namjoon! You fucking existed and we met and then it was all fucked!”

“Sorry.”

You wiped your eyes, forgetting about your make-up, smudging it, smearing it—remembering too late to be delicate, swiping a finger carefully beneath your lashes.

“I really fucking hate you sometimes.”

“Yeah, I hate myself sometimes, too.”

“I don’t want that.”

“I don’t know what you want.”

You didn’t answer that. Namjoon didn’t expect you to, not really.

“Can I talk?” he asked.

You shrugged, staring into the floor as if it might serve answers.

“Ok, well, I’m sorry you’re back, I guess.”

You scoffed, no heat in it.

“Ok, maybe I’m not that sorry, I don’t know. I’m sorry you’re miserable; I'm sorry you hate me. I’m sorry that Hong Kong didn’t work out. Did... Is Tian with you here?”

“What do you fucking think?”

“Ok, well, sorry for that, too, I guess. Or not sorry, not really, because we’re both here now, aren’t we?”

“Don’t, Namjoon-”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t suggest we get ‘back together’. We’ve never been together. There isn’t anything for us to go back to.”

“I don’t know why you keep saying this! Why are you trying to deny what we had?”

“NAMJOON!”

Angry again, arms raised, a resurgence of energy.

“For fuck’s sake, STOP!” you continued. “We had a-, god, I don’t know, an affair? We didn’t have a relationship. Did we date, Namjoon? Did we tell our friends? Do they even know now?!”

It hadn’t really occurred to Namjoon to ask. At the beginning, he had assumed they did not know because that is what he wanted to believe. Now, he assumed they knew—surely they did? Could they not have known? They were always a little skittish when it came to you; were they the same when they talked to you about him? They had to know. How could this thing, which had dominated more than five years of his life, have passed them by unnoticed?

“So we weren’t anything,” you continued. “It was all a mistake. A mistake that I’ve somehow let ruin everything. I think I'm worse off than I was when I left for Hong Kong in the first place.”

You looked up at him.

“Do you ever wish you never met me?”

“No, never.”

“Oh.”

Namjoon chose to assume that those words were just anger, not a reflection of what you really felt.

“I’m not sorry we met. I can’t be. Even if I’m sorry that you’re miserable, that I’ve caused you pain, that I’ve fucked so many things up for you. I'm sorry for those things but I’m not sorry we met, I’m not sorry I love you.”

“Stop it, Namjoon. You don’t love me and I’m going to tell you why.”

You steered him into a chair, sat him down, sighed heavily. You sagged, all your energy wiped in an instant. You looked tired. Looked older than the bright, young thing you had been when all this started—which of course you were. You both were. Older but not necessarily wiser, Namjoon thought.

“Before any of this started, I was in love with you. We all know that, right? I loved you and couldn’t have you and that was fine. Not fine but it’s how it was. Then you caught Hayeon cheating and you needed to do something destructive, isn’t that what you said? Something you couldn’t take back. Me. And then it kept happening because, despite appearances, you and Hayeon weren’t meant to be but you were too much of a fucking coward to ever leave her and then she got pregnant and there was no way you would leave your kid. So you trapped yourself in a relationship you hadn’t wanted for a long time and I became your escape.

“You can say it was about me or it became about me or whatever else you want to but that’s not true. It was about me being not-Hayeon. It was about you having something that she didn’t know about and couldn’t touch. Having something that was just yours. Something that made you feel like less of a trapped fucking loser.

“Then I, for once, did the right thing and I left and you had all the time in the world to idealise and fantasise about what we had and what we could have had if only everything were different. And it took you so long to leave Hayeon that now, when you could have been dating and looking for someone who would make you happy, all you have to cling to is me. Memories and fantasies of me. Because you’re still a fucking coward, Namjoon. You don’t want to meet someone else because it’s horrible and scary. You want me to say yes so you can welcome me into this fantasy life you’ve created for us. Except that it doesn’t exist. I’m not a fantasy! None of this is! It’s not real! You don’t love me; you love the idea of me that you’ve concocted! You love the dream life that you have spent years perfecting!

“But that’s not real! That’s why I keep telling you we’re nothing! Because we are! Dreams are nothing, fantasy is nothing, we are nothing!”

“What would you do if I kissed you right now?”

“NAMJOON! FUCK!”

“Answer the question.”

You might have been right, at least partly, but you were also partly wrong. You appeared to have forgotten that, before anything sexual happened between the two of you, you were friends. Good friends. You enjoyed each other’s company, made each other laugh, lent a shoulder or a helping hand when needed. Maybe Namjoon had spent a little too much time thinking about you but he would never, ever accept that you were nothing.

Death by a thousand cuts. You felt shredded. Slashed to ribbons. Somehow still so raw after all this time: wounds where there should have been scar tissue, rough and ugly but stronger than it was. It beggared belief that you could still feel like this. That you managed to fall in love with another man, that you agreed to marry him, and then still let it all be ruined by the thought, the possibility, the memory of Namjoon.

It hurt that he kept insisting you were something more than a fling. Because if it were true, why didn’t he leave her? Why did he stay? For all that time? Why did he let you go? If he cared so much now, why not then? Why was it not worth the leap, the fear, the risk? Why were you not worth it?

Now it was easy. He was single and he knew you. Too well. Knew that, even after all this time, there was space in your heart for him. You hated it. You loved him. You knew if he kissed you, there would be no pushing him away. You had put a thousand miles and five years between you and it hadn’t worked.

You took a deep breath, attempted to steel yourself for the thousandth time, feeling wrung out, brittle and fragile.

“You don’t get to ask me that, Namjoon. You don’t get to kiss me. Not anymore.”

He ducked his head—you weren’t sure if it was a nod—and then he looked at you, thoughtful, for a moment.

“Ok. I understand.”

He stood and when he took your hands in his, you didn’t have the heart to snatch them back. His hands were warm—always were—and having let him hold them, you had to fight the urge to squeeze.

“I love you and you don’t believe that. I get it. If you’re back now, back in Seoul for good, I would like the opportunity to prove to you that I do love you and that there is something worth having here. Can I do that?”

You stood in your hotel room, trying to breathe deeply, trying not to lose it. Because what had you come back for, if not this? Namjoon at your feet. If you were being honest with yourself, wasn’t that why? Why you called off your wedding, left your fiancé, left the country, and came running back? Because Namjoon was single now and telling you he loved you and wasn’t that what you had always wanted to hear?

When he was in front of you, right there in your presence, you couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand him being there, not being yours, not being so close to you you couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t stand that you couldn’t stand it. Felt every fibre of your being tight and twisted with the effort of refusal.

When he wasn’t in front of you, his absence clung like cobwebs. Sticky, piling up immediately after you’ve brushed them away. When it was just you and your broken heart and your confusion and your hurt, you wanted him. As much as you ever had. But you couldn’t let him.

You took off your make-up and stood under the shower, letting the water wash over you, trying to let it relax you, but your brain wouldn’t stop. Your brain wouldn’t stop asking questions and your heart wouldn’t stop telling you to just let him. To go back to him.

You wondered if coming back was a mistake. If you should have just married Tian and stayed in Hong Kong. If you should have broken up with Tian anyway but stayed in Hong Kong. Because if you had stayed, you wouldn’t be here. If you hadn’t come back-

Who were you kidding? If you hadn’t come back, you would still have been wrestling with this. It wasn’t over. Hadn’t been over. You ran away to avoid a messy ending but it also meant you avoided a conclusion. Closure.

What if you didn’t want closure?

As you stepped into your pyjamas and drew back the bed covers, you asked yourself: if you have come back for Namjoon, why are you pushing him away? If It's not over, why can’t you let it be something?

You were asking yourself why he wasn’t willing to take a risk, to have taken it so long ago, but there you were, not taking the risk for him. Was he worth it or was he not? If he was worth leaving your fiancé for, was he not worth the risk now? Worth breaking down the walls you’d carefully constructed around his place in your heart?

And maybe you were tired. Maybe it was watching his ex-wife marry the man she loved—a thing you hadn’t been able to do. Maybe it was foolishness or maybe it was you finally doing the right thing.

You slipped your feet into slippers and padded back to Namjoon’s room. You knocked. Waited. Knocked again. Were sure he wasn’t going to answer, were turning away from the door, when it opened.

He looked like he had been sleeping, eyes small and squinting in the light, door only half-opened, half-hiding his almost nakedness. He looked surprised and then confused.

You didn’t let yourself stop to speak, to explain yourself. You pushed gently against the door so he would stand back, so you could reach out and take his face in your hands, so you could lean up onto your tiptoes and kiss him.

He didn’t resist, didn’t pull back, didn’t stop to ask the questions you were sure he wanted to. He wrapped his arms around you, pulled you closer, let the door close as he walked you both carefully into the room.

It reminded you of the beginning of the end. When he had come to you and said nothing but kissed you deeply and slowly and fucked you like there was no one else, could never be anyone else. Fucked you like he had never fucked you before and then told you that Hayeon was pregnant.

This felt like that. Slow and full and heavy with the weight of things unspoken, years of unexpressed pain, joy, love, pleasure. It felt like a dream, like a memory hazy with age, like a veil drawn between you and reality, because that was all it had been for so long: remembered, dreamt, imagined. Now real, now warm, flushed in your hands, soft beneath them. Now everything you had wanted and tried not to want, yours for the taking.

When it was over, when you lay in his arms, when you felt his breath shift, about to speak, you tensed.

“Don’t,” you asked quietly. “Please don’t say anything.”

A pause.

“Ok.”

He kissed your head and you felt it anyway: everything he wanted to say. I love you and what does this mean and are you ok and what happens now. You didn’t have any answers for him, didn’t want the questions asked. You just wanted to stay there, warm and sticky and sleepy and with him. Safe, in the dawn hours, from the world, from the daylight, from the morning after.

You woke to the sound of knocking at the door. For a second, disorientated, then immediately overfull. Namjoon slipped out of bed and tied a hotel robe around himself.

“Daddy!”

“Joonie!”

His son.

A gasp you tried to hide beneath the covers. Heat in your face: fury, embarrassment, shame. You’d never wanted kids; had always taken the relevant precautions to avoid it. Until last night. Over-tired, over-wrought, whatever the excuse, you cringed silently to yourself, trying to feel disbelief that you would be so careless. Trying because, well, it was Namjoon and when did you ever do the right thing, the sensible thing when it came to him?

Not ever.

You listened to their conversation, grateful that Namjoon was keeping him at the door, with a growing sense of panic. There was still time, but the sooner the better, which meant you had to get out, get home, get to a women’s clinic. Your head was swimming, heart hammering. The second you heard the door close, you jumped out of bed, gathering your clothes, hastily putting them on, tripping over your pyjama trousers, crashing into Namjoon.

“Whoa- hey, what’s going on?”

“I have to go. I have to go.”

And you left with no more explanation, running to your own hotel room, throwing everything haphazardly into a bag, throwing your key card at the reception desk on your way out.

You considered, for a second, if pregnancy might not have been the easier option. You lay on your floor, breathing carefully, eyes closed, trying desperately not to hurl. It had been more than a couple of hours since you’d taken the requisite pill, so you could be sick reasonably safely, but you weren’t sure you’d make it to the bathroom in time. The cramps were unlike any you’d experienced before. Breathing was about all you could manage.

You had told Namjoon, as you sat anxiously on the subway, that you would explain later. You had left him on read when he asked if he could come over. You didn’t have the headspace to think about the conversation that would ensue if he did. Could only think about the possibility of pregnancy; swore you could feel it already happening inside you; could not stop the horrifying fantasy of what it would mean if you were pregnant, if you had to carry a baby, raise a child.

There were worse people to do it with than Namjoon, but you didn’t want to do it with anyone. Ever. So now you were useless on the floor, sicker than a dog, listening to the insistent buzz of your phone on the coffee table. You knew it would be him, weren’t deliberately ignoring him, just couldn’t move enough to pick up.

Still prone, still cramping, slightly less nauseous than you were, you stretched to grab your phone that had buzzed itself to the edge of the table. You called Namjoon.

“What the fuck, dude?”

You probably deserved worse than that.

“I’m literally on my way to your apartment right now. Jimin gave me your new address. Are you even going to let me in?”

You took a careful breath, focused hard on speaking, slowly and evenly.

“I’m not... deliberately ignoring you... I just haven’t... been able to get to... my phone, ok?”

“Are you ok?”

“No.”

“Shit. Uh-”

“It’s fine... I’ll text you... so you can let... yourself in.”

“Do you want me to bring you anything?”

“No, thanks.”

“Ok, I’ll be over as quickly as I can.”

“Ok.”

Namjoon’s footsteps across your apartment were heavy and loud but his arms were strong and he lifted you onto the sofa, pressed a hand against your forehead.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m stupid.”

“Ok, sure, but what’s going on? Why did you bolt? Are you dying?”

“All good questions.”

You wanted to answer, to explain, but you were too distracted by trying to ignore the pain—the cramps, the headache, the nausea that was returning again as your stomach started to hunger.

“Sorry... I just... It’s bad.”

“What’s bad?”

You gestured to the coffee table, where you had left the box and its prescription.

“Oh.”

You had closed your eyes, couldn’t see Namjoon’s reaction, see what he was expecting from you.

“So you’re not... And we didn’t... Right.”

“Sorry... I just... I just forgot... I wasn’-”

“Yeah, no, it's fine. It’s not like I brought it up either. Guess we both should’ve been a little more careful.”

You heard him sit in the armchair perpendicular to yours.

“Didn’t help being woken by Hajoon either.”

“Actually, that was what made me realise.”

He laughed.

“I can’t have another kid by accident. People will start thinking I’m some kind of stupid.”

“Start?”

You heard the quiet snort of breath, saw in your mind his rolled eyes.

“That’s why you ran out though? No other reason?”

“As soon as I realised... I couldn’t think of anything else... I panicked. I'm sorry.”

Namjoon didn’t respond and you were happy not to talk, grateful that he wasn’t forcing a difficult conversation on you.

After a minute or two, you heard him stand, start opening cupboards, moving about your apartment.

“What are you doing?” you called as loudly as you could manage.

“One sec.”

He moved around. He boiled the kettle. He gently lifted your t-shirt and lay a hot water bottle across your abdomen. You sighed.

“Oh, that’s nice... How did you know?”

“You know I was married.”

“Oh shit, really? ... Had no idea.”

“I suppose now isn’t a good time to talk.”

You shook your head.

“Do you want me to go?”

You shook your head.

You wanted a lot of things. Were surer now than you had been before that you couldn’t have them.

Because if there’s one thing a potential pregnancy scare can do for you, it’s making it really clear to you whether or not you want kids. You hadn’t had any doubt about that before now, but you had forgotten to account for Hajoon. The light of Namjoon’s life. His child. His and Hayeon’s son and now Minho’s step-son. You didn’t want to be a step-mother, not a mother of any kind. Didn’t want to worry about the school run, moving to the catchment area of a better school, the germs and illnesses kids brought with them, the homework, the patience required, the eternity of it, the endlessness, the life that will never again be just yours.

You knew Namjoon wanted kids. Not one kid. Kids. Wanted Hajoon to have siblings. Wanted to be a dad more than just once. Wanted a great, big brood of them.

You knew, too, that he knew you didn’t want that. Any of it. You didn’t know if he had accounted for that. If all his fantasies had included babies anyway. If he thought you would change your mind. You knew you wouldn’t, not even for him.

Namjoon stayed for the remainder of the afternoon. He made you rice porridge (the Namjoon you had known wouldn't have even known where to start). He refreshed your hot water bottle. He rubbed your back. He sounded sad when he said he had to go.

“I have to go and get Hajoon from Hayeon’s parents. They’ve had him since yesterday and it’s getting late for his dinner.”

“Yeah, of course.”

Namjoon wished he had said more. Maybe you couldn’t have talked but maybe you could have listened. He had thought long and hard about what he’d say, though most of it flew out the window once he realised why you’d left in such a rush. He was surprised you’d taken the risk; frustrated with himself for not having checked, for being reckless. He’d done that before and it had cost him you last time, too.

He knew you didn’t want kids—and it wasn’t exactly how he’d have chosen to have another one, either—but he was surprised by the strength of his hope, impossible as it was, and of his disappointment. He thought about Hajoon, the single greatest joy in his life. You would be an amazing mother to him, to any child, if you wanted to be.

You didn’t want to be.

As he sat in your apartment, watching you rest, watching the sickly pallor of your face be replaced by its usual glow, he thought about the future and everything you said last night. About his fantasising, about how unreal it all was.

He was so sure. Had been so sure. About all of it. You. Him. How right you would be, were. How easy it would be. How happy you would be. Now it felt like a house of cards. He didn’t want to ask, anymore. Didn’t want to hear you say that his son was the reason you couldn’t go through with this. Didn’t want to feel the twinge in his chest that said he wouldn’t choose—as if choice would even come into it. Between his son and anyone else, there was no choice. Hajoon always.

Maybe you were right, because in his fantasies, he would never have to choose. In his fantasies, sure, you didn’t want more kids, but you loved the one he had already. Hajoon with four loving parents. Overflowing with love.

He thought about you doing it reluctantly. Saying yeah ok, we’ll be together, I guess I can be a step-mum, if I have to. If you have to. If you have to. It made him sadder than he had words to express.

It was days before he found the courage to contact you. He noticed that you hadn’t contacted him either but he was grateful for it, because he wouldn’t have been ready to have this conversation. He wasn’t sure that he was ready, but it had to happen. Sooner or later. Might as well be now. Before anything else could be said. Before he saw you again and faltered, his weakness overpowering his strength.

“Hi,” he greeted you simply, opening the door to let you in.

“Hi.”

It was awkward, though much less strained than it had been in years past.

He offered you a seat and you took it. He took the one next to you. Neither of you started. You looked at each other. Namjoon took the time to study your face, as if it were the last time he’d see it: the slope of your nose; the swell of your lips; the tiny mole underneath your right eye; the slight dampness at your hairline because Korea was as hot and humid as it had ever been; your eyes, looking sorry, looking sad. Eyes that had been so often angry with him, sad, frustrated, guarded, now open and soft and sparkling.

He loved you. As much as he ever had. Maybe more now because it was ending, because all of his dreaming couldn’t save it. Because it had taken this long; he had thought you were inevitable, but he could see now that this was. That heartbreak was. That it had taken him so long to get his shit together that he hadn’t seen this coming. He had spent all his time pretending to be happy in a relationship that wasn’t, then wishing for you, waiting for you. He had spent no time preparing for this. Preparing for the possibility that there would be no you. That this could end in a way that wasn’t the two of you together, forever.

He couldn’t bring himself to say it. The things that needed to be said. But you weren’t saying them either. He swallowed, fidgeted, preparing to say something, though he didn’t know what.

“We both know, right?” you asked, voice quiet.

You didn’t need an answer. You knew. He knew. The world knew.

“It’s Hajoon, isn’t it?” he asked.

You physically recoiled, eyebrows drawing close.

“Namjoon... It’s not... Don’t put it like that. It’s not Hajoon; Hajoon is great, cute, wonderful. It’s all kids. It’s that you want lots of them and I want none.”

“I don’t have to have lots-”

“Namjoon, you want lots. Aren’t we past denying ourselves what we want?”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

“Not in the long-run. Look at what happened with you and Hayeon. You denied that you wanted out and look how long it took for you both to be happ-”

“I’m not happy. I’m not happy right now. This isn’t what I want.”

“You know what I mean.”

He ran his hands through his hair, swore through gritted teeth. When he looked back at you, your eyes reflected the tears in his.

“But I love you.”

You nodded, looked down.

“I love you, too.”

It was the first time you’d said it. Namjoon wished he could have been happy to hear it. Not heartbroken.

“And there’s no way-”

“You know there isn’t.”

You laughed to stop yourself from crying, because he knew you and he knew that was what it was.

“Just think if we’d actually stopped to fucking think about this at any point in the last five years, we’d have saved ourselves this mess!”

Namjoon couldn’t laugh, couldn’t raise a smile.

“I don’t... I don’t want this to be over.”

“Well, it barely started so-”

“You think that makes this easier? Is it easy for you?”

You scoffed, your breath hitching.

“Does it look like it’s easy for me, Namjoon? I’ve actually been in this a lot longer than you have, don’t you forget.”

As if he could. As if he had ever forgotten that there were years of friendship behind you, friendship that could have been more. If only he had seen. If only he had had the guts to end things with Hayeon before he did. Before any of this.

Though it wouldn’t have changed this ending, would it? At some point, you’d have ended up here. Inevitable, the word resounded in his head and he hated it. Hated that it was true. Hated that he could roll the die a thousand times and it would never show your number. That he could shake this magic eight ball a thousand ways from Sunday and it would never show ‘yes’.

You had been so close. He couldn’t decide if he was grateful or not, that you had one last night. That he had fresh memories stinging in the fresh wounds of his heart. Was he grateful that it had come to this: you, giving in; you, letting him in; you, loving him, letting him love you, only for it to fall to pieces? Would he have rather you kept pushing him away, acting as if you didn’t love him, as if he couldn’t love you? Would that have been easier? Would he always have wondered? Would he have let it ruin the next ten years of his life?

“We can’t-” you said, wiping tears from your cheeks, blinking hard. “We’re toast.”

“Well, when you put it like that, sure, it’s easy. Not sure I’m that bothered.”

And he hated himself for the sarcasm but he couldn’t bring himself to be sincere. Sincere was the tears on his water line, the embarrassing break in his voice.

“Namjoon.”

You stood, arms wide, welcoming. Like you hadn’t done for so many years. He went to you, wrapped you up, held you close, for the last time—it would be the last time like this he knew. He hiccupped, breath trapped in his throat. He tried to breathe you in, remember every tiny detail: the exact shade of every strand of hair, the notes of your perfume, the exact weight of your body against his, the slight tug of the hair at the back of his neck; he swore to himself that he would commit this to memory, never forget it.

You drew back and took his face in your hands, rested your forehead against his nose, kissed him. One last time. If he could have frozen the moment, trapped it in amber, kept you just like this: sweet and soft and warm and his.

The beep of Namjoon’s door lock sounded, followed by the whir of unlocking.

“Dad!” Hajoon cried, thumping his bag down, throwing off his shoes.

He was supposed to be at a sleepover, out for the night.

“Changho got sick so I had to come home!”

You sprang apart, both wiping tears, sniffling, trying to look presentable.

“He got sick?” Namjoon asked, voice thick.

“Yeah! His dad made me come home.”

“Oh, that’s too bad, buddy.”

Namjoon knelt towards his son, picked him up and placed him on his knee. He saw you turn away, collect yourself. Saw you, as Hajoon recounted the glorious story of what happened when a kid ate too many sweets and then went too fast on the roundabout, gesture towards the door, move towards it without a word. He heard the lock let you out, then lock you out. Could do nothing to stop you with his son on his knee.

#namjoon x reader #namjoon fanfic #bts x reader #bts fanfic #kim namjoon fic #namjoon fic #kim namjoon x reader #rm x reader #rm fanfic #rm fic #bts fic #namjoon angst #rm angst

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 2 days ago

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hey! wanted to say i appreciate you talking about how malleus doesn’t appeal to you :,) he doesn’t quite appeal go me either, but i couldn’t find anyone that didn’t either hate or love him, both sides often mischaracterizing him. i felt like i was going mad. but you put my feelings about him into words in a really eloquent and well thought out way, so, yea! thanks for saying your honest opinions on the internet haha

[Please check my pinned post’s FAQ section if you’d like to read about why I personally dislike Malleus!]

Thank you!! It’s not often that you get gratitude for being critical of a character (as opposed to, like, outright praising them) so this ask genuinely took me by surprise.

I find that Malleus is one of those characters that’s quite difficult to talk about. Because he’s so well-liked by English-speaking fans (fandom-run polls consistently show that he is liked by at least 50% of responders), his presence has become almost stifling… which formed a counterculture (ie hate) against him. In any case, whether you think negatively or positively of Malleus (or feel nothing at all for him), that can really color how his words and actions are perceived. But sometimes it feels like you can’t even talk about him without walking on eggshells. People tend to feel so strongly about Malleus and you never know how they’ll react to the thoughts you express.

It should be recognized that both extremes will blindside you. The most ardent Malleus lovers will make everything about him or enable and defend him to the bitter end even when Malleus has done reprehensible things. The most passionate Malleus haters will nitpick what are just normal or innocent actions as The Worst Possible Thing Ever or claim he’s aggressive all the time. Neither truly compasses who he actually is.

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I’d like to think that even though I dislike the guy, I try and give him a fair shot 😅 Some of the issues I have with him are no fault of his own and result from the narrative’s failure to capitalize on his intrigue or the nature of gacha games and the main story being limited. Other issues I’ll admit are completely my own annoyances and gripes (like how I take issue with OP characters with few setbacks, how I don’t like characters that try to force their views onto others, or how I have had bad Malleus-related fandom experiences). Then there’s just the objective truths, like how Malleus is extremely arrogant but is rarely called out for it or rarely faces consequences for his actions in-universe (or from the fandom). He’s still a complex character, just… not one I enjoy.

Looking back on it 💦 I almost can’t believe I have like… 8 or 9 posts detailing my frustrations with Malleus, and each of them expressing significantly different issues from the last. I’m glad that this blog can be a space for me to discuss my thoughts and opinions without angry fans of X or Y character coming at me 😭 I unfortunately can’t say that this is always the case… But for the most part, it’s pretty peaceful here and I really appreciate that!

I’ll close this post off by shouting out the Malleus fans who don’t take it personally when someone else says they’re not a fan of their blorbo. The Malleus fans who are willing to come to the table and listen, the Malleus fans who acknowledge his imperfections and faults, the Malleus fans who accept that others can choose to dislike him for any reason, whether big or small, and don’t push for “correcting” the “wrong” opinion. I know that it sounds like such a low bar to clear, but trust me when I say I’ve witnessed and experienced much worse behaviors (from a loud minority of Malleus fans) and would not wish that upon anyone.

#long time readers of this blog are well aware of the Horrors I have witnessed + experienced #that one time I said I would kill malleus in a kiss marry kill style question #and then that one malleus fan spammed and harassed me for over a year in an attempt to convince me to change my mind about him #oh yeah and can’t forget about the time I was accused of ‘hate criming’ Malleus #just bc I said I would personally be uncomfortable with any stranger standing outside of my place of residence at night #that was wild and I still sometimes can’t believe this happened #twisted wonderland #twst #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #Malleus Draconia #notes from the writing raven #feedback for the writing raven

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hollowed-theory-hall · 16 hours ago

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I've been reading your posts for awhile now and I genuinely enjoy reading your takes especially with Harry's characterization. so I've been wondering what are your thoughts on the lupin family? especially with teddy? although I still kinda dislike his parents' relationship i still think he's an interesting character and i wished people talked about him more outside of shipping. What would his relationship with harry be growing up? Also Lyall's death was never really confirmed, only hope's was so do you think he and Andromeda raised teddy instead of harry? It still feels odd that remus chose a 17 year old to be his son's godfather surely there were other suitable candidates than a literal teenager.

Thank you so much 💕

So, this is like entirely in my headcanon space since I did not watch/read Cursed Child and I'm not planning to. I don't consider any of the post-book material canon at all except the Quidditch World Cup in 2014, which I accept since it's fun and doesn't go out of its way to ruin established characters. I enjoyed reading it more than the epilogue, so that's something.

That being said, I often prefer to ignore many aspects of the epilogue and the World Cup article when headcanoning post-books events. I also don't engage much with next-gen stuff since I'm more interested in Harry's generation, but I do have some thoughts about Teddy.

With all this out of the way, let's talk about the Lupins.

So, I like Remadora, I think they're alright for the little we see of them. Tonks just deserves so much better than Lupin in my mind. I mean, he wanted to leave her, after he got her pregnant, for his own sense of inadequacy, guilt, and allergy to taking responsibility. Harry was so justified in ripping Remus a new one.

Now, I mentioned here, how I think Remus didn't make Harry Teddy's godfather because he thought Harry was ready (though Harry is more mature and responsible at 17 than Remus is at 37, so...), but as a way to promise Harry that he isn't going to push him, or Tonks, or anyone who loves him away anymore. It was Remus trying to apologize in a weird way that didn't really land. Especially since he goes and dies right after. (can you tell Remus is my least favorite marauder?)

Now, I find it really hard to imagine Remus as a father for Teddy had he lived. Like, I can see Tonks being a cool mom and her and Teddy matching hair colors when walking together and messing with people (and I think she could become more responsible had she lived longer). Remus is a harder one for me to envision as a parent. I mean, I think he'd be relieved that Teddy wasn't born a werewolf, but whenever he'd look at Teddy and Nymphadora, I think Remus couldn't help but feel sorry for himself and like he doesn't deserve them. While making Harry Teddy's godfather was meant to be a sort of promise, I can't see Remus fixing his habits so quickly. I mean, he'd try. But I can also see him, trying to up and leave a few times only to be talked out of it by various characters.

I think his behavior is going to put a lot of stress on Tonks too. Like, While I think they do love each other, I don't know how well their relationship would work in the long run if Remus doesn't bother to work on himself and get his fucking act together.

But in the books they both died, so Teddy is spared the mess his parents' relationship likely would've been and is instead stuck with a different mess of being an orphan with a 17-year-old caretaker. (This kid cannot win. Maybe because both his parents were kinda irresponsible and didn't quite get a grasp on adulthood when he was born)

So, post-DH, Remus and Tonks are dead, Ted Tonks is dead and we are left with a grieving Andromeda who lost all her family (again), a grieving Harry who just keeps losing people, and a newly orphaned barely a-year-old Teddy Lupin.

I think Teddy is an interesting mirror to baby Harry and Neville in a way. His parents died/couldn't take care of him because of Voldemort/his followers and he was left with only a godfather/grandmother. Teddy got both and his godfather isn't in Azkaban, so he has it a little better.

I like to imagine Harry makes sure to be super involved with Teddy's childhood, but I can't imagine a 17-year-old (almost 18) Harry post-war and maybe going back to Hogwarts for 8th year (depends on headcanon) being in a state to take care of a baby full time. I like to think Andy helps out in that first year a lot. I think Andy needs someone, some family to get her through loss. And I think Harry could enjoy Andy's company too. I'm sure she has plenty of stories about a young Sirius, and maybe even a young James, and in my headcanon, Andy somewhat adopts Harry as an extra son too.

Which means she ends up seeing way more Weasleys than she ever expected to. I think the Weasleys, who just lost Fred would understand a lot. I mean, both Andy and Molly lost a child and other family. I want Andromeda be more involved with all of them post-canon. That's my wish.

So Harry is Teddy's official guardian, but he spends loads of time with his grandma and the Weasleys growing up probably. Like, I don't mind him and Victoire being together, though I wouldn't necessarily have been my preferred choice, but I don't really care. They're probably childhood besties because they grew up together.

As for Teddy's relationship with Harry, I think Harry would end up treating him more like a much younger brother than a son. I mean, when Teddy would be 10, Harry would just be 27. Don't get me wrong, Harry could, technically, be his dad, but I think their dynamic is going to be different than that of Harry with his own children. Just because of how young and traumatized Harry is when he gets Teddy.

So, I think their relationship would have its tense points, but they'd also love each other. Like, you know Harry would do his best. He'd be super protective over Teddy, Andy would be, too. Like, no one messes with this kid.

But I also kinda want Teddy making a: "you're not my dad" joke/comment when Harry tries to send him to his room or something and Harry doesn't know if he wants to laugh or cry the first time it happens. But I think it would become a recurring joke Harry laughs from.

I think the first years would be the roughest. Everyone's grieving and trying to settle back into a semblance of normal life. Harry never really had a "normal life" he's gonna have no idea what to do with himself and I think Teddy could be a purpose he dedicates himself to. I think these two and Andy could all help each other figure their lives out. But as Teddy grows older and things settle down, it becomes easier.

While I think Harry and Teddy would end up really close, it's not going to be exactly the same relationship Harry and Sirius had. Teddy is going to have a happy childhood, Harry and Andy wouldn't let it be any other way, so he won't have the same grief and trauma Harry did as a child. Like, their dynamic would be less desperate, I think. Like, Harry wouldn't need to stay in a cave and eat rats for Teddy, their situation would be way chiller. Like, I think Harry would be constantly confused about how Teddy ended up being such a cool kid/teen because he doesn't think he could've raised him like that and he would joke about it with Teddy who'd be all sarcastic like: "Obviously, I raised myself here,"

Like, I imagine Teddy with his mother's punk fashion sense and goofiness (the goofiness I believe was 100% shared by Ted Tonks), Remus' voice and constant self-doubt, Andromeda's posture (he sits with his back perfectly straight, okay, Andy didn't let him slouch by the table), and Harry's sarcasm. He's like this mix of them and still his own person.

I think Teddy is likely to go through quite a lot of personal phases to try and figure out his own identity and how he portrays himself. Becouse everyone treats him as the godson of the famed boy who lived, but his dead parents were the last Metamorphmagus and a Werewolf. And he is very close to his grandma, who is a disowned daughter of House Black. Like, this is a kid rip for angst about who he is and who people see him as and him being a Metamorphmagus really leans into it.

Like, a young Teddy making sure to look like Harry in public because he's proud of the connection. Or Teddy mimicking Remus or Tonks' appearance from photos when he thinks about them and misses them or wants to remind strangers who his parents actually are becouse they seem to forget. Like, that could be super fun.

I think Harry's kids would really like Teddy. He's like a cool older cousin/brother who lives with them. Like, I can see them really looking up to him and Teddy would complain to Harry about being followed around by a 3-year-old that won't leave him alone and Harry would just find the whole thing amusing.

(I can also see a post-war Andromeda getting back in touch with Narcissa, so you could involve the Malfoys too if you felt like it. Though I feel like Teddy would just, not like Lucius much)

(Also also, I think Lyall is dead. I feel like if he was alive we would know, yk?)

#harry potter #hp #hp meta #asks #anonymous #hollowedtheory #harry james potter #remus lupin #nymphadora tonks #teddy lupin #andormeda tonks #andromeda black #hp next gen

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alexhasalotofthoughts · 10 hours ago

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Okay it's been long enough since TIT that I can share my thoughts with a clear head. I literally slept the whole of yesterday because I was so tired (thank you, London).

Seeing Dan and Phil was a really big deal for me—as I'm sure it is for most fans. I've been a fan of DnP since primary school and now I'm nearing the end of secondary school and the start of uni so this feels like a very big full circle moment.

As cringe and stereotypical as it is, DnP videos have always been there when I needed them. When I was having a bad day at school, or struggling to come to terms with my sexuality/gender, there were Dan and Phil, ready to put a smile on my face. Dan's coming out video was released the same year I started being bullied for my sexuality and seeing someone I looked up to as much as him be so honest and open really helped me to feel less alone. I rewatch that video a lot. I will always be grateful for that.

I've worn my Interactive Introverts bracelet everyday since I brought it with the DVD (my mum would not let me see them live at the time as I was "too young" lol) so Dan and Phil, in some way, have been there for every big and small moment in my life. They were technically there when I got an offer from the uni I want to go to. I literally wore a Dan and Phil shirt to my autism assessment. They were mentioned in my autism assessment report (though I am not the person who said that for the confessions part of the show, that was someone else. I am not trying to steal their thunder lol). I can't even begin to express what a big part of my life their videos have been.

As I'm sure has been mentioned many times by now, my show was filmed so I might even end up on YouTube or a DVD (PLEASE DAN AND PHIL, KEEP PHYSICAL MEDIA ALIVE) or something, though I doubt that because I was in the royal circle. Also a drunk girl hung if the balcony and heckled for most of the show. I think even ended up getting kicked out. I saw somewhere on twitter that Phil asked for her to be kicked or mentioned to staff that she was too loud but I have no idea how true that is as I was on the opposite side of the circle to her and I have never and probably will never speak to Phil to confirm this.

Other than that, though, the show was absolutely brilliant!

Genuinely! It was so funny and it was absolutely lovely being in a room of people who have the same interests as me; I literally saw a "Be More Chill" "Boyf" bag, "Heathers" tracksuit bottoms, a FNAF Bonnie keychain and a Doctor Who badge all in the space of 5 minutes of one another. My people. Someone even complimented my hat, though I find London so overwhelming that I forgot to respond properly lol (sorry hat person, you were very nice! I liked your whiskers!).

Before the show, they played "Hot To Go" by Chappell Roan, and the whole theatre sang and danced along, which was absolutely lovely!

I was laughing and cheering for about 2 hours straight, so I'd say it was money well spent, though my mum literally fell asleep during the first act so I don't know if she'd agree.

One thing I will say: seeing sister Daniel in the flesh is literally a HOLY experience—I am so... Gay? Straight? Bisexual?? I'm not sure which word go use in this situation but Daniel was hot, so who cares?

To conclude this overly long blog post no-one will read, it was fun and I feel like 12 year old me would look at me now and smile. I saw Dan and Phil live. I got an offer from the uni I wanted to study film! I write!! I have friends who care about me!! I'm not ashamed to like the things I like!! God, they would be so proud of me. And I am proud of them.

TIT pics below ;)

(That last pic was taken by my mum, hence why I look so awkward. I was happy, I swear.)

Thank you very much if you read this! I really do go on a lot but also this is my blog and I suppose that means I can go on as much as I want.

#dnp tit making me tear up thinking about my younger self. god im cringe.#tit spoilers #daniel howell #danisnotonfire #dan and phil #amazingphil #phil lester #terrible influence tour #dnptit

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etherealval · 17 hours ago

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actress!reader and chris sturniolo’s first time meeting | a/n: so excited to expand into this au !!

the party was in full swing, the bass from the music thrumming through the walls and floor like a second heartbeat. bodies packed the house, filling every corner with chatter, laughter, and the faint clinking of glasses. you stood in the corner, nursing a drink you didn’t even like, a sugary, overly sweet concoction that phoebe had handed you earlier. you’d tried to sip it as slowly as possible, mostly as a distraction from the fact that you didn’t want to be here in the first place.

phoebe had dragged you along, promising it’d be fun, that you’d meet cool people and make memories. but right now, she was in the bathroom, and you were stuck standing awkwardly by yourself, dodging glances from strangers who looked a little too eager to start small talk. part of you wished you were at home, curled up with a book, the soundtrack of this party replaced by pages turning.

when phoebe finally emerged from the hallway, you let out a quiet breath of relief, until you noticed she wasn’t alone. trailing behind her were three guys, all tall, with strikingly similar features. it took you a second to realize they were triplets.

“this is nick, matt, and chris,” phoebe introduced, her tone casual, as if she hadn’t just walked over with some of the most recognizable faces on the internet.

your eyes flicked between them, offering a polite smile. “hi,” you said softly, unsure of how else to respond. but before you could even finish your greeting, the one in the beanie, chris, you remembered. stepped forward with a teasing grin tugging at his lips.

“wait a second,” he said, pointing at you like he was making some grand revelation. “aren’t you that girl from that netflix show?”

you blinked, caught off guard by the playful accusation. “uh… i guess? if you mean stranger things, then yeah.”his grin widened, and he snapped his fingers like he’d just won a bet.

“knew it. max mayfield in the flesh.” he leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms in an exaggeratedly cool pose. “wow, never thought i’d be rubbing elbows with a big hollywood star tonight.

you rolled your eyes, but a laugh bubbled out before you could stop it. “you’re being dramatic,” you said, shaking your head. “i’m not that big of a deal.”

nick, standing just behind chris, snorted. “you’re kidding, right? this dude is obsessed with you. we’ve heard about you, like, a hundred times.”

“nick,” chris hissed, his face flushing as he shot his brother a sharp look.

your brow quirked, a smirk tugging at the corners of your lips. “oh, really?” you asked, tilting your head as you met chris’s flustered gaze.

“ignore him,” chris muttered quickly, running a hand through his hair. but the telltale redness creeping up his neck betrayed him. “he’s exaggerating.”

phoebe, who had been watching the exchange with an amused expression, leaned closer to you and whispered loudly enough for chris to hear, “looks like someone’s been caught”

“whatever,” chris muttered, his usual playful confidence faltering for a moment before he straightened up again. he met your eyes, a boyish grin creeping back onto his face.

“i’m just saying, it’s cool to meet you. no shame in admitting it.”the sincerity in his voice caught you off guard, and you felt a warmth bloom in your chest that wasn’t there earlier.

“thanks. it’s nice to meet you too.”“so,” he said, leaning a little closer, “what’s a big hollywood actress like you doing in the corner of a party like this?”

“hating every second of it,” you admitted dryly, a playful glint in your eyes. he laughed at that, the sound rich and warm over the music.

“then let me make it better,” he said, his voice softening just enough to feel genuine. “stick with me, and i promise i’ll keep it interesting.”

and for the first time that night, you didn’t feel so out of place.

taglist: @heartsforvin , @sturncakez , @matts-myloverboy , @mattsbitchh , @zayluvss , @ilyttmatsa , @sturniolosluttt

#etherealval ´ˎ˗#chris sturniolo x actress!reader #chris sturniolo x reader #chris sturiolo fanfic #chris sturniolo fluff #chris sturniolo #sturniolo x reader #matthew sturniolo x reader #matt sturniolo imagine #matt sturniolo fluff

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phreakedt · 2 days ago

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I was someone once... An adventurer.

(read more for me rambling about the emperor)

theres rarely any particular meaning or intent behind my art but i swear the emperor is literally my muse, so i thought id share my thoughts about what this piece means! i was listening to punish by ethel cain and couldnt get this idea out of my head… i feel like the line "i was an angel, but they made me leave" or the fallen from grace motif pretty well encapsulates the tragedy of balduran and the emperor and why he'll always be such a sympathetic character to me.

ultimately while there are valid reasons to believe the emperor's evil/irredeemable or whatever, its quite literally not his fault he became what he is. he never asked for his ceremorphosis (of course, he came to accept it, but that doesnt make it any less fucked up). its generally considered that mankind is capable of good and evil in equal measure, but if your humanity is literally stripped away from you, what is there to stop your descent? this isnt even to justify his actions but instead about how titles like "angel" and "demon", "good" and "bad" etc etc are so subjective and perception-based. like if it was the human(oid) balduran and not a mind flayer behind all his actions throughout the game, i doubt he'd be so universally hated. i mean, better a bad person than a literal monster, right?

there's also the "only god knows / only god would believe", or to me the idea that no matter how hard the emperor may try to exercise morality, he's so far departed from his former self that people will only ever see him as a villain, not a hero. its truly a damned if you do, damned if you dont situation. and most ironic is the fact that despite everything, he hasnt fully lost his humanity. he genuinely yearns for companionship and mourns what hes lost and who he used to be (to some degree). i think hes so well-written because he is just like you in the sense that hes simply playing the cards he was dealt, right or wrong. i could go on and on about this awesome character and song (especially its themes of perversion, punishment, and love) but that's the gist. thanks for reading ^^

#ok actually thats enough because thinking about balduran/ansur/emperor for too long makes me sad #idk i just vibe with any interpretation of forced otherness and alienation and emps is like a prime example #everyone is so mean 2 him 💔#bg3 spoilers #baldur's gate 3 #the emperor bg3 #bg3 emperor #bg3 fanart #the emperor #balduran #also i literally never want to draw armor ever again

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darlingdaisyfarm · 2 days ago

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this is from my "taking what's not yours" fic!! i just felt like sharing this here plus i love the idea of feeding hungry Stan, like smth about a starved, down-bad Stanley Pines being taken care of ruins me. let the poor man eat!!! let him be treated nice for once!!!! ughhh i guess it means the second chap is coming soon

Stanley Pines doesn't know what to do with kindness. Not the real kind, anyway. Not the kind where someone takes him out, sits him down and actually pays for his meal like he’s worth the damn trouble.

He can't help it, he's not used to people being nice to him. He's not used to much of anything, except scraping by, finding the next scam and eating cheap food out of plastic wrappers. So when you dragged him to the Gravity Falls diner one afternoon, promising him a real warm meal, he was suspicious.

The waitress barely had time to finish setting down the menus before Stan barked out an order. “Burger, double. Extra fries. Chocolate milkshake. And gimme some bacon on the side.”

Your brows shot up, but you didn’t say anything, just smiled and told the waitress to put it on one tab. Stan’s gaze snapped to you. “One tab? wait, you’re payin’?”

“Yeah, why not?” you say casually, because it's not a big deal for you, but Stanley frowns.

“You sure about that? ‘cause, uh, i don’t exactly have, you know. . .” he trails off, scratching the back of his neck.

“It’s fine. Just eat, Stan.” and that’s what fucks him up. Because nobody’s ever wanted to spend their money on him before, not unless they were expecting something in return. But you just look at him with those soft, genuine eyes and tell him to shut up when he starts talking about returning money.

When the food arrives, Stanley attacks it like a man starved, which, honestly, he definitely is. The burger disappears in minutes, followed by the fries, then the bacon. Grease smears his chin and he doesn't even bother wiping it off, too busy slurping down his milkshake like his life depends on it.

You watch in both amusement and horror at the starved man in front of you, who barely stops to chew.

“Jesus, Stan, you wanna slow down before you choke?” you tease, propping your chin on your hand.

Stan grunts, barely acknowledging you. “’s good.” you notice the ketchup on his cheek and giggle. “yeah, i can tell.”

After couple of minutes, he finally pauses, chewing slower. He swallows hard and taps his finger on the table, avoiding eye contact with you.

“. . . Nobody’s ever taken me out before.”

Your smile softens. “Ever?”

“Nah, not like this.” not without expecting something, not without it being some transaction, he wanted to add.

“Oh. . . well, i just wanted to. You deserve it.”

Stan snorts, but it’s weak. “Really?”

“Yeah. And you’re cute when you eat like a starved dog.”

That makes him choke on his milkshake, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, glaring at you while you laugh, watching his ears turn pink.

“You tryin’ to embarrass me, sweetie?”

“Is it working?”

“Yeah,” he grumbles, shoving another forkful of food into his mouth to shut himself up, still smiling though. He’s never felt so full. “uh. . . thanks.”

“Dont mention it.”

#gravity falls x reader #stan pines x reader

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nthspecialll · 2 days ago

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Hi! I genuinely really appreciate all the time and care you put into your analysises of the characters and the world surrounding them, and they genuinely make me love the red dead franchise even more than I already did!

I’m just wondering if you have any thoughts about how and why Arthur plays up the act of being nothing more than a ‘dumb brute’? I know that he does it to cope partially with his own guilt and such, but I was just curious to hear your take on it, if that makes sense haha? What also intrigues me is the fact that Hosea seems to always poke fun at Arthur for being ‘stupid’ but at the same time seems to see through Arthur’s act?

Sorry if this doesn’t make any sense haha <3

It makes sense, don't worry! And also thank you! I put a dumb amount of time into this, like underneath the rdr2 fan wiki it said "you visit a lot" like okay thanks PFT.

But as to why Arthur plays a dumb brute, it is due to the way Hosea raised him. Hosea raised him to put on this mask because those are Arthur's good traits, he is big, intimidating and with the canon fit does look kinda dumb, he plays exactly into a role that people already know and fear. Dutch himself says that the sight of Arthur would make even statues talk and it would be dumb for them not to play into that, even Stauss plays into it. They don't have a lot but they play into what they have.

Arthur himself did not do this, Arthur when he joined the gang he was an angry little kid but he was raised into acting dumb, you can actually observe Hosea's way of raising by looking at Sean because the exact same thing is being done with Sean:

As to why Hosea plays into it at some times and doesn't in other. See it like acting, when Arthur was young Hosea put this mask on him and told him to play a part, Hosea was his stage partner and now they need to convince everyone else that Arthur is in fact this character and not jsut acting. That would be utterly impossible if Hosea, as his stage partner (because we know the two made a lot of jobs together) did not refer to Arthur like that.

Imagine you go to see a movie but one of the side characters keeps treating the main character like the actor who plays them and not the actual character, it would be so hard not just for the viewer to get into the story but it would also be hard for the main character's actor to get into the character because they are pulled out.

So Hosea plays into it because he needs Arthur to keep that mask, but why does he then go out of it? This is best explained by using the interaction where Hosea, Lenny, Tilly and Arthur talk about how they want to be buried. Arthur says he doesn't think much about it but Hosea says "I know you aren't that dumb" or similar. Here Hosea is not asking the brute, he is asking Arthur behind the mask, he is asking the actor and not the character.

#rdr2 arthur #arthur morgan #red dead redemption community #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 community #john marston #red dead fandom #rdr2 #rdr john #red dead redemption two #hosea matthews #rdr2 hosea #ask #asks #answered asks #nthspecialll asks #nthspecialll

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writingsoftarnishedsilver · 1 day ago

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def just an idea so no pressure- but I would love a selective mute reader who is besties with Ominous. I’m a Sebastian girly- but she call fall for whoever in universe bc I’m not great with ideas.

Love you 💕💕

Teal or Turquoise? | Ominis Gaunt x Reader

ANON - I love you too! Thank you for the beautiful prompt. I admit, I am not well-educated on the nuances and intricacies of selective mutism but I did some reading and I hope that this story thoughtfully captures your vision.

Words: ~3,400

Tags: Reader Insert, Female MC, No Y/N, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Big Time Fluff, LIKE SERIOUSLY THIS IS SO FLUFFY

The Astronomy Tower had always been your refuge at Hogwarts. It was quiet, far enough from the bustling common rooms and rowdy hallways to feel like a world of your own. The cold stone walls seemed to hold their breath, waiting for nothing, expecting nothing. It was perfect.

Ominis often joked that you had stolen his hiding spot. “This is where I come to escape the chaos,” he’d say, leaning on the tower’s railing with a smirk that softened his usually sharp features. You’d always reply with a small smile or a gentle nudge to his arm, the kind of unspoken exchange that needed no elaboration between the two of you.

Today was no different. The two of you sat cross-legged on the floor, snow falling softly in the air around you. A book lay open in your lap, though you hadn’t turned the page in quite some time. Ominis sat beside you, one hand gripping his wand, the other curled around a warm thermos of hot chocolate he’d charmed to stay warm. He wasn’t speaking, and neither were you.

That was one of the things you loved most about your friendship—there was no need to fill the silence.

“Still lost in that book of yours?” he asked after a while, his lips quirking in the faintest of smiles.

You shook your head, tapping the page lightly with your fingertip before nudging him with your elbow. He tilted his head slightly, his wand tracking the small gesture.

“Ah, so you’re watching me now, are you?” he teased, his voice warm and familiar. “What did I do to deserve such attention?”

Your smile was small but genuine, and for the first time in a few days, you found yourself speaking. “You’re more interesting than the book.”

The words were soft, almost tentative, but Ominis didn’t react the way most people would have—no wide-eyed shock, no overenthusiastic congratulations for having spoken at all. He simply let his smile widen ever so slightly.

"I'm flattered," he said smoothly, his voice carrying the faintest lilt of amusement. “Though I must admit, it’s a rather low bar. What’s the book about? Arithmancy perhaps? Potions? Or something as riveting as Hogwarts: A History?”

You rolled your eyes and nudged him again, this time with a little more force. “It’s Charms,” you murmured quietly.

Ominis hummed thoughtfully, his fingers tracing idle patterns along the sides of the thermos as the warmth seeped into his skin. "Charms, hmm? I suppose we've had enough Potions excitement in the past week with Sebastian's antics."

The mention of Sebastian made you smile despite yourself. It was true—the memory of your boisterous friend nearly setting his cauldron ablaze last week was still far too fresh in your mind. Still, you didn’t answer, content to let the moment linger in its comfortable quiet.

Ominis didn’t mind. He leaned against the wall, letting his head fall back as if listening to something only he could hear. For a moment, you allowed yourself to study him—the elegant curve of his jaw, the way his pale lashes brushed against his cheeks, the slight furrow of concentration between his brows that never seemed to fully fade.

You quickly averted your gaze, a subtle warmth blooming in your cheeks. It felt foolish to linger on such thoughts—Ominis was your best friend... and yet, somewhere along the way—though you couldn’t quite pinpoint when—that friendship had started to feel like something more.

You glanced down at your hands, fidgeting slightly with the corner of the book in your lap, though if Ominis noticed the restless movement, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he tilted his head slightly in your direction, his expression thoughtful.

“I was thinking, perhaps we could—”

The door burst open with a loud creak, and Sebastian’s voice boomed through the tower.

“There you are! I knew you’d be hiding up here!”

You flinched, startled by the sudden noise, and instinctively pulled your knees up slightly, the book slipping from your lap. Ominis turned his head in the direction of the intrusion, his lips pressing into a thin line.

Sebastian strode into the room, his presence filling the quiet space like a storm. Flakes clung to his dark hair and his cheeks were flushed red from the cold. He grinned broadly, brushing snow from his shoulders and looking between the two of you with a mock look of disapproval. “It’s snowing outside—properly snowing—and you’re just sitting here like a couple of house-elves on their day off. Come on, it’s tradition! A snowball fight, all of us outside. Let’s go!”

You shook your head quickly, waving a hand in polite refusal. Sebastian ignored it entirely, his grin widening as he gestured toward the door. “Oh no, no excuses this time. You’re coming. Both of you. Fresh air is good for you, you know. Builds character.”

Ominis sighed, long-suffering and patient as ever. “Sebastian,” he began, his tone calm but firm, “not everyone shares your enthusiasm for freezing to death in the courtyard.”

“Freezing to death? You’re being dramatic,” Sebastian shot back, crossing his arms. “It’s not that cold. Besides, it’s tradition, Ominis. You know, the thing we always do when it snows?”

“I don’t recall agreeing to that tradition,” Ominis said dryly, his lips twitching in the faintest hint of a smirk.

You smiled faintly at their back-and-forth but stayed quiet, hoping Sebastian would get the hint and move on.

But Sebastian, being Sebastian, wasn’t one to give up so easily. “Come on,” he pleaded, his tone shifting to something almost wheedling. “It’ll be fun. You’ll see. A little snow never hurt anyone.”

You sighed silently, once again attempting to wave Sebastian off. You lifted a hand and made a small pushing motion, hoping he’d interpret it as a gentle "no, thank you." But, unsurprisingly, Sebastian was undeterred.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “You can’t keep hiding up here forever. We’re your friends—we demand your presence!”

Ominis tilted his head, the faintest hint of irritation flickering across his features. “Sebastian, she doesn’t want to go.”

Sebastian blinked, caught off guard by the firmness in Ominis’ tone. “How do you know?” he asked, his confusion evident. “She didn’t say—”

“She doesn’t have to,” Ominis interrupted, his voice even but laced with finality. “Unlike you, I actually pay attention. And I know she’s perfectly happy here, where it’s warm and quiet, and she doesn’t have to listen to you yelling about snowball fights.”

Sebastian’s mouth opened as if to argue, but the words seemed to catch in his throat. For a moment, he looked genuinely taken aback, as though it had only just occurred to him that Ominis might know something he didn’t.

You watched the exchange with a mix of relief and guilt, unsure whether to feel grateful for Ominis’ defense or apologetic for putting him in the position of having to defend you in the first place.

But then Sebastian's gaze flicked between the two of you, realization dawning on his face.

“Oh,” he said finally, his voice softening. He ran a hand through his hair, looking vaguely sheepish. “Alright,” he said. “I get it. No snowball fights for the hermits. I’ll leave you to your… brooding.”

He turned back around and the door creaked shut behind him. The room fell silent once more, the faint whistle of the wind outside the only sound.

Ominis let out a quiet sigh, shaking his head as he turned back toward you. “I don’t know how he has so much energy,” he said, his voice soft and wry.

You smiled faintly, your gaze lingering on him as he reached for the thermos again.

After a moment, his expression softened. “Are you alright?”

You nodded resolutely, a small smile playing at the corners of your lips. You’d grown used to Sebastian’s unrelenting enthusiasm over the years—his energy was part of what made him… well, Sebastian. Still, the way Ominis had stepped in so effortlessly, his quiet understanding cutting through the noise, filled you with a warmth you couldn’t deny.

Ominis tilted his head slightly, as if studying your silence. He didn’t press further, trusting your nod for what it was, but something in his posture relaxed further when you leaned forward and reached for his hand.

Your fingers brushed lightly against his, tracing the smooth wood of his wand before carefully untangling it from his grasp. He let it go without question, his hand relaxing in yours as you gave it a gentle squeeze, his long fingers curling instinctively around yours.

You glanced at him again, tracing the elegant slope of his nose and the gentle part of his lips, the sharp line of his jaw, and the way the winter light softened the pale angles of his face. There was something so profoundly beautiful about him, a beauty that extended far beyond his aristocratic features—beyond the graceful lines of his profile and the delicate curve of his mouth when he allowed himself to relax.

No, his beauty lay in the quiet depth of him, in the way he simply understood.

Ominis had an uncanny way of cutting through the noise, of seeing people—not with his wand or the faint outlines of their presence—but with a deeper kind of clarity, one rooted in intuition and kindness. He never fumbled through the awkward sympathies others so often offered. He had never pitied you, never tried to "fix" you, never made you feel like the silence you carried was something that needed explaining. He simply accepted it, just as he accepted you.

And yet, that acceptance only made the ache in your chest deepen. It burrowed in, unshakable, a quiet yearning you were terrified to voice but felt all the same.

You didn’t realize how long you’d been staring until his soft voice cut through your thoughts.

“Is there something on my face?” he teased gently, a ghost of a smile playing at his lips. You stiffened slightly, your cheeks warming as you quickly looked away, but his voice stopped you before you could retreat too far into yourself. “Don’t,” he said softly, the teasing gone now. “I don’t mind. Really.”

You turned back to him, searching his face for any hint of insincerity, but there was none. Then he tilted his head, a familiar look of curiosity crossing his face.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked, his voice thoughtful.

You nodded, already prepared to give him your full attention.

“Can you… try to describe the color blue to me again?”

You blinked, your chest tightening as you remembered the first time he’d asked you that same question years ago. It had been during your fifth year, in a similarly quiet moment, when the two of you had been working together in the library. Back then, the question had caught you completely off guard, and you’d struggled to find the words, fumbling through clumsy metaphors and vague comparisons until he’d laughed softly and said, “Don’t worry. It’s impossible, isn’t it?”

And yet, he was asking again.

Ominis must have sensed your hesitation, because he tilted his head further, his expression softening. “You don’t have to if it’s too much,” he added hastily.

You shook your head, a small smile tugging at the corners of your lips. “No,” you murmured softly, your voice carrying a gentle steadiness that surprised even you. “I would love to.”

His smile widened just slightly, a quiet encouragement that eased the tension in your chest. He didn’t say anything else, didn’t press or rush you. He simply waited, patient as ever, his head tilted toward you with that same thoughtful expression.

You took a slow breath, glancing beyond the tower where the snowfall blurred the edges of the world. “Blue,” you began, the word delicate on your tongue. “It’s… calm. Like the way the castle feels early in the morning, before everyone wakes up. Quiet and… soft.”

“It’s endless,” you continued, your voice growing steadier with each word. “Like the sky on a clear day… or the ocean when it stretches out so far you can’t see where it ends. Blue is... how the world feels after a storm, when everything is still and clean."

Ominis hummed softly, the sound low and thoughtful, as though he were letting the images settle in his mind. “...what about red?"

You paused. Red? He had never asked about that color before. Your fingers brushed the fabric of your skirt as you gathered your thoughts, unsure how to capture something so vivid and raw compared to the soft serenity of blue.

“Red,” you repeated softly, the word lingering on your tongue. You closed your eyes for a moment, searching for the right way to begin. “It’s… intense. It’s the opposite of calm, like fire—the kind that warms you on a cold night but can burn if you get too close.”

“It’s bold,” you continued, your voice gaining strength. “It demands to be noticed. Like the way the sun burns on the horizon at dusk, or the petals of a rose in bloom. It’s… like it’s always moving, always burning, always… feeling.”

Ominis hummed softly, his fingers tracing idle patterns on the thermos. The sound was contemplative, thoughtful, and carried with it a weight that made your heart skip. He tilted his head slightly, the faintest ghost of a smile playing at his lips.

“Red,” he said again, as though tasting the word. “...sounds a bit like Sebastian, doesn’t it?”

You blinked at him, startled by the comparison, but then quiet laughter escaped you before you could stop it. It was soft, barely more than a breath, but Ominis’ smile grew at the sound, as though it was exactly what he’d hoped to hear.

“And you,” he continued, his voice dropping to something quieter, more thoughtful, “you must be blue.”

The laughter died in your throat, replaced by a stunned silence as his words settled over you. Your chest tightened, your pulse quickening as you tried to process the weight of what he’d just said. “Me?” you asked softly, barely able to get the word out.

Ominis nodded, his pale eyes unseeing but somehow fixed on you in a way that made you feel completely exposed. "Definitely." Then, with a faint smile tugging at his lips, he added, “It’s a good thing blue’s my favorite color, isn’t it?”

You stared at him, the weight of his words pressing down on you, the ache in your chest growing heavier and warmer all at once.

You’re blue. Blue is my favorite color.

He tilted his head toward you, the faintest hint of a smirk playing at his mouth. “Though, for the sake of my sanity, let’s not tell Sebastian, shall we? He’d throw a fit, I’m sure. Something dramatic and unnecessarily loud about not being my favorite.”

You stiffened, unsure what you felt more: the thrill of his admission or the quiet terror that came with it. Ominis didn’t say things lightly—not like Sebastian with his boisterous declarations. Every word he spoke carried meaning, even when he tried to hide it behind humor.

And this? This was no different.

You wanted to say something, to let him know how much his words meant to you, but you couldn’t find the words—couldn’t trust your voice to steady itself enough to respond.

Instead, you reached for your bag, your hands trembling slightly as you pulled out the small notebook you always carried with you. Ominis tilted his head toward the sound, his expression curious but patient as you flipped to a blank page.

Your hand moved quickly, the ink bleeding into the paper as you scrawled out your thoughts in a hurried but deliberate hand.

When you finished, you turned the notebook toward him, your chest tightening as his hand brushed lightly against yours to find the edge of the parchment. His wand trailed along the page until it found the text, and he began to read, the faintest smile tugging at his lips.

“Ah, I see... working our way through the rainbow, hm?” he murmured, his voice quiet but tinged with warmth, “Alright, tell me about green, then.”

You hesitated for a moment, the enormity of what you were about to share making your chest tighten. But then you took a deep breath and began to write again. This time, the words came more slowly, each one deliberate, as if you were crafting something far too precious to rush.

When you finished, you turned the notebook back toward him, your fingers trembling slightly as you placed it in his hands. His touch lingered against yours for just a moment before he tilted his head toward the page. His wand found the first line, and you watched as his lips parted faintly, reading the words under his breath.

"Green is quiet and steady, never shouting for attention but always present. It’s subtle and unassuming, yet it fills every corner it touches with life and hope. It’s the sound of wind rustling through the trees, the softness of moss beneath your feet, and the earthy scent of rain-soaked ground. Gentle yet resilient, green endures—always waiting to grow, no matter how cold or dark the world becomes."

Ominis stilled as his wand hovered over the final lines, his breath catching ever so slightly.

“Green is my favorite color,” he read aloud, his voice soft and steady, though you could hear the faintest tremor beneath it. “And you're green.”

Ominis’ lips parted as though he wanted to say something, but no words came. His fingers tightened slightly on the edges of the notebook before he set it down slowly, carefully. His wand followed, placed deliberately on top of the pages, forgotten in the stillness of the moment.

Your heart was pounding so loudly you were certain he could hear it, each thud echoing in your ears and resonating in your chest. Your throat was dry, your breath shallow, and for a moment, you felt completely frozen in place. The only movement was the snow drifting lazily outside, its quiet beauty mirroring the fragile stillness between you.

Then, he lifted a hand, tentative and slow, as though unsure of himself. His fingers hovered in the space between you, searching, hesitant. You knew what he was looking for, and with the faintest movement, you leaned into his reach.

His fingertips brushed your cheek first, featherlight and cautious, before his palm settled against your skin. His hand was warm despite the cold, his thumb tracing an achingly gentle path along your cheekbone before moving lower, brushing the corner of your lips.

He hesitated, his fingers trembling slightly as he drew in a shallow breath. “...May I?”

You swallowed hard, heart thrashing wildly against your ribs. But you nodded. And then, slowly, achingly slowly, Ominis leaned in.

His lips met yours in a kiss so soft, so tentative, it felt like the gentlest of questions—a silent plea, a quiet wondering, seeking something only you could give.

You froze for the briefest second, your breath catching in your chest as the warmth of him flooded your senses. And then, slowly, you answered. You tilted your head ever so slightly, leaning into him, and with that simple movement, you gave him his answer. Yes. Yes, this was real. Yes, this was what you wanted. Yes, you were here.

His breath hitched, a soft, uneven sound that sent a warmth cascading through your chest, and the tension in your shoulders began to unravel. He relaxed too, his lips moving against yours with a quiet intensity, like he’d been waiting for this moment far longer than he’d ever admit. And maybe he had.

Maybe you both had.

When you finally pulled away, your foreheads rested gently against each other, your breaths mingling in the quiet stillness of the Astronomy Tower. Ominis’ lips quirked into a small, almost boyish smile, and you felt the light brush of his fingers against yours, warm and steady—a grounding presence amidst the rush of emotions coursing through you.

“Teal,” he murmured, his voice soft, threaded with amusement, though there was a flicker of something deeper beneath it—something tender.

You blinked, your brow furrowing in confusion. “Huh?”

“Teal,” he repeated, his smile growing slightly as he tilted his head toward you. “If I'm green, and you're blue… does that make us teal? Or turquoise, maybe?”

The unexpectedness of his comment startled a laugh out of you, the sound light and warm as it bubbled up in your chest. Ominis smiled at the sound, his expression softening into something so achingly tender that it left you feeling lightheaded.

“Teal, turquoise… what’s next? Aqua?” you teased, the corners of your lips tugging upward into a grin. “Or maybe cyan?”

He chuckled softly, the sound low and warm. “I suppose it doesn't matter, does it?” he asked, his voice dropping to something softer, something that made your heart ache. “Whichever one we are… it’s ours.”

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wtfaniii · 2 days ago

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The Other Woman

Summary: The personification of the dream in love with the angel of death, it sounds lovely until a new girl appears in the Grim Reaper's life, forcing the beautiful dream to turn into a nightmare.

Warnings: Obsession, some things are not canon, I will only use the main characters, angst, drama.

N/A: Why is there so little of Grim Reaper??? I wanted to read something about him but in the end I wanted to write something to get rid of this dream I have about him, I haven't checked this yet so sorry for any spelling mistakes

The Grim Reaper x fem reader Cosmic entity

The soft sound of the wind blowing the leaves of the trees was like a lullaby for the deep sleep in which the city was immersed.

In the midst of the silence of a room, you were standing at the foot of a bed with a soft smile adorning your lips.

—¿You know? —Kim Shin's sudden voice almost made you jump in fright —Some people find it creepy to be watched at night while they sleep.

You brought a finger to your lips indicating for him to remain silent, you looked towards the grim reaper's bed and let out a sigh when you saw that he hadn't moved at all.

That man slept like a rock, completely covered by the sheet and the position in which he slept almost looked like a corpse and that generated genuine interest in you.

—¿What are you doing awake? You should be enjoying the dream I made for you —You said with a mischievous smile.

As the creator of dreams, you were in charge of making each and every one of the fantasies that anyone has while sleeping, sometimes were beautiful, other times were horrible, that depended on your mood and in this case, how much affection you had for them.

You liked the goblin, but sometimes he drove you crazy, that's why now him woke up from nightmares in which he fell into the void over and over again.

The complete opposite of the angel who slept peacefully in the bed in front of you, you prepared beautiful dreams for him every day for centuries.

—I don't know why you're trying so hard, he'll forget about it as soon as he wakes up anyway —Kim Shin said before returning to his room.

Maybe he was right, your beautiful angel sometimes forgot about your work as soon as he woke up but for you it was enough to feel him happiness and peace every night.

You laughed internally at the thought that God had been wrong about your supposed punishment.

This was not a punishment for you.

It was a perfect immortal life, you didn't know how but ever since you can remember you were captivated by him, it was impossible to stop smiling like a fool every time he was in front of you.

You smiled once more before turning into golden dust and fluttering above him head, entering his dream.

It was a beautiful meadow full of flowers, the soft sunlight passed through the trees leaving a beautiful scene.

But your eyes fell on the man standing a few steps ahead of you, feeding a deer with a soft smile.

—I thank you for this dream... —He said sincerely turning to look at you.

—It's not a big deal —You said making a carefree gesture with your hand but he approached you and took it —I like making these dreams for you...

—And that's why I thank you —he added, leaving a soft kiss on the back of your hand.

That act almost made your legs weak.

He knew everything you did for him and he adored it, only you were able to transmit to him the peace he longed for without needing to go to heaven, your dreams were a gift every night and no, he never forgot them.

The feeling between you was almost mutual.

The angel of death appreciated you, more than he would like to admit, sometimes he thought about how it would feel to kiss you but he still didn't know when or how to do it.

For him, dreams were even more beautiful when you were in them, the night was the only time when the two of you could talk without being bothered by Kim Shin or Deok Hwa.

It was perfect, even the grim reaper thought he was ready to take the next step and kiss you, tell you everything he felt.

But she appeared.

—¿What's wrong? —You asked curiously when the angel stood up from the table irritated after having frozen until he broke the plate of his food.

Deok Hwa was startled when you suddenly appeared next to him.

—¿Why don't you walk? ¡That would be much better than just appearing and disappearing!

—¿What's wrong? —You asked once again ignoring him complaint.

—He is confused because he cried in front of a woman for no apparent reason.

—¿Did he cry? ¿Why did he cry? ¿Did she do something to him? ¿Who is she?

Your questions came out one after another, you didn't want him to feel that way, you had put so much effort into making him immortality more beautiful for someone to come and make him cry for no apparent reason.

Deok Hwa didn't notice your concern so he continued telling you about the little he knew, he even made that movement with his lips that the grim reaper had made before referring to that girl.

A kiss.

That girl had shamelessly sent him a kiss.

You pressed your lips into a straight line and disappeared into the golden sparkles.

From that day on you felt something different between you and the angel, you didn't know what it was, but you knew who was causing it, you were quite sensitive and before knew it, you were already tormenting that poor girl with nightmares.

It wasn't on purpose, you just let yourself be blinded by your own jealousy, you had worked hard to win him over and now another woman came along to catch him attention.

You felt it was unfair.

And every night it only got worse, for her the nights of nightmares and insomnia were eternal, for him were nights in which he took pills to sleep deeply and not dream and for you, for you it was as if your heart was breaking every moment.

You stopped talking to him and occasionally you would appear in his room to try to make him dream but it was impossible, with the pills he was taking it was very difficult to introduce your beautiful dreams that you had made for him.

Until one day your heart broke completely.

You didn't know why but you decided to follow him, rarely did it but this time your instinct told you to do it.

However, you deeply wished you hadn't, he had been looking for that girl and then taking her out for coffee.

She was beautiful, you had to admit that, ¿what did she have that you didn't?

When you saw him smile genuinely at that girl's laughter, you knew immediately that the only one left out there was you.

So without saying a word you let out a tear that ran down your cheek and then you disappeared.

He sensed your presence and turned his head towards the cafe window, only managing to see small golden flashes fading away.

—¿And how have you been? —Sunny asked curiously —I hope better than me, I haven't been able to sleep lately, I always have nightmares.

Her words caught him attention.

—¿Nightmares?

—Of all kinds —Her complained regretfully.

He swallowed and looked back at the window, he knew it was you and he also knew the reason but refused to accept it.

[...]

Korea was chaos.

The sleeping pills in all the pharmacies were out of stock, and all because the nightmares were more recurrent than usual; no one could sleep without waking up screaming or crying in the middle of the night.

—You must do something to stop her —Kim Shin spoke complaining for the third time as he took his drink away from the grim reaper —Get up, go and tell your little girlfriend to solve her problems.

—She's not my girlfriend —He said seriously, sighing.

—¡Whatever! Just talk to her —the Goblin insisted, almost pleading for not having had a good dream as he should have.

—¡Please! Hallway uncle, I want to sleep —Deok Hwa said now, dramatizing his crying.

Finally he gave in and stood up to go find you.

It wasn't difficult for him, he knew you well enough to know your favorite place where you made dreams.

Arriving at that small abandoned library, he saw you sitting on the floor with a crystal sphere in front of you.

—¿What are you doing here? —You asked without taking your eyes off that sphere.

The grim reaper evaded your question and approached you cautiously, he knew the reason for your current mood and felt somewhat bad about it but he was also confused about his feelings and hoped that you could understand him.

—The nightmares must stop —He said seriously, looking down at that sphere that so tempted you to be trapped —You are causing disappointments, accidents and problems among mortals.

—Well... they have to understand that not everything will be rainbows and good news.

He watched you silently as you lifted the crystal sphere and placed it on one of the shelves.

—¿What is this?

—A dream about my past life... —You whispered.

—¿Can you know who you were before this time? —The Grim Reaper asked in surprise and disbelief —¿As?

The angel was more than impressed, he wanted to know about his past life, his name, his date of birth, everything and seeing you having a possible answer to his doubts was incredible.

—I just did it... but I don't want to see it —When you turned on your heels he was already right behind you, making you jump a little in fright —¡¿What's wrong with you?! ¡You should wear a bell!

—¿Aren't you curious to know who you were before this?

—¡No! ¡I don't want to know anything about that!, ¡or this! ¡or you!

He kept quiet and let you yell at him until you got tired, he truly hated himself for doing this to you and that was why he felt so frustrated, maybe if he knew more about his past he would know why that girl named Sunny had a big effect on him just like you.

You kept screaming and moving in circles in front of him, you were angry and sad, it was noticeable but he didn't hear anything you said until the words "I loved you" left your lips.

—¿Did you... love me? —What a stupid question, of course you did, it was always clear but he refused to see it.

—¡And I thought it was mutual! —You shouted at him one last time with tears held back in your eyes —But that pretty girl with light hair and a beautiful smile did what haven't been able to do in years except in my dreams.

—¿What?

—Make you smile.

It was torture, you made him smile several times in his dreams and with a lot of work but she, she could do it just by laughing.

—Just go away please —You asked in a low and broken voice, and before he could stop you, you had already vanished among golden sparkles.

#goblin #the grim reaper #thegrimreaper #lee dong wook #leedongwook #the grim reaper x you #the grim reaper x reader #goblin x reader #goblin x you #lee dong wook x you #lee dong wook x reader #wang yeo #wang yeo x reader #wang yeo x you #leedongwoow

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slaytheday12 · 11 hours ago

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Eyes on You pt2

That night, you couldn’t sleep. Your mind kept replaying the moment Walker’s eyes met yours, the warmth in his smile, and the way he’d seemed genuinely interested in every word you said. It was probably nothing just an actor being nice to a fan. But the comments on your Instagram post kept poking at the tiny spark of doubt in your head.

Could there be something more?

You scrolled through your notifications, overwhelmed by the sheer number of likes and comments. Even people you didn’t know were chiming in:

“Why does he look like he’s about to write you a poem?” “Y’all better get married so I can say I shipped it from the start.” “Imagine meeting Percy Jackson and he looks like that at you.”

You laughed at some of them, rolling your eyes at the absurdity, but a part of you felt... flustered. The way Walker was looking at you in the photo wasn’t something you could easily brush off.

Meanwhile, across the city, Walker was sitting on his hotel bed, phone in hand. His team had insisted he stay off social media for the night something about staying focused and avoiding distractions but curiosity had gotten the better of him.

He’d spent the past half hour scrolling through Instagram, his account logged into a private alt that only a few close friends knew about. When your post popped up, he stopped. His thumb hovered over the screen as he stared at the photo.

There you were, standing next to him with the brightest smile, and all he could think about was how his gaze had betrayed him. He hadn’t meant to be so obvious. It wasn’t like him to get distracted, especially at events like this. But there was something about you—your genuine enthusiasm, the way your eyes lit up when you talked about Percy Jackson, and the way you seemed equally nervous and excited all at once.

The comments under your post weren’t helping his resolve to forget about it. His favorite: “Bro, Walker’s out here looking at her like shes hung the stars. Good luck recovering from this one.”

He chuckled to himself, shaking his head, but the grin on his face lingered.

-----

The next morning, you woke up to find your post had gone semi-viral. The caption was still innocent enough, but people were dissecting every pixel of the photo, reading into things you’d never even noticed.

In your DMs, one message stood out. It was from an account with no profile picture and only a few followers. Normally, you’d ignore something like that, but the first line caught your attention:

“Hey, I hope this doesn’t seem weird, but it’s Walker.”

Your heart practically stopped. There was no way, right? Someone had to be messing with you. But when you clicked on the account, the bio read something along the lines of: “Just a guy who loves movies and occasionally plays a demigod.”

Oh. My. Gods.

“Hi!” you replied, your fingers trembling as you typed. “If this is a prank, it’s a very convincing one.”

Within seconds, you saw the three little dots indicating he was typing.

“It’s really me, I swear. I just... wanted to thank you again for coming yesterday. It was great meeting you.”

You stared at the message, your mind racing. Walker Scobell—the Walker Scobell—was messaging you? Thanking you? What universe had you stumbled into?

“Wow, uh, thank you,” you replied, trying to sound casual even though your heart was pounding out of your chest. “It was amazing meeting you too. I’m still trying to process it all.”

His response came quickly: “Yeah, same here, honestly.”

What did that mean? Same here? Did he mean he was trying to process meeting you? You didn’t want to read too much into it, but the idea alone made your cheeks flush.

The two of you messaged back and forth for hours, the conversation flowing so naturally it felt surreal. He asked about your favorite PJO book, your favorite characters, and what you thought of the trailer. You found yourself laughing at his jokes about filming and how nervous he’d been to live up to fans’ expectations.

At one point, he said, “You were one of the coolest people I met yesterday. Just thought you should know.”

You stared at the message, rereading it a dozen times before replying: “That’s really sweet of you to say. Honestly, meeting you made my whole year.”

Somehow, you ended up exchanging phone numbers. Walker insisted it would be easier to talk there, and you didn’t argue. The idea of having his number saved in your phone felt both exhilarating and completely insane.

Over the next few weeks, you kept in touch. At first, it was small things memes about Percy Jackson, updates on his filming schedule, and random stuff about your day. But as time went on, the conversations grew deeper.

He asked about your life, your dreams, and what had drawn you to the series in the first place. You found yourself opening up in ways you hadn’t expected, and he did the same.

One night, he sent you a selfie just him in his trailer, holding up a peace sign with the caption: “Long day, but this made it better.”

“This” clearly referred to your latest text, a long-winded rant about how the gods in Greek mythology needed better communication skills.

You responded with a picture of your PJO book collection stacked neatly on your desk. “This is the shrine I’ve built in your honor,” you joked.

Walker replied, “Pretty sure you’re the only person I’d be okay with building a shrine for me.”

And just like that, the line between casual fan and something more began to blur.

A/N: pt3?????

Tags: @izzystylinson, @sophand4n4, @kaiwrites092, @shellsarepretty, @cheoriemoawa

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klaus-littlestwolf · 23 hours ago

Note

Firstly can I just say how much I genuinely enjoy your stories! They are so amazing and I love getting to read them and look forward to when you post new ones.

I'm usually pretty shy with requests but I do have one for your recent Yandere Klaus ask you posted.

It's a MDLB relationship dynamic but reader is not the yandere, Klaus is. Reader is apart of the scooby gang or in general is associated in some way against Klaus. She however treats him with kindness, maybe gives him hugs after finding him upset about something or calming him down. He doesn't quite know that he's a little at first but he knows that she makes him feel safe so he begins to get possessive over her. He eventually finds out she's a MD and its like a switch goes off in his head, She can't see her friends or family because she needs to take care of him type of vibes. He starts acting smaller towards her and acting out any time she tries to leave (more in a hey I'll be gone for a few hours not a I'm trying to run away from you). She's able to calm him down and reprimand him for brattiness. Smutty stuff eventually ensues after some time in her role as his MD.

The rest can be up to you :)

P.S. I hope you're feeling better!! I know you were sick a few weeks ago and hope your recovery and new year have been good.

Discovering his Little Side -Klaus M.

I think it goes without saying that this is an Md/Lb fic. Klaus is Little and OC is his Mommy that he is very possessive of.

Warning: Md/Lb Relationship, Klaus is a Little, Yandere Behavior, Smut, Oral-Fem Receiving, Mentions of Punishment, Teasing/Masturbation

This is an Age Regression fic

Don’t Like=Don’t Read!

Also, Thank You for your concern and asking after me (from everyone). I got so many messages asking how I’ve been doing and hoping I feel better and I absolutely am, thank you all for thinking of me like that! I don’t have any friends in my real life, honestly I just have my mom and that’s it (as sad and pathetic as that sounds) so to have so many people hoping I feel better was beyond heart warming and I love and appreciate you all so much!💕💕🥰😘

He didn’t know at first what the feeling really was, all he knew was that she felt good.

After everything that had happened with Mikael she stayed, it surprised him but what surprised him more was her sitting before him on the front step and hugging him. Klaus had never really been one for hugging but this felt good, it felt wonderful actually and he didn’t want it to stop. He couldn’t tell you when he had leaned down and buried his face into her belly with his arms around her but he did, and he held on tight.

Klaus had held onto her for the rest of the night, or at least most of it as she was gone from his bed that she’d moved him to when he’d gotten a chill-which he’d found sweet, he was 1000 year old Hybrid and she was taking care of him…and he liked it.

He needed to control himself, Y/n wasn’t his, he had no right or reason to be feeling this possessive energy but he does and now it was unmistakable.

He got close to her when he could, buying her drinks at the bar and pulling her into conversation, even sending her flowers once which she thanked him for the next day with a soft kiss to his nose that made him feel smaller than he thinks he ever had in his undead life.

He couldn’t pinpoint what it was until seeing something that made his blood boil like never before.

As Klaus walked into the Grille he saw Y/n rolling her eyes as she wiped Damon’s mouth with a napkin which made the young vampire groan and insist she “stop ‘Mommying’ him”. All at once it hit Klaus what this was, what it had all been, how she had been making him feel so small and why he and especially his wolf had been so possessive.

He knew of age regression of course, it wasn’t a new thing, though it was more common now. Y/n is a MommyDom and she had comforted him when she saw how much he needed it like any good Mommy would. It was at that moment that it was decided, she would be his and he would never let her out of his sight again.

He stayed at the Grille with her that night, drinking and talking, allowing himself to relax with her in the booth they had taken over in the back, even allowing her to run her fingers through his hair sweetly. Klaus brought her back to his home that night and leant her a shirt to sleep in, snuggling up to her body with his head on her belly and her fingers, once again, in his hair.

Klaus awoke the next morning with a smile on his face. That is until he realized what was happening, Y/n was looking for her clothes which Klaus had put into his hamper so she wouldn’t find them right away.

‘Leaving so soon?’ He asked, her head popping up in surprise and Klaus had to admit that even he was a bit shocked by how small he sounded in that moment.

‘Yeah, I figured me leaving before your siblings saw me might be easier. Don’t need Kol and Rebekah asking a million questions and making you dagger them again.’ She teased, bending over to glance under the bed and giving Klaus an eyeful of her perfect ass in only her lace panties as his shirt rode up on her. He shoved the blankets over his crotch as his cock hardened unbelievably fast but he couldn’t help his whimper which seemed to catch her attention as she looked up at him questioningly. ‘Are you alright?’ He nodded quickly and she smiled softly, going back to looking for her clothes. Y/n knew you couldn’t force someone into their headspace, it could be dangerous and painful, especially for someone like Klaus who is a sweet little boy but doesn’t seem to even know it at all.

‘Don’t leave?’ He spoke, not wanting it to sound pleading but it really did.

‘Okay, and then what? You and I hide out up here all day together? Don’t be silly, I’m sure you have things to do today and I promised Damon I would binge some horror movies with him since Elena ditched him for Stefan again.’

At the meer mention of Damon’s name a rage unlike normal built in his belly and he growled. ‘Stay!’ He demanded, not realizing how incredibly childish he sounded but making Y/n giggle which just made him more mad.

‘Klaus. Calm down. We can hang out again if you want-‘

‘Mommy Stays!’ He snapped and her head popped up over the footboard where she had been searching for her clothes, eyes wide in shock.

‘W-What did you just say?’ She asked cautiously, not wanting someone as dangerous and volatile as Klaus to freak out if he felt cornered or teased.

His face was bright red as his eyes widened but Klaus knew it was now or never and he didn’t want to lose her, especially not to Damon and his whiney ass. ‘I-I said…M-Mommy stays…please? Stay with me Mommy?’ His face had softened and he looked too precious for Y/n to say “No” even if she wanted to which she didn’t.

‘Is that what you really want? You want me to be your Mommy? This isn’t a game Niklaus, and I will not be played with like a pawn-‘ he shook his head rapidly, crawling across the bed to grab the shirt she wore and pull her back in and against his chest where he nuzzled her hair.

‘No…only fun games with my Mommy…snuggle me-Please?’ He begged and she took his cheeks between her hands, pecking his lips softly.

‘Of course baby boy, my boy gets all the snuggles he wants. Always.’ Y/n pulled him with her to lay down on the bed, pressing his head to lay on her breasts as she ran her fingers through his blond locks. The Hybrid allowed himself to relax against her and close his eyes, feeling safe in someone’s arms for what felt like the first time in his existence.

That was the beginning of their relationship.

Y/n was his Mommy and to her surprise, he was never embarrassed to call her that, not correcting himself in front of his siblings in any way. None of them said anything (probably not wanting to get daggered if they upset or offended him), Elijah even calling her whenever Klaus’ anger took hold of him once again to get her to gain control of the situation and saving both Rebekah and Kol more than once.

Klaus quickly learned that his Mommy would not tolerate his attitude and he calmed himself around her as often as he could to keep from getting punished again.

He hated punishments.

Y/n never once struck him, never smacking or spanking him in any way as she knew how badly her baby boy had been abused in his human life. She refused to make him feel like he was that scared child again, though she did insist on punishments that didn’t cause him physical pain but instead pure frustration. She started off giving him punishments where he had to stand in a corner and stare at the wall for 20 minutes. However as their relationship became more serious and they began exploring sexual intimacy (which she did not allow until almost 2 weeks after he first asked her to stay with him as she insisted he become completely comfortable in his Little headspace first) she would instead force him to watch her touch herself and refuse to let him help or touch himself in any way. Klaus hated this punishment more than any other, loving to see his Mommy in his bed completely bare but loathing not being able to touch her or make her feel good.

Klaus had always been greedy when it came to sex, not that he didn’t know how to make a women feel good but in 1000 years of one night stands (and only 2 real relationships) he didn’t usually care about the pleasure of women that were going to be his meal later that evening. With his Mommy though, it was completely different.

He loved making his Mommy feel good. He would eat her pussy for hours if she would let him, fuck her all night and never get tired of seeing the look on her face as she came apart for him. Nothing made Klaus happier than feeling and seeing his Mommy cum on his cock before telling him what a “good boy” he is, it was his favorite thing in the world to know that she was pleased with him, that he had made her feel good where all other men had failed.

The knowledge that the 2 other men his Mommy had been in a relationship with both had no clue how to make her feel good brought him immense joy. Though it also let him know that she had been deprived of pleasure for so many years and now he needed to make up for lost time. It was a belief he held that she told him “wasn’t necessary” but he knew different, his Mommy deserved to be taken care of and given orgasms all day every day. He wished she would allow it of him but she didn’t, she insisted she take care of him first…which he loved (though he would never admit it). More than anything Klaus just wanted to be with his Mommy at all times, however, for whatever reason, she didn’t allow it of him and that more than anything was why he ended up being punished just like right now.

‘Can I come out now, Mommy?’ Klaus asked softly, keeping his voice light, wanting her to feel sorry and shorten his punishment.

‘Are you finished behaving like a brat?’ She asked and he nodded his head quickly, needing her to forgive him more than anything. ‘Alright, you can come out baby.’

Klaus was beside her not even a second later, nuzzling his face into her neck with his arms wrapped tightly around her waist. ‘Don’t leave me, Mommy? Please? I’m sorry I didn’t listen but-‘

‘Nikky! Hey, stop that. You broke a rule and you were punished, now that punishment is over which means you are forgiven. Do you understand? You get punished and then you are forgiven, Mommy doesn’t hold grudges against her baby. Alright?’ Klaus looked up from her chest and loved the sincerity that she held in her eyes. Her eyes were always so expressive that he could tell how she was feeling all the time. She truly meant it, his Mommy had never once held onto her anger, once he was punished it was over and he was truly forgiven.

‘Yes Mommy, but-‘

‘Baby, this is not a punishment. I made these plans with Damon months ago, it has nothing to do with you, I’ve been waiting to see this show for years.’ Klaus opened his mouth to speak but Y/n placed her hand over his mouth to keep him from speaking again. ‘I’m not upset with you, I’m not doing this to hurt you, Damon is my friend and as my friend he got us tickets to see tonight’s show. I will be home around midnight, I will text you-‘

‘No. Come back here after the play, I want my Mommy in my bed with me…I will wait for you.’ He swore and Y/n sighed, shaking her head.

‘No you will not little one. My baby boy will be in his bed asleep. However, if it means that much to you then I will have Damon drop me off here instead of home tonight. Does that make you feel better?’ It didn’t. Klaus has absolutely no intention of allowing her to go out with Damon tonight, but she doesn’t need to know that it is him that’s going to ensure his Mommy gets stood up tonight. He doesn’t like the idea of his Mommy being stood up in any capacity, however he will be right here to comfort her and so he will keep her from being too upset.

‘Yes Mommy…I just don’t like you going out with an asshole like Damon. I don’t want him to hurt you-‘

‘He’s not going to hurt me. We’ve been friends since long before you and I met. You had better watch your language as well, I don’t want to have to punish you twice in one night.’ She teased, though he could also see her serious undertone.

‘Yes Mommy, I’m sorry. I’ll wait on the porch with you.’ He quickly insisted, jumping up from the bed and moving to pull his boots on before she could argue.

Klaus helped her get her jacket on and handed her the bag he knew she was taking before walking out to the porch with her. He made a show of bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet which made Y/n giggle. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing…just gotta pee…’ he mumbled making her laugh even more.

‘Go to the bathroom, silly boy. You don’t need to wait with me-‘

‘I’ll be right back!’ He insisted, kissing her cheek and running inside. He quickly ran out the back door and made his way to the boarding house as quickly as possible where he found Damon pulling on his jacket.

‘What the hell are you doing here? Isn’t it bad enough that I have to pick her up from your house?’ Damon complained but Klaus just rolled his eyes before pinning Damon to the wall and locking their eyes to compel him.

‘You will compel yourself another date when you get to the play, you want nothing to do with Y/n anymore now that she is with me. You will not answer your phone for her tonight and you’ll block her number after she calls you but you will post a picture of you at the show with your date. In the future, when she asks you what’s going on and why you stood her up you’ll tell her that she chose to be with me and you won’t be friends with Klaus’ girlfriend. You will not remember any of this, or me compelling you.’ Klaus could see Damon’s eyes dilate and he knew the compulsion had worked as he looked dazed before walking to his car.

Klaus made his way home quickly and went back to the porch where he found Y/n sitting on the swing, grabbing a blanket and wrapping it around her as he sat down. ‘Thank you sweet boy. You’re always so thoughtful.’ She smiled making him blush.

‘Don’t want my Mommy getting sick.’ He told her as he moved to lay with his head on her lap, knowing she would play with his hair which he always loved. ‘What time is the play?’ He mumbled in question after about 20 minutes.

‘It starts in 10 minutes. He should have been here 15 minutes ago…it’s not like Damon to be late.’ She said as she thought deeply.

‘Maybe he forgot it was tonight. Try calling him.’ He prompted, rolling over to lay with his face in her tummy. ‘Not that I mind him being late, I’m quite comfortable here.’ He hummed, smiling up at her and making her snort, brushing her fingers through his hair while her other hand called Damon.

‘It’s not like him not to answer…I’ll try Stefan.’ She said, calling his brother instead and Klaus heard him answer on the second ring. ‘Hey Stefan, is Damon there? He’s not answering his phone and he’s really late.’

‘Oh, he left already…like 20 minutes ago. Sorry…try calling him again.’ Stefan responded and Klaus watched her face fall.

‘Yeah…yeah, I’ll try that. Thanks.’ She mumbled, hanging up. ‘Did he stand me up?’ She asked, more to herself than to him Klaus assumed but he answered anyway.

‘If he did then he’s the biggest idiot I’ve ever met, and that’s saying something. I’ve been alive a long time, I’ve met a lot of idiots.’ He teased and got a little giggle through her tears while she called his number again.

‘He…he blocked my number…asshole!’ She cursed, throwing her phone angrily and they both watched it smash into a hundred pieces against the wall.

‘Would you like me to take you? I can compel us in.’ She shook her head promptly, sighing heavily.

‘Thank you baby but no, I think I’m just going to go home-‘

‘No. You are not going to be alone right now, please stay? Let your baby make you feel all better…’ Klaus didn’t wait for an answer before swinging her up into his arms and carrying her upstairs to his bed. ‘Damon is the one who fucked up. He could’ve spent the entire night staring at you in this dress. God, you’re beautiful!’ He flirted making Y/n blush heavily as he peeled the dress from her body followed by her bra and panties. ‘I lucked out that he’s such an idiot…’ Klaus smirked as he kissed his lips down her body, spreading her legs apart and lifting her thighs to his shoulders before burying his face into her pussy, his tongue fucking into her hole rapidly. He licked up her slit and had just started sucking on her clit when her hips rose up and jumped against his mouth.

‘Oh God! Such a sweet boy you are baby…oh fuck!’

‘Want you to use me.’ He mumbled as he leaned his head against her thigh. ‘Want my Mommy to use my body to feel good!’ He insisted.

‘You don’t need to do that baby, Mommy doesn’t want to ruin your safe space-‘

‘Please Mommy? Please? Use me like your little play thing!’ Klaus pleaded, Y/n sitting up and taking his face into her hands to look at him.

‘Are you sure that’s what you want, my love?’ He nodded quickly, pulling his shirt off over his head. ‘What’s your safeword?’

‘Red.’ He stated, reaching down to unbuckle his pants when his hands were grabbed and he was quickly turned over underneath her.

‘My boy is so sweet to me, letting his Mommy use his body however I want.’ She straddled his waist, running her nails up his chest and making him whimper. ‘Such a beautiful body too…’ she teased, moving to pull his pants and boxer briefs down his legs and toss them away, revealing his thick, painfully hard cock. ‘Such a pretty little cock, all for me, hmm?’ His cock definitely wasn’t “little” but it made him feel smaller every time she said it and so she did despite how long and thick his werewolf cock actually was.

‘Y-Yes Mommy…all yours.’

‘All mine? That’s good, it’s so pretty I don’t think I would want to share it with anyone.’ She smirked, wrapping her hand around his thick cock and caressing him softly earning a soft moan. ‘Pretty all over, aren’t you baby?’ Y/n asked, moving up his body and pressing his cock to her wet pussy, earning her an uncontrollable yelp.

‘Such a loud little boy, aren’t you? My god, so noisy…it’s a good thing you have such a pretty mouth too…Mommy wants that mouth to make her feel good, yes?’ He nodded frantically, his cock twitching as he was already desperate to cum. He loved it when his Mommy took control of him. ‘I want to ride this fucking tongue!’ She demanded as she straddled his mouth, settling her pussy right on his lips. He kissed her pussy several times before licking up her slit and suckling on her clit softly. ‘You can do better than that baby boy!’ She hissed, grinding her pussy down against his mouth and he moaned, sticking his tongue into her hole and tasting her sweetness. His Mommy knew that licking her cunt was his favorite thing to do. He reached up, grabbing onto her hips as he continued to shove his tongue into her, his nose grinding against her clit and prompting her moan. ‘Fuck yes baby! Right there! Oh don’t stop…fuck…fuckfuckfuck!’ She cried out, humping her hips against his mouth as she grabbed ahold of his hair and pulled him even closer. ‘Good boy.’ She praised, lifting herself up only to have him pull her back down to continue licking over her dripping hole. ‘Fucking greedy boy too, aren’t you?’

‘Mmhmm!’ He gunned, holding her waist another moment before she pried his fingers off and moved back down his body. He watched as she slid her pussy down his belly to his throbbing cock which she quickly straddled, his hard cock resting against her slit.

‘Look at this pretty little cock, so needy, aren’t you?’ Klaus nodded quickly, his cock twitching as she trailed her finger down the side of it and precum dribbled from his tip onto his belly. ‘God, you are a needy little boy, aren’t you? You’re just dripping all over yourself you’re so needy!’

‘Y-Yes Mommy…please? Please Mommy, I need you?’ He pleaded and he could see how much she loved it as she moved back and leaned down to lick up the little mess he had made on himself. ‘Oh fuck!’ He whined, unable to control his cock as it dribbled more cum.

‘Such a messy boy…do you want Mommy to suck on your little cock?’ She asked softly but he shook his head quickly, needing more than that right now. ‘No? Well, what do you want then?’

‘P-Please?’ He whined, desperate and needy, knowing how little it was going to take for him to finish and so did she.

‘Please what?’

‘Pussy! Mommy’s Pussy Please?!’ He cried, hips jumping unintentionally.

‘You want Mommy’s pussy? Is that it? You want to put your little cock in your Mommy’s pussy?’ He nodded frantically, completely desperate in a way that no one but his Mommy could make him feel.

Y/n lifted her hips and took hold of his cock, pushing down on him and just as she settled herself against him, his cock as deep in her cunt as he could get, his eyes rolled back in his head and he shot his stream of cum as deep into her body as he could. ‘Ah! Fuck M-Mommy-‘

‘Shh, there’s my good boy. I know, Mommy got you all worked up, didn’t she? It’s okay. Such a good boy, filling Mommy up so good…’ As soon as he finished cumming Y/n lifted her hips and dropped back down on him.

‘Ah!’

‘Such a good boy for Mommy, still nice and hard for me.’ She praised, Klaus reaching out and taking hold of her hips as she continued to ride him. ‘Oh Fuck! So good for me, so fucking good!’ Y/n kept riding his cock until she felt her orgasm take over her body, clamping down on his hard cock and he growled, clenching his teeth as he came once again, filling her cunt up even more with his cum.

Y/n dropped down against Klaus’ chest and he pulled the blanket up over the both of them, nuzzling into his Mommy’s neck where he settled for the rest of the night.

And just like that Klaus’ Mommy was all his once again. He didn’t care how many people he would have to compel for the rest of their lives together, he would do it every single time because she was all his and no one would ever take his Mommy away from him.

Klaus M. Masterlist

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