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fluentmoviequoter · 29 days ago

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Christmas Magic

hot cocoa bar celebration🧤❄️🎄

requested here! & inspired by Finding Santa (2017)

Pairing: Tim Bradford x fem!(event planner)!reader

Summary: Your Christmas charity dinner is threatened when Santa quits at the last minute. Tim Bradford is the only person you know who is free days before Christmas, but it will take some magic to make him agree to put on the suit.

Warnings/Word Count: fluff, brief angst, quick mention of harassment, mistletoe and magic. 3.5k+ words.

I rented the center, tables with chairs are being delivered at noon, and catering arrives at 4. Got that. Santa, gifts, check, check.

You turn away from your computer to make a note about contacting the pediatrics hospital administrator. With your phone tucked between your cheek and shoulder, you’d nearly forgotten that you were supposed to be listening to James, the older gentleman playing Santa at the fundraising event you’ve been planning since September.

“I’m so sorry to cancel on you last minute,” James says.

Barely managing to catch your phone as you jerk in shock, you repeat his words in your mind. “Cancel? James, I’m sorry, did I hear that correctly?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ve been fighting this rotator cuff for years and it finally won out on me. I know it’s last minute, but I can’t safely perform the Santa duties.”

“Okay, okay,” you mumble, pressing your forehead into your hand. “I understand, and I hope you feel better. I’m just not sure where I’m supposed to find another Santa days before the event, this close to Christmas.”

“If I hear of anybody who’s available, I’ll send ‘em your way.”

“Thanks.”

You end the call and stare at your computer screen. There is absolutely no way you can find someone – someone decent, at least – to play Santa Clause in three days. The event is on December 23rd, Christmas Eve-Eve, and it was hard enough to book James so close to Christmas Day.

“Oh, I’m gonna need a Christmas miracle,” you whisper as you reach for your mug.

A bell jingles outside, and you close your eyes. If only an angel capable of playing Santa were getting its wings.

“Are you okay?” your assistant, Holly, asks from the doorway.

“Not even a little bit,” you answer with a stressed smile. “We need a new Santa.”

“In less than a week?” she exclaims, setting a stack of papers on your desk. “How are you going to do that?”

“I have no idea. I could do open auditions, but then we’re just going to get all of the crazy people desperate for a Christmas gig in here, and I can’t sort through applications or anything with everything else going on,” you ramble before taking a breath. “Any chance you have a cousin, brother, dad, or a neighbor without a criminal record who could help me out?”

“My folks are traveling for the holidays and all of my neighbors are girls. Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. We just… we have to think of something. Preferably by the end of today.”

“If anyone can pull together some Christmas magic it’s you,” Holly assures. “I’ll go make some calls and let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.”

“Thanks, Hols.”

As she leaves, you open your phone and scroll through your contacts. Each name makes you a little more discouraged. Most of them are busy with families, out of town, completely unqualified, or you haven’t spoken to them in so long that you can’t justify asking for something like this, even if it is for the kids.

“It’s all I want for Christmas,” you whisper as you near the end of your list.

One name jumps out at you, but you hesitate to contact him. He might have to work or be coming off of a hectic holiday shift on the 23rd. But you’re running out of options, so you text Tim Bradford to ask if he’s free. The phone rings a moment later, and you answer immediately.

“No, don’t- Chen!” Tim scolds.

“Uh, hello?” you greet.

“Hi!” a woman replies. “My name is Lucy Chen, I’m Tim’s rookie. You asked if he was free on the 23rd and I’m calling to say that he absolutely is.”

“Good, good,” you reply, chewing your bottom lip. “I actually have a really big – huge – favor to ask him, so maybe I’ll call him back later.”

“What is it?” Tim asks.

“Uhm,” you hum, trying to find the right words. “I need someone to play Santa at the charity event for the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and UCLA’s pediatric department.”

“I… can’t,” Tim says after a moment.

“He means he won’t,” Lucy adds.

Your shoulders drop as you murmur, “Okay. Bye.”

After you hang up, you realize that Tim Bradford is your only chance. If he really won't do it, you either have to put a woman in the Santa suit and hope for the best or disappoint every child and parent in attendance by announcing at the last minute that Santa can’t make it. You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, but at least the diner down the street has good hot chocolate that will help you get your mind off it for a few minutes. You wave at Holly on your way out, then try to think of exciting, merry, and bright things rather than the coming disappointment as you walk to your favorite diner. As you enter, you notice three men sitting in the booth closest to the door, but they’re the kind of men you know you wouldn’t invite to be in the same room with wealthy women or children, let alone both at the same time.

“Robbery in progress at Vicksen’s Diner,” dispatch alerts. “Callers report three armed men, and one is blocking the main entrance.”

“7-Adam-19 responding, code 3,” Tim radios before hitting the lights and sirens.

“Vixen’s Diner?” Lucy repeats. “They must really like Christmas.”

“V-i-c-k-s-e-n,” Tim corrects. “It’s the last name, the family has owned the place for decades. The call you intercepted earlier?”

“What about her?”

“She’s probably there. It’s her favorite place and they have Christmas specials right now.”

“How do you know that?”

“Focus, Chen,” Tim snaps as he turns the sirens off. “We’re approaching the rear exit without a sound, understood? Our priority is to get these people safe, then and only then do we go after the robbers.”

“Yes, sir,” Lucy agrees.

“I don’t have any more cash,” the owner explains again. “It’s the twenty-first century, genius, most of our business is card or tap-to-pay.”

“And it’s Christmas,” you add from your booth. “Just go.”

“Not until I get something!” the man screams.

“How about a one-way trip to jail?” someone adds. “We already called the police.”

“Then pay up or they’ll have a body,” one of the other robbers says, turning their gun toward the customer.

Someone clicks their tongue, and you look over to see Tim Bradford and who you assume to be Lucy Chen standing behind the counter.

“LAPD,” Tim says. “Weapons down, hands up, or your Christmas is going to be even worse.”

The man closest to the counter tightens his grip on his gun, then curses and drops it as he raises his hands.

“I recommend you follow his lead,” Lucy tells the man beside you.

“Open the door,” Tim dares the final man. “My partner out there would love to lay you out.”

All three men surrender, and you watch Tim as he cuffs and zip-ties them while his rookie calls for backup.

“You said you had a partner out there!” the men complain.

“I lied,” Tim says as he stands. “You should know what it’s like.”

Three more patrol cars park outside, and officers take the would-be thieves out of the diner as Lucy checks on the owner and the other patrons. When Tim walks to your table, you lean back and look at him.

“I really need your help,” you explain. “It’s one night and you’d get paid.”

“It’s not about the money,” Tim replies. “Are you okay?”

“Then what is it about?” you press. “We both know you’re great with your nephews even if you hate to admit it. It’s only a few hours of asking kids what they want for Christmas, a few pictures, and then- then I’ll buy you dinner, whatever you want.”

“Why are you asking so close to the event?”

“Because I already had a Santa, but he tore his rotator cuff and backed out on me at the last minute. You know I wouldn’t ask something like this unless I really needed it.”

Tim nods, though he’s wondering why he is the one you’ve chosen to show your persistence and desperation to. Surely, you know other men capable of wearing an uncomfortable polyester suit and saying ho, ho, ho.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Tim points out. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. One of them pushed me out of the way, but-“

Tim moves closer to you and bends to look into your eyes. His gaze moves over your face before catching on the slightly red area against the side of your neck.

“You sure?” he whispers.

You nod and smile before you push past him to exit the booth. “I have to get back to work and find a Santa or break hundreds of hearts. Be safe, Tim.”

Tim watches you walk toward the door, and Lucy’s eyes widen as she gestures wildly toward you.

“I’ll do it,” Tim calls. He tells himself it’s because you’re so persistent and seem stressed, but deep down, he knows there is more to it than that.

“You don’t have to,” you say as you face him. “Don’t do something that’s going to make you miserable just because I need help.”

“I’ll do it,” he repeats. “Text me the details?”

“How ‘bout I just pick you up on the 23rd? Around noon?” you reply.

“Sure.”

“Thank you, Tim,” you say with your hand on the door. “You’ll never know how much this means to everyone… to me.”

Tim nods as you leave to return to work, and Lucy claps silently.

“Get in the shop, boot,” he demands.

“You look nice,” you compliment when Tim opens his door the morning of the event. “The red suits you.”

Tim swallows as he looks at you and says, “You don’t have to butter me up, I already said yes.”

“I’m just calling it how I see it,” you assure him.

“I thought this thing didn’t start until 4,” Tim muses as he locks his door and follows you to the car.

“It doesn’t, but we have to get the Santa suit fitted. If you want to leave after and come back at 3, you can take my car.”

Tim shrugs and buckles his seat belt. When you turn the radio to a Christmas station, Tim immediately switches it to a football show. Your jaw drops as you turn toward him.

“You don’t like Christmas music?” you ask incredulously.

“I just don’t think it’s okay to give someone 23 birds,” he explains.

“My car,” you argue when he reaches for the control.

“My Santa debut,” he replies.

You give up and back out of his driveway with an exaggerated scoff.

“Why do you want me to be Santa anyway? I get that you had to ask people you know but I’m clearly not jolly enough.”

“Why is that?” you inquire. “I can understand not loving the music or the commercialism. The rest of it, though, that’s what I don’t get.”

“Just… don’t love the holidays. Reminds me of the things I don’t have anymore, I guess.”

Glancing at Tim, you wonder what it feels like to be someone’s for the holidays. Yes, it’s hard to be jolly when you miss someone, but for a moment, you wonder what it would be like to listen to carolers and decorate the tree while being in love.

“What’s this event like?” Tim asks, pulling you from your thoughts. “Been working on it long?”

“Since September,” you answer. “It’s geared toward the kids, but we have to do something to get the parents in too, so there’s raffles, a silent auction, dinner, and an area where they can sit with each other while someone else watches their kids.”

“So, it’s for donors?”

“At first,” you explain. “The donors are welcome to come anytime between 4 and 7. Then, we make everything absolutely perfect and bring in the kids from the hospitals at 8. They get more time with Santa, more gifts and games and treats. I know we have to raise a lot of money, but it’s not worth it if the kids don’t get to have fun with it too.”

“You’re really good at this,” Tim compliments, looking at you. “I didn’t know how much you put into all of this.”

“Now you regret saying no at first, huh?” you tease.

“That depends on how good the cookies are.”

“Then why are you so nervous?” you ask as you pull into the event center’s parking lot.

“I’m not-“

“It’s hidden well, but it’s there, Tim. You know you’re good with kids, so don’t let the size of this get to you.”

“I’ll try.”

“And if you get overwhelmed, Santa can always take a cookie break. I’ll be around if you need anything.”

You wish Tim luck as you drop him off with the wardrobe designer you hired, then begin transforming the space into a winter wonderland.

“Are you okay?” Holly asks as you finish constructing the games for the children from the hospital.

“I came to ask the same,” Santa says from behind you.

You turn quickly and smile at the sight of Tim in the suit. His beard has been set aside while he takes a break, but something about seeing him this way feels right.

“I’m fine,” you assure them. “Rich people are hard to please, I’m used to it.”

“Nobody should get used to people screaming in their face because the caviar is room temperature,” Holly argues.

“Is that what it was about?” Tim asks with a humorless laugh.

“He got over it. I actually saw him eating the caviar later,” you say. “Besides, this is the part of the night I’m here for.”

“You’re an excellent Santa,” Holly tells Tim. “The kids went on and on about you.”

“Told you,” you sing song.

“Do I give gifts to every kid?” Tim asks you.

“Yes, give them as many as you want because we have more. The red candy cane paper is more girly gifts, blue snowflake paper is for boys, and the gingerbread paper is gender neutral,” you list. “The elves also have a list of what we have, so if a kid asks for something specific, someone can check for you.”

“You should’ve been a cop,” Tim muses. “I wish my boot could keep things this streamlined.”

“You need to get back to the Northpole,” Holly says, glancing at her watch. “Not that this isn’t adorable.”

“Tim,” you call as he walks away. “Thank you.”

“It’s the only thing you’re getting for Christmas!” he replies.

Holly smiles as she moves to your side, and you glare at her.

“A gorgeous man wrapped in a Santa suit,” she muses. “You got every girl’s dream gift.”

“He isn’t mine,” you remind her.

“Christmas seems like the perfect time to change that.”

“Excuse me?” a young girl asks.

“Hello,” you greet, smiling as you squat beside her. “What’s your name?”

“Sally,” she answers. “Will you go with me to see Santa?”

“Of course!” You offer your hand and lead Sally through the crowds of happy children and grateful parents to get in line to see Santa. “What are you asking for this year?”

“I want a Hug-Wave,” she says softly, wrapping both her hands around yours.

“What’s that?”

“It’s twin stuffed animals, and when you hug one, it sends a hug to the other. I want to give my brother one so I can send him hugs when I have to stay in the hospital. He’s coming to see me on Christmas, but I miss him.”

Your eyes tear up, and you smile at Sally as you move forward in line. “I’m sure Santa will bring you one,” you assure her. “Look, we’re next!”

“You’ll stay with me?”

“Of course, Sally.”

As you walk onto the red carpet platform, Tim looks at you before looking at Sally. You mouth her name, and Tim calls, “Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas, Sally!”

“You know my name?” she asks softly, stopping beside his knees.

“Santa knows all of the good boys’ and girls’ names, and you, Sally, are on my nice list!”

“Do you want to sit on his lap?” you ask Sally.

She nods but keeps her hand firmly in yours. You move to Tim’s side as he pulls her onto his leg and blink to get the tears out of your eyes as Sally tells Santa about the hugging stuffed animal she wants to stay close to her brother.

“I think you and your brother would love that, Sally,” Tim says. “I’ll tell my elves about your wish, and we’ll work on that.”

“Thank you, Santa,” Sally says before pulling her hand from yours and hugging Tim.

You wipe your face before taking Sally’s hand and leading her to pin the nose on Rudolph, where she plays with kids like she didn’t just tug your heartstrings. Turning to check on everything, you notice that the Santa chair is empty, and the elves are entertaining the children in line. Less than a minute later, Tim returns and continues to visit children and parents alike.

“Psst!” someone calls.

You furrow your brows as you turn, and when you see Lucy, your eyes widen in shock.

“Santa asked me to bring you this,” she whispers as she slips a large gift bag through the door. “Care to be an elf for me?”

“Thank you,” you tell her. “I’ll take it to him now.”

“It looks amazing in here!”

“You’re welcome to stay, Lucy.”

You walk toward the North Pole area and tap an elf’s shoulder to take the gift to Tim. He excuses himself after the last child and walks to your side with the bag in his hand.

“Where’s Sally?” he whispers in your ear.

You look up at him and feel your tears building again as you say, “Tim–”

“I’m Santa tonight.”

You locate Sally sitting at a table with her parents and brother and eating a cupcake. Following behind Tim, you press your hand over your mouth as he kneels beside her and offers the bag. Her parents look at one another in shock as she removes the bears from the bag, then mouth their gratitude to Tim. Sally passes her brother a bear, and they begin hugging them to hug one another, and you decide this is the Christmas miracle you hoped to see.

Tim exits the small dressing room in the back hallway and doesn’t see you before you wrap your arms around his neck to hug him.

“Thank you,” you whisper against his neck. “For being Santa and for giving Sally the gift.”

Tim tightens his arms around your waist before you pull back. “It’s the least I could do,” he deflects with a shrug.

“No, it isn’t,” you insist. “I talked to Sally’s parents. They can barely afford gas to go back and forth to work and the hospital right now because one of them has to stay with her full-time because of her treatment. That’s why her brother can’t visit much.”

“Is she…”

“The doctors are hopeful that her current treatment is working,” you assure him. “They’re expecting to send her home sometime in the spring if she continues improving. Tim, you made their entire year.”

“You deserve some of that credit.”

“You pulled off a Christmas miracle, it’s all yours.”

“Does that mean you’ll tell me why you chose to ask me to be Santa?” Tim asks with a smile. His hands are still on your waist, but you’re dreading the moment when he steps back.

“Because I knew you could do it,” you answer. “You’re the only person I know that is kind and generous, selfless without letting people know it, and even if you get mad at me for saying it, you are kind and a big softie. You’re special, Tim Bradford, and a gentleman, and the closest thing I’ve seen to magical in a very long time. That’s why I asked and kept asking.”

“Well, you’re the closest thing I’ve seen to Mrs. Claus… ever,” he replies lightly.

“Without the time to bake and ‘Mrs.’ you mean.”

Tim shakes his head and asks, “Who helped you decorate?”

“Holly, mostly. Why?”

Lifting his chin, Tim gestures to the mistletoe hanging from the ceiling.

“It’s tradition,” you begin.

“You don’t have to convince me,” Tim interrupts.

He moves a hand from your waist to your cheek and kisses you. It feels like fireworks, warm hot chocolate, and every good and magical thing you can think of all at once. You move your hands to Tim’s jaw and move together, then pull back to thank him again.

“Thank you for calling Lucy and getting Sally’s gift here so quickly.”

Tim’s brow pinches as he says, “I didn’t call Lucy. I thought you got the gift here for her?”

You shake your head, then ask, “Well if you didn’t order it, and I didn’t order it, which Santa asked Lucy to bring it?”

Tim hesitates before he says, “It couldn’t…”

“There you are!” Holly calls as she enters the hallway. “I could not find this entrance, geez. Oh, hey, mistletoe!”

“You didn’t put this up?” you ask her.

“Me? No, I don’t even know where to buy mistletoe. That made me sound so single.”

You look at Tim, who smiles and whispers, “Christmas magic,” as he leans in again.

#fluentmoviequoter hot cocoa bar🧤❄️🎄#tim bradford x reader #tim bradford fic #tim bradford the rookie #tim bradford imagine #tim bradford #fem!reader #hanna writes✯#the rookie x reader #the rookie abc

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nogenderbee · 11 months ago

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♡˗ˏ✎*ೃ˚ 𝔸𝕝𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣 𝕤𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕥𝕤 ₊˚ˑ༄

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ anon request: May I request Dan Heng, Gepard, Welt, and Jing Yuan finding their lover crying in their sleep because they miss them?

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ Of course! I wrote Dan Heng's part during class so... the sleeping part is kinda missed but it shouldn't make that big of a difference, so hopefully you'll still like it!

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ fluff

Dan Heng for once agreed to go on exploration with Express Crew. Well... more like he was dragged there... you on the other hand couldn't go because of few duties you had to do on Express, so you were left alone with PomPom.

He was supposed to be away for just few weeks, but from your math... he was away for 3,5 months now... you received texts from Himeko that his phone broke and that they're gonna stay for a bit longer... she even checked up on you! But not wanting to cause trouble, you just said everything was alright, even if it was the opposite.

You were sitting on floor with your head on bed, arms covering it's back, as your sobs filled th room. You just broke after so much time away... you didn't know wher exactly he was, what he was doing, what he was thinking... did he even miss you?

When you heard door opening, you figured it was PomPom. He just entered with chocolate when he heard you sob and you honestly appreciated it.

"PomPom, please not now..."

"Not PomPom."

You have raised your head up after hearing familiar voice. You could see slight spark of worry in his cold expression, and he saw your puffy eyes which was enough to make him regret.

He kneeled down next to you, wrapping his left arm around your back, as right one caressed your cheek.

"I'm sorry for being away for so long... trust me, I came back as soon as I could. Others are still on that planned but I couldn't handle being there anymore..."

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

@miya-akane @toyaswif3y - come get your quiet but scary trabilazer!

Welt was on the Express and you were on a planet he passed by once. He offered you many times to join him but you always refused, you had friends and family here after all!

But being away from your lover also put small crack in your sanity... it was hard being in long distance relationship... sure, you texted each other daily but you started missing his touch... so one night, when you were cuddled into your bed sheets and in deep sleep, you didn't even realized the thoughts you had were so sad that sleeping you just couldn't help but sob.

Welt on the other hand, finally visited your planet and having keys to your house, he decided to check up on you.

"Hello? Sorry for inviting myself in like that but you didn't answer and I got-"

He stopped when he saw tou form laying under sheets. Small smile appeared on his face, just to get washed away in the next second when he heard you sob in sleep.

He sat next to you and gently shook you, worried you might be having some kind of nightmare. Thought of you simply missing him this much didn't really crossed his mind.

"Darling? Are you alright? Did you had a nightmare?"

Hearing, feeling and now seeing your boyfriend, you immidietly threw yourself into his arms and bursted with emotions. His hand immidietly went to caress your hair and back in a comforting way.

"Shhh... It's alright now... I'm not leaving any time soon. We can finally enjoy our company."

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

@vodka-glrl - come get your father of the express!

Gepard's job includes lots of missions, which means you're often away from each other. You didn't even mind patrols that much since he'd at least come back at evening. But when he had a mission? He was away for days... and the worst was, you never knew how dangerous it is nor if he'll actually come back...

You managed to find one if your boyfriend's hoodies in your shared room. So now, you were embraced by his hoodie as you layed under sheets, sacrificing one pillow to hug it instead of laying on it.

Meanwhile Gepard, finally came back home, trying to be as quiet as possible since it's middle of the night and the last thing he wanted to do was to wake you up.

So when he entered your bedroom and saw you sobbing in your sleep, his heart broke... did he left you here waiting for this long? Well he certainly won't leave it be just like that!

Still not wanting to wake you up, he layed next to you, immidietly wrapping one arm around you and caressing your back. He felt so bad for leaving you alone... he kissed your forehead and promised himself to never make the same mistake. He'll do his best to send you letters, without accepting single no from higher ups as answer. He's a soldier, he shouldn't give up without proper fight, especially for his lover.

"I'm so sorry, my love..."

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Jing Yuan was very busy recently... he left with single kiss on forehead or goodbye... he never ghosted or ignored you. He always gave you logical answer why your affection must be moved to some other time. But him being busy lasted for few days now... and despite him assuring you it's not gonna last forever and that he still loves you, you couldn't help but overthink this situation.

The only thing you could to after days of separation was flop on the couch and hope for a nice dream. You didn't even wanted to sleep in your bed because you knew it'd trigger the sadness even more.

But the nice dream that you hoped for didn't seemed to take place, because when your boyfriend finally decided to spend the night at your shared place instead of his office... he noticed you gently sobbing in your sleep...

He kneeled down next to you and caressed your hair, he didn't wanted to wake you up since you're getting your rest but also didn't want you to continue crying, so he just whispered small reassuring words and compliments to your ear as he embraced you with one hand.

"Dearest... I'm not leaving you anymore. We're going to a very nice date tomorrow, I promise... I'll spoil you with affection to your hearts content."

When you finally stopped sobbing, with one final kiss on forehead, he scooped you into his arms and carried you back into your bedroom, already planning how he should repay for all he did.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

@miya-akane - come get your soft general~

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freelancearsonist · 11 months ago

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Whole

Steve Harrington x fem!Reader

Rated MA for the most long-winded poetic smut i've ever written jfc 🤦‍♀️ slow burn fluff with a couple sprinkles of angst for flavor, reader uses fem pronouns and is described as having female parts, it's dirty y'all but at least they use protection

7,470 Words

A/N: you all know my mo by now i disappear for a year and then come back and lay down some god damned PORN. this fic is no exception to the rule. @shakespeareanwannabe requested this back in july and she literally just asked for a cute moment between steve and dustin, sorry you got 6k words more than you bargained for 😂 but also thank you for betaing and the constant validation you're the best ily 🖤

Steve’s not sure how it even worked.

He can still remember the look on Robin’s face when you agreed, how she was speechless for almost ten minutes because she couldn’t process what had just happened.

Steve’s reaction was about the same as hers, in all honesty. He’s gotten so used to striking out that asking people out has become something of a game to him. He knows he’ll get a no, and he knows Robin will laugh her ass off at him. But what can he say? He likes putting a smile on his best friend’s face.

Needless to say, you’ve shaken him. In the best possible way. Because your answer was three letters instead of two.

And now, he's a little bit in over his head.

Or, to be more accurate, a lot in over his head.

It seems like it’s been ages since he’s gone on a date, even though it’s only been a few months at most. He feels lost, like he’s completely unlearned everything he ever knew about girls.

He hates it, despises it with every fiber of his own being, but he also knows it’s true; he needs advice. And although he’ll never admit it to the little shithead’s face, there’s no one better he can think of going to than his very own protege. Who better to remind him of his own prowess than the person who learned everything they know from him?

One look at Dustin’s smug little face and Steve almost regrets it. Almost.

“Just can’t stay away, can you?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Steve rolls his eyes and gives the younger boy a little shove, camouflaging it with an affectionate pat on the back. “This is strictly business, Henderson.”

“Oh, is it now?” The younger boy’s voice takes on a smug tone as he folds his fingers together and leans back in his chair. “Well then, why don’t you have a seat? Step into my office.”

Steve rolls his eyes and slides into the booth, shooting a smile and a “thank you” to the kind waitress who delivers two milkshakes to their table.

Dustin takes his time and makes a meal of unwrapping his straw, feeding off of Steve’s clear impatience Steve’s fingers tap against the table, reminding himself that patience is necessary when you come to someone for a favor. It’s just that it’s Dustin, and Dustin knows exactly how to get under the older boy’s skin in the most annoying-yet-oddly-endearing fashion.

“So…” Dustin finally says after a lengthy sip of strawberry milkshake. “What brings you so humbly to me?”

“I’ve got a date.”

And Dustin, the little bastard–he laughs. A deep, rumbling belly laugh, so pure and unfiltered that the three other occupied tables in the diner pause their conversations to get a look at the boy clutching his sides.

Steve’s a little embarrassed by the attention, but even more embarrassed that Dustin’s reaction is so genuine. The fact that the idea of him having a date is so laughable is a bit of a punch to the gut. It hasn’t really been that long, has it?

When Dustin’s laughter finally dies down he realizes Steve’s face is completely serious, and it makes him giggle even more.

“Wait, you’re actually serious? Who on earth did you manage to pull?”

Steve’s nearly bashful as he says your name, and even more bashful when Dustin’s jaw visibly drops.

“No fucking way. I’d believe anyone else, but her? She’s like… hotter than Phoebe Cates. There’s no way you wouldn’t strike out with her.”

Steve’s immediately on the defensive. Is it really so hard to believe that he, former king of Hawkins High, could pull the most gorgeous girl in town?

But that’s just it. There’s really no one like you, not in his eyes. He’s admired you since freshman year and never once even tried with you because he knew he wasn’t worthy. You were always in the background–a beautiful, kind, smart, funny girl just out of his reach. Part of the reason he even asked you out was because he was so sure he would strike out. In the end, losing his confidence was exactly what he needed to pull the girl of his dreams.

And that’s why there’s so much riding on this. You’ve always been his biggest “what if”, the girl he wonders about when thinking that maybe not trying has been holding him back. And apparently, it has.

“Look, I don’t even know how it happened, okay? But she said yes, and… and I really don’t want to blow it.”

“Well duh. You’ll have to leave town if you blow it with her, you know that, right? If she doesn’t think you’re worth it, no one else in this town ever will again.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of!” Steve groans, slouching down so far in the booth that Dustin can just barely see his poor, overwhelmed face.

“Steve, listen…” Dustin’s voice takes on an almost fatherly quality, an omniscient tone that gives off the illusion of great hidden knowledge. He gets like this sometimes, and Steve’s not always sure that it is just an illusion. “Don’t let this go to your head, but you’re, like, one of the coolest guys I know. If she doesn’t like you… that’s her problem, not yours. Okay?”

Steve straightens in his seat, a little shocked to hear such kind words from a friend that he’s used to being mercilessly teased by.

“No, no, no, it’s going to your head. I take it all back. Forget I said anything.” Dustin’s hearty giggle makes Steve smile as he sets a wad of bills on the table and slides out of the booth.

“You’re not so bad Henderson, you know that?” He gives the younger boy’s full head of curls an affectionate ruffle. “Thanks, kid. I’ll radio later.”

Not that Steve didn’t have total faith in his young protege, but it’s still a relief that the pep talk turned out to be exactly what he needed to hear. Dustin’s right, after all. Steve’s worked hard to become the man he’s always wanted to be. He may not be dripping charisma or sex appeal the way he used to, but he’s much more comfortable in his own skin. That’s what counts, right?

And you really are his dream girl. The opportunity to take you out tonight, even if it ends up being your first and only date together, is an honor. He’s much less focused now on all the ways he could screw up, hyper-fixated on putting the effort in to make this the best night of your life.

That effort comes out in the carefully selected suit jacket he dons over his white button-up, the extra spritz of cologne, the careful touch-up shave to vanquish his five o’clock shadow, the extra ten minutes using the perfect amount of product in his hair so that it stays in place yet is still soft to the touch.

By the time he gets to Enzo’s (half an hour early, mind), he’s practically vibrating with nerves and anticipation. He’s never been much of an overthinker, but he sure is tonight. Is this place too much for the first date? Would you rather do something lowkey, like catch a movie or go for a walk in the park? He has to remind himself a couple of times that you agreed to this, that you wouldn’t have said yes if you weren’t interested in the arrangement.

To say he’s prepared for this is putting it lightly. He’s run through every possible scenario in his mind, gone over conversation starters and questions he wants to ask you over and over again until he knows exactly how he wants to phrase each thing.

And still, nothing could prepare him for when you walk through the door.

He has to physically restrain his jaw from dropping because in the moment he sees you, every well-planned thought and all etiquette is flushed down the proverbial pipes. You’re nothing short of breathtaking in a dress that hugs all the right curves and shows just enough cleavage to have him imagining what else there might be to see. Your hair is pinned back out of your face, eyes framed by just the slightest bit of makeup to make the color of your irises pop. He swears he’s never seen a shade quite like them. It’s like you move in slow motion as you approach him–he sees the entrance of the smoking hot love interest in every romantic comedy, complete with smoke and fireworks, as you move towards the table.

And then some sense of decorum returns to his addled brain, and he quickly shoots up so he can pull out your chair for you like a proper gentleman. He catches just the slightest whiff of your perfume, and he’s a goner. He’s ready to sign his life away to you, to yank his own heart out of his chest to offer to your careful hands.

He has to give his head a shake to compose himself before he goes any further off the deep end. No one’s ever thoroughly shaken him the way you have, and it’s been a matter of thirty seconds. It’s almost intimidating, the effect you have on him.

“You look… incredible,” he fumbles as he takes his seat across from you. “I mean, you always do, but… wow.”

The shy giggle you emit tugs at a heartstring he didn’t even know he had.

“Thank you,” you tell him with a genuine smile. “You clean up very well yourself.”

“I do like to put in some effort every once in a while.” He flashes the most charming smile he can muster, and just like that he’s back. His resolve to impress you is reinforced tenfold. You’ve shaken him, and it’s such an unfamiliar feeling that he’s practically bumbling. He wants to shake you just as badly.

The food’s delicious, and the conversation’s even better. He has a track record for taking out a more–for lack of a better term–bimbo-y type, and that’s definitely not you. You’re smart, you’re witty, but you don’t make him feel like an idiot. He’s so taken with you that he doesn’t even notice that three hours have passed until he looks around the room and notices that every table is now empty and bussed.

The waiter delivers the check, and Steve notices you gnawing on your lip.

“What’s on your mind?” He asks, trying not to be too prying.

“I don’t want this to be over yet.”

Steve smiles. He’s got you; hook, line, and sinker. He’s never been so sure of anything, and that surprises him. He’s used to dates who are easy to read and even easier to take home, and those aren’t the impressions you’ve been giving him. To know that you’re feeling exactly what he’s feeling is a huge confidence boost.

“I don’t either.”

Your hand is so small compared to his. That’s all he can think about as he strolls next to you, his fingers intertwined with yours. He’s always considered hand-holding to be child’s play, it’s never excited him before the way it does in this moment with you.

It’s pitch black in the park and he can hear the overlapping chirping of summer cicadas and grasshoppers, the perfect background noise now that the conversation has died down. It’s less about getting to know each other at this point and more just basking in each other’s presence, prolonging the inevitable because neither one of you can bear to call it a night when it’s been such a good few hours.

You’re shocked, to say the very least. Steve certainly has a reputation, and it’s not for being a romantic. Yet everything tonight has flown in the face of all the rumors you’ve been hearing since junior high. You figured he’d be a fun fling, and probably only one night at that–you’d made your peace with the idea. To find that he’s kind, considerate, funny, and can match your intellect and quick wit… it’s a very pleasant surprise. And that’s what has you out well past a decent hour, giddy over simply holding his hand like you’re a damned school girl all over again.

“I should probably let you go home,” Steve sighs wistfully. He hates to be the one to bring it up, but you’re on your fifth lap around the park and about to circle back to where your car is parked so now seems the best time.

You’re chewing your lip again, a thoughtful habit that makes his heart pound just a little bit harder.

Here’s the thing: you’re really not the bold type. You act confident, sure, but in practice it’s a lot more difficult for you. So no one’s more surprised than you are when you say, “You could come home with me. If you want.”

Steve’s definitely shocked, too. Less shocked at your proposition and more at the fact that he’s tempted to decline. Because no matter how much he’s been running through the back of his mind what you might look like under that gorgeous dress, he doesn’t want this to end there. For the first time in his life, he wants to find more meaning than sex out of a relationship. He doesn’t want to take you home and never see you again. He wants to take you out again, and again, and again, and again after that. He sees a future, for once, that doesn’t look dim and hopeless. That fact alone scares the shit out of him.

He realizes he’s waited way too long to reply and fumbles for an answer. “Of course I want to. I’d be an idiot not to. But…”

You chew that cursed bottom lip of yours again, and Steve has to focus on the obvious cue you’re giving him rather than the fact that he wants to be the next set of teeth around that lip.

He stops in his tracks, gently pulling on your hand to face him so he can take your other hand in his free one. “It’s not a bad but. I mean, I’m going to go home kicking myself for saying no because I really honestly do want to… well, y’know. But… I want to do this right with you. I want to take you out again. I want to get to know you and see where this goes. I can’t… I don’t want this to end tonight.”

He’s eternally grateful for how dark it is as he feels a flush consume his face. He can’t remember a time he’s been so honest and open, especially on a first date; but the look on your face tells him he’s done something right.

“Okay,” you tell him, squeezing his hands in yours. “You… honestly have no clue how nice it is to hear that.”

“Of course,” he continues, “if you just want me for my body, no hard feelings.”

You laugh at that, genuinely laugh, and Steve thinks it’s the best sound he’s ever heard.

“No,” you reassure him. “No, I… I wanna see where this goes, too.”

You’re stopped only a few paces from your car, and Steve knows with a twist of his gut that this is the end of the night. It makes his gut turn with disappointment, but also with anticipation of when he’ll see you next. Already, his mind is flooding with ideas of where he can take you and what you’ll do together.

You drop one of his hands so you can walk but keep a tight grip on the other until you get to your driver’s side door, hesitating outside because you’re still not ready for this to be over. It takes every ounce of restraint he has not to kiss you, unsure of if that would be moving too fast.

Thankfully, you make the call yourself. Leaning up on your toes, hands against his chest for balance, you press your lips against his and he has to summon every mite of strength not to moan. No one’s ever tasted so sweet, molded against him so perfectly. His hands drift from your shoulders down your arms, coming to rest on your waist as he pulls you just a little bit closer. It’s a fight of will not to overstep, to break off the kiss before it can become too heated. His mind is spinning by the time you break away. He’s aching for more, and he hopes you are too.

“Goodnight, sweetheart.”

“Goodnight, Steve.”

Your sweet voice replays in his mind all night, long after you’ve gotten into your car and driven away, long after he’s returned to his own vehicle and pulled the radio out from under the driver’s seat to check in with Dustin, long after he arrives home and soaks in a cold shower for longer than he probably should. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get your voice out of his head, and he couldn’t be any less upset about it.

He practically counts down the minutes until he sees you again. This time, he has a little less restraint. He greets you with a kiss–a sweet peck and a hand on your waist that leaves you aching for even more.

It’s a movie this time, a chance to enjoy each other’s company on a night you’re both too tired from working to engage in heavy conversation and getting to know each other further.

It starts with sharing popcorn, then holding hands, then somewhere along the way the film is completely forgotten in favor of your lips meeting his. His breath grows heavy as his hands hold your face, committing you to memory while resisting the urge to explore further. Your hands, meanwhile, are firmly on his thighs, gripping tightly to keep yourself steady as you do everything you can to keep yourself from crawling into his lap.

He whispers your name, and your grip on him tightens.

“W-we shouldn’t…” he murmurs, then gives up on the futile attempt at finishing his sentence so that he can pull you even deeper into the kiss as his tongue sweeps across your bottom lip.

It takes everything in him not to moan when your lips eagerly part to accept him.

Needless to say, once the credits start rolling you’re both more than a little hot under the collar.

“Let me buy you dinner,” Steve suggests as he woefully unwinds himself from you. Declining doesn’t even flicker through your mind as a possibility.

It’s not Enzo’s this time, but it doesn’t have to be. He could set a soggy peanut butter and jelly sandwich in front of you at this point and you’d still thank him for it. This time around, you’re not really as interested in the cuisine as you are just simply getting through this meal to what’s next. Because what’s next is all you’ve been thinking about since you walked through the doors the night of that very first date and saw Steve Harrington wearing a blazer for you. It’s a level of effort he’s definitely not known for–in fact, he’s built a reputation for putting in so little effort that it nearly made your jaw drop to see him trying. And it certainly made your heart skip a beat.

But then again, the Steve before you carelessly wolfing down his bacon cheeseburger seems very different from the Steve you knew in high school, even if you didn’t know that iteration as intimately as this one. That one was cool, collected, snarky and pompous and maddeningly desirable.

This Steve, your Steve, is nearly an exact foil. Much less cocky, a little less confident but more self-assured in the ways that actually hold meaning, less worried about what the people around him are observing of him than what you’re observing of him. He seems happier, more carefree, more eager to please others than simply himself. He’s grown so much in such a short amount of time, and you feel proud just for having the honor to witness it. Significantly more proud to be on the receiving end of his affections now that they hold the kind of value you’ve always wished they would.

He looks up and notices you staring at him while lost in thought, a small smile spreading across his lips as your eyes quickly dart away.

“What’s on your mind?” He questions as he licks a stray bit of ketchup from his thumb.

“Just… happy I’m here. With you.” It brings heat to your cheeks to admit it, but you don’t want him to go unappreciated in this moment.

It’s the right thing to say, because his smile grows even wider. “I’m happy too,” he admits. “I… I’ve wanted to ask you out for a while. Could never work up the courage, I guess.”

“Steve ‘the hair’ Harrington was intimidated by me?” You say it with a mock gasp, but your shock is more genuine than you give off. Never in a million years would you have thought that he, the man who could have whoever he wanted, would be worried over you saying no to him. It’s almost comical, especially considering the way you practically threw yourself at him on your first date. Of course then, you had no clue how much he’d developed as a person. You’re almost ashamed of your behavior now, as if you might’ve inadvertently been taking advantage of the new and improved Steve who isn’t just into you for a hookup.

He shrugs, nearly bashful at your teasing. “Never figured I was good enough for you. So I didn’t bother to try.”

You’re genuinely curious now, leaning in a little closer and brushing your fingers against his hand resting atop the diner counter. “What made you change your mind?”

“Honestly? I was so sure you’d say no that I asked just to give Robin a chuckle. She loves watching me get shot down.”

That makes you frown, and he’s quick to backtrack. “I wanted to! I just… I’ve had a bad track record lately. And you’re… you’re you. You’re the last person I should be worthy of.”

His eyes are quick to avert from your gaze, bottom lip tugged between his teeth as he contemplates whether he’s said too much.

“Steve…” you properly grab his hand now in the hopes that it’ll bring his eyes back to you, and it works. “You’re the only person I’ve deemed worthy in a long time, honestly.”

Steve Harrington is scaldingly warm. It’s one of many sensations forcing your mind into overdrive as he lays you delicately across the backseat of his beemer, one hand cushioning the back of your head while simultaneously deepening the already heated kiss and the other balancing his weight to lean over you in the cramped space without completely crushing you.

Your fingers tangle themselves into his soft brown locks, tugging ever-so-slightly as his tongue slips between your parted lips. He’s an eager explorer and you’re more than happy to let him take the lead, to show you all the skill you’ve heard so many whispers about.

You let out an involuntary moan as he wedges himself even closer to you, his body heat soaking through all the layers of clothing between the two of you and warming you all the way to your very bones.

You’re practically aching, ready to beg, and he knows it the second you wrap your legs around his waist in an attempt to get him even closer. If there’s one thing Steve Harrington’s good at, it’s assessing your needs. He pulls away just the slightest bit to adjust his position so he can get closer, wedging a knee between your legs to press right against your core, and it makes you jolt back against the car door at the same time his head hits the roof just a bit too hard.

You both pause for a moment, the reality of your situation hitting you simultaneously, and then you’re laughing. It’s light and edged with unresolved want, but it’s enough to fracture the tension of the moment.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “Shouldn’t have gotten so carried away. This isn’t how I want to do this.”

“No?”

“No. You deserve way better than this old beater,” he chuckles, then leans down to kiss you. This kiss is lighter, no longer edged with tension and lust. He kisses you just to kiss you–there’s no end goal to it this time.

“What could be better than a BMW?” You tease lightly, trying to reassure him that you’re less disappointed than you really feel.

“You know. Something romantic. A proper bed, rose petals, maybe a few candles…”

“I don’t need all that,” you try to tell him.

“I think I do,” he admits. And that’s enough to pull you back, to remind you that you need to be patient and grateful that he values you so much as to want to do this whole thing properly. That his affection is something to be cherished, not taken for granted.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I didn’t mean to be pushy.”

“Please don’t apologize.” He hesitates to untangle himself from you, even though he knows he needs to. “I want this just as bad. I just… I need it to be right.”

“As long as I have you, it’ll be right,” you reassure. “I hope you know that.”

He presses his lips to yours again, a slow and passionate kiss that he hopes communicates every bit of adoration he feels for you in this moment.

“It’ll be perfect. I swear,” he vows. You’ve never believed anything more whole-heartedly than you do this promise.

~~~

“Wait, you’re telling me that you literally had her under you and you stopped?” Robin’s halfway through chewing a mouthful of popcorn and the absolute carnage inside her agape mouth makes Steve give her a light shove.

“It’s not polite to talk with your mouth full, y’know.”

“It’s not polite to blue-ball either!” She shoots back in utter disbelief.

“How do you think I felt? I was this close,” he holds his thumb and index finger barely millimeters apart, “to sealing the deal.”

She just shakes her head. “You, Steve Harrington, are a genuine, bonafide idiot.”

She’s not telling him anything he doesn’t know. It’s been three days since the aborted fling in the backseat of his car, and he’s barely thought of anything else. Especially since you’ve been away from home both of the past nights when he’s called. He’s starting to worry you’ve gotten the wrong impression, that he’s not interested or that he’s toying with you. It’s the exact opposite. He wants nothing more than to know you in the most intimate way he can know you. But he needs it to be flawless. He needs it to be well thought-out and precisely planned, the most romantic event in the history of copulation. He won’t settle for anything less, not with you. You deserve perfection, and he won’t give you anything less.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” he tries to explain. “I want to more than anything. But if you’re gonna go to town on a goddess, you need to do some worshiping, y’know? I don’t feel like I’ve done enough.”

Your heart pounds in your chest as you hear this admission. You weren’t sure what to expect–worried that maybe visiting him at work was an overstep–but hearing him call you a goddess certainly wasn’t on your radar.

“You’ve done more than enough, Steve.”

The sound of your voice makes Steve jump and whirl around, oblivious to Robin’s sly smirk and mumbled excuse of needing to attend to something in the back room.

“H-hey!” He squeaks, then clears his throat in an attempt to get his tone back to its normal octave. “What… what’re you doing here?”

“Oh, just came to pick up a tape,” you tease. “But mostly I came to see you.”

“Me?” He takes a moment to ground himself, loosening his too-tight grip on the counter. “I mean… I tried to call you last night. And the night before?”

Your brow furrows. “Really? I didn’t get your message.”

Because he didn’t leave one. He clears his throat and says, “I just figured you were busy.”

“Oh, well, I volunteer at the animal shelter on Wednesdays, and last night was my friend’s 21st birthday. I’m sorry I missed you, though.”

He can tell that you’re really remorseful, and it makes his heart squeeze in his chest a little bit. He plays it off with a dismissive wave of his hand. “No, it’s fine, it’s… are you free tonight?”

You giggle at the abrupt redirect, but he’s played directly into your hand.

“Yeah, actually. I was hoping maybe you could help me pick out something for us to watch tonight? If you’re free too, that is.”

His dark eyes blink slowly, wondering if you’re aware of the implication behind your completely innocent words. You. Him. A movie. Alone. It’s enough to make his head spin.

“I’ve never been freer.”

Conveniently, you’ve come in close enough to the end of his shift that by the time you’re done combing through Family Video’s vast selection for the perfect film to use as background noise, Steve’s ready to clock out. And since you walked over after finishing your own shift at the local dollar store up the street, it works out perfectly that he can give you a ride straight to his place.

You only glance in the backseat once, but it’s enough to get your mind churning. Remembering the feeling of him, of what could’ve been. Anticipating what will be.

“Parents home?” You ask as he pulls into his driveway and parks, trying to sound casual and utterly failing.

“Nope,” he answers easily. “Took a detour to Cabo on their way home from Hawaii.”

“Sounds glamorous. You opted out?”

“I’d rather be here in Hawkins with you than on a beach alone anyday.”

He must know the effect his words have on you. Surely he can hear the way your heart picks up pace as he looks at you with those dark, affectionate eyes.

“So… this is home.” He waves a hand around the entrance hall like it’s a shabby nightmare, not the grandest house you’ve ever been in.

“I’m starting to understand why they used to call you King Steve.”

He’s almost embarrassed at the mention of that old high school nickname. “Trust me, this isn’t why.”

“Well, a palace does befit you,” you tell him with a smirk.

“Stop, you’re gonna make me blush.” The wink he shoots you makes your gut erupt with butterflies, a sensation that would normally make you a little uncomfortable. With Steve, you’d take the butterflies all day long.

He gives you a cursory and oversimplified tour of the ground floor before leading you upstairs, and suddenly he’s sheepish. It’s been a few moons since he shared his room with a girl, so the nerves are justified. But that’s too simple an explanation. You’re not a girl. You’re his dream, his muse, his–to re-quote himself–goddess. No one he’s ever cared about more has stood where you’re standing, and it terrifies him.

He hides it well, though, busying himself with making a comfortable nest for you in his bed before setting up the television set on the dresser against the far wall. If ever there was a time to regain his confidence, it’s now. He curses whatever god there is that he feels like a fumbling virgin in this moment when nothing is even happening, when just the anticipation is enough to make his hands tremble.

There’s no more stalling once you’re comfortable and the tape is set to play. His heart pounds to the steady and frantic rhythm of one of those heavy rock songs Dustin listens to now as he sits next to you, hands itching to take a hold of you but also eager not to move too fast.

Almost as if you can sense his hesitation, you reach over and take his hand. “Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Kiss me.”

And so he does, and the second his lips slot to yours all the worry and anxiety is gone. He’s Steve Harrington, and he knows what he’s doing. You’re you, and he’s wanted this for so long. After years of being lost, he deserves to finally find the love he’s been looking for. He’s never been so sure of anything as he is, in this moment of initial clarity, that he’s in love with you.

He can’t say it, not yet. He’s sure it’s too soon, and the last thing he wants is to scare you off. But he’s determined to prove it to you, and the only way besides words is action.

He can handle action.

There’s no more restraint or hesitation behind his touch. This is it, this is what you’ve both been waiting for. There’s no way in hell he’s not going to deliver now. He’s desperate for you, and it shows in the heavy way his hands drag along your curves whilst committing you to memory; the way his tongue languidly swipes across your bottom lip; the way he shifts effortlessly to hover over you even while deepening the kiss.

He’s overwhelming every single sense of yours in such a sudden fashion, and you wouldn’t want it any other way. Especially not when his hips meet yours in a deliciously slow grind and you finally get your first little taste of what’s to come.

He keens at the little breathless whimpers that leave your mouth, reading every single signal you provide him with and accommodating each. Moaning? He continues what he’s doing, intensifying if deemed necessary. Whining? He adds something, because he knows it’s hard to use your words when you’re wanting so badly. Squirming? He pays attention to the direction of your movement and pulls away or presses closer depending on necessity. It’s down to science for him; he only really cared about extracurriculars in school anyway, and this was certainly his favorite.

But then he comes to his senses–while he doesn’t pull away completely, he needs to clear his mind and he does so by letting up a bit, allowing the kiss to become languid and the heat to extinguish a bit. It only makes you whine more, and Steve curses his damned formula. You shouldn’t be part of an equation. You’re everything he’s ever wanted, and every aspect of your relationship so far has been a new experience for him. He needs this particular activity to be different too. No formulas or calculations. Just you and him and whatever happens naturally.

Clearly you can hear the cogs in his mind turning. You pull away with a concerned look on your face and ask, “what’s on your mind?”

Now’s not the time to hide anything from you, he reasons with himself. He wants to be authentic with you, and part of that means telling the truth, even if it’s not something particularly comfortable.

“I’m… falling into a routine. And I don’t want to,” he admits. He sighs and leans back, one hand dragging through his shaggy and disheveled hair, sure that he’s going to ruin the mood if he carries on like this. But he refuses to back away from the truth now. “This… it’s always been like…. Like a series of checkpoints. Boxes to check, y’know? Kiss you, take your clothes off, make you come, fuck you, say goodnight. And I don’t want… I can’t let it be like that with you. I need this to be… real. Not just some list to cross shit off of. I don’t–”

Steve takes a long, shaky breath before he can ramble on anymore. Never has someone so thoroughly gotten under his skin. He’s never felt so insecure, so unsure. It’s terrifying. The most terrifying part of it all, though, is that he likes it. He loves the feeling of the unfamiliarity, of doing this right. In a way, it’s almost like he’s doing all of this for the first time all over again. You’re his first date, first kiss, first time. All because he’s changed so drastically, because he’s not even remotely the same person he was just a year or two ago.

Your hands are so gentle as you cup his face, tenderly forcing his eyes to meet yours.

“Steve… we don’t have to do this, not if you’re not ready. I want to be with you, not just for this, but for everything. Everything that comes with you… that’s what I want. There’s no pressure. I would wait a hundred years for you to be ready so long as I could still have you.”

Steve’s breath shakes a little as he comprehends the gravity of your words. There’s nothing he can say that can properly convey the gratitude he holds for your words, so he says nothing at all.

In his silence, you continue. “You’re more than a body, you know that, right? You’re funny, and kind, and smart. Yes, smart, don’t look at me like that. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted to be close to. I just… I want to spend time with you. I want to watch stupid movies and eat diner food until we get sick and laugh at your stupid jokes… and maybe make love with you, sure, but that’s pretty low on the list as long as I just get to be with you.”

He doesn’t notice the tears until it’s too late–by the time you’re wiping them from the apples of his cheeks it’s far too late to take them back or hide them. With anyone else, he would be angry; at himself, for allowing himself to be so vulnerable. For allowing himself to be so emotional. With you, though… with you, his emotions make him feel strong.

For the first time since you walked into his life, he’s not scared of losing you.

“I love you,” he tells you. His voice is firm, as fierce as the kiss he presses to your mouth, as powerful as the waves of emotion vibrating through his very soul. “I love you so much.”

He barely gives you a chance to reply, as keen as he is on physically proving his love to you through myriad passionate kisses that leave you breathless. But when you finally get the chance to use your voice after a barrage of kisses that start to trail down your neck, you whisper, “I love you too.”

Four words, and they’re all he needs to quell every worry or fear he’s had over doing this relationship properly with you. Why should he have to worry, after all, when he’s already succeeded?

“I love you,” he whispers as he trails down your neck and to your chest, leaving tender love bites on the tops of your breasts once he’s properly liberated you from your shirt.

“I love you,” he mumbles through sucking a mark a few inches north of your navel.

“I love you,” he murmurs when his lips meet your waistband. His fingers make quick work of your pants as he scatters kisses over your stomach, unable to part his mouth from your skin for even a moment.

“I love you,” he affirms as his mouth meets your hot and waiting core.

There’s no more checklist. Because this isn’t simply sex, as it always has been for him in the past. This is love-making: the kind of sappy shit they talk about in all those Hallmark movies that he rolls his eyes at the sight of. It’s like losing his virginity all over again.

He understands the old adage of “the other half” now. You’ve ripped him to shreds and sewed him back together with strands of yourself. The end result is better than the original ever could’ve even dreamed to be. He’s sure he couldn’t possibly live without you now, that losing you would be like ripping out fresh and unhealed stitches.

You’re not sure how long he camps out between your trembling thighs, but it’s long enough for you to lose count of the number of times he pulls you apart–first with his languid tongue; then his long, curved fingers; then a combination of the two. It’s like he loses himself completely in your pleasure, not a single thought in his head except what he can do to bring you to the edge again, and again, and again.

You’re trembling with oversensitivity by the time his own needs overtakes his desperation to unravel you. So out of it that you feel drunk, like Steve’s laced you with absolute bliss so pure you can barely stand it.

You’re hardly present enough to appreciate the adonis before you when he finally undoes his own jeans, and that’s a damned shame because he’s so damned pretty. Long and thick, flushed at the girthy tip from his hitherto unacknowledged arousal. His lean thighs are pure muscle, and the dark thatch of hair that trails south from his navel makes your mouth water. He’s everything you dreamed he’d be and so much more.

“Steve…” You don’t know what else you can possibly say. All you can do is vainly hope that one whine of his name can convey all of the heat, frustration, tension, and above all longing, swirling through your head in the moment.

He breaks from his lustful reverie for a moment to smile as he leans in for another heated kiss; you think it’s safe to say you’ve gotten your point across.

He slows from his mania for a few moments, lips tender as they explore against yours once more. These kisses are languid, slow, yet no less heated. Even now, he’s trying to prove his love to you. As if you could somehow not believe him after everything that’s happened, every small moment you’ve spent with him witnessing how hard he’s trying for you.

Somewhere in between kisses he manages to wrestle a condom out of his nightstand, miraculously without ever breaking from your lips.

Now is where you cut in, finally fading out of your over-pleasured fugue and back to reality. You take the little foil packet from his hands and tear it open, eager for this small chance to finally get a hand or two on him.

He lets out the most gorgeous noise you’ve ever heard as you roll the rubber down his length; a deep, earthy, diaphragmatic moan just from the simple touch of your hand. You want to touch him even more, to wrest out more of those sounds from him; to see what other undiscovered responses you can pull from him as you pleasure him. But you know that now, he needs to set the pace. He believes he has something to prove, and you’re more than happy to let him prove it. There will be plenty of other opportunities to have him completely at your mercy, anyway.

There’s no way to describe the feeling as he slides into you. It’s more than bliss, more than euphoria, more than earth-shattering toe-curling mind-altering pleasure. It’s nothing more than feeling whole. Of never knowing you were missing a part of yourself until it’s suddenly returned to you. Of never knowing what home felt like until this exact moment.

Maybe it’s overdramatic. Maybe it’s outlandish and outrageous and a million other adjectives to feel something so overpowering and overwhelming from such a seemingly simple physical act. But in this moment, you know you’ve never felt anything as right as being connected to Steve in this way.

His lips hardly leave yours while he rolls his hips against you, easily finding the perfect angle to make your breath hitch and your hands scrabble for purpose.

It admittedly doesn’t last long, but it doesn’t have to. Once you start to tighten and pulse around him, he’s a goner–deep purposeful thrusts turning to hard, arrhythmic plunges in desperate search of release.

You’re still shaking from your high when he slowly pulls out of you. He keeps you close, arms linked around your waist and dragging you to lay on his chest as he flops back against the pillows.

You’re not sure how long you lay like that, with Steve whispering sweet nothings into your hair and pressing absentminded kisses to your face. All you can really focus on is one all-consuming, life-changing fact.

“I love you, Steve Harrington.”

“I love you too,” he whispers back. He kisses you again, just a simple peck on your lips, and you know that he’s telling the truth. It’s an eternal truth: one that can’t be changed or altered in any way. Steve Harrington loves you with every fibre of his being, and he will for the rest of his life–even if you’re both blissfully unaware of it for now.

THE END

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viennakarma · 1 year ago

Text

Satisfaction [Part 2]

PART 2 OF SATISFACTION

Summary: Four times Lewis tried to apologize, and one time he didn't need to.

Word count: 4.3k

Tags: female!reader, apologetic!Lewis (finally), physiotherapist!reader, a little bit of romance, Lewis is trying, reader is more forgiving than the author would be, cursing, a bit angsty, happy ending, not beta read

Relationship: Lewis Hamilton x Reader

Note: I'm so sorry for taking so long with this! I had a writer's block specifically with this one. For everyone who sent me asks about it, I read everything, sorry if I didn't reply to all! Luckily, one dramatic anon sent me an ask saying they would graduate college with a doctorate before this came out, and it made me laugh out loud BUT it actually sparked something in my brain and I managed to write, lol. So, thanks, Dramatic Anon, I owe you one :D

I'm sorry if it's rushed or full of mistakes (haven't had the time to proofread).

Find me on Twitter!

“Hey, Lewis! How are you doing?” Angela said as soon as she picked up his call, and Lewis held his breath before answering.

“Yeah, uh, I’m alright-”, he scratched his face nervously.

“I hope you’re not giving Y/N a hard time anymore, yeah?” Angela joked a little, her voice light.

“Oh. You know about that?”

“Yeah, I called her a few days ago to check in how’s the work and she mentioned you were not very receptive,” Angela said and Lewis noticed that, even saying that, you didn’t call him what he was. A complete prick. “And since she didn’t call again, I assumed things got better between you two.”

“Well, about that-” Lewis sighed, not knowing.

“What?” Angela paused, her voice suddenly serious again.

“She resigned. And it was entirely my fault.” He ripped the band-aid off.

“Lewis, what the actual fuck?!”

“I was awful to her. Way worse than I assume she told you. And before you call me every name under the sun, I need to contact her and apologize. Unfortunately, she blocked my number now, so if you can kindly let me know her address, so I can apologize.”

“You better fix this mess, Lewis.” Angela said before ending the call, as less than a minute later, a text popped up on his screen, your address. Which was in London, not very far from his own neighborhood.

Lewis sent flowers to your place with a small note apologizing and asking you to unblock him. When you didn’t answer and didn’t unblock him, he called the florist he had ordered to double check if you had received the flowers. You did. So you just didn’t want to talk to him. He kept sending a bouquet every day for the next three days. On the fourth day, as he was back home, he decided to go to your place himself.

He brought another bouquet, ringing the bell in your house. He rose the bouquet to cover his face, and he heard your voice, opening.

“Hi there, buddy! If I give you a hundred pounds, would you not bother bringing these flowers here? Just- throw them on the bin or something-” You stopped abruptly as the flowers lowered revealing not the young delivery man who’s been bringing flowers to your place every single day, but Lewis Hamilton himself.

“So you’re not even receiving the flowers?” He asked, sounding hurt.

“I got the first one, and I have no interest in anything that comes from you,” you managed to say, looking him straight in the eyes.

You looked exhausted, your hair was messy and your face lacked any makeup. But worse of all, you looked hurt and angry.

“Wait, let me just- let me apologize, I can explain even if it’s not-” He dropped the bouquet, pleading.

“Just fuck off, ok? You have not a single reason to be here today.”

“I was an ass to you and-”

“And now we’re nothing. We are just strangers, nothing more, nothing less. Fuck off!” You said and didn’t even give him a second before slamming the door on his face.

II.

So the flowers were a no.

And he wasn’t sure where to go from that, since he couldn’t come up with any other way to make you at least give him a chance to talk.

He was still trying to think of something when he crossed paths with Oscar Piastri during media day. Lewis stopped dead in his tracks as he saw the rookie driver munching on a little protein bar, the package showing it was the same as you had offered him weeks earlier.

“Hey, there, Oscar!” Lewis greeted him, “if you don’t mind me asking. Where did you get this?” He pointed to the little package in his hand.

“Oh, Lando’s new PT! She’s covering for Jon as he’ll be a few weeks on paternity leave.”

“Oh, is she here?”

“At McLaren, yes.”

Lewis nodded, going straight there, not bothering with explaining why he was there just walking in. He found you in a small room with Lando. You were guiding him through a stretching session with a silicone stretching. Lando was telling you something and you were laughing, a hand on his shoulder as Lando pulled his arms in and out.

“-no way you said that! Poor thing, she must have been scared!” You said, then you two laughed.

You were looking healthier than the last few times he had seen you. You looked like you had been sleeping well, and your hair was pretty, and you were wearing make up.

As Lewis approached, and you noticed his presence, you stopped laughing, face getting serious and focused on Lando.

“Oh, hey man!” Lando greeted him, smiley and unaware of the thing between you two.

“Hi. Y/N, can I talk to you? I just need one minute then I’ll leave you alone.”

You scoffed but didn’t look at him, and Lando looked from your face to Lewis’ confused with the tension suddenly so thick he would be able to cut it with a knife.

“Y/N, can you just-”

“You’re all good, Lando. Tomorrow we do another session an hour before Free Practice, and then a stretching session between FP1 and FP2.”

Lando nodded, unsure of what to do so he just watched as you turned away and packed your bag, leaving with long strides through the door.

“Mate, I don’t know what the fuck you did, because I’ve never seen her be mean ever since I met her. Good luck, though, seems like you need it.” Lando said, leaving to the opposite side.

Lewis muttered “fuck” before going after you. He found you outside the motorhome, and ran up to block your path, but he miscalculated and you ended up running straight into him.

“What the fuck? Dude, just leave me alone!” You tried walking past him but he blocked you again.

“Please, I’m so sorry! Really, I am, I was such a dick to you and you didn’t deserve any of that.”

You didn’t look at his eyes, adjusting your bag as you sighed.

“I just- I don’t understand why you are doing this. I’m no one, I’m nothing. Just go on about your life.”

“No, no- You’re not nothing. I’m really sorry for the way I treated you when all you offered me was kindness.”

“Fine! Ok.” you muttered, seemingly exhausted, “Can I go now?”

He knew you didn’t actually forgive him, so he just let you go because he didn’t want to pressure you into something you were visibly not ready for. It didn’t mean he would give up, just that he needed a different approach.

III.

Lewis managed to find out that you’d stay a few more weeks working with Lando, so he arranged a well crafted plan to have you listen to him.

Desperate times asked for desperate measures.

So he managed to talk Lando into letting him drive you to the track that weekend, you two would have time to talk on the drive. He waited behind the wheel watching as you went to the backseat to leave your bags, then you opened the passenger door, smiling and chatting. But you stopped smiling as soon as you sat down and noticed him.

“What are you doing here?” You asked, sounding more annoyed than angry.

“I’m your ride to the track today.”

“I’d rather not,” you muttered, removing the seat belt you had just put on.

“There’s no one else to take you there, please, just let us go,” he asked softly. You sighed, putting on the seat belt again and he smiled reaching the cup holder and offering you a cup of coffee, “got you a coffee.”

“Thanks,” you took it begrudgingly, but as you took a sip, you noticed it was your favorite, “how do you know I like this coffee?”

“You told me, during one of our sessions.”

“I thought you weren’t listening to a single word I said,” you scoffed, almost disdainful. He took it, because taking your anger was little compared to what he did to you.

“I listened to you.”

“Weird way of showing, then.”

You stared at the road he was softly driving. You didn’t like his company, that much was clear, but he was on a mission, and he would be damned if he wasn’t going to properly apologize.

“I don’t even know why you treated me like trash,” you muttered suddenly, sniffling like you were trying to contain the tears, “just- I was so happy, you know? I’ve always been a fan of Formula 1, watched it growing up and everything. Then I get here all happy to achieve the greatest dream and I just get treated like shit from day one. I tried to be funny, I tried to be kind, I tried to be silent, and none of it worked. I don’t understand what you want from me now! I’m a person too, ok? I get sad and frustrated, and I have my own problems, but I don’t go around making everyone else’s lives shit just because I’m mad!”

“Yes, you are right. I treated you like shit when you never deserved it. I really regret it, for what it's worth,” He sighed, looking at you for a moment before focusing on the road, “my life was shit. I know it’s not an excuse, but it’s the truth. I was just coming out of a relationship that I thought meant a lot to me, and I just lost Angela, who is one of my closest friends, and I was on the verge of losing my seat. It felt like everything was going wrong for a few weeks.”

That made you pause, turning to stare at him.

“What do you mean, losing your seat?” You sounded genuinely curious, and even a little worried.

“The negotiations for a new contract weren’t going ahead, and I was really worried Mercedes was going to get rid of me.”

“But you’re like- one of the GOATs! Why would they lose you?” Now you sounded exasperated, like you couldn't believe that.

“Well, now everything is alright and signed, but it felt like I was really at risk back then.”

You stayed silent for a few minutes, mulling over his words, trying to wrap your head around his excuses. You were thoughtful the rest of the drive, until Lewis pulled up in a parking lot at the track. Finally, you nodded to yourself.

“I forgive you, Lewis. Just- Don’t do that to anyone ever again, it’s not cool,” you said, unlocking the seat belt, “thank you for the ride and for the effort in apologizing. Goodbye, Lewis.”

You took your bags from the backseat and left after waving at him again. It felt like a closed chapter to you, and you could bury whatever resentment you felt towards him. It was freeing in a way.

IV.

Lewis didn’t see you for a couple more race weeks, despite casually walking in front of McLaren’s garage and hospitality. He couldn’t catch a glimpse of you and he genuinely worried that your last goodbye was definitive.

Fortunately he saw you again late at night after a race. Almost everyone had left already, and Lewis had a long debriefing meeting with his team, so it was sheer luck to find you on the way to the parking lot, where you were standing against the wall, hugging yourself under a big coat and holding your bags. You seem worried and unwell.

“Hey,” he said, trying to sound like he wasn’t ecstatic to see you again, “are you ok?”

“Yeah, um- I missed my ride back to the hotel, so I’m trying for an uber or something,” you said, but Lewis unnoticed how you were pale and your lips looked dry.

“Are you sure you’re ok? You look like you’re about to pass out.” He pointed, and you breathed in, slowly. You felt very, very cold, with shivers up your body that you miserably trying to contain.

“I’ve got a little fever,” you mentioned, finally. Lewis raised his hand and touched your forehead, feeling it way more warm than a little fever.

“Little fever? You’re burning!” He exclaimed, putting his own Mercedes coat over you, then taking your bags and putting them over his shoulder, “Come on, I’ll give you a ride back.”

“You don’t have to, really-”

“I’m not leaving you here in the late hours of the night while having a fever! Now, come on!”

He held your forearm, worried you’d stumble and fall or something. With a big umbrella to face the rain, he guided you to his car, where a driver was waiting. The two of you sat on the backseat as Lewis instructed the driver to take you to the hotel.

“Should we take you to see a doctor or something?” Lewis asked.

“No, don’t worry, I already took an antipyretic. It should work soon.”

Back in the hotel, Lewis accompanied you up to your room even when you wanted to refuse, but he said he was worried, and it felt honest, so you let him take you up. He didn’t let you say anything as he pushed the door of your room and walked you inside.

“Are you still feeling cold?” He asked.

“Yes,” you put your bags away, but you watched as Lewis went into your luggage, “um- excuse me?” you crossed your arms, annoyed at him going through your things.

“Change into this, it will keep you warm,” he tossed you a sweater and matching pants, “I’ll ask room service for soup, so you can warm up.”

Huffing, you went into the bathroom and changed, glad because you were in fact a little bit warmer. You wore socks for the cold and got into bed, where Lewis helped tuck you in, pulling the duvet tight around you.

“Why are you doing all this? We’re just strangers, Lewis.” You shook your head, watching as he walked around the bed and sat beside you over the duvet.

“We’re not strangers, and I wanted to help,” he shrugged.

“We are strangers, we know nothing about each other,” you muttered.

“Well, I’m Lewis, my favorite color is purple and I have a dog named Roscoe,” he said which made you chuckle a little, “there, not strangers anymore.”

“Well, I’m Y/N, my favorite color is yellow and I don’t have a pet yet, but hopefully soon.”

Lewis eyed you carefully.

“I know you’re with McLaren on a temporary contract, so I was wondering if you’d be willing to come back to Mercedes after that,” he said, slowly. You sighed, shaking your head.

“I won’t go back, Lewis.” You said softly, for him to know you weren’t angry anymore, but the world had spun, life went on…

“But- Ellie said you were such a big fan! It’s ok if you don’t want to work with me anymore, I’ll understand. But I don’t think it’s fair that you lose your chance in such a big dream because of an asshole like me!”

“There are always other dreams to have, Lewis. When a door closes, others may open,” you untucked your arm so you could hold his arm in comfort. He held your hand, and when he felt your cold hand, he rubbed it softly, to warm you up.

“It’s not fair-”

“Lewis, I’m moving to Madrid in a few weeks.”

He stopped, visibly deflated hearing your words.

“I’m so sorry, I should’ve never-”

“Lewis, it’s not because of you,” you pushed the duvet, freeing yourself so you could sit up beside him, backs to the headboard, “I got an amazing offer from Real Madrid. I’m gonna join their PT team.”

“Oh.”

His stomach dropped once again, thinking that life would lead you two different paths, new future, new plans, and Lewis won’t even be able to make it up to you through time as he was hoping for. Lewis expected that, with you coming back to Mercedes, he would have time to apologize with actions, more than just words.

“They’re my favorite football team, and I’ve always dreamed of getting there,” when you noticed how down he was with the news of your departure, you pressed his hand a bit more, “I told you there are many dreams to achieve.”

“You wouldn’t have to worry about it if I hadn’t been so-”

“That’s enough, Lewis, it has nothing to do with you. This is my choice, something that I also dreamed of. It’s not the end of the world. If anything, there are lessons in what we went through.”

He wanted to ask you to stay, to give him and the Mercedes dream one more chance, but he knew it would be selfish of him to ask that. And he wasn’t willing to be selfish with you anymore. He would only have maybe a few more weeks with you, that he intended to nurture a friendship with you.

When your soup arrived, he stayed and watched you eat, and you thanked him profusely as the meds started working and you felt the fever dissipating.

Lewis ended up going back to McLaren to find you all the time. Sometimes he brought a coffee for you, some other times he just wanted to invite you to lunch, or he wanted a protein bar, and after almost two weeks of that, his excuses ran dry and he only said he wanted to check on you. and he had been checking on you for a couple more weeks now.

“So…” Lando muttered with a knowing smirk, “you and Lewis, uh?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you said, as you spotted Lando from behind, analyzing his squats.

“You went from hating him to becoming his friend pretty quickly,” Lando pointed.

“And…?”

“I don’t know but he’s here all the time to see you.”

“Nah, he’s just passing by.”

Lando let go of teasing you and switched topics to talk about something else for the remainder of your session. After you finished and Lando went for the post race debrief, you were getting ready to leave when Lewis found you again.

“What do you want?” You squinted your eyes at him. Lando’s teasing voice still in your head.

“Moody, are we?” Lewis joked, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

“Lewis.”

“Fine, fine! I’m taking you to dinner later today, ok?”

“Are you asking me out or demanding?” You frowned, pretending to be moody.

“I’m inviting you and implying I’m not taking no for an answer,” He winked.

“Lewis, I don’t think we-”

“Think of it as a farewell, celebratory dinner, yes? You’re leaving so soon to Madrid! Pretty please?” He joined both hands like he was begging.

“Fine. Stop pouting.” You rolled your eyes and he giggled, before leaving.

He texted you two hours later saying he was coming to pick you up. You dressed cozy and comfortable, since it was absolutely not a date. He texted you to let you know he was downstairs when you were finishing with your hair. As soon as you got in the car, you checked Lewis’ outfit.

“Is this ok?” You asked, pointing at yourself.

“It’s perfect.”

Lewis drove for forty minutes to the next town over. In the end, he took you to a cozy restaurant, small, a little cramped but so familial and cozy. You two sat in a corner booth, far from the windows. You went over the menu as Lewis explained that this place’s food tasted homemade and they also had vegan options, so he always went there whenever he was in that part of Italy.

You told Lewis everything about your move, how you had found a great apartment close to work, how you had enrolled in Spanish classes to start a month after your arrival, and everything.

After a hearty meal and chatting a lot, you two decided to go for a walk to eat some ice cream. The air was windy but not very cold, so you just walked side by side a little late at night.

“Are you sure nobody will see us?” You looked around to see if anyone had recognised him or had taken pictures.

“Yes, it’s very discreet in this part of town. Besides, it’s a little late, so not many people are around.”

“This is a very good gelato, Lewis! Thanks for taking me out today.” You muttered as the two of you walked around a big, dark park. You stood under a lamp post, finishing the last of your ice cream.

“How are you feeling about Madrid?” He asked you, looking interested.

“Nervous. Excited. I don’t know.” You whispered, smiling, you held the lamp post and let it take your weight as you flung around, all smiley because of the bit of wine you had at the restaurant, “It’s like a new adventure. You know when you’re about to do something that might be risky but gratifying? You’re scared but you have to-”

As you completed a full 360 around the lamp post, you were met with Lewis walking up to you and kissing you. He pressed his lips to yours, firm but tender, and it took you a while to assimilate what was happening. You held his coat and pushed him away only enough to break the kiss. The lime gelato kiss that had your stomach full of butterflies, and your heart beating almost out of its cage.

“Lewis-” you shook your head, still confused.

“Sorry, I- I just couldn’t pass on the opportunity,” he sighed and his breath fanned your cheek.

“We shouldn’t,”

“Why not?” He raised one hand to cradle your face, his thumb running your cheek.

“Because we started too messy. And- and I’m leaving soon. We don’t need to complicate things.”

You whispered, still not pulling away fully. You wanted it, so bad. But you knew you couldn’t get tangled in a messy situationship right before leaving. He was tempting, but you weren’t willing to risk whatever time was left of your silly little friendship.

So you took a step back. Still, you took his hand in yours, letting his warmth engulf you.

“Sorry,” he cleared his throat, but you just smiled at him, seeing how he was memorizing your face, and how your eyes were shining bright for him.

“It’s ok. Just, wrong place and wrong time, right?”

He gulped, nodding.

You didn’t kiss again, but Lewis held your hand the whole drive back to Monza.

Understandably, Lewis didn’t come back for your last week at McLaren. Despite being a little hurt about his absence, it didn’t really upset you, deep down you knew that it was better like this. The distance would make the goodbye easier for the man who wormed his way into your life. The whole team at McLaren gave you a farewell cake, which was sweet considering you were just a temporary hire.

You had tears in your eyes saying goodbye to the team and to the formula 1 track.

After that, you went back to London to finish packing, and shipping a few of your furniture and belongings. The dinner with your family and closest friends was filled with tears, and you finally caught up with Angela, explaining everything that had happened.

When the day came, your parents and siblings took you to the airport and you said goodbye with teary eyes and a heavy heart.

You were about to board when a sudden commotion caught your attention, and from between the crowd Lewis Hamilton emerged, running towards you as if he were in a marathon. Confused and shocked, you waited for him to get closer, and as soon as he stopped in front of you, he held your face with both hands and pulled you in a kiss. After two seconds, you returned the kiss, deepening it by opening your lips. He devoured you for a couple more seconds, before pulling away when you were both panting.

“Lewis? What the fuck?”

“This doesn’t have to be a goodbye, right? We can- I don’t know, we can figure it out,” He muttered, face close to you.

“Lewis,” you hesitated, “I’m moving away. We’ll spend most of out time in different time zones-”

“Wouldn’t you like to try? It’s better to try than spend our lives haunted by what ifs” His argument was convincing. And the fact that he was just centimeters from your face, and the fact that you had just kissed and his cologne was divine… Very tempting.

“Lewis, the next time you cause a scene in front of an entire airport, I’m killing you,” you whispered, pecking his lips once more as the crowd dissipated of people boarding the plane.

“I wanted it to be memorable, like a romcom.”

“You’re annoying, that’s what you are. You’re lucky you’re handsome” You rolled your eyes, but Lewis could still see the big smile on your face, eyes glinting.

“Is that a yes to my question?”

“One date, Hamilton. And we’ll see where it will go from that” You smiled, pushing his chest, taking a step back.

“I’m going to Madrid as soon as the triple header is over,” He promised, pulling you close again by the waist.

“You better! I don’t know, maybe I will meet a handsome Spaniard,” You joked, playing hard to get. You closed the distance so you could whisper in his ear, “You better work if you want any prize, pretty boy.”

He gasped at your seductive words, and you pushed him away. He smiled at you. Pulling one of his necklaces, he put it around your neck, a pearl one, very beautiful. The airport called all the passengers for the flight.

“A promise. Yeah?” He said, holding the necklace softly.

“Yeah. See you soon?” You nodded.

“See you soon.”

He watched as you walked away, and before boarding, you turned around and blew him a kiss. He laughed, pretending it hit him right over his heart.

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#f1 fanfic #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 fic #fic talk #f1 #lewis hamilton x reader #lewis hamilton x you #formula one #formula 1

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starsstuddedsky · 7 months ago

Text

Needles and Knives

red hood!jeno x doctor!reader

...

“Don’t you dare die,” you say, gripping the scalpel.

“Already did that,” Jeno mutters, eyes fluttering. “Didn’t agree with me.”

...

summary: Jeno’s plans never included you yet somehow you worm your way into his life. Being a vigilante isn’t easy - but neither is loving one.

genre: angst except i can’t stop them from making jokes so like fun angst. little bits of fluff here and there

warnings: gore, mentions of death, violence, cursing

wc: 16k

a/n: dc fans i am so sorry. my knowledge of these characters comes from wikipedia. medical workers i am so sorry. the medicine in this is NOT accurate. if ur neither maybe you can fully enjoy this fic. i hope you do :) this is as proofread as its going to get..... as always i appreciate any sort of feedback you can give. i hope this story leaves you as delusional about jeno as i am <3

Not for the first time, you open the door to your apartment to find a man covered in blood on your couch. At least he managed to keep it off the floors this time.

You can just see the back of his head from the doorway, black hair sticking up from where he slouches on the couch. The head seems to be intact, which is a bit of a relief—being a surgical intern means you’ve become numb to gore, but not fully immune to the nastiness of patching up a tear in his scalp.

“Still alive?” You ask as you kick off your shoes. Your feet ache from standing for the past eight hours.

Jeno huffs a humorless laugh. “More or less.” He twists to look at you, holding up a very sad looking plant. “Which is more than I can say for this poor thing.”

You drop your bag behind the couch and cross to stand in front of him, his head swiveling to follow you. He sets the dead succulents down on the side table. The tuft of white that hangs over his forehead bounces with the movement, stark against the rest of his black hair.

His shirt is already off, discarded to the side. At work, you’ve become just as numb to bodies as you have to gore. You haven’t quite managed that with Jeno despite seeing him shirtless on the regular since he seems to find himself covered in blood on your couch at least once a week. Still, you can’t really be blamed for being a little flustered when he looks like… Well, that. He’s got more abs than ribs and broad shoulders that give way to thick arms of pure muscle. But you can never truly ogle because he inevitably is covered in too much blood for you to ignore.

“I think I just popped the stitches,” he says, referring to the wound on his stomach that is once again bleeding. “No new shit. I think.”

“I don’t think that’s actually any better,” you say. “You know we usually tell patients to refrain from strenuous activity after they’ve been stitched up.” You retrieve the medical bag you definitely don’t keep stocked from the supply closet at Gotham City Hospital.

“They usually get pain meds, too,” Jeno grumbles, even though he’s never once complained about the actual pain of being stitched back together.

You kneel in front of him, focusing on what was once a deep gash. He showed up with it a couple days ago, spewing more blood than he physically should be able to produce. It’s already half healed, though the new stitches will still help.

“They usually aren’t getting blood on my couch either,” you say. “We can do this all day.”

Jeno doesn’t answer, staying quiet long enough for you to peek at him and make sure he hasn’t passed out from some injury you don’t know about. Instead you find his dark eyes, filled with an intensity that wasn’t there when you were children. You still find it hard to believe the kid that walked with you to school every day for three years has grown up into this—all hard lines and guarded expressions. Every time you look into those eyes you are reminded how little you know about him.

Here’s what you do know: Jeno and his family disappeared when you were twelve. Vanished in the middle of the school year, leaving the house next to yours half full of their belongings in the flight. And then you didn’t see him for another twelve years, long enough for you to graduate high school, and then college, and then med school. Long enough for you to get a prestigious internship in the surgical program at Gotham City Hospital, which had you moving three states over into an apartment you had to rent without even doing a walkthrough. It’s this apartment—the one that he sits in now—that brought Jeno back to you. Again, he’s become the boy next door, though you still can’t reconcile your memories of the little boy with this man, who never smiles. You barely recognized him. But he recognized you, and even though he didn’t seem all that interested in having friends, he found out you were a med student and just happened to need stitches. And then he needed help with a broken wrist. And then a black eye. And then, and then.

It didn’t take you long to figure out he’s Red Hood, one of the newer vigilantes of Gotham City. Or, more accurately, it didn’t take you long to figure out he’s a vigilante. It did take a while to figure out Red Hood, but his eyes eventually gave it away. One look told you he’s cold on the inside. One look told you he’s a killer.

(Plus you’ve seen the now-iconic leather jacket hanging in his entryway.)

But though you can’t call his eyes warm now, they aren’t cold either. He regards you with a softness you’ve never seen before, or maybe just never noticed. You duck your head and turn back to the stitches.

“If you pull these again, you’ll be sewing them up yourself,” you mutter.

“Well, how else am I supposed to see you?” Jeno asks. “You only ever make time for me when I’m bleeding.” Despite his earlier complaints, he doesn’t flinch as you begin the sutures. In fact, he doesn’t show any sign that he’s even noticed.

You roll your eyes. “That's because I took an oath. Something about saving lives, and something about ‘no matter how much I want to take a hot shower and pass out for the next twelve hours, I’m legally obligated to keep my weird neighbor alive when he shows up begging for help.’”

“Who said anything about begging?”

You pause, needle in hand. “I can leave you like this, you know. You can finish it yourself if you really want to.” And you know he can. You’ve seen the scars. So many scars, which tell the story he hasn’t told you: the oldest on his forearm, perfectly straight, the result of a real surgery; the thick ones on his back that look like they were never stitched up; the cut on his arm that looks like it tore through muscle yet was carefully stitched up; the scar on the back of his neck that looks like it should have broken his neck; and the angry red scar on his left knee that he said he stitched up himself a couple months before you moved in next door.

You open your mouth to tell him he’s really on his own now, but Jeno says, “I guess I can beg.”

You pause, then say. “That’s just terrible.” You have to look away so you continue the stitches. “You can do way better than that.”

“Oh, YN, great saver of lives,” Jeno says, “please do me the great honor of stitching me up. Again.”

You hum. “Better but still room for improvement.”

“I would die without you. I would get on my knees if I could. Please, please, do not stop stitching me up.”

You grin at him and almost get a smile back, his eyes truly warm. You take it as a win—or at least a vast improvement from how he was two months ago. You finish the stitches, sitting up straight.

“I don’t suppose you’ll sit still long enough to let these actually heal, will you?” Not that you know how long that is. You noticed a while back that most of his injuries heal far faster than they should. He shouldn’t need to come to you for minor injuries yet he does, over and over again. It doesn’t make any sense, but as long as he keeps showing up on your couch, you’ll keep taking care of him.

Jeno looks at you like he wants to say something but isn’t sure if he should. Maybe this is it. He’ll finally tell you exactly how he gets his scars. How he became the Red Hood.

Instead, he says, “Nah, probably not.”

You sit back on the couch beside him, sighing. “I watched a seven hour surgery today, and you know what I learned?”

“Hm?” He turns, cheek resting on the couch. For a moment you see the boy again, cast in gold from the afternoon sunlight. You can just picture his smile, the way his whole face melts into a gooey happiness. You blink and he’s gone.

“Surgeons are dicks,” you blurt out, forgetting what you were going to say. “They never want to believe patients, and I get it, sometimes they’re annoying and think they know best, but this girl came in three months ago complaining about pain and Dr. Park called her a junkie. She came back in today and collapsed in the waiting room because he never actually examined her.

“She was having a heart attack, and if he just listened the first time, it might have been salvageable, but the second one ripped her heart to shreds. Dr. Nakamoto said he’d never seen someone survive a heart that looked like that.”

“But she did survive?” Jeno asks.

“Yeah,” you say. “For now. She needs a heart transplant, though, so it’s a waiting game.”

He nods.

“I don’t get why Dr. Park or any of the other doctors couldn’t run a simple EKG. It’s not difficult and it would have saved her life but they took one look at her and assumed she was a junkie,” you say, “and I can’t even complain about it because Dr. Lee will just say some shit like ‘medical decisions are more difficult than you think’ because that’s easier than actually checking if his surgical team gives a shit about their patients beyond death rates.”

You sigh. “The worst part is, they aren’t even bad doctors. They know the medicine, and the procedures they can do—it’s really incredible. I don’t know, sometimes I worry you can only be good at medicine or good with patients, and it’s impossible to be both.”

“You really think that?”

“I don’t know.” You shrug. “I’m just tired.”

Jeno nods, letting silence settle between you. It’s far too comfortable to just sit with him like this, a peaceful solidarity you’ve only ever felt with him. You won’t give it meaning, won’t think about it any more than another afternoon on the couch together. That’s all this is.

“I should take a shower,” you say.

“I should get back to my place,” Jeno says. Neither of you move.

Lee Jeno doesn’t consider himself to be consumed with rage, despite what the headlines say. Yeah, the mask is intense, but he doesn’t use it to incite fear among all those who look upon his face. He just needed to keep his face hidden from Bruce (and, as much as it pains him to admit Bruce might be right about anything, he can’t deny that keeping his identity hidden is ultimately the right move).

He tosses the magazine on his desk. He’s got to stop reading the tabloids. They’re rotting his brain. But somehow they’re the only reliable source on the current crop of Joker’s little worshippers. Jeno still can’t believe it took him six months to realize the ads were calling for new recruits to the cult.

He feels the pit of anger, deep in his stomach, writhing at the thought of that man. Revenge would be too kind. Jeno will take him down, no matter what.

Maybe he’s a little consumed with rage.

But he can’t ignore the recent distractions. He’s spent the past week sitting behind the computer doing whatever investigative work he can, any excuse to avoid pulling the stitches again. You really didn’t seem like you were joking about making him do it next time, and it was a bitch to stitch up his knee on his own. The angle alone would make his ribs pretty much impossible.

Jeno sighs, tapping on his keyboard to bring the computer to life. Three monitors light up, the far left screen featuring the feeds of all the security cameras that show the apartment building that he very legally tapped into. The far right screen shows three different news feeds, local to Gotham, national news, and an international broadcast, volume off, subtitles on. The middle screen remains blank, ready for him to pull up whatever information he needs.

Hunt Joker. Get revenge.

It was simple when he first got his memories back. Those were his only goals. But then he had to train, become a better fighter, establish some sort of half-life in the city–which meant figuring out how to pay rent, which meant figuring out which billionaires he could reasonably steal from without them noticing. He admits it’s foolish to have Wayne Enterprises on the top of the list, but the bastard owes him.

Six months passed by before he finally set this place and a couple other safe houses up. And then another six passed, and Jeno is still no closer to revenge. He is supposed to be better than before, but all he’s done is steal some lunch money from people too rich to notice and take down a couple men who liked to pick on the weak. He hates that he did more in tights than he’s done becoming Red Hood.

He let his life become too simple. Day after day of hunting criminals and keeping them from hurting anyone ever again. It was freeing, no debriefings with idiots that would tell him that he should have acted differently—should have acted with more mercy. He makes his own decisions and no one is there to judge him. It’s proof he never needed anyone, even if hunting Joker is taking a little longer than it would if he had Wayne Enterprise resources.

And then you showed up.

He leans back in the chair, the joint squeaking. Jeno still doesn’t know what to make of you popping back into his life. He hasn’t been the kid you knew for so long he almost forgot about him. That kid died the day his parents yanked him out of school and moved to Gotham city. His parents worked back breaking shifts in one of the factories, while Jeno lasted a month in school before he realized he could stop going and no one would care. He learned how to survive Gotham quickly, and pretty soon he thrived. He barely even noticed when his parents died.

You bring back memories of suburbs and eating ice cream before it could melt onto his hand. He remembers this one time you were walking back home after school and you tripped and skinned your knee. There was so much blood, Jeno freaked out and thought he’d have to carry you (which he definitely couldn’t do back then), but you just stood up and gritted your teeth and walked all the way back. It didn’t surprise him at all to find out you’re a doctor now, not when you were always so hardcore.

It came in handy pretty quick, too, though he’ll at least admit to himself that his powers probably won’t let him die. It just turned into a routine for him, a nice way to end his day (though his work “day” generally ends at dawn).

But nice is for a boy that doesn’t exist, not for the justice he seeks. He can’t keep pretending to be someone he isn’t, and someone as smart as you can’t keep pretending to believe his lies. He focuses on the security feed, watching a dark sedan roll past.

He can keep avoiding you. It would be easy to clear out of here, especially when you spend most of your time at the hospital anyways. He could do it now—you’re in the middle of one of those endless shifts where you sleep in the hospital. You complain so much about being exhausted that he doubts you’d notice that he left, at least for a month. You’re not friends with him, Jeno doesn’t have friends. You just took an oath to save lives, and he forced you to save him. You wouldn’t even miss him.

But even as he contemplates it, he knows he can’t do it to you again. Even if all you are is the person that patches him up every other night, you deserve some explanation. A goodbye.

Rain begins to fall, slow at first, then a steady patter, the gentle wind strong enough to send the rain against the window.

He hears the truck engine rattling down the street before it finally comes into view on the top left camera. Strange, the bottom right camera covers the opposite side of the street but shows nothing. He keeps an eye on the truck, which rattles by, frowning at the bottom right screen.

Not just an empty street. Though the sky is dark in the background, the pavement and sidewalk are still dry. Jeno curses, getting to his feet and grabbing his belt. He loads the pistols, clipping on the extra ammo to his belt alongside the gadgets while keeping an eye on the other cameras, trying to see if he missed anything else. Two more screens play on a loop, the transition more obvious with the rain. He pulls on the mask, grateful he made it waterproof. His jacket is last, riddled with holes he never had the time to sew back together. He keeps his knife in his right hand, checking the cameras a final time—all showing empty loops—before ducking out the window onto the fire escape.

The jacket is thick enough to keep the rain from actually soaking him, but the cold seeps through. It brings an ache to his bones, an empty feeling like his body doesn’t quite belong to him. He presses a hand to his heart, the pressure bringing a new ache that reminds his body his heart still beats.

He jumps the rest of the way down from the fire escape, landing in a puddle of water that splashes beneath his boots, sending water up to his knees. He needs eyes on the situation. Ideally he’d go to the roof, but there’s too much daylight to be out in the open like that, turning him into a sitting duck. He opts for the alleyways instead, looping around the back of the building to where he can see the street without being seen. Whatever is going on, he needs to drive the action away from his place.

He scans the road, settling on the dark sedan parked in front of the corner store. It wasn’t on the security camera feed when he left, and as he watches, two tall men with dark hoods pulled over their heads slip out of the back seat. They approach the apartment building with the confidence of residents, though Jeno can tell from here they don’t. He memorized his neighbors a long time ago, but even if he hadn’t, Jeno has seen enough gangs to know bruisers when he sees them.

But who do they belong to? Who knows where Jeno lives? The people he’s been skimming from? He hasn’t been stealing enough to warrant this kind of a response. No, his life as Jeno couldn’t have attracted these men.

So it’s Red Hood? Anyone that knows about Red Hood should know better than to send two goons that could be taken out this easily. Jeno switches the knife to his left hand and pulls out a pistol, turning off the safety and cocking the hammer.

Before he can squeeze the trigger, he senses something, the rain behind him falling on something other than pavement. He drops to the ground and rolls until his back is against the wall and a dumpster protects his front. A bullet buries itself into the pavement where he had been standing a moment ago.

He moves again, vaulting over the dumpster, catching the man holding a pistol at the end of the alley by surprise. Still in the air, Jeno squeezes the trigger, hitting the man in the stomach. He lands on his feet and crosses the alley in two quick strides to kick the man as he falls. His hood falls off as he lands on his back, revealing an assuming face. Like the other men, Jeno has never seen him before.

Jeno kicks the gun out of his hand and snatches it from the pavement, slipping it into one of the extra holsters on his belt. He glances between the front of the building and the back. The two goons out front had to have heard the noise, which means he doesn’t have much time before they make it to the alley. But he’s got no idea what might be around the other corner.

He crosses back to the dumpster, keeping an eye on the man behind him as he waits. The man at the other end groans but doesn’t call out for his buddies. Rain overflows from the gutters, falling in spurts rather than droplets. Thirty seconds pass and Jeno only hears the rain. Are they waiting for him? Circling around to trap him between them?

He adjusts his grip on the knife in his left hand, holding it so that the blade is nearest to his pinky finger, his thumb wrapped around the bottom of the base. He keeps the blade facing out, stepping to the front of the apartment building. Instinct guides him to the left, giving him enough time to block the bat with his right arm, sending a shock up his shoulder.

He steps closer, letting the man—one of the goons from before—pull the bat back for another swing. Jeno swings the knife up, catching the man’s jacket but missing blood. He drops the knife and twists, turning so that the man is behind him and ducking to catch the arm still swinging the bat and flip the man over using his momentum and the bigger man’s weight. He hits the pavement hard, sending water splashing all over Jeno.

The second man catches up from the other end of the alley, firing wild shots that don’t come close to hitting him but force Jeno to step back. Jeno pulls a throwing star from his belt, sending it cutting through the air to knock the gun out of the man’s hand. With his right hand, he takes a shot at the man struggling to get off the ground, catching him in the back. He falls again and this time he doesn’t move.

The second man charges out of the alley, the throwing star gone from his hand, though it still drips blood. He has a crowbar in his other hand, like these guys want to be stereotypical goons. He moves about as well as the other man, all power and zero agility. Jeno dodges him easily, letting him take a couple swings before he shoots him in the head. The man drops a couple steps away from his buddy.

Jeno glances around but the dark sedan has left. No one else ventures out to investigate—probably because Jeno still holds a gun. He retrieves his knife and the throwing star, going back to the first man that he shot who still groans at the end of the alley. Blood mixes with the iridescent swirls of run off, red overtaking the blended greens and purples.

He kneels on his chest. Rain falls on the back of his mask“Who sent you?”

The man gurgles a laugh. “What’s it to you?”

Jeno pushes his knee a little harder. “I asked you a question.”

“Fuck you,” the man says. He tries to spit but the mix of blood and saliva ends up splattering on his own face. The man suddenly turns, moving with more strength than Jeno expected. At the same time that Jeno points his gun at the man’s head, the man pulls a gun from inside his coat, pressing it straight into Jeno’s stomach. Neither of them hesitate to pull the trigger.

Caution tape is up in the alley next to your apartment, but the rain seems to have washed away any sign of the crimes committed. It pounds into your head relentlessly, soaking you through your coat.

Though you’ve been living here less than a year, Gotham’s reputation has held true. Working in the hospital has given you even more experience with the diversity of types of people the city attracts—good, bad, and everything in between. You even worked on a guy who apparently turned out to be a Batman villain a few months ago.

Between working at the hospital and living in the city in general, you’ve gotten used to dissociating crime scenes with the sense that you’re actually in danger. Besides, you live next door to a vigilante. Who are you to say this is even a crime scene?

You don’t think anything of it until you open your apartment door and catch the unfortunately familiar scent of blood. Wind and rain crash through the open window, pulling your stumbling feet forward to find the source of the blood.

Jeno didn’t make it to the couch this time. He lies just inside the windowsill, barely sitting up with his back against the wall. One hand clutches his stomach, red blood spilling over the black shirt. His head hangs low, hair soaked by that rain that still falls on him through the open window. The red mask sits in his other hand.

For a scary moment, he doesn’t move.

You drop your bag, rushing to him. You can’t stop your voice from shaking. “Jeno?”

He groans when you shake his arm. “Ow.”

You curse as you slam the window shut and lay him out on his side, keeping his hand over the wound until you can get a better gauge on what it is. “What the hell did you do to yourself?”

He doesn’t answer, only groaning as you try to reach your medical bag while keeping pressure on the wound. You finally get it to the ground, pulling out the scissors and slicing through the shirt so that you can see the wound—a gaping hole framed by bullet fragments where his stomach should be.

“Fuck.” He needs a hospital, a surgeon that’s done more than assist on an appendectomy, but you can’t bring yourself to dial 911. It would bring too many questions on Jeno, who has clearly avoided hospitals for a reason. And he came to you. He trusts you, even if you don’t trust yourself. You have to save him, if only because you’re the only option.

You set out the equipment, spraying them with alcohol to sterilize them and get ready to cut.

“Don’t you dare die,” you say, gripping the scalpel.

“Already did that,” Jeno mutters, eyes fluttering. “Didn’t agree with me.”

You gape at him but he seems to have slipped back into unconsciousness. You force yourself to look back at the bullet hole. You can only yell at him if he’s alive, so you push away the thoughts and get to work, replacing any insecurity with arrogant belief that you know what you’re doing.

Death is nothing like falling asleep. For one thing, it fucking hurts. Jeno supposes the method might have played a factor. He used to think getting shot point blank might be better than being beaten for hours and then blown up (he now has the experience to decidedly answer that question: marginally better). But death itself. It hurts.

And resurrection? All the pain of death with none of the peaceful end. Jeno remembers crawling out of the ground, forcing his muscles to work even though his body still suffered from the wounds that killed him.

But it was the pain that forced him to keep moving, the pain that still fuels him now, a never ending ache deep inside that no time will heal.

Joker may have held the bat, but Batman didn’t stop him. He never stopped him. Jeno remembers the look on his face, the shadowed glimpse of it that he could see. He remembers dying, hearing the Joker cackle, and Batman calling out to him—calling him Robin.

He remembers the pain. Pain he can live with. Pain makes him who he is. He can’t let go of the pain, not when it is all that he is.

But the pain ebbs away when you’re around. And for the life of him he can’t convince himself that it’s a bad thing.

You manage to get Jeno into your bed after you finish patching him up—which was six grueling hours of pulling bullet fragments from the hole and praying he didn’t bleed out. No one should have been able to survive the amount of blood that seeped out of him but by some miracle (though maybe it’s a curse), his heart keeps pumping.

He woke up just long enough to let you sling an arm under his shoulders and half carry him into the bed. You spent the entire time praying he wouldn’t pull apart the stitches and bleed out for real, but it seems like luck was finally on your side.

You should get up. You should clean up the blood, or at least wash it from your hands. You can only find the energy to drag your armchair next to the bed and sit beside him. His chest rises and falls with even breaths.

Still alive, for now.

He mumbles again, voice too low to make out any words. His eyes flutter but remain closed. Does a man like him dream?

“What happened to you?” Your voice cracks. He doesn’t answer, doesn’t show any sign that he can hear you. “You disappear for weeks at a time. You rarely show up when you aren’t bleeding. But you never talk about it, and you don’t smile anymore. I don’t think I know you anymore. I don’t know if I ever did.”

You managed to hold back your tears, push all the emotions away to keep him alive but they come flooding back now. Tears spill over as you watch him breathe.

“Your heart keeps beating but are you really alive?” You ask.

He doesn’t answer.

You moved to Gotham in August. The heat was so bad that crime rates were down–making it miserable to carry box after box up two flights of stairs since the building didn't have an elevator. You’d only been here twice before, both times on school trips, never on your own.

But your friends all live back in your college town, and your parents were busy dealing with a lawsuit against your neighbor for the mailbox war, so you were stuck moving on your own—which wasn’t all that terrible since the apartment came half furnished. Still, you had to figure out a way to get a mattress up the stairs, along with a car full of clothes and all the rest of your belongings. Between the heat and the prospect of stairs, you weren’t exactly stoked about living in the city.

Two trips had you wheezing for air, leaning outside your door to catch your breath. The door to the apartment next to yours swung open. You hoped someone wasn’t already complaining about the noise you were making. Instead a tall, broad shouldered man stepped out, wearing a simple black t-shirt and cargo pants.

He turned around, revealing cold eyes and a face that looked like it spent most of its time frowning. But behind it all something familiar called to you, buried deep behind the bitter front. You remembered a boy who cried because he stubbed his toes, a boy who would fight you to make a wish on every dandelion that lined the sidewalk on the walk home.

He froze, a tiny frown in his brow. “YN?”

“Jeno?”

You set down the tote, stepping around it to get a better look at him. Your eyes jumped between his, trying to decipher the hardness behind them. Though it had been over ten years, you still thought of the sweet boy who lived next door often, always wondering what happened to him.

It seemed that the years had not been kind to him. Though he grew taller and filled out considerably, he had an emptiness behind his eyes, the kind that comes from too much hurt. He looked like it had been years since he last smiled. He barely seemed to react to you, guarding every expression as if you could be some sort of threat.

“You’re taller,” you finally said.

“It has been a while,” he said.

“I think ten years qualifies as more than a while,” you said.

He just nodded. “You’ve moved here?”

“Just today,” you said, gesturing to the boxes.

“You’re on your own?”

You shrugged. “My parents are bringing a load later in the week, so it’s really not that much stuff.” You paused but Jeno didn’t run away, so you figured it was safe to ask, “How long have you been living here?”

“In Gotham since I left.” He pauses, eyes flicking between yours. For a moment you think he’ll tell you everything. Then he says, “Here specifically, only about six months.”

You should have asked. Maybe it would have made things simpler, maybe you wouldn’t be dancing between fantasy and reality, balancing a tedious act of ignorance.

Instead you asked him if he’d help you move your mattress and what the pizza delivery situation was like.

Jeno wakes up sometime in the middle of the night. You snap awake from your dozing as he shifts.

“Sit still,” you say. “I don’t think I can put you back together if you fall apart this time.”

Jeno blinks. Even in the darkness you can see eyes are still glazed over in confusion.

“You were shot,” you explain. “Point blank from the looks of it.”

“Ah,” he says. His soft voice carries in the quiet hours of the night. “That’s what hurts.”

“Never make me do that again.” Your voice shakes despite your best attempts to steady it. The tears from earlier try to weasel their way back out of your eyes. “You should have died.”

He reaches out, except he really must be feeling weak because his hand barely makes it to the edge of the bed before it hangs limp.

“‘M sorry,” he mumbles. “Didn’t want to get shot.”

You blink back the tears as anger courses its way through you. “I don’t think anybody gets shot on purpose,” you snap.

He tries to snort but it ends up sounding like a short exhale through his nose. “Fair enough.”

“I’m not a good enough doctor for all of this,” you say. “This isn’t a hospital. I don’t have sterile equipment, or a blood bank, or an extra set of hands, I mean, if anything worse happens, you could be in real danger and there’s nothing I could do about it, and I can’t—” You pause, taking a deep breath. “I don’t like when I have to admit I can’t do something, but with you, it feels like that’s all I can do.”

“You saved my life,” he says. “It doesn’t really feel like you couldn’t do it.”

“It was a pretty fucking close call,” you say. “Gunshot wounds aren’t particularly easy, and you had to go and get shot in the stomach.”

He shifts, hand running over his torso beneath the blanket. “I didn't pop the stitches, though,” he says. “I gotta get some points for that.”

You glare at him, though he probably can’t see it in the darkness. “Don’t make fun of me. I’m trying to be serious.”

“So am I,” he says, “it was not easy. I sat still for two full days. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve done that?”

Ask. Get a real answer from him. Stop shying away from who he really is. You have to talk about it.

“Well, get used to it,” you say. “You’re staying in this bed. I don’t care if I have to tie you down.”

Jeno actually smiles. It’s been far too long since you’ve seen that smile, softening the hard lines and curling his face into something sweet. “I could be into that,” he jokes.

And maybe it’s because there are blood stains on your shirt that will never come out and you haven’t slept in about thirty hours and you came far too close to losing the only person you really care about, but you laugh. “Just shut up and get some rest.”

“You should rest too,” Jeno says. “You look terrible.”

“Yeah, well it’s your fault,” you say.

He pauses then says, “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Well, don’t apologize.” You sniffle. “It’s harder to be mad at you.”

He smiles again, and you can’t even pretend to be mad at him anymore. It’s too hard on your heart, which has been through far too much for any more lies. You smile back at him.

After a day, Jeno can walk around on his own. You called out sick from work, despite his insistence that he’d be fine on his own. He had to bribe you to convince you to sleep on the couch, since you would barely let him go to the bathroom, let alone move back to his own room. He won’t complain too much, though. He forgot how nice it is to wake up to someone.

He sways on his feet, holding a hand up to stop you from helping him. He forces even breaths, determined to make it to the couch without any help.

“You don’t have to do this,” you repeat for the thousandth time.

“I told you I’m fine,” he grunts. Two more steps and he’s there. He takes a deep breath, ignoring the way his entire lower half screams at him. One more step.

He collapses onto the couch more than anything, but he makes it. He lets himself slouch a little, head resting against the back of the couch. How many times has he sat here like this? So many hours spent waiting for you, watching the sun inch across the room. But most of the time it’s been like this—you at the opposite end, always a cushion separating him from you.

The fake wooden floor is stained deep red, pooled around where he laid while you worked on him. He wonders what would have happened if you weren’t there. When he first came back he thought he was invincible, and his healing has saved him from a lot–but he’s never truly put it to the test. Could he have survived without you?

His mask still sits where he pulled it off underneath the windowsill. He peeks at you from the corner of his eyes, your head turned towards it. Say something.

You stare at the mask, clearing your throat. “I hope you didn’t pay too much for that shitty costume,” you say. “You don’t even have armor.”

“YN,” Jeno says but you refuse to look at him.

“Seriously, walking around dressed like a vigilante is going to get you killed.”

“YN. You know it’s not a costume.”

“What, you made it yourself? That’s even worse, I mean, it’s one thing to dress up like these guys but trying to be one of them, that’s just plain stupid. I can’t believe—”

Jeno shifts to the center cushion and wraps his fingers gently around your wrist, forcing you to look at him. “I am one of them.”

He lets go of your wrist and watches you process the words, trying to figure out any other meaning. Your eyes dart between his, panicked and desperate. For whatever reason, you don’t want to admit it, and it’s been fine. But Jeno is tired of feeling like he’s lying to you.

“I know,” you finally say, sighing and looking away again. He hates that it feels like he’s let you down. But he won’t apologize for who he is.

“Why didn’t you ever ask about what happened after I left?” He asks.

You’re quiet for a long moment. “I think I was afraid. It didn’t take long to realize what you were—or at least that you were wrapped up in something twisted—and then it was obvious whatever happened to you here wasn’t good, and I wasn’t sure if I should know that.”

Jeno nods, gaze traveling to the window. He can see some scattered rooftops, mostly shorter residential buildings of the area. Farther in the distance, skyscrapers stick out. He’s spent more years in this city than not, grown to love it like family. But unlike family, the city doesn’t love him back. It’s not capable of it. No matter how much of his blood lines the streets, Jeno will only ever be one of millions that call the city home.

Yes, what happened to him here wasn’t good. But it wasn’t all bad, and it’s not over yet. He won’t give up on the city just because of the past.

And there’s you now. He has these moments where his heart beats so hard it feels like his chest will burst in the good way. He no longer ceases to exist when he isn’t fighting. Jeno worms his way back into reality, not separate from Red Hood, but no longer overshadowed by him.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think these past couple weeks,” Jeno says. “Time to figure out what I want. For the longest time, it was revenge. It didn’t matter how I got it, how many people had to die. I would avenge myself no matter what.

“And then you came into my life, and I would catch myself wondering what would have happened if I could have stayed back then, how different my life would be. I even wondered what would happen if I took off the mask, permanently.

“But this is all I know how to be, and, I think even when I get my revenge, I won’t be able to leave this life behind.” He pauses, tilting his head away from the window and waiting until you meet his eyes. “I don’t want to die again. I don't want to live this miserable half life where all I think about is getting back at the people who wronged me. I want to live, and when I’m with you, I feel alive.”

You stare at him, eyes adorably wide. Maybe he's been a little too good at keeping his feelings hidden. It’s alright. He can wait for you to work it all out. It’s not like he’s got anywhere to be.

“I like being with you,” he says. “I like who I am when I’m around you, and I like you. I mean, you’re stubborn and you always have to have the last word.” He smiles at your bewildered eyes. “But you care so much, not just about me, or your patients, but about everyone, and everything.

“Like your little houseplants that keep dying no matter what you do. I mean, it’s hilarious that you can save my life but you can’t keep a succulent alive. Or the way you talk about the street cats, and even the rats. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had sympathy for the cockroaches.” He finally manages to cut the rambling off. For a long moment you’re too quiet, and he begins to feel the inklings of fear worming its way up his stomach.

“I don’t know about that,” you finally say, voice soft. “I think they might be radioactive here.”

He waits but you don’t say anything else. He knows he shouldn’t ask, that he already has his answer. Still, he can’t help it. “That’s all you have to say?”

Your eyes slide to the floor. “I… I don’t know.”

“You feel something,” he says, reaching a tentative hand out to rest on top of yours. You freeze beneath him, eyes darting between his hand and his eyes like you can’t decide which you’re scared of more.

“Tell me I’m not crazy,” he pleads. “Tell me you feel at least a fraction of the way I do.”

You squeeze your eyes shut, taking a deep breath. “I do care about you,” you begin slowly, “I care about you too much. You have this life, and I know you need it, and I want you to have everything that you want, I just don’t think I can be a part of it when it inevitably destroys you.”

He squeezes your hand. “It won’t destroy me,” he says, “I won’t let it.”

“You died.” Your voice shakes. “I don’t think I could handle that.”

“I won’t let that happen again!” Jeno says. “Things are different now, I’m not the same person I was when I died.”

He won’t die again. He’s sure of it, not just because he’s learned from his mistakes but because he has something else to live for now. He has more than the family that pushed him to be more than he could, he has his own life, goals outside of revenge. But grounding it all is you, the first person he thinks of, always. He won’t die when it would hurt you this much.

“Even if you could promise that, it’s not enough.” You look away from him. “I don’t want to die either, and it seems like that’s inevitable around people like you. The loved ones always die first.”

He opens his mouth to say he would never let that happen but the words die in his throat. He can’t guarantee that, and one look at you proves even if he could it wouldn’t matter. It’s not enough.

“I think I love you,” he whispers.

You smile sadly. “I think I love you too. I wish it was that simple.”

He sighs, resting his head against the couch cushion. “I don’t suppose supreme embarrassment is a good enough reason to let me go back to my own apartment, is it?”

He watches you purse your lips out of the corner of his eye. He pretends not to see the tears threatening to spill over.

“I have to go back to work,” you say, voice steady. “I suppose sleeping in your own bed won’t be a problem.” You turn stern. “As long as you swear you’ll actually rest.”

Jeno winces. “I don’t think I can do anything else.”

“And yet you will,” you say. Jeno knows it’s worthless to argue, especially when he really can’t promise he won’t do anything. He goes where he’s needed.

But until then, he’s perfectly happy to wallow in the embarrassment of getting shot and shot down.

(please enjoy a brief interlude until i figure out how to fix thing shitshow)

The city always smells cleaner after a good storm. You enjoy walking to work, though the piercing wail of sirens makes it harder to appreciate the way the city almost smells like spring. Green has returned, sprouts of grass and early flowers blooming. You can walk and breathe and pretend like your heart isn’t dragging along behind you.

Jeno haunts you. You dared to check on him before leaving and found he has reverted back to the one word answers and solemn expressions, a shadow of a person. He barely even looks at you, and you can’t even blame him. You’ve done more than break his heart; you can bear the consequences of doing so.

Because it doesn’t really matter. He will keep getting hurt and you will keep patching him up. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

Even if you can’t stop dreaming about him.

An ambulance wails past, turning into the hospital. You try your best to push the Jeno thoughts away, preparing yourself for the inevitably grueling day. You push open the doors, the security guards now familiar. You smile at them, the movement of the muscles feeling foreign, and take the elevators to the fourth floor, heading to the locker room for the surgical interns.

You’ve barely changed into your scrubs when Jaemin appears.

“Wow,” he says, biting into an apple. “You look terrible.”

You glare at him. “You look worse. How long have you been here?”

He shrugs. “I got a whole six hours of sleep in an on-call room, so I’m actually doing great. You, on the other hand, look like you spent the two days fighting guys who wear pinstripe suits and call their henchmen goons.” He eyes you for a moment. “And you lost.”

“That’s pretty much how I feel,” you say. “Though I still think you act like the criminals in this city are cartoon villains.”

“The aquarium was attacked by a crocodile-man last week and the guy that stopped him cosplays as a bat,” Jaemin says. “I don’t know how you take any of this seriously.”

It helps when you have a melodramatic version of the bat guy bleeding out on your couch every other week, you think.

“I don’t know, being afraid for my life helps,” you say.

“Oh the crocodile guy just wanted to free his people,” Jaemin waves his hand. “He wasn’t going to hurt anyone.”

“His name is Killer Croc.”

“Semantics,” Jaemin says. “But seriously, you’re okay? Nothing happened?”

You shrug. “I just haven’t gotten enough sleep, I’ll be fine. Why are you acting so weird?”

“You haven’t heard?” Jaemin asks. “Dr. Moon and Dr. Jung were both attacked three days ago. Dr. Jung is in the ICU and Dr. Moon is still missing.”

“What happened?”

“Police don’t really know yet,” Jaemin says, “but it’s connected. These big guys in suits with these weird black hoods were seen around both of their places before the attacks. They found Jaehyun in his apartment, beaten pretty bad, he’s been in a coma ever since.”

“Wow,” you say. You’ve worked with both of them quite a bit. You spent a week learning about skin grafts with Dr. Moon, a star plastic surgeon. Jaehyun gave you an extra shower curtain when you mentioned you tore yours when a cockroach crawled up your shower brain while you were in it. They’re both good, nice people, not the type to get involved in trouble—definitely not trouble like this.

“Is Jaehyun going to be okay?”

Jaemin purses his lips and shrugs. “Still not sure. He had some pretty serious injuries, most of which were patched up but apparently he had some bad head trauma. They called in the Lee Taemin from Central.”

“You didn’t shit your pants meeting your hero?”

“YN,” Jaemin says sharply, “a good friend of mine was in the hospital, and the best neurosurgeon in the country, the guy I will one day convince to be my mentor, was called in to save his life. Of course I was shitting my pants.”

“Did you get to meet him?”

“I thought it would be weird to introduce myself to him, but I did happen to visit Jaehyun while he stopped by, and happened to mention I wanted to pursue neuro when he asked.”

“And?”

“And he said it was a smart decision. Or said only the smartest thrive. He’s very confusing.”

“So basically you’re obsessed?”

“Yep.”

You lean against the metal lockers, letting the cold press against the back of your neck. You think about Jaehyun, hooked up to machines with a whole team of doctors, including a star doctor, all working to keep him alive. How long will it be before that’s Jeno, except no machines, no team, just you? How long before you won’t be enough?

Jeno has discovered all there is to know about his ceiling. There’s eleven cracks, tiny fissures in the paint that’s at least ten years old. The color is off white, not cream, though in the corner above the door, they did a touch up with a paint that has slightly more blue. He can tell what time it is from the angle of the light coming through the window.

He’s beginning to run out of things to learn.

He misses you, so much. He wonders what your ceiling looks like, if it’s got its own little galaxy of cracks. He misses sitting on your couch, knowing that he’d see you soon.

He can’t remember the last time he got out of bed, and he can’t even blame it on the gunshot wound. He's not fully recovered, but he doesn’t need to lay in bed all day. He should be up and moving, keeping himself in shape, or at least hunting down the guys who attacked him. All he managed to do was set up an alert with the license plate of the car he saw, feeding it through all the security cameras he could get access to.

But otherwise he lays in bed and stares at the ceiling.

Getting this dejected over a rejection makes him feel like a teenager—not that he ever went through this during his teenage years. He can put on the mask and be Red Hood, but Jeno? He doesn’t know how to be Jeno alone, he doesn’t want to learn. He had his parents when he was younger, then Bruce, and Dick, and the family that began to grow among them. Despite all he used to whine, he’s never truly been alone.

Will he be alone now? Will Jeno even exist without the people around him to keep him going? Or will he truly become Red Hood, letting the man behind the mask cease to exist.

He knows what Bruce would say. The mask can’t exist without the man. But Bruce is the reason he put a mask on in the first place. He can philosophize all day long, it’s his fault Jeno ever died. He doesn’t have to listen to the man’s words.

Jeno rests his hand over the wound. He hardly feels the ridge where the stitches are. He wonders how the wound will scar.

It doesn’t make any sense but even though his body heals unnaturally fast, the scars remain. It’s like his body remembers dying and wants to remind him—even though he came back once and he’s stronger than ever before—he’s still human.

And there’s nothing more human than a broken heart. He should be grateful it’s only metaphorical.

Jeno sighs. The worst part is he knows how dramatic he’s being. But it’s only been 28 hours. He can allow himself a little bit of time for the dramatics. Bruce takes like a month off when a civilian dies under his watch.

He pulls his blanket closer, wondering if it’s too far to put on some music—something loud, maybe.

Instead he hears a ding, a notification from his computer. He sits up a little too fast, feeling a tug on his stitches, though they don’t fall apart.

He can’t spare too much thought to them, not when his screen lights up with feed from a security camera, zoomed in to show the license plate of a dark sedan, the numbers he remembers. It rolls past, camera shifting down the block as Jeno drops into his chair, typing rapidly until the screen zooms out. The larger screen reveals the sedan is one of many, traveling in a line together.

He sets up the second monitor to plot their movements across the city, a bright red line tracing the few turns they take.

The windows of each car are tinted, concealing those within. But, with his previous encounter, it’s safe to assume there’s plenty of hired muscle in the six cars. It could be anywhere between fifteen and thirty men, headed this way.

He watches them draw closer, tapping his finger on the desk. They caught him by surprise last time. On a good day, he wouldn’t sweat odds this bad, but it’s not a good day. He can still feel his insides healing.

It’ll be a tough fight, but he’s planned for this. He’ll rig the place, take down as many as he can and get to one of the other safe houses.

The Jeno that lived here will disappear. And it will be for the best.

He changes into his suit, moving as fast as he can without hurting himself. He stuffs as many weapons as he can into his pockets, his belt weighing extra heavy around his waist.

Then he gets to work on the bomb. A smaller explosive, more of a popper than a true bomb, but enough to take out his computer and all of the evidence he’s left behind here.

He wonders if the police will come. Will they question you? Surely someone has noticed he spends a lot of time with you. You’d never give him up, but would you defend him? Would you go on television, tell the world Red Hood is just a man? You’d look good on television.

You wouldn’t though. You wouldn’t say a word, not to the cops, not to anyone.

He’s really going to miss you.

He checks the map. Still five blocks away. Except… The cameras first picked up the sedans in the upper east part of the city, by the Sprang River. They mostly traveled west from there, they’re still north of him.

They stop at a light, just two blocks away. He watches, waiting for them to turn.

The sedans roll straight ahead, passing the apartment. He frowns, staring at the screen but the cars keep going, one block, two, and then they pull to a stop.

Jeno curses, grabbing the keys to his bike. It was never about him.

The sun peeks through the windows of the hospital, the only sign time passes. The setting sun casts the parking lot in gold, making even the ugliest cars shine. You pause to peek outside, for once not in a rush. You have to scrub in with Dr. Qian in twenty minutes, but until then, you have a rare moment of freedom.

Because you’re standing at the window, you see the exact moment the cars pull up. They form a line, like a row of beetles, stopping in front of the entrance, blocking the parked cars. As soon as they roll to a stop, the doors fly open, men streaming out all wearing black hoods. They line up in front of the car closest to the entrance, whose doors had remained closed since stopping. The driver exits first, another hooded man, though considerably smaller than the rest. He opens the door to the backseat, head bowed low.

The man in the backseat takes his time. Pale hands peek out of the carefully fitted suit, the only open skin you can see. He steps out from the car and the line of men bend into sharp bows. He closes the door and you finally get a full look at him: from the suit to his shoes, he wears all black, but most striking is the black mask that covers his face. It melts into his suit, keeping every inch of his skin hidden save for his hands.

He must say something, because the men straighten and vanish from your view, streaming into the hospital.

Is it too late to alert security? There has to be twenty men, and with how Jaehyun looks, you doubt they’ll be able to hold them off. 911, then? It’ll take the cops forever to respond, and it’s too late. They’re already here.

You could call him. He’d come.

Despite all your instincts screaming at you to hide, you turn around. The lobby is packed with the final rush of visitors, and 9-to-5 staff getting ready to leave for the day. It’ll be safer to pack in with them than be caught on your own, and maybe you can warn security before mass panic breaks out. You rush down the hall to the large open space in the front of the hospital.

Maybe it’s the adrenaline, but everything feels too normal. A father holds his child’s hand as they walk to the bathroom. A nurse whispers furiously into her phone. An elderly couple hold hands, clipboards to the side of them. You scan the small crowd, looking for a security guard.

Instead you find a brute of a man, black hood tipping back as he raises a gun above his head and fires it a couple times.

“Everybody quiet!” He growls. “On the ground!”

You drop into a squat, hands automatically coming above your head as screams echo. Someone yanks on your coat, knocking you off balance. Your heart nearly stops but it’s just Jaemin pulling you to sit beside him with a wall at your back instead of the open hallway.

“Thank you,” you whisper. You slide into a seated position, back against the wall. Jaemin crouches next to you, keeping one hand on the wheelchair of the patient he must have been with before all of this. You peek at him and recognize him as Yoon Jeonghan, the guy that got hit by a truck while biking. He looks like he’s trying to decide if he’s included in the “on the ground” order.

The goons pick on a couple people, shoving them to the ground.

“Hands above your heads!” One of them orders, pointing his gun at random. You raise your hands again, Jaemin following more reluctantly.

Ten minutes pass as goons escort people from all over the hospital, the lobby quickly becoming packed. Half the patients are in wheelchairs, clinging to IV drips while the doctors and nurses glare at the men. Finally, it seems they have collected everybody, and a quiet tension falls over the room.

Then the man in the black mask strolls in.

“What’s the saying?” He asks, muffled voice carrying in the open space. “If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.” He clasps his hands behind his back, strolling along, peeking at the cowering hostages.

“He doesn’t have a pinstripe suit,” Jaemin whispers.

“I don’t even think he’ll call the henchmen goons,” you whisper back.

Jaemin shakes his head. He’d probably tsk if he didn’t think it would get you both killed.

“I bet they’ll still beat us up,” you whisper.

“If you don’t shut up, they definitely will,” Jeonghan mutters.

Jaemin rolls his eyes and makes a face at you. You bite back a smile. You’ve tempted fate enough.

“The name you all will know me by is Black Mask,” he announces.

This time you can’t help the smile, turning away from Jaemin to prevent yourself from laughing out loud. Even Jeonghan mutters, “Very creative.”

“I have a list, you see,” Black Mask continues, “people that owe me. They know what they’ve done. I promise if your name is not on that list and you don’t make a fuss, no harm will come to you. I’m a reasonable man.”

Reasonable men don’t play dress up and shoot up hospitals, but you figure he’s due for a dramatic speech. At least he’s explaining why he’s here.

Black Mask pauses in front of one of the nurses—Shotaro, a good nurse who you’ve worked with several times. He grabs him by the shoulder, sending him sprawling to the floor.

“This one,” Black Mask announces, waving at his goons to pick Shotaro up. They half drag him away as Black Mask continues to make his way through the crowd.

“This is more efficient, you know,” he says. “I’ve tried other methods, but there were some complications. So, I thought to myself, if you’re all in one place, why not just go to the source?” He points at another nurse, Sehun, but Dr. Bae steps in front of him. Black Mask pauses, tilting his head to peer at her before gesturing to the goons to drag them both away. Dr. Bae puts up a fight, trying to twist out of their grip, but one of the men tosses her over his shoulder and carries her out. Sehun follows, stumbling behind.

Dr. Moon, Jaehyun, Shotaro, Sehun, and Dr. Bae, though it seems like she wasn’t originally a target. All good, hard workers, not the type to make mistakes, definitely not collectively. You watch as Black Mask creeps closer and closer.

You’ve worked with all of them. Only a few months ago, a case of a man with terrible burns on his face. Your blood runs cold as Black Mask stops in front of you. You stand up, a heartbeat before he points.

“You,” Black Mask says, venom seeping into his voice. “You owe me.”

“I remember you,” you say, keeping your voice soft.

“You remember what you did to me,” he says.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” you say, “and neither did anyone else in this hospital.”

He raises a hand and smacks you, and before you can react, two of his men grab your arms, dragging you away whether your feet move or not. You try to think of something witty or smart, but all you can think is how much you don’t want to die.

They take you to the stairs, carrying you up two flights of stairs before depositing you in an empty patient room. One of the men stays with you, guarding the door, while the other vanishes.

You glare at the man, face stinging. Jeno would tell you not to provoke a psychopath.

But Jeno’s not here. You shouldn’t want him to be, because even if he could be here, he would only get himself hurt, and you won’t be responsible for causing him any more pain.

He said he loved you, even after all he’s been through. He wasn’t afraid.

You don’t want Jeno here, not to save the day. But it’d be nice to apologize to him. And if there was only one person you could say goodbye to before you died, you’d want it to be Jeno.

Maybe you do want Jeno to save the day. Just so you can apologize. Just so you can tell him you were wrong. Just so you can finally admit the truth.

Jeno’s bike screeches to a stop a block away from the hospital. He parks it in an alley, covering it with a tarp and trusting that the locks will prevent anyone from stealing it. He hopes he’s swiped it from the impound lot enough times for the police to leave it alone too.

He climbs to the roof of the nearest building, moving painfully slow, between the pull of the stitches and the exhaustion of healing such a large wound. But from here he can see the line of black cars in front of the hospital, the setting sun reflecting on the metal, making it difficult to see. He switches to infrared, the mask buzzing a couple times before picking up on the mass of bodies in the main lobby. Majority of the building is far too empty for a place of medicine.

From his memory of studying the schematics on an off day, he remembers the west facing wing houses the operating rooms, which explains why the infrared picks up a couple small masses. But with the rest of the hospital empty, the four rooms on the third floor stand out. Each holds two bodies, one significantly larger than the other.

That’s where he’ll start.

A better fighter would get a better gauge of the situation. Maybe spend more time determining which are civilians and which are hostiles, or figure out exactly where they’re holding people. But Jeno has always worked best flying by the seat of his pants. He still doesn’t know what the hell is going on, but these must be the hostages important enough to separate from the main group.

It would be safest if you were on the first floor, just one of many in the crowd, but the selfish part of Jeno wants you to be where he can see you. Where he can save you.

He can’t waste any more time. He shoots the grappling gun, pulling on it to build momentum even faster and angle himself directly at the window. It shatters beneath his feet, and he tucks into a tight ball, rolling once before springing onto his feet. He ducks as the big man swings a crowbar at him, wincing at the sharp pain near his stomach. He takes a quick strike with his knife, slashing up across the stomach first, then across the throat, finally driving the knife into the man’s heart. He crumples to the ground and doesn’t move.

Jeno pulls the blade out, wiping the blood from the knife on his pants and sheathing it. He turns around to find a figure in a white lab coat, cowering in the corner of the room, hands over their head, glass shards scattered around them.

He crouches down in front of you, brushing the glass off your shoulder. You peek up at him, eyes softening as you recognize him even though you’ve never seen him in the mask before. There’s a small cut on your cheek. His thumb moves on its own, swiping at the blood and doing nothing but spread more on your face.

“Are you okay?” Jeno asks. The modulator of the mask twists his voice into an unrecognizable beast. It’s perfect for protecting his identity and intimidating low lives, not so great for comforting the scared victims. Maybe he should tweak that part of the suit, make it adjustable. But you don’t flinch, standing up and shaking the rest of the glass off.

“I’m fine,” you say. “How did you get here so fast?”

“These are the same guys that shot me,” Jeno says. “I had a tracker out on the car, which led me here.”

“Sionis,” you say. Jeno frowns. He knows that name.

“Roman Sionis, that’s the guy doing all of this,” you explain. “He was a patient three months ago, really bad damage to his face. He’s targeting the team responsible for his care, doctors, nurses, everyone he blames for what happened to his face.”

“Which includes you,” Jeno says.

You nod, eyes tight. “Which means they weren’t after you when you got shot.”

“Hey,” Jeno says. “I’m fine. You patched me up, and I’ve got the super healing, so if either of us was going to get shot, I’d rather it be me. It’s not your fault.”

“I know,” you say, though you don’t sound like you believe it. “Should you really be jumping through windows, though?”

He shrugs. “Didn’t pull the stitches. I swear.”

You purse your lips but let it go. He wishes you would just say what you’re thinking but you look away from him, glancing at the door.

“They took three more of us up here, and they probably know you’re here by now.”

Jeno nods. Resolve the situation, then talk.

“I’m going to clear out the rooms one at a time,” he says, “then work my way downstairs.” He unholsters a gun, handing it to you. You raise an eyebrow.

“I’ve never used one of these.” You reluctantly take the gun out of his hands.

“Point and squeeze the trigger,” he says. “It’s semi-automatic, you don’t have to do anything to reload. If they’re close enough you won’t even have to aim.” He forms your hands around the gun, teasing your fingers into the right position and turning off the safety. He lets his hands linger, waiting for your eyes to meet his, though he remembers a moment later that the mask conceals them.

“Get the rest of the hostages and stay together,” he says. “I’ll be right back.” He forces himself to let go of your hands but doesn’t step away yet.

He should say something else. Maybe apologize for what he said. Take it back. But he meant every word of it, even if you did too. He’s said all he can, and if that’s still not enough then at least you’re still alive.

“Go save the day,” you finally say. “Then… I’ll see you after.”

He nods, turning away and striding to the door, stepping over the body. “Wait for me to clear the rest of them, then get the hostages out of here.”

He pulls the door closed behind him, trusting that you will be fine on your own. He doesn’t have time to worry, ducking to dodge the knife that flies toward him. He doesn’t let the man get a second chance, sprinting as fast as he can and burying his knife in the man’s heart. He’s turning a second later, using the man’s body as a shield against the second man in the hall, who doesn’t hesitate to fire a couple shots. Jeno throws the first man’s body on him, his knife following quickly after, burying itself in the man’s forehead.

Like always, his pains melt away when he’s fighting. He barely feels the tug of the stitches, or the exhaustion he felt earlier. This body was made to kill, and that’s what he’ll do.

He ducks into the room next to yours, knocking the guard to the floor and stabbing him. The hostage, a woman wearing a white lab coat, stands.

“Wait here,” he says. “I’ll clear the rest of this hall. Don’t go outside unless you want to get shot.”

She nods slowly.

Jeno clears the other two rooms similarly, quick and far too easy. He hesitates at the stairwell. He should clear the rest of the civilians if he wants to resolve things quickly, but it feels wrong to leave these hostages to you—you were a hostage yourself only a few minutes ago. But it’s irrational. He knows you’re capable of protecting yourself, and smart enough not to get yourself killed. He has to trust you and do his job. You were the one that told him to save the day.

He doesn’t bother with the stairs, jumping in the open space between the flights and using his grappling hook to control his fall. If he wasn’t hurt, he’d just drop the three stories, but it’s only a little slower this way. He retracts the hook with a button and sticks it back into his belt, pulling out his knives.

He makes it halfway down the hall before he sees the first figure, raising his knife on instinct. He drops it a moment later, picking out the scrubs from here. The nurse sprints past him, barely glancing at him. More and more people follow, until a stream of people flood the hall. They part around him, allowing Jeno to make it to the lobby as it clears. Only a few people remain, mostly patients that struggle to move on their own and the people that stayed behind to protect them.

Where is Sionis? Where are all of his men? Even in the flood of people, they would have stood out. Did they hear the commotion upstairs and run? One of the men fired his gun a couple times, maybe they went to investigate.

No, they wouldn’t have let the hostages go if that were the case. He curses himself for not trusting his instincts, turning around to get back to the stairs, but the hallway is still blocked by all the people clamoring to leave.

It takes painfully long to get to a stairwell, but he finally makes it. That’s when he hears the gunshot—different from the pops before, no this is a sound he recognizes. This is his gun.

You wait until the hallway is quiet, peeking out the window for good measure. Nothing moves, the bodies on the floor limp. Blood pools around the three, puddles bright against the white tiles. You wait for another heart beat, holding your breath but the only movement comes from the blood, trickling down the hall.

The door creaks open beneath your fingers. It feels like your footsteps echo as you hurry to the closest door. You make it to the first door, hand on the doorknob when you hear it—footsteps echoing from the stairwell, the opposite side of where Jeno left. They thunder up the stairs, at least ten men.

You open the door a crack, whispering a sharp, “Stay hidden!”

You don’t give whoever is behind the door a chance to argue, closing the door and sprinting to the stairwell as fast as you can. You hear a shout just as you cross into the stairwell, sprinting forward. You take one step toward the descending flight but see dark heads bobbing in the space between the stairs. You curse, turning and heading up.

Shit, shit, shit. You can only go up. The men from the other end of the hall burst into the stairwell, your heart sending another shot of adrenaline through your body and pushing you to take steps three at a time. Even as you feel your body working harder than ever before, you know it won’t last. You have to find somewhere to hide.

You burst onto the fifth floor, cringing as the door slams against the wall. No chance they missed that.

You run as far as you dare, ducking into a storage closet and curling into a ball in the farthest corner, hiding behind a wall of bedpans. You shove a hand over your mouth, trying to cover your heaving breaths. Bile rises in your throat as the sprinting catches up to you but you swallow hard, closing your eyes and praying.

Jeno’s gun rests in your other hand. The cold metal helps calm you down, your breathing evening out as you hear a door bang open. A moment later then there’s another bang. You hear footsteps in the hall, then another. They must be checking room by room.

You’re about halfway down the hall, maybe five rooms in. You don’t have much time.

You raise the gun, letting go of your mouth to hold it with both hands. Your finger drops to the trigger. Point and squeeze, Jeno said. You can do that. You aim it at the door, bracing your arm on your knees to keep them from shaking.

You flinch at the next bang, feeling the wall shake. They’re in the room right next to you. They trash the room, sending vibrations through the floor, until it suddenly stops.

You’ll have to move fast, you can’t give them any chance.

Light cascades around as the door is thrown open. You squeeze the trigger, keeping the gun aimed at the large mass in front of you. There’s a loud bang and the gun slams your shoulder back but the man stumbles backward. You squeeze the trigger again and this time he goes down.

A second man dodges the falling body, taking a step inside but you squeeze the trigger again and again and again and he falls too.

Shit, how many shots was that? You clench your teeth but they seemed to have learned the lesson for the moment—nobody follows.

“Alright, that’s enough fun.” You recognize Sionis’ voice from behind the mask this time. “Come out on your own or get dragged out. Your choice.”

“I’d really rather stay here,” you say, voice shaking. You force yourself to your feet.

“Fun way it is,” Black Mask says. This time two men push their way through, one blocking the other. You shoot and it hits the front man in the shoulder but he doesn’t go down. You squeeze the trigger again but nothing happens.

You throw the gun at him, hoping to catch him in the head but he just knocks it away. You start pulling things from the shelves, throwing as hard as you can. It does nothing to stop them, grabbing you by the arms and heaving you off your feet. You twist and kick and try to bite but they don’t seem to notice. They hold you up in front of Black Mask in the middle of the hallway.

“You are a feisty one,” he muses, watching you thrash.

“Let me go,” you say. You try to growl but it comes out more like pathetic begging.

“I’d like you to calm down a bit,” he says.

You open your mouth to tell him to fuck off but apparently that was some sort of signal because one of the men raises a fist and brings it down hard on the top of your head.

It sends jitters down your spine as your teeth clang together. You blink tears away, your head lolling forward a little. The floor blurs beneath you—no it’s your eyes, struggling to focus.

“Now, on with business,” Black Mask says, clasping gloved hands together. “I—”

You nearly fall to the floor as one of the men holding you—the one you shot in the shoulder—falls to the ground. You tilt backward as the second man goes down but a tight hand around your arm yanks you backward.

Black Mask pulls you into a patient room, the bed pushed against the wall next to the bathroom. He pulls you away from the door until your back is against the window. He keeps his hand tight around your arm, pressing something hard and cold against the side of your head. Your brain still reels from the hit but you don’t have to think hard to figure out it’s a gun.

There are a few shouts from the hallway but it falls quiet quickly. Only one pair of boots echo in the hall, solemn footsteps that pause by the door. Then Jeno appears in the doorway.

Blood splatters cover the shirt, concealing the bat motif. It seeps into his leather jacket, though Jeno himself seems to be unscathed. He holds a gun in one hand and his knife in the other.

“That’s close enough,” Black Mask says when he tries to step inside.

Jeno’s mask covers his eyes, but if it didn’t, you’re pretty sure he’d be glaring. “Let the innocent go. Settle this like an adult.”

“Innocent?” Black Mask cackles. “Sure, I’ll let the innocent go. I already did that.” He grips your arm tighter, pressing the gun harder into the side of your head. “But this one isn’t innocent.”

He taps on the mask. “I don’t wear this for fun, I’m sure you know. But I’m not like you. I don’t hide to protect myself or my loved ones—I don’t even have loved ones, and you know why? Because this idiot and the idiots at this hospital don’t know how to do a simple facial repair!”

“They were third degree burns, you’re lucky to have a face,” you say.

“Shut up!” Black Mask screams, shoving you. Jeno takes a step forward but freezes when Black Mask turns back to him.

“One more step and you’ll be cleaning some brains off your mask!” He takes a breath, lowering his voice. “I’ll be the first to tell you, that’s no easy task.”

“Let the hostage go.” Jeno sounds cold through the modulator.

“And you’ll let me go?” Black Mask huffs a short laugh. “I don’t think so. Your reputation precedes you.”

“Then you know what will happen if you pull that trigger.”

“Leave now and I’ll leave this one alive,” Black Mask says.

“What, half mad after you spend a few hours with your tools?” Jeno says. “Your reputation precedes you, too.”

Black Mask sighs. “Then it seems I have no choice.” The gun presses hard against your head.

“I’ll be seeing you around,” Black Mask says. You squeeze your eyes shut, waiting for the shot but the pressure on the side of your head vanishes.

There’s a loud bang, and for a moment you’re sure you’ve died, but then you feel a hard shove on your chest. Your legs hit the wall but it’s not enough to stop you from tumbling out the window, nothing but air beneath you.

You barely raise your arms out before something tackles into you, an arm wrapping around your waist. You wrap your arms and legs around whatever they find, clinging like a baby monkey to Jeno’s side.

He raises the other arm, shooting the grappling hook and pulling hard. You snap in the air, swinging up higher than you had fallen until you’ve crested the roof.

“I got you,” Jeno says, arm wrapped so tightly around you you’re crushed against his side.

He takes all the weight as you fall onto the roof, bracing the landing with his legs, somehow remaining upright.

You can only cling to him, waiting for your brain to sort out what happened. You aren’t dead. Black Mask threw you out the window. Jeno caught you. You repeat the words over and over in your head until they almost make sense.

“We’re back on solid ground,” Jeno says.

“Mhm.” You don’t let go, keeping your arms tight around his neck.

“You’re safe now,” he says.

“I know.”

He pauses. “You can let go.”

“Not ready yet.”

“Okay.”

For a long moment all you can hear is the pounding of your heart. It lessens and you start to hear tires screeching on pavement down below, people shouting, sirens wailing in the distance.

“Black Mask is getting away,” you say.

“It doesn’t matter,” Jeno says. “I’ll get him when I get him.” His hand ghosts over your back. “All that matters is you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” you say. “Physically fine, at least. Just trying to sort out my head.”

He hums, second arm wrapping around you in a true hug. You let yourself linger in the moment, breathing in the sharp scent of blood on his jacket. It smears against your scrubs as you press closer to him, turning them slimy against your skin. The jacket hides the warmth of his body, a hard layer separating you from him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

You lean back, letting go of his neck to rest your hands against the side of his mask. Whatever it’s made out of is hard, a thin metal that curves around his features yet doesn’t bend beneath your fingers. It doesn’t look anything like Jeno, the pale eyes concealing the most human part of him. He reaches up, pulling the mask off.

Sweat makes his hair stick to his forehead, which is creased with concern. His eyes flit between yours, dark and full of everything. For too long when you first ran into him, he would look at you with cold emptiness. Though you can’t read everything behind them now, he doesn’t bury all his feelings. He lets them shine through.

“It’s not your fault,” you begin, letting your hands fall to his shoulders. “Too much has happened, and that guy hit my head, and I thought I was going to die, so it’s hard to tell what I want to say. What I’ve been meaning to say.” You take a deep breath, looking at his forehead instead of his eyes, at the white streak of hair that clings to his forehead. “But if I don’t say it now, I think I’ll chicken out and never say it.

“I’m kind of a coward,” you say. “I don’t want to get hurt—I mean, like, don’t let anybody anywhere near my heart to keep it safe, and it works. I’ll find an excuse, any excuse to push them away.

“I did it to you. Yeah, I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to think about you dying because it always sends me into a spiral, but those were all excuses. It doesn’t matter that you wear that mask. That doesn’t change anything, and I won’t hide behind it anymore.

“I love you,” you say, “so much. So much that it’s making me brave. I don't want to be a coward anymore. I want to love you. I’m sorry it took me so long, but I love you, I really, really do.”

Jeno doesn’t say anything for a long moment, looking back and forth between your eyes. He doesn’t frown or smile, his face a mask itself.

“Oh,” he says.

“Apparently near death experiences lead to radical reflections and revaluations of life values.”

And then he smiles, a real smile that curls his eyes and sends your stomach hurtling in somersaults. He presses his forehead against yours, your hands still resting on his shoulders.

“Don’t apologize for things that aren’t your fault,” you say. You brush his cheek with your thumb. “Save your applogies for real fuck ups.”

He snorts. “Think there’s going to be a lot of those?”

“Somehow I think I’m going to get stood up a lot,” you say. “It’s okay, though. That’s just what happens when you date a superhero.”

“I don’t know about that,” he says. “I’m no superhero.”

You kiss his nose. “Whatever you want to call it. But you’re a good man, Lee Jeno, through and through.”

Jeno brushes his lips against yours, barely a kiss. He moves hesitantly, like he’s scared you’ll crumble in his hands.

Well, you’re not going to die, he made sure of that. You are here and alive, and so is he. You grip the neckline of his jacket, pulling him into a crushing kiss. You press your lips harder against his and his arms tighten around you, finally kissing you back.

It’s terrifying, how much you trust him. Like jumping off a cliff and knowing he’ll catch you—which basically he just did—you have to let go of the fear. Even when his arms are wrapped around you and you can feel him with every atom, it isn’t easy—a part of you will always want to run away, protect yourself. But you’re done running. Jeno put a gun in your hand and told you to fight. You can do that for him—for yourself.

You will hold onto him and you will love him and he will do the same for you. It’s all you can do.

Bonus:

Jeno doesn’t know how you slept on this armchair. The back is stiff against his back and he can’t hang his legs off the side without the arms cutting into the back of his knees. He can tuck his head against the wing but it leaves his neck at an awkward angle.

It’s for the best, though, since he needs to stay awake anyway. He shifts the chair until it’s against the side of the bed and sets his legs back on the edge of the bed, crossing one over the other and resting his elbows on the armrest. You raise your eyebrows at his feet but don’t tell him to move. He’ll give it a good twenty minutes before he tries to sit on the bed. He wonders if you’ll kick him out if he just asks outright if he can curl up next to you. Better to ease into it.

You look radiant, wearing a big t-shirt curled under the blankets. Your lips curl into a little smile every time you catch him looking at you (which is pretty much always).

“I’m going to invest in a big ass taser,” you say, still listing out your plan to keep yourself safe. “And some heavy duty pepper spray.”

“I can teach you how to shoot a gun,” Jeno offers.

You make a face, nose scrunching.

“No?”

You shake your head slowly. “No thank you. My arms hurt.”

“How about some hand-to-hand?” He asks.

“Are you going to be able to keep your hands to yourself?”

“What are you talking about?”

You look pointedly at his hand, which has found yours, fingers tapping on your knuckles. Huh, he didn’t realize he was doing that. He raises both hands, holding them up like a criminal waiting to be arrested.

“My bad,” he says, setting them in his lap. Your bottom lip juts out for a second but you’re too proud to ask him to hold it again. He bites back a smile at the little war behind your eyes.

“How’s your head?” He asks.

“Concussed,” you say flatly.

“You want to sleep?” He asks.

“Not yet,” you say. You finally concede, reaching out a hand for him. He puts his feet down, slipping out of the chair to sit on the edge of the bed, clasping his hand over yours. Your shoulder rests against his hip. You blink up at him.

“What?” He asks. “Is this okay?”

You nod slowly, studying him with piercing eyes. He gets the feeling you see right through him, so he turns his gaze to your intertwined fingers.

“What did you think of me when you first saw me? When you moved here, I mean,” he asks.

You pause for a long moment. “Honestly?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you were unemployed for at least two months.”

Jeno snorts.

“I mean pretty much every time I knocked you were wearing sweats and half the time you looked like you had just woken up!”

Jeno scratches the back of his head with his free hand. “I don’t wear sweats that often.”

You pause for a moment and he doesn’t dare peek at your face. “When you asked me to sew up your scalp, I figured it was either vigilante or something worse, and then I saw Red Hood on the news and I just knew.”

He looks at you, head tilted down to see the top of your head. “Really?”

“It looks like you,” you say. You pause before adding, “Plus you’ve got that leather jacket hanging in your entryway. What’s up with that, by the way?”

“What?”

“Your ‘suit.’ A leather jacket and cargo pants?”

“They’re functional,” he says.

“Your name is Red Hood and you don’t even have a hood. It’s a mask.”

“Well a hood doesn’t exactly protect you,” he says, “and it strikes fear into my enemies.”

You snort. “Does the black t-shirt help with that?”

“Yeah, I can’t defend that one,” he says. “It’s cheap and easy.”

“No wonder you died,” you say.

“I take personal offense at that,” Jeno says.

You yawn. “Okay buddy.” You scoot over a little. “Just lay down already.”

Jeno grins, shifting to pull the covers up and slide his legs down them. He stretches out, rolling as close as he dares to you. His arm hovers over you until you shake your head and pull it over your waist, shifting until he all but lays on top of you. Your shoulder presses against his chest, his head resting on the same pillow only a breath away from you.

“If you wanted to cuddle you could have just asked,” you say.

“Where’s the fun in that?”

You turn your head to meet his eyes, nose brushing against his. He could melt into your eyes, so warm and full of a happiness he hardly recognizes. He hopes he looks a fraction as happy as you do—and he hopes you know it’s only a fraction of how he feels.

He didn’t think he’d ever feel happy again. Even if he finally got his revenge on Joker and Batman, it would be bittersweet at best, the end goal of a bitter fight that started when he dragged himself out of that grave.

But he is happy. It’s the warmth that courses through every fiber of his body, the way his heart pounds every time he looks at you, the hope he feels when he thinks of the “after.”

“You know it’s been years since the last time I smiled?” He says.

“Yeah, I could tell.” Your eyes soften impossibly more. You rest your hand against his cheek again, fingers soft and careful as they trace the lines of his smile. They work their way to his lips, ghosting over the soft skin.

“I think that part is over,” Jeno says. “Hating the world.” He presses a kiss on your thumb. “I’d like to be happier now.

“Red Hood is a part of who I am, and it always will be. But Jeno is too, and I won’t let go of that.” He tightens his arm. “I’d like to hold onto you, too, though.”

You grin. “I’d like that too.” You press a short kiss to his lips. “But my head hurts and right now I’d really just like to go to bed.”

Jeno nods, shifting away only to turn off the lamp on your bedside table. He curls back around you, tucking his head against your neck and pulling you as close to him as he can. He is Jeno, he is Red Hood, and he isn’t alone anymore.

thank you for reading!! likes, reblogs, and comments are always appreciated

#🌟 stars galaxy #nct #nct dream #nct x reader #nct dream x reader #nct reader #nct fanfic #nct dream fanfic #nct dream fluff #nct fluff #nct dream angst #nct angst #jeno x reader #reader x jeno #lee jeno #lee jeno x reader #jeno fluff #jeno angst

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dunmeshichilchuck · 7 months ago

Text

For That One Guy On Tumblr

Chilchuck x !fem ! halffoot Reader

So this starts off during the sauna episode. I'm changing it a bit to where that floor has been that cold since the dungeon was created. There will probably be more installments but right now it's just setting things up. Anyway, enjoy.

The last thing you remembered was cold, leeching into your bones. Cold, and the certainty that this would be the last thing you'd ever feel. Your party had left you to die rather than try to heal your wounds, and this floor was too deep for someone else to come along and take pity on you before your body rotted. You were going to become a ghost, haunting this dungeon without ever being able to leave.

And then you opened your eyes again, and you were all too warm.

You took a few shuddering breaths, coughing and gasping. Your lungs burned like they were on fire and your whole body ached. You curled up into yourself, shivering. And then you became aware of what was going on around you. And also that for some reason everyone was wrapped in towels instead of normal clothing.

"YOU MEAN YOU HAD NORMAL RESURRECTION MAGIC THAT COULD DO SHIT LIKE THIS THIS WHOLE TIME???!!! ARE YOU STUPID? WE COULD HAVE AVOIDED THIS WHOLE THING!"

Another....halffoot? Shouted.

"I already EXPLAINED why I couldn't have used normal magic!!" A blond elf woman shouted back in an exasperated high pitched squeal. "It wouldn't have worked! The thread between body and soul was too tenuous! And we'd never have been able to get enough regular meat down there! Anyway I don't understand why you're so against it, I didn't see you arguing against it at the time!"

A blond tall man, blindfolded? For some reason? Interjected. "Marcille is right! Even though the body was in a not so great condition the ice kept it from rotting so all the component parts were still there! We just got lucky that we were able to gather them all together! Once the body thawed resurrecting it was a simple matter! There was no need for special magic like with Falin."

They continued to argue violently while your recently unfrozen brain attempted to make sense of the situation.

Had the half foot somehow had enough pull in the party he'd been able to convince them that they should revive you? You weren't much use on this floor and presumably deeper ones where small traps gave way to larger monsters, so you couldn't work out any reason they had for reviving you. You looked around the small, actually extremely hot room you were in. It was...a sauna? Was it really a sauna? What the fuck?

You smelled something delicious and you looked around to see a dwarf with long black hair and a massive bushy black beard peacefully tending to meat cooking over what looked very much like a wok. What the fuck? They were a high enough level party to have fresh meat down here? That would explain why they'd been able to spare the revival for you.

There was also what looked like a beast girl crouched next to him, watching the squabbling party members with a bored expression on her face. Well. That was just another one of the things to file away and deal with later.

Almost instinctively you staggered to your feet and crouched down by the dwarf to watch him cook. Your stomach grumbled insistently. Even in normal circumstances getting revived made you ravenous. Now you felt dizzy with hunger.

"Ah, hello there!" The dwarf looked up at you and beamed. "Always nice to have new folk eat with us! You must be hungry after getting revived, food should be ready in just a few minutes."

He continued cooking, humming softly to himself.

"Would you...like some help?" You managed to rasp out. Throat hoarse with disuse.

At this point it seemed like the other people there remembered your existence.

"Ah! So sorry, you're awake!" The elf said. "You were out for a long time, I didn't know if the magic would fully take with how long you'd been in the ice."

"How...how long?" You said, almost dreading the answer.

"At least a couple of years, based on the state of your organs and bones" the blindfolded tall man said enthusiastically. "You were lucky! The extreme cold preserved you extremely well and there aren't any monsters down here that would go to the trouble of digging you out of the ice."

You blinked at him.

"How did you get all the way down here?" The elf asked. "Was your party wiped out? We looked but we couldn't find anyone else."

"I'll bet they left her behind." The halffoot interjected dourly. "She probably got injured and they didn't want to waste time resurrecting her or bringing her along."

"what!" The elf gasped. "that's terrible, no one would do that! Why would you even think of that Chilchuck??"

"Like I keep telling you guys, halffoots are treated as expendable! It'd be totally within the realm of possibility! Especially since she didn't sign on with the union or we woulda recorded when her party came back without her or she just never came back at all!" He frowned. "That's why I started the damn thing in the first place but if not everyone uses it it's not fucking good to anyone."

he (chilchuck?) turned abruptly to you. "Anyway, why didn't you use the union? We would have been able to look out for you so this didn't happen."

You stared at him in utter confusion. "....union?"

#dunmeshi #chilchuck #chilchuk tims #chilchuk dungeon meshi #chilchuck x reader

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sooniebby · 2 years ago

Note

so.... ive read your izuku fanfic and damn they were sooo good i wanna cry t__t anywaaaays, idk if ur requests are open or nah so can i request puppy persona!m!reader x timeskip sakusa kiyoomi from haikyuu, whereas reader is sakusa's s/o and when sakusa publishes reader as his s/o on his insta (he posts their pic tgt) someone's commenting bad about reader and he saw it, what happens next is up to you :DDD stay healthy xoxo

ఌ 𝐒𝐀𝐊𝐔𝐒𝐀 𝐊𝐈𝐘𝐎𝐎𝐌𝐈

❝ 𝘼𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙥𝙞𝙙? ❞

꧁ 𝙆𝙞𝙮𝙤𝙤𝙢𝙞 𝙭 𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧 ꧂

Word count › 1.9k

Rating › SFW

Warnings › minor homophobia

╭┈─────── ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ-

╰┈─➤ ＢＥＧＩＮＮＩＮＧ

Kiyoomi felt great. His team had just won a game and they were close to getting a spot in the semi finals. Pulling up his mask, he swiftly left the locker room, aiming the just shower at home. Still, even as he grew up, crowds bothered him.

Most of his fans seemed to get the message by now as they mostly stayed at least five feet away from him. Though it took some screaming from his manager.

“You did so good, Sakusa!!” A girl screamed.

Kiyoomi simply gave her a curt nod, walking over to the car that his manager drove. He swore he could hear a loud shriek and then a thud.

Weirdos.

The drove home took longer as his manager made sure to take a long route so that no one would follow him. Kiyoomi wasn’t even sure why some fans wanted to know where he lived. He wasn’t going to invite them inside, are they stupid?

“Thanks.” Kiyoomi’s word was muffled but his manager gave him a thumbs up.

He got inside his apartment complex and punched in the code to his door—ready to get attacked by his overly excited boyfriend.

Which he was.

Kiyoomi being the taller one, and used to this, he easily caught his boyfriend and walked inside as if this was a normal thing. It technically was. He wasn’t sure if he hated it or loved it but he hasn’t asked (Name) to stop so it was borderline tolerable at the least.

“How was the game?” (Name) asked, wrapping his legs around Kiyoomi waist as he shuffled around to take off his mask and shoes.

“I’m sweaty.”

“So?”

“I wanna bathe.”

(Name) smirked. “With me?”

Kiyoomi pushed him off, with just enough force to not actually hurt him. “Absolutely not. I’m tired.”

(Name) whined as he watched his boyfriend go off to their bedroom to take a bath. He pouted to himself as he went into the kitchen to take out Kiyoomi’s dish of curry.

The two of them had met by chance, really. (Name) wasn’t into volleyball. In reality, he hated sports in general. He had gone to Karasuno so it’s a shock they had even met. It was honestly by luck when Kiyoomi went on a dating app under a fake name and ended up matching with him.

It was a bit rocky at the start. Their vastly different personalities caused some clashes in the relationship. But it was better now, except (Name) had a problem.

He wanted people to know that they were dating. But he knew why Kiyoomi didn’t tell his fans or anyone that wasn’t his family.

Some fangirls had… problems with their faves dating. (Name) was always confused by this. Kiyoomi wasn’t an idol or anything. He was a volleyball player—who really thought they had a chance with him?

Well, he randomly got a chance with him…

(Name) brushed the thought away. He should be glad that Kiyoomi even told his parents about him. It was about a few minutes later when Kiyoomi joined him in the kitchen dressed in some pyjama bottoms. (Name) smirked at him, a playful look in his eyes as he looked him up and down.

“No.”

“I didn’t even say anything.” (Name) pouted, handing him the bowl of curry.

“Didn’t have to.”

ꕤ

Kiyoomi yawned as he laid down in bed, ready to sleep for over 12 hours after such a harsh game when his phone rang. He cursed as he reached over and answered it, knowing it was his manager.

She’s the only one who’d dare to call him after a big game.

“Sakusa! Sorry to bother you but you forgot to post a picture today!” She yelled, causing him to wince.

It was a tradition that his manager came up with. After any game, especially if he won, to post a picture of him thanking anyone who came to the game. It was nice in theory because it made his account seem alive when he only posted like twice a year before this tradition.

It also helped him go viral to gain no fans. But they weren’t really the fans he liked. They were the fans that liked him for his looks—not his skills as a player. He hated it but hey, ticket sales were higher each next game when he did this.

Besides, his true fans seemed to also like the rare photos he did. Might as well reward them.

“Alright,” he said before hanging up.

A shirtless picture with only his lamp to illuminate him would certainly gain more attention then his usual covered up ones. He was in a semi good mood away. Kiyoomi positioned his phone upward to get mostly his face and bare shoulders, showing that he was indeed shirtless.

He hit post and quickly went to sleep

What he didn’t know was that he forgot to angle (Name) out of the picture. (Name) was already asleep on the bed, facing towards Kiyoomi so his full face was in the photo.

Anyone with eyes could tell he wasn’t a friend he’s ever posted before and that (Name) was shirtless as well.

Yeah, Kiyoomi (really his manager) was screwed in the morning.

ꕤ

(Name) woke up to Kiyoomi pressing a kiss on his neck before leaving for his workout of the day. He stayed in bed for a while before getting out, checking his phone for his account on social media. (Name) wasn’t famous by any means but he did have a decent 10k followers for just posting pictures of himself.

He knew it was mainly people who thought he was cute but he didn’t mind. So many of his comments said he was like a puppy, looks and personality wise. He kinda led into it by this point—jokingly wearing dog ears in some pictures that his fans and friends loved.

To anyone else, it’d look a bit weird but he didn’t care.

(Name) frowned when he saw the amount of notifications he got.

Weird, he usually didn’t get this much unless he posted something but he hasn’t in at least a week or two. He checked them out and he felt scared. The comments that mentioned his username was talking about him being a weirdo.

And it was Kiyoomi’s fans. Their icons almost all had his face in it.

(Name) checked Kiyoomi’s account and cursed when he saw the recent picture he posted last name. There he was in the background. If there wasn’t anyone practically attacking him right now, he’d say how handsome and sexy his boyfriend is but he couldn’t.

Was this what his fans felt?

Was he really that ugly?

He shouldn’t have but he did. (Name) spent almost an hour just looking at all of the comments on Kiyoomi’s post and his own account. A few people were fighting back against the obsessed fans—stating how creepy they were acting.

But it was like fighting against the ocean. It was too much. So many kept saying that he must’ve corrupted Kiyoomi into being a homosexual.

Wow, Kiyoomi was right to hide their relationship.

“(Name)?”

Kiyoomi was in the bedroom suddenly. When did he get there? (Name) felt Kiyoomi wipe away his tears, a small frown on his lips. When did he start crying?

“What happened?”

(Name) opened his mouth but only a sob came out and his tackled Kiyoomi into a hug. He cried his heart out, not caring at how sweaty Kiyoomi was. Large arms held him tight, as Kiyoomi didn’t ask any questions. He just allowed him to cry out.

It wasn’t until Kiyoomi’s phone rang that he pulled away, pressing a kiss on (Name)’s forehead. He reached over for his phone on the nightstand. He never took his phone with him on workouts.

He just never saw the point in it. There was numerous miss calls from a few of his teammates and his manager. He called back his manager, Miss Watanabe, pulling (Name) back into his arms for some cuddling that he gladly returned.

“Hello?”

“Sakusa!! Finally, shit! If you wanted to come out you should’ve told me! We could’ve done it in a more less surprising way!” She cursed, sounding weirdly stressed out.

“I haven’t come out… What are you talking about?”

“The picture…” It was silent. “Oh no, Sakusa, was it by accident?! Shit, shit. It’s too late to delete. Oh god.”

Kiyoomi put Ms. Watanabe on speaker and checked his account, seeing his picture certainly did went viral.

And for all the wrong reason. He saw every comment that bashed (Name) and even checked his account to see them calling him a freak for wearing dog ears. Kiyoomi was angry.

He wanted so desperately to just make them vanish out of thin air (kill them) but he knew he had to make sure (Name) was alright.

“There’s a fan meet next week before the big game… I’ll come up with a speech for you to talk about it!”

“Why would I need a speech? I’ll just saw he’s my boyfriend.”

“Uh, are you sure…?”

Kiyoomi hummed, glancing down at (Name) who had stopped crying by now and was actively listening to the conversation. “It’s time they knew.”

“Ah,” Ms. Watanabe sounded as if she wanted to disagree but stopped herself. “Alright. I’ll stand by you. Do you want to delete the post still? It might not do much but it’ll delete the comments.”

“No. I’m going to post something. Bye.”

“Oh, uh, bye.”

(Name) sighed. “You don’t think I’m weird right?”

“No. You are a cute dog. My dog,” Kiyoomi said, a hint of teasing in his voice as he gently grasped (Name)’s neck. (Name), despite his puffy red eyes and teared stained face, smirked.

“Need me to get my collar?”

“Now you made it weird.”

“Oh you’re no fun!”

Kiyoomi simply smiled, as much as he did really, and stood up. “I’m going to take a shower. Get dressed, you have to look good for our picture.”

“Our picture?”

(Name) was honestly shocked. Kiyoomi was going to take a picture with him. He had made (Name) wear the dog ears (but not the collar) and dress in their matching sweaters that Kiyoomi didn’t even like wearing often. Just who was this man and where was his boyfriend?

They were sitting on the couch as Kiyoomi pulled out his phone to take multiple photos—vastly different from his usual one. Each pose was different. One was just them leaning in close, another was Kiyoomi playfully biting his cheeks and a few was of them kissing.

It was, in Kiyoomi’s word, a way for them to not deny it.

He captioned it as a full sentence instead of his usual one word.

My dog is better than yours. Love you, (Name).

(Name) giggled to himself ignoring the weird look Kiyoomi gave him. He tackled him into a hug, babbling on and on about how happy he was to have the world know he was his.

It really took only two minutes before Kiyoomi’s phone began buzzing like crazy. He hesitated to grab it but knew he should at least see what they were saying. To his surprise, a lot of them were kind, a few shocked by the somewhat “kinky” display but happy for him none the less.

Though there was one that caught his eye by a random model he noticed that always commented on his post as soon as possible.

Seriously?! Why him?! With all the people in the world?! To think I thought you were hot.

Kiyoomi never comments. But he did just this once. He wanted them to know that he’d never take any disrespect from his fans on his lover.

Are you stupid?

And that’s all was what needed to be said. He shut off his phone and pulled (Name) into a long cuddle on the couch.

╭┈─────── ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ-

╰┈─➤ ＥＮＤ

Request number two!! I wasn’t sure what you meant by puppy persona so I just adapted it like that, hopefully it’s fine!

Requests are open!

The request for tomorrow is a threesome with characters from BNHA :)

#bottom male reader

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theoreticalfishsticks · 1 month ago

Text

Warhammer 40k x Spider-Person!Reader

Sorry if this is cringe, but the autism got to me and I am physically incapable of not wanting to smash my current favorite medias together like a tyrannical toddler making their dolls kiss.

I purposefully kept it vague on exactly which legion found them and whether it was pre or post-heresy, cause I think, going forward if I write more, I'd like to jump around and just write for whoever, whenever suits my fancy, lol. This is meant more as an introduction of the concept than anything else.

Reader is non-binary because I said so.

divider from @/enchanthings

Word Count: 1929

If someone had told you this morning that by the end of the day you’d be yearning for the comforting embrace of a back alley dumpster, you’d have called them crazy. But, alas, here you are: your suit in tatters, surrounded by the stench of foreign exhaust and something sickeningly biological, about to be absolutely eviscerated by some dude who looks like he just crawled out of Doctor Octavius’ worst nightmares.

Now, one might ask ‘how’ exactly you found yourself in this situation. And it would be a fair question! Really! Unfortunately, fair as it is, you don't actually have a proper answer, yourself.

‘Why’ you ended up here, however, was relatively simple: You’re the one and only Huntsman. A friendly neighborhood spider-person, looking out for their community. And most recently, what exactly your community needed you to be looking out for was a symbiote, loose in the city.

Too bad, then, that lady luck must have had a bone to pick with you that day.

Because following an embarrassingly long chase of the damned thing through the New York City sewer system, the hungry, hungry parasite just so happened to stumble upon one of Os Corps. many, many underground research facilities. Seriously, why do they have so many of these things? One that apparently – based on what is to come – must have been deep in the midst of research on some form of teleportation or another.

Long-story-short: In your desperate attempts to not be grabbed and eaten by an ornery symbiote, you may have stopped paying attention to what exactly was behind you whilst evading the weird alien goop. And what would you know? One careless dodge (and a near comically late tingle in your bones from your spidey sense) and a stray shot of said goop managed to hit and set off Os Corps’ latest and greatest affront to humanity!

BOOM!

In the blink of an eye your entire world had been rendered to naught but blinding light, sharp pain in every inch of your body and a ringing in your ears that, in the moment, felt like it was going to be permanent.

You really can't be sure how long you were trapped like that; your consciousness suspended, unable to gauge the passage of time, nor feel your material surroundings. It felt like a lifetime. But, then again, you have been known to be a little bit dramatic from time to time, so who knows.

What you do know for sure was that it ended. The feeling of being suspended, that it. And the light. The pain, of course, stayed. As did the incessant ringing.

If you had to describe the feeling, you'd say it felt almost like your bones were in the process of trying to evacuate your body. Like there wasn't enough space in you, for you. It was agony.

But, worse than the pain, you just felt… Wrong. As though your eyes had been pulled out and put back in the wrong sockets. Your tongue was the wrong texture. Your teeth were upside down. Your liver was too smooth. And a thousand other minute sensations that couldn't be real flooded your body.

At least, you hoped to God they weren't real.

Lucky for you though, you didn't have much time to dwell on the uncanny sensation, as a clawed metal appendage descended from somewhere above you to close tightly around your throat. Your body felt like it was on fire as you were hefted up from the ground by your neck. Another claw grasped at your head and tugged away what was left of your mask.

You want to reach out and snatch it back. You want to struggle and kick and scream. But you can't. You can't will yourself to move at all as your eyes snap open at last, and you come face to face with without a doubt the most horrific monstrosity you've ever seen.

Though now a putrid blending of flesh and machine, the thing before you looks as though it might have been human at one point. But that point was far from now. Now, what skin you can see is sallow and sunken, with veins protruding all across it. It has what looks like a gas mask embedded into its face and where the flesh meets metal is layered in inflamed, gnarled scarring.

Mercifully, however, its face is all you can clearly see. The rest is hidden beneath a rather ostentatious looking robe, disguising what you can only imagine to be equally horrific means of attachment for the several mechanical appendages that flow from it. Including, of course, the one currently choking the life out of you.

For a long moment you can only stare at the thing in front of you, gaping like an idiot, before you finally register that its horrid mask is moving. It's talking to you.

At least, you assume it is. Though, now declined significantly in volume, you still struggled to make out anything through the ringing.

You try to say as much, to tell the nightmare that you couldn't understand it. But it seems as though you weren't successful, if the violent, impatient shake the creature gave you in response was any indication. Or maybe your meaning came across fine and the thing was just an asshole. Both seemed possible.

At last, the ringing begins to fade more or less and you could scrounge together two whole brain cells to rub together and bring your mind into focus.

“Intruder. Identify yourself,” the creature demanded, its voice horrifically garbled and interspersed with high-pitched whirring.

You’d love to do so, if only you could actually take in the air required to make noise. This hurdle, however, seemed to be lost on the mechanical horror before you, leaving you to squirm helplessly in its grasp whilst pawing at the claw around your throat in the hopes that it would get the message.

“Magos, release your hold. They cannot speak if you’re obstructing their airway,” comes a low voice from somewhere to your right, rumbling through the air at a frequency you register as strange, to say the least. The words aren’t shouted, but they carry the same weight as though they were.

You’re immediately and unceremoniously dropped by the “Magos’” and allowed to crumple to the ground with a dull thud.

Sputtering and coughing as you desperately suck in some much needed oxygen, you’re finally able to turn your gaze to the man who’d probably just saved your life, for now anyway…

...

‘What. The. Fuck.’

The sight that greets you is not one, not two, but three, absolute behemoths, all in armor so bulky you struggle to wrap your head around the idea that it can move at all, staring straight through you.

'Is literally everyone here some kind of fucked up weirdo?'

They stand in a triangular formation, two flanking the one taking point, who you can only assume must be the one who spoke. The rear guard both sport guns that look to be the size of your torso, trained directly on you.

“Now that you’ve caught your breath, identify yourself,” says the central figure, his voice rolling over you like thunder rolls over a storm. It makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, a familiar tingle running up your spine.

'He’s human, for sure,' you think to yourself, 'But only in the sense that I am too.'

Between still ragged gasps, you manage to spit out your name. You decide to give both your real one and your alias, sensing that now is not the time to play coy.

The man repeats your name back at you, testing the syllables on his tongue. It doesn’t look like he likes them. “I’ve never heard such a name, nor of the title ‘Huntsman’ on any of the worlds nearby. Where do you come from,” he asks you.

‘Worlds nearby…?’ That doesn’t bode well for any hopes of an easy road home.

“Uhhh, Earth,” you squeak, though it sounds more like a question than you’d like.

“‘Earth?’ Do you mean Terra? That's nonsense, there is no–” he begins to respond in a vaguely irate tone.

And you panic.

You’re tired and confused and in so much pain. And the idea that this man might just kill you over a misunderstanding eats away at whatever remaining self control you had.

So while cutting him off probably isn’t the greatest move, that’s exactly what you do. “Not your earth! At least, I don’t think it is,” you say, tripping over some of the syllables in your haste.

It’s a safe bet. Nothing around you looks familiar. They’re calling Earth(?) ‘Terra.’ Whether or not it's even tangentially the same world doesn’t really matter to you right now. Right now, you just need them to hear you out. To understand that whatever trespass you’ve committed was an accident and that you would also prefer you weren’t here right now.

“I-I…,” you stop and close your eyes, forcing yourself to take a couple deep breaths to try and steady yourself. He hasn’t ordered his men to shoot and he seems to be waiting for you to continue; and for now that’s enough for you to draw courage from.

“I’m gonna be honest with you, man. I don’t know how I got here either. At least, not in a quantifiable way…,” another breath, “I was in the vicinity of a misfire of a prototype teleportation device,” You decide to keep the true extent of your ignorance to yourself. These men don’t seem like the type to take kindly to it. For now, you just had to settle on what seemed most likely and sell it. “The thing was wildly unstable, and based on the fact that absolutely nothing I have seen in the last few minutes is even vaguely familiar to me, I’m pretty sure that space is probably not the only thing that machine moved me through.”

“Expound.” Still not dead, that’s encouraging.

“Well–Uh, You said that you hadn’t heard of me ‘on any of the worlds nearby,’ right? That implies regular space travel. And well, I know for damn sure that humans are not space-faring where I’m from! At least, not like this,” you give a vague gesture to your surroundings, “So, if I know that shouldn’t be possible where I’m from, but the abject reality before me says it is, I feel like it’s a perfectly fair assumption to say that I must then not be in the same time as I was previously. I mean, space and time are inherently enmeshed with one another, right? So, it’s really not that hard to imagine that a faulty spacial teleporter might invite temporal displacement as well...” You’re out of breath again by the time you’ve finished your nervous rambling.

The man just looks at you. They all do. The weight of their combined gaze makes you feel like an insect trapped beneath their thumb.

You hate this. You miss your mask.

You never were any good at schooling your expressions. So you can only imagine what a pitiful, deer-in-the-headlights-esk look you must be giving them in return for their own utterly unphased, emotionless ones.

(Though, looking back on it later, you’ll come to appreciate that it was probably the guileless nature of your expression that actually saved you here.)

After a long pause, the man sighs and at least half of the tension previously present in the room dissipates. “So you’ve never heard of the Imperium of Man before, then?”

“The what of Man?”

#warhammer 40k #fanfic #warhammer x reader #space marine x reader #primarch x reader #this has more to do with 40k than spiderman so I'm not gonna tag for it lol #this is my first fanfic so I hope y'all like it #I just think the idea is funny #expecially once it gets into the realm of considering that a spider-person is probably a fairly decent match for a space marine in many way #but in a leetle package #nb!reader #edit: why did I spell especially like that?#edit edit: in many way?#spider-person in 40k

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okaylikeschaewon · 2 years ago

Text

Chapter 4: Sauna

When you woke up, Chaewon was still deep asleep. You wanted to think she was exhausted after that session, but it was more than likely that she was just tired from all the hard work the group has been putting in recently. After all, they had just one day off before the comeback tomorrow.

This was a huge deal for them as it was their first comeback as a group. You wanted to make sure you were there to support your girlfriend to the best of your ability. Quietly, you got out of the bed, slipped on some casual clothes, and made your way down to the lobby to pick up your mail. After arriving in the mail room, you met your neighbor and nodded respectfully as you walked by.

“Heard quite a bit of noise last night, is everything alright?” your neighbor asked over his shoulder.

“Oh, yeah we were just playing some games and ended up getting very into it,” you answer while turning around.

“Right, games.”

He smiled and patted your shoulder before turning around and walking away. You went to the mailboxes and checked inside while smiling to yourself. Nothing interesting, just some envelopes that were probably bills and a couple of flyers. You picked up the mail and made your way back to your apartment.

After returning to your apartment, you opened the door and dropped off the mail on your table. As you took your shoes off, you heard a noise coming from inside. You found Chaewon on her hands and knees, scrubbing the floor.

“What in the world are you doing?”

“Cleaning the mess.”

Crouching down next to her, you grab the sponge out of her hand.

“Sweetheart, why?”

“I can clean,” she responds with her adorably tiny voice while looking down at the floor.

“I know you can, but you don’t need to clean my apartment,” you reply. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, everything is fine,” she answers with a sigh while sitting cross-legged on the floor with her back against your couch.

After plopping down on the floor next to her, you wrap an arm around her shoulder.

“What’s worrying my baby girl?”

“Our comeback… what if it doesn’t go well?”

You pull her closer.

“Impossible.”

The confusion on her face was palpable, “what do you mean it’s impossible?” she demanded.

“I mean exactly that, it’s impossible.”

If looks could kill right now…

“Stop making a joke about it, I’m being serious,” she snaps. “Do you know how much pressure I have? I mean, all of us do, but me especially. Don’t you understand? What if-” she inhales sharply while closing her eyes.

Her excessive rambling clearly showed how flustered she was getting. Somehow she managed to display ten different emotions all at the same time, and you couldn’t help but find it somewhat adorable.

“I don’t think so.”

“Stop that, I’m serious,” she scowls, opening her eyes just enough to glare at you.

“Nope.”

She looked like she was actually about to hit you.

“You look so cute when you’re angry,” you comment while poking her cheek.

“I’m not angry, I’m…” she begins before pausing and sighing heavily. “I don’t even know anymore.”

After a short laugh, you found yourself leaning over and pressing your lips to her soft cheek.

“I won’t pretend to have all the answers, but I know you are going to have a great comeback,” you whisper against her face. “But today, we are going to have so much fun in the pool while you forget about everything for just a little bit.”

Tilting her head slightly, she smiles weakly at you.

“Seriously though, I can’t shake the idea that it might flop.”

While pulling her into a tight hug, you nuzzle your cheek against hers.

“Well, if it flops and you get fired, you can come live with me and clean up my floors as much as you want,” you reply with a hint of mockery. “As long as the mess is made by us having sex.”

Her giggles combined with the tight squeeze of her hug told you that you must have at least said something right.

—

“You’re late!” Yunjin shouts from across the pool.

“Sorry, sorry!” Chaewon pants as the two of you scurry over to where the rest of the group was standing.

“Hey slow down! It would be a terrible time to sprain an ankle,” Sakura scolds the two of you.

“Sorry!” Chaewon apologizes again while hugging Sakura. “You guys shoulda started without us!”

“How would we all jump into the pool at the same time if we started without you?” Yunjin teases. “Now come on, let’s do this.”

The five girls line up at the edge of the pool, holding hands, when Chaewon looks over her shoulder at you. “What are you waiting for?”

“Oh, I figured this was a group thing,” you reply.

“Aish, stop being like that,” Eunchae shouts. “Get in here!”

The five of them start shouting at you until you walk up and grab Chaewon’s hand. Together, the six of you jump into the pool while screaming. There is a mess of limbs under the water, and you have no idea what is going on. Eventually, you surface and you find yourself in Kazuha’s embrace.

“Oh, why are you hugging me?” she asks innocently while shaking her head, spraying the water off her hair all over.

“I’m not!” you counter. “You’re the one holding me!”

Sakura starts giggling while watching the two of you, meanwhile the other three girls start splashing each other with water.

“How often do you girls do this?” you ask while wiping the water out of your eyes.

“Not as often as we’d like, but every now and then they book the whole pool for us,” Sakura explains. “Benefits of being in one of the biggest companies I guess.”

Her outfit was stunning. She wore a tiny black top with a black zip-up jacket over it. Your gaze naturally found itself peeking at the slight cleavage she was displaying, immersed in her unintentional provocation.

Water splashes on the side of your face and you are quickly brought back to reality as Chaewon floats by on a little pink flamingo.

“Zuha! Join me!”

“Ne!” she shouts back while leaving you behind and paddling over to Chaewon.

Chaewon’s tight blue outfit left almost nothing to the imagination. The thin bodysuit accentuated her beautiful curves, making her cute butt especially prominent. The tiniest bit of her midriff was peeking out as her body bent sideways, making room for Kazuha on the flamingo.

While floating over in the pool, your mind thought of all the things you wanted to do with her. Wrapping your hands around her thin waist, her impeccably peach-like ass sticking out into your hips. That beautiful lower back of hers, and her remarkable ability to arch her back when she was about to cum.

“What are you thinking about?” Sakura asks as the tip of your head bumps into her soft chest.

Water fills your mouth as you flip around in a panic, trying to make sense of where you are in the pool.

“Sorry!” you cough as you finally find yourself upright.

“You alright?” she asks while flashing you a toothy smile, still leaning against the side of the pool with her arms up. “Why is your face so red?”

“Is it?” you ask while feeling your cheek. “Probably just because of all the water I swallowed.”

She giggles faintly.

“Hey, about the other night,” she continues softly. “I don’t- I just- I-”

“It’s alright Sakura,” you interject while leaning your back against the side of the pool next to her. “Nothing happened.”

With pursed lips, she turns to you. “I know nothing happened, but…”

Chaewon and Kazuha’s screams interrupt the conversation as their flamingo flips and the two of them fall into the water, making both you and Sakura turn in unison.

“You alright dummy?!” you shout towards them.

Chaewon stood in the middle of the pool like a statue with her eyes shut as her wet bangs pressed against her forehead. Kazuha was laughing wholeheartedly while chasing after the fleeing flamingo. Eventually, Chaewon slowly walked over to you and Sakura while wiping her eyes.

“I didn’t want my hair to get wet,” she whines while snuggling into your open arms.

“Maybe you should have thought about that before jumping into a pool.”

Sakura starts giggling again while letting her feet float up to the surface.

“He has a point, you know.”

“Don’t take his side!” Chaewon pouts. “I blame the flamingo.”

“Yeah! Silly flamingo!” you joke while Sakura’s laughs continue to fill your ears. With Chaewon in your arms, you couldn’t help but slide your hands around her body. Your fingers find refuge on her ass, gently pressing into it.

“Slide!” Yunjin shouts from across the pool while she follows Eunchae out of the water.

“Me too!” Kazuha shouts back while lifting herself out of the pool, forgetting entirely about the flamingo.

She wore black pants with a long-sleeved white and black top. As she was getting out of the pool, her wet pants were glued to her skin, showing off the shape of her ass perfectly. Your eyes, however, fixated on the tiny bit of her muscular lower back that peeked out as she lifted herself up.

“You’re lucky Chaewon’s not the jealous type,” Sakura comments.

“Oh believe me, this would never work out if I was,” Chaewon adds. “The amount of time I’ve caught him checking out Zuha…”

“Hey, it’s not my fault!” you protest. “I mean, come on, have you seen her body?”

Chaewon smiles at you and pecks you on the cheek before turning around and leaning her back against your chest.

“I’m not upset,” she giggles. “Of course I’ve seen her body. In fact, I’ve seen all of it.”

Sakura smirks while watching Kazuha climb the ladder to the slide. Your mind is reminded of Chaewon’s comment about how all idols fool around, and you can’t help but think about how Sakura and Kazuha are roommates.

“Do you want to see Zuha naked?” Chaewon asks you candidly before floating towards Sakura.

Sakura turns back towards you with her eyebrows raised. “Careful, that question sounds like a trap,” she laughs.

“It’s not a trap,” Chaewon interjects, making her voice scarily sweet.

“Of course not sweetie,” you hesitate. “You’re the only one I want to see naked.”

Chaewon rolls her eyes and splashes water at you before leaning against the side of the pool next to Sakura. “Liar,” she scoffs

“Why’d you even ask if we both know the answer?” you ask while splashing her back.

“Because I want to make you a deal,” Chaewon says while wiping the collateral damage off Sakura’s face. “You and Kkura swap beds tonight.”

“Oh? Sounds like your real intention is to get into Sakura’s pants,” you comment, noticing Sakura’s face turning bright red. “Well you have my blessing, but I think it’s up to Sakura.”

“Chaewon, um, when was the last time…?”

“The night before our debut,” Chaewon answers tenderly while wrapping her arms around Sakura’s body. “It seems fitting to spend the night before our first comeback together as well, no?”

It was uncharacteristic of Sakura to get this flustered over something like this, but the girl was a bit of a mess right now. After a few seconds of thought, Sakura nods her head to Chaewon who presses her face against her chest.

“Just to confirm, this means I get Kazuha tonight, right?”

“Only if she wants you,” Chaewon teases while splashing you with water again.

—

After exhausting themselves in the pool, everyone got out and spent some time replenishing. Whether it was sipping on fruity drinks out of various tropical fruits, or sunbathing on the rainbow-colored lawn chairs, relaxation was the only thing that mattered. You decided, after some heavy implications from Chaewon, to spend some time in the sauna.

The scorching heat relaxed your skin as you took a seat, awaiting Chaewon’s arrival. This particular sauna felt warmer than normal, and you felt a thin layer of sweat build up on your skin almost immediately. Leaning your head back, you slowly let your eyes close, letting the warmth drop you into a state of bliss. Without warning, you were taken out of your euphoric trance as you heard the door open.

“Took you long enough,” you mumbled as you opened your eyes. “Oh! Sorry, I thought you were Chaewon,” you quickly corrected yourself. “Come, have a seat.”

Kazuha smiles brightly at you before turning around and locking the door.

“Why did you lock-” you began before quickly bringing your hand up and covering your eyes. “Kazuha… your towel.”

“What’s wrong?” Kazuha asks casually while stepping over her towel and sitting next to you. “I hope you don’t mind, I just want to feel the heat on my skin.”

“Oh a-alright,” you stutter while trying to avert your gaze from her nude body. “I can come back later-”

“Wow, you’re sweating,” Kazuha notes, ignoring you. She starts slowly rubbing her hand across your chest, feeling your sweat-stained skin. “I’m jealous, for some reason I don’t sweat in saunas.”

“I see,” you reply, accidentally catching a quick glimpse of her nude chest.

“No really, look,” she says while grabbing your hand and making you grope her abs. “See? Nothing.”

“Huh, you’re actually not sweating,” you reply while taking another quick peek at her body. “Maybe it just takes you a bit longer.”

“It’s my whole body,” she continues while pushing your hand down towards her lower half. She rubs your hand dangerously close to her lady parts before making you feel her soft thighs. “No matter how long I spend, I don’t know why I don’t sweat.”

“I… don’t know either.”

“Can you help me?”

It was becoming impossible to completely avoid looking at her, but it became truly impossible now as she straddled you and took a seat on your lap.

“Do you mind holding me for a bit? Just to see if it’ll make me sweat.”

You were at a loss for words, and all you could do was sit there while she pressed her soft, but cute, tits into your face. At first you tried to look to the side, but you felt her fingers running through your hair and she pressed your head right up against her body. Her soft skin, layered with her firm muscles, felt incredible.

“This feels one-sided. Please wrap your arms around me, I promise I won’t bite,” she whines playfully. “Unless you want that,” she adds quietly with a whisper.

She had absolutely no shame, and it just clicked in your head that Chaewon wasn’t coming. You brought your hands up to her back and began exploring, feeling every inch of her muscular and toned back. She worked out a lot, and it showed. Still, however, her skin remained unbelievably soft.

“Are you sweating yet?” you asked into her chest while her soft tits muffled your voice.

“I can’t tell,” she moaned softly. “Do I taste sweaty?”

So that’s the game she wanted to play. You allowed yourself to completely succumb to her philanderous advances. Your tongue began to explore her breasts before you filled your mouth with one of her taut nipples, sucking on it like an orange slice.

“Oooo, do you like the taste,” she moaned teasingly. “Also, why are you poking me?”

In response, your hands slid down her back and gave her small butt a playful slap. The light spank made her giggle softly before grabbing your head with both hands, holding it steady. She began to twist her upper body left and right, shaking her little tits across your mouth. You lapped them up, licking as much of her body that she exposed to your tongue, while your hands began to feel her magnificent ass.

Her butt was soft and firm at the same time, an incomprehensible paradox filling your hands. Squeezing and kneading her skin, you got lost in her body. That sexy body that she loved to tease you with all the time. That titillating body you found on your mind more often than not. Your fingers slowly made their way from her ass towards her most intimate bits.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

“Zuha! We’re about to go!” came an incomprehensible voice from outside.

“Coming!” Kazuha shouts back while quickly hopping off your lap.

She took two long strides before bending over extremely slowly and reaching for her previously discarded towel. She was blatantly showing off her ass, and your gaze was shamelessly locked onto the beautiful peach. With a quick peek over her shoulder and a giggle, she crouched down, making her toned ass spread just enough to give you a view of her puckered asshole.

It looked delicious; Your mouth literally began to salivate while watching her. After picking up the towel, she wrapped it around her body before turning around.

“You’re excited again!” she comments causally while pointing at your crotch with a huge smile on her face.

“Yeah of course… wait what do you mean again?”

“Earlier in the pool when you wouldn’t stop hugging me, I could feel you poking me.”

“What are you… I wasn’t…”

Before you could even make sense of your thoughts, she opened the door and walked out. You shortly followed while trying to subtly cover yourself with your hands.

“How’d it go?”

“Holy shit,” you gasp with a little jump. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“Why are you so on edge,” Chaewon giggles, walking up from behind you while interlocking your arm with hers. “Did Zuha get you all excited?”

“Did you tell her to do that?”

“Do what?”

“Don’t play dumb.”

A sly smile forms on Chaewon’s lips.

“All I did was talk to her about going on a date with you.”

“How does that lead to her stripping down and giving me a lap dance?”

“She stripped?” Chaewon gasps. “I’m jealous.”

“So you didn’t tell her to do it?”

“Not exactly,” she begins. “We were talking about a date, and she felt worried that you wouldn’t be interested.”

“Not interested?” you ask while stopping in your tracks. “How could she possibly think that? Especially with how much she teases me.”

Chaewon waits a second before walking with you again, making sure that the rest of the group is definitely out of earshot.

“Don’t forget what I told you, Zuha has never been with a guy before.”

“I know, but she seems so confident in herself, especially in her body.”

“Because she works her ass off for that body,” Chaewon continues. “But how can she be confident in something she’s never done?”

It made sense. You remembered Chaewon’s first time versus where she was now, it was like night and day.

“Why are you two always so slow!” Yunjin shouts from across the parking lot.

“Sorry!” Chaewon shouts back while the two of you jog to catch up to the group.

“Eunchae has a bit of a surprise meeting with Music Bank, and Yunjin wants to go to the company to record,” Sakura explains after the two of you catch up. “I’m going to take Kazuha out for lunch, we’ll all meet up again later tonight if that works.”

“I think we can find a way to kill some time,” Chaewon responds while looking at you.

—

Raw, unadulterated, fucking.

An apt description of what you were doing to the petite Korean girl bent over the edge of her bed. Your hips took no breaks, repeatedly smashing against the cute ass that she had been showing off all day in the pool. With your grip on her waist tightening, pushing down into her lower back, you could finally relish in your fantasy from earlier.

“Ahhh,” Chaewon moans. “Show me what you’re going to do to Zuha tonight.”

“Kazuha is going to be begging for this,” you grunt aggressively. “I’ll make sure she never forgets.”

“Stop fucking talking about Zuha while you’re balls deep in my pussy.”

“You brought her up first,” you gasped in frustration while taking a quick breather.

“Shut up and fuck me, before they come back.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go get ice cream?”

A smirk formed on your lips when you saw the glare she shot at you over her shoulder. Before she could really get angry, you pressed her body as hard into the bed as possible and began really giving it to her. Her shrieks of pleasure were the perfect encouragement as they masked the sound of skin on skin. Luckily, the rest of the members were out getting frozen treats, which left you and her with the freedom to be as loud as you wished.

Fucking Chaewon from behind always pushed you to the edge pretty quickly, and you started thinking about where to dump your seed. An idea hit you, but first there was something else you couldn’t stop thinking about. You stopped pumping, leaving your cock fully embedded in her pussy, and you bent over her body.

Before she could voice her frustration, you ran your tongue up her back slowly, collecting her salty sweat in your mouth. After you made it as far up her back as your mouth could reach, you pressed your lips against her warm, flushed skin and planted a kiss directly against the nerves in her spine.

Chaewon’s whole body shivered, sending the vibration through your shaft. With your stomach flat against her back, you reached your hand down between her legs where it connected with her hand. You grabbed her slim fingers and used them like a toy, pleasuring her clit as you resumed your hip thrusting.

The rough, harsh plowing was replaced by a much softer, more methodical thrusting. You tried to match the movement of her hand with your thrusting as if you were the puppetmaster of her pleasure. After a few more pumps into her backside, Chaewon’s hand slipped out from under her and onto the bed limply as she lost the capacity to control her body.

With her laying down on your hand, you could also barely move your fingers at this point. You brought your legs together slightly, pushing hers inwards to make her grip on your hand as tight as possible. There was a full movement restriction on your hand now, and all it could do was soak up all of Chaewon’s juices as you pumped her over and over again.

“Oh baby I’m close!” she cried in pure delectation. “Bit more!”

Her words were redundant, you could tell just by how her pussy was contracting on your cock that she was about to explode. It only took a couple more wet thrusts before the jets were released. Despite your hand acting like a plug, her juices sprayed all over the bed, your fingers, and your thighs.

Chaewon’s pussy wouldn’t stop convulsing. Wave after wave of contractions traveled down your shaft like action potentials going through an axon. The rhythmic pulse of her body was making it near impossible to hold back. You ripped your hand out from under her body, releasing a fresh wave of her cum all over the bedsheets.

“Chaewon,” you gasp while swiftly withdrawing your cock before you came inside her.

Disregarding the slight swaying of her sensitive body, she held still like the perfect canvas for you while you vigorously stroked yourself to completion behind her. The rush took over your body, and it was physically impossible to control yourself anymore. Your orgasm was near and inevitable at this point.

Panting heavily, you leaned forward and grabbed one of Chaewon’s ass cheeks with your free hand. You spread her just enough to give you a clear view of her dripping pussy and her tight asshole. The sensation in your cock as you rode the precipice of your orgasm was driving you insane. While in this euphoric state, you tried your absolute best to aim at her asshole.

The streak of white ejaculate painting Chaewon’s back, however, was a clear indication of how poor your aim was. You immediately attempted to aim lower, resulting in the second streak not making it quite as far up her back and landing on her ass.

“Fuck,” you moan while the rest of your load lands on target, coating the gap between Chaewon’s ass cheeks.

A pool of your fresh seed was building up on her ass. The white goo slowly began sliding down, like raindrops moving down a car window while driving on the freeway. The visuals of your fresh, white cum between Chaewon’s ass cheeks was picture-perfect. With the hand on her ass, you gently played with her, watching as the cum was making little bridges between each of her cheeks when they would separate.

“I’m fucking exhausted,” you pant while falling onto your side next to Chaewon on the bed.

Her adorable smile made you feel like the luckiest person in the world right now. Still bent over and on her elbows, she leaned over to gently press her lips against yours. She kissed you a few times, softly, while your hand spontaneously reached up towards her ass.

“Mmmph,” she moaned softly into your mouth as you grabbed one of her cheeks and pulled her over so that she was laying on top of you. She stared deeply and lovingly into your eyes, her face mere inches away from yours.

“Have you ever thought about this one?” you asked gently while your fingers slid down between her cheeks, spreading your seed in a circle around her other hole. “I know I have.”

“Doesn’t it hurt, though?” she asks while biting her lip nervously.

“It can, but it can also feel good,” you answer while sliding your fingers down lower and mixing your cum with her own wetness. “It’s just an idea, I don’t want you to feel any sort of pressure.”

After a second of thought, her expression turns into one of determination.

“One finger.”

“Are you-”

She cuts you off by leaning down and briefly kissing you again.

“One finger.”

Seeing her look of determination told you that she was not only serious, but she was also ready. You slid your finger up, collecting as much of the cum between her cheeks as you could on your middle finger, until you found her asshole.

Carefully, you pressed softly against the hole, trying to get a sense of how tight she was. She had her eyes shut at this point, and the arms on either side of your head propping her up were both flexed and shaking slightly.

“Try to relax your body,” you whisper. “It’ll be easier that way.”

She inhales deeply through her nose, her eyes still shut, before slowly exhaling. Her minty breath hits your face, and you see her upper body relax ever so slightly. Her expression calms down, and with her eyes still shut she gives you a single nod of her head.

That relaxed expression was immediately erased as your finger forced past the initial tenseness of her asshole. She was wincing, but she didn’t object. You pressed forward a bit more, pausing again when her mouth shot open.

“Should I stop?”

With her eyes still shut tight and her mouth open, she shook her head faintly. Even though she was saying keep going, the tight squeeze of her ass was screaming for you to stop. You brought your free hand up between her legs and slowly rubbed her clit in an attempt to elevate her experience.

It must have worked, because you felt her asshole ease up marginally. Her eyes were still shut tight, but her mouth was closed and she was breathing into your face through clenched teeth. Unknown to her, you were smiling proudly at her determination as you started pushing your finger deeper into her body.

Deeper and deeper your finger went until it was past the halfway mark, her tightness threatening to cut off the blood flow entirely. Without warning, her eyes shot open and she squealed before her arms gave way. She fell onto your chest, gasping against your skin while her asshole pulsed like a strobe light

“Take it out or keep going?”

She took a moment of contemplation before she spoke up, “keep going, slowly.” Her voice was muffled, but certain, as she couldn’t lift her face off your chest.

After craning your neck to kiss the top of her head briefly, you began to move your finger back and forth inside her with the utmost care. You made sure to never go too deep or too fast, and you matched your other hand’s movements to create the perfect sensation for her.

It took some time for her body to really get into it, but you made sure to stay diligent. One finger was being squeezed like a lemon, while the other hand was being soaked by her pussy juices that were steadily flowing down. Your hands were working in tandem to try and make this avant-garde act as pleasurable as possible.

Eventually, you could feel her face pressing harder down into your chest. Her butt lifted up into the air slightly due to the arch of her back, that characteristic arch you knew all too well; She was finally starting to enjoy it.

“Don’t stop,” she moaned as her pussy dripped all over your lower body. “Whatever you do, don’t fucking stop.”

That was far from your plan.

The sound of pure wetness began to fill the air. Your fingers were going to prune up at this rate, but it didn’t matter. Only Chaewon’s tight little asshole mattered. The finger pushing through her tightness was becoming more audacious the closer she got to her orgasm, it went deeper and deeper with each thrust.

Chaewon’s whimpers aligned perfectly with the tight squeeze of her asshole. It was squeezing harder and harder, making it almost impossible to keep thrusting your finger. Despite the difficulty, you powered through, at least until the point when Chaewon’s pussy began to sprinkle.

The droplets flying out of her pussy began to coat your thighs, flying right past the fingers rubbing her clit. She was as physically close to cumming as possible without getting there. In one swift motion, you pulled your finger out of her asshole entirely, eliciting a sharp gasp from her.

Before her mind could comprehend what just happened, you jammed the finger back into her asshole deeper than ever before. Her lips released a high-pitched squeal before her other lips gushed all over your legs. Thighs, knees, shins, every bit of your legs became a towel for Chaewon’s jetting pussy.

“Fuck!” she cried as her body squirmed uncontrollably. She was trembling while her asshole was squeezing in rhythmic pulses, the mind-numbing orgasm had her speechless, unable to even make a noise, unable to do anything other than enjoy the sensation.

After she eventually calmed down, which took much longer than her orgasms usually take, you began to slowly pull your finger out of her asshole, gently rubbing the sore entrance. With your other hand, you slowly started to play with her clit again.

“Please,” she moaned while grabbing your wrists. “No more.”

“You sure you don’t want to go again?”

A puff of air escaped her nose, she didn’t have the energy to even muster a proper laugh.

“I’m sure,” she sighed softly. “By the way, that really fucking hurt.”

“I-”

“But it also felt fucking amazing.”

“I’m getting mixed signals.”

Her whole body was still quivering while her chest moved up and down with each deep breath. With one hand you gently rubbed her back, and with the other hand you softly massaged her ass. There was no rush, you were completely happy having Chaewon’s body laying on top of yours; It was one of the most cathartic positions imaginable. Eventually, she lifted herself up and kissed you forcefully on your lips.

“By the way, don’t you dare actually treat Zuha this roughly,” she says sternly. “And do not put anything in her ass.”

“I promise I’ll be gentle,” you chuckle while brushing her hair. “However, you should definitely put something in Sakura’s ass.”

Chaewon’s lips began to pout and she looked a touch disappointed in herself.

“I’m sorry it’s taking me so long,” she says quietly. “I really want to try, I’m just afraid it’ll hurt…”

“Hey, stop that,” you say while pulling her back down on top of you and embracing her tightly. “You’re absolutely perfect already. I don’t want you to think even for a second that I’m disappointed in you.”

“You know, I forget how sweet you can be,” she mumbles. “Is it too late to keep you to myself tonight?”

“Yeah, after the game you played in the sauna earlier there is no way I’m abandoning Kazuha.”

“I hate you sometimes,” she chuckles while getting off you and collecting her scattered clothes.

---

A/N:

Bit of a longer gap between this one and the last one I know, thank you for being patient! I must say, having people asking about when I'm going to be releasing more is quite heartwarming. I should be back on a somewhat normal schedule again, I just got back home after a short trip to see Twice a couple of times!

Hopefully you guys notice some improvements in my writing going forward, I've been really putting in some effort in the technical aspect of things. Special thanks to those who have been helping out.

Next on the schedule is a lot of Twice story content (this one is not going anywhere, I'll still be working on it). I'll explain a bit more once we get there, but I've started working on Book 3 of the PM series. No, Book 2 is not finished, I still have probably 15 or so chapters already planned for it, but like I said I'll explain more once we get there.

As always, I'd LOVE to hear feedback and thoughts. Any comments/DMs/whatever, it's all appreciated. I love hearing theories people have about where the story is going, I love hearing what people enjoy, and honestly I even appreciate hearing what people do not enjoy as it can be helpful for me as a writer.

Thank you everyone <3

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