#speak with them in a language they understand

[the-griffons-saddlebag]

💎 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺! Voice of Oaths
Wondrous item, very rare (requires attunement by a paladin) ___ The appearance of this ear cuff changes to match your paladin oath. Regardless of its appearance, it is always made of several separate bands, which are chained together unless you have broken your oath; each band depicts one of your oath’s tenets. While wearing the cuff, the range of your paladin auras is increased by 5 feet; the range is increased by 10 feet instead if you have 17 or more levels in the paladin class. In addition, you can cast each of your available oath spells once, without expending a spell slot. Once you do, you can’t cast that spell again in this way until you finish a long rest. 𝙎𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚. The “voice of oaths” is a sentient lawful neutral item with an Intelligence of 13, a Wisdom of 13, and a Charisma of 17. It has hearing and darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. It communicates telepathically with its wearer and can speak, read, and understand Common. While you’re attuned to it, it also understands every language you know. Its voice sounds like an echo of your own, quiet and subtle enough to be mistaken for your conscience. 𝙋𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮. Like its appearance, the item’s personality is shaped by your oath and embodies the most extreme interpretation of your oath’s tenets. It generally remains silent, but will encourage whatever course of action would best align with its beliefs or oppose decisions that go against them. ___ ✨ Patrons get huge perks! Access this and hundreds of other item cards, art files, and compendium entries when you support The Griffon's Saddlebag on Patreon for as little as $3 a month!

[sharksbitee]

Thinking about Fisherman!Reader with smitten goldfish-mer Riddle Rosehearts…

Who you met one fateful day when you caught him in your net, after noticing that it was much heavier than usual, pulling it up to see a furious redheaded mer.

Who was kicking his shiny orangey-gold tail back and forth, the rough texture of the ropes making angry red marks across his skin, clawing and scratching at his binds, snarling in what you could only assume to be highly agitated mermish - Mother always told him not to get too near human boats. >:(((

Who was already quaking before you pulled out a blunt dagger, and now had fully activated his fight-or-flight response, shutting his eyes when you approached and knelt down to him, knife poised directly above him…

Who immediately opened his eyes again when he wasn’t met with the sharp sting of a blade, but instead… freedom?

Who got more confused when you helped remove the ropes restricting him, even helping him get off your little fishing boat, and back to sea, no less! What was this madness?!

Who went back home dazed and had a good, long think… before remembering rule 374 - to always return what one borrows! Ugh, how could he be so foolish to forget?!

Who decided the best way to pay the odd human back would be to supply them with fish - after all, that was why they were in the sea, and why they had set up those troublesome nets, yes?

Who was so shy and bashful at first, coming back to your little fishing boat with armfuls of fish, rushing away whenever you caught sight of him peering up at you from the depths, only his head bobbing on the surface of the seawater.

Who warmed up to you, little by little, until he was comfortable enough to hang his arms on the sides of your fishing boat, ranting in mermish about one thing or another - you never really understood much, but it was fine. (Company was company, after all.)

Who started grooming himself anxiously, usually right before meeting you - plucking off loose scales on his tail, adjusting and readjusting his hair like some kind of troubled maiden. (A proper mate had to look presentable, correct?)

Who grew bolder over time, swimming circles around your boat, sometimes nudging your waist with his head. Clicking and cooing much sweeter sounding mermish to you, always leaving slightly disheartened. (Were you not fond of him? Was that why you weren’t responding to his advances?) :(((

Who started poring over history textbooks in his free time, researching specifically on human courting customs - Prince Rielle had a human partner, so there must’ve been at least some in books, right??

Who disobeyed Mother, venturing into some shipwreck ruins, to search for any books teaching Common language, so he’d have the chance to court you properly - he was a gentleman, after all.

Who came one day particularly elated, speaking in mostly broken Common, with a bit of mermish sprinkled in, managing to string together a mostly understandable sentence - “You, me, together?” (You giggled. Progress!)

Goldfish-mer Riddle, who is absolutely determined to prepare himself to be the best mate for you possible, no matter how many shipwrecks he may need to explore, he’s prepared to take your heart, and maybe even your last name in the process. ;)

hnnnnnnnnnngh first mermay post how’d I do

[aphrvdisiac]

THE BLACKEST DAY.

ellie williams & abby anderson x fem!reader.

part three of off to the races & to lie and love.

synopsis | devotions, crimes, sacrifices. how far will ellie and abby go to make sure you’ll never escape again? what will be the ultimate decision to make for your life, and what is worth saving — your life and freedom, or them and their undying love?

tags | adult language. NC-17 rating content & dark elements; m*rder, mentions of kidnapping, obsessive and possessive behaviors, infidelity, violent behavior from ellabs, manipulation, graphic descriptions of t*rture (even psychologically), threats made with weapons, blackmail. slight adult content; fingering, slight voyerisum, double penetration, asphyxiation, usage of mommy and daddy.

author’s note | i want to say there is not much smut in here due to the fact there is great dominant focus on the relationship; we get a new light of ellabs, but they are 10x more cruel and mean. please proceed with much caution as sensitive and graphic content does exist in this story. if you find anything triggering to your wellbeing, please click off and do not continuing.

if you have decided or do decide to keep reading, you are

hereby responsible for your own media consumption.

Despite how much you did confession, you knew you were meant for eternal damnation.

However, you didn’t know that was being permanently tied to Abby and Ellie’s forever — and having to know what they would do to keep you by their side. 

You thought in a span of a year after they had lured you back in, they would lighten up and make some adjustments within their behavior and emotions in order for you to live a more carefree life — which made you an idiot to think that they’d ever do that.

Things had only gotten worse since you returned, and that made absolutely sure you would never be able to escape from them again; not that you planned to, but they couldn’t put it past you anymore. 

While you knew you were loved and wanted by them despite all odds, you felt like a hostage — but yet, who would put up with you like they did? They took all risks and sacrifices for you, did what they had to so you would know where you belonged.

That was understandable and reasonable enough, right?

It felt like everyday you had to lie to yourself to keep going on, to have hope and faith within the relationship. 

“You cannot stab every person who looks my way!” You yelled, upset about how Ellie and Abby dragged you out of Saks earlier because a man’s eyes moved past you while you were looking at skirts. “He was simply being human by looking around!”

“He definitely wanted you. What are you not getting?” Abby wondered, eyebrows furrowed as she sipped on a glass of bourbon. “It’s common sense and knowledge.”

“This is like when that man at the restaurant last week called you love after he asked if you wanted a refill,” Ellie recalled, and you were about to break open your skull in front of them. “We are simply protecting you. Always will.”

“I’m going to take your gun and use it on myself,” you muttered under your breath. 

It was the possessiveness and obsession that you once admired, now become so deadly and uncontrollable that it drove them mad. It drove you insane too, but in the perspective that this is what the rest of your life would look like. 

Abby and Ellie took a seat on the couch, a few feet separated from each other as they continued with sipping their drinks. 

You stood in the middle of the living room, their eyes set on you with amusing grins dancing on their lips. You crossed your arms over your chest, glaring at the pair as Ellie cocked her head to the side, Abby waiting for you to speak your mind. 

You lifted up your left hand, your fresh manicure set being shown off. “You see this hand?” You asked, and they hummed. “Until it has a gorgeous Harry Winston ring on it, I don’t want to hear you both saying I’m all yours forever.”

“I don’t think we need to give you an engagement ring for you to know and understand that,” Abby stated, and you rolled your eyes, pursing your lips. “I feel like we have proven it enough; it’s you who needs to get that through your brain.”

“It’s unfair!” You said, and Ellie chuckled. “Murdering people doesn’t prove much.”

“No?” Ellie wondered. “You seem to enjoy our devotion to you, little one.”

“You enjoy this, bunny,” Abby followed up, her finger moving along the rim of her glass. “You know it yourself; you love that we would kill anyone for you. It gets you off as much as it does for us.”

You didn’t say anything back, only continuing to glare at them as they stared back. “I’m going to therapy now,” you said, dropping your arms and going to grab your purse. “I don’t want a bodyguard with me!”

“It’s for your fucking protection!” Abby yelled back, the pair hearing your footsteps fade away into the elevator, soaking in their high pride and ego. 

You were taken aback when they said you should go to therapy, stating how they felt guilty you had to witness Delilah’s corpse along with the amount of childhood issues you still held, and other amounts of shit to list. You were hesitant on it, but it was good that you could talk about anything, and everything — even about Ellie and Abby.

You could talk about how they were murderers, only due to the fact they paid the therapist to keep her mouth shut — they tripled her pay grade. At least at the end, you could let everything out and cry about it, be vulnerable and honest. 

A bodyguard ended up tagging along, staying three feet behind you and staying outside the therapist’s office as you sat inside, looking at your therapist, Jasmine. 

“How are you today? Do we need to talk about the girls?” She asked, notepad on her lap with her pen being played around by her fingers. “I know that look. What did they do now?”

“I am so sick of this bullshit where they say I am theirs,” you started off, holding onto the therapeutic plush that she kept on standby. “Of course, I am grossly attracted to it because of the strings that come along with that, but if I was truly theirs, why won’t they propose to me? They only speak of it when we are fucking.”

“Well, have you discussed this with them?” Jasmine asked, and you nodded. “You have to understand, all three of you have your issues that are brought into the relationship; the way your parents were has led you to be in love with toxicity.”

“It isn’t that toxic,” you protested. “We have problems, but.”

“They have killed for you, they had you bare witness to it so they could prove a point,” she added, and your eyes trailed away from hers, looking down at your lap. “Ellie and Abby didn’t have their own maternal figures, they disappeared; they knew abandonment, soaked that into yours, and transformed it into something sickening.”

“You say this, but never encourage me to leave,” you stated, and she tilted her head to the side, giving you a certain look. “I… I know it is not right, what they do, and I do hate it — but my whole life has been centered around them, they have given me everything, and I cannot just dismiss that.”

“You owe them nothing,” Jasmine assured. “You are still you, with or without them. I cannot force you to leave them, but you come in every two times out of the week, crying and complaining about them, what they have done.”

“Well, that’s what therapy is for,” you muttered, rolling your eyes. 

“Have you ever considered that you are in love with what they give, and not them anymore?” She wondered, and your eyes shot back up, locked into hers. “You said that they have given you everything — things that your parents couldn’t provide. You seek out that, not Ellie and Abby. You give into the things that fulfill your cravings.”

You scoffed. “And what cravings may that be?”

“Attention, love, protection,” Jasmine professed, and your brain had gone quiet. “Marriage won’t fix anything. You will continue to be in love with their providence, while they continue to be in love with violence and using you as an excuse to give into it.”

The room went quiet for a moment, being sure your heartbeat was making noise. “I do love them, I am in love with them,” you softly said, unknown to the tears that were coming out. “I do, I know I do.”

“You seem to be trying to convince yourself of that, rather than me,” she frowned, and sniffled, your head in your hands. “This relationship was built with purposes of chaos, manipulation, and violence — and that’s exactly how it will end. You know what they are capable of, and your love for them dissipated when you realized just how sick they are.”

After your session, you decided to go on a walk to clear your head further after your conversation with Jasmine. You knew you loved Ellie and Abby, you never questioned that at any time — the only things you questioned was how far they would go, and what personal sacrifices you would make; how much more your virtue and soul would be further tainted and bruised, just to satisfy their sadistic needs in exchange for their love and attention.

You knew there was darkness that clouded the relationship as they were purely responsible for it, but you gave into it — and somehow, you managed to find light within it all. Maybe it was to protect you from the cruel truth that they were psychopaths that didn’t hold an inch of remorse or mercy within their souls or hearts, not even in their minds. 

And sometimes, you did wonder if they used you as an excuse to murder, that maybe this entire time you gave them the perfect key for them to feed into their desires. If that was the truth, you would rather die. 

You walk back into the penthouse, taking off your shoes along with your scarf and coat. You heard your name being shouted from the girls' shared office as you careened to the sound of their voices and low jazz music that played. 

You stood there at the entrance, giving them a smile. “Sorry I took a while, I wanted to go for a walk.”

“How was your session with Jasmine?” Abby asked, putting down a file onto her desk as the pair made strict and serious eye contact with you, making your pulse race. 

They must have known something.

“It was okay, a really good session today,” you responded, picking at your cuticles. “It was one of those talks that just had me too in my head.”

“What did you guys talk about, though?” Ellie questioned, and you swallowed thickly. A haunting smile played on her lips, like she knew something and was trying to bait it out of you. 

Because they never ask what was discussed.

They said that was your business, your privacy, and they didn’t need to know about it. 

You went quiet, not knowing if you should lie though that would land your ass in hot water. You played with your necklace, fiddling with it as your mouth hung open, but nothing came out. You seemed gobsmacked, because you were.

What the hell did they know?

“I’ll tell you what was said,” Ellie started off, getting up from her desk chair, and slowly moved your way. “That fucking stupid therapist has been putting these lies into your head, and you’re believing her. Aren’t you?”

“No, no,” you shook your head, shuffling backwards. “Nothing was put in my head.”

“You hate what we do for you, little lamb?” Ellie asked, and you were on the verge of tears as she got close enough to grab your face, nearly cracking your jaw. “You think you are someone without us, hm? We can dump you back to your parents, and see if you keep thinking that.”

You sobbed, continuing to shake your head. “I–I was just talking!”

“Don’t fucking lie to us,” Abby approached the two of you, standing on the side while you looked at her. “We don’t pay her extra for no reason, and surely you are not that dumb to think we wouldn’t be keeping record of what your sessions consist of.”

You knew it was too good to be true. They just wanted to hold more stuff over your head. 

“You’re really breaking our hearts, bunny,” Abby sighed, but in a faux manner. “Do you think we are sick? Manipulative?”

“I don’t know,” you whispered, and Ellie deepened her squeeze, getting a whimper out of you. “No, no! I was just too in my head!”

Ellie moved her head so you could be looking directly at Abby, your eyes glossy and tearful. “Do you know what will happen if you leave us, baby? If you even dare think about it?” She asked, her face close to yours that you could smell faint alcohol, and you shook your head. “We will fucking kill you. Your death will be guaranteed.”

“You are nothing without me! You have no fucking purpose if I don’t exist!” You shot back, and they chuckled. “You’ll go blue simply because I am the oxygen you breathe and crave; your life will be dull and boring because you have no excuse to fucking kill someone.”

“Oh, look who finally got a mouth on her,” Ellie cooed, pushing you into Abby’s arms, and you were being lifted over her shoulder. “It’s almost like you enjoyed being fucked to the point your brain is sponge; only things you’re soaking up is to remember your place and who your devotion is to.”

You were being led up upstairs, knowing what was to come. You were sure the thumping of your heart could be heard, felt against Abby’s shoulder, and nausea came over you with regret attached to it. You started to cry out a symphony of apologies, trying to find any use or way to get out of Abby’s grip but the eyes of Ellie’s was proof that it wasn’t such a good idea to do.

The wind was knocked out of you when Abby settled you roughly onto the bed, your clothes stripped off your body with the desperate yet furious hands of Ellie. “I swear I am not going to leave you or anything!” You pleaded, trying not to break into tears as your glossy eyes begged for mercy. “I–I’m sorry!”

Abby had already seized a set of bunched-up rope, loosening it as Ellie straddled on top of you to hold you down. 

A part of you was getting hot and bothered by this, but the emotional state of you could not take it. After such a therapy session and a conscious part of your brain coming to life during your session, you could not even take the simplest touch of their hands on you. 

“Violet!” You screamed. 

You hardly used the safe word. Hardly. It has only been used twice in the span of dating the pair, and today it had to be used. 

Ellie hopped off your body, Abby dropping the rope. You broke into heavier sobs, your chest moving too rapidly and your breaths were shaky. 

They were trying to comfort you, but you only snapped. “Get the fuck away from me!” You kicked and crawled away to where the pillows rest, curling yourself up into a ball. “Get out, get out!”

“Baby—“

“Leave me alone!” You yelled, tossing a flower vase that sat on the nightstand towards their exact direction. To your unfortunate luck, they moved out of the way of it. “I just want to sleep. Alone.”

“Fine. Sleep alone,” Abby seethed, marching out of the room as Ellie stayed behind for a few seconds before following the blonde’s direction. 

It didn’t take long until tears came running out of you, nearly drowning in your sobs. You laid down, sobbing into a pillow and brought your knees back up to your chest again, shaking and shivering. 

You don’t know why it was today when you felt like you were breaking. It had been three years now, and the good girl act you kept up for them was coming to a crash, feeling it in your bones. 

You couldn’t bite your tongue anymore, but you had to. Because you were much of a bad person as they were; everyone they killed or harmed was because of you, because you tattled and wanted to see how far they'd go. 

And this was it. You reached the final level, and it caused you to have a psychological breakdown. You were now trapped in love with them, not in love.

Your need for love, attention, and desire caused you every sense of dignity and self worth you carried. You were nobody without them because they stripped you of who you were before them — and that made you fucking sick to your stomach. 

You couldn’t stand a night in the house with them as you boosted yourself up out of the bed and moved back to the front door where your shoes and coat hung with your scarf. 

“And where do you think you’re going?” Abby asked, noticing her and Ellie staying feets away from you. “It’s late.”

You turned your head to them. “I’m not a fucking child; if I want to be one, I’ll go to my parents.”

“The ones who don’t fucking care?” She spat back, and you rolled your eyes as you adjusted your scarf around your neck. 

“Well, when I left you both and asked for haven, they offered it without hesitation,” you stated, grabbing your purse. “I’m sick of this shit.”

And like that, you walked out of the house before they could further protest. 

Which was only the beginning of the end. 

You were four dirty martinis in, elbows rested on the bar countertop as old blues music faintly played throughout the dingy bar. 

A body sat next to you, hearing the man order bourbon on the rocks. There was significant silence as it was you, three other strangers, and now him sitting around in the bar smelling of old musk and lemon. 

“So you’re here alone?” He asked, eyes focused on the basketball game that played on the laggy TV in the corner. “Or are your girlfriends waiting around?”

Your eyes snapped to him on cue as he met yours. “What?” You managed to sputter out. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

“Well that depends,” he mumbled, slouching forward with his arms crossed onto the countertop. “You see, your girls did a great deal killing my friend, Brandon. I mean, h—he was gonna go to fucking Princeton!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you said, pushing away your drink. “I have to go.”

“Oh, but I’m not going to let you,” he told you, grabbing a hold of your wrist as he viciously gripped it and leaned in closer to the side of your head. “Unless you want your pretty brains blown out.”

He had a gun. 

You stayed firm in your seat, his hand removed from your wrist. “How do you know me? Who are you? What do you even want?”

“Karma. Payback. Whatever they call it,” he admitted, clearing his throat as his drink finally arrived. “See, I did some good research into you and your girlfriends. Whoever is protecting them has a good way of keeping anything about them completely clear and hidden.”

“No one needs to protect them. They are good people,” you said, brows furrowed in confusion. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“Oh, but you— you fucking New York princess — no one is protecting you or your family,” he grinned, and nausea consumed you. “Now, you have a good record. I guess being a goody-two shoes will do that. However, those parents of yours… well, fuck.”

“My parents have nothing to do with anything,” you said, ready to break your martini glass for shards to stab into his eyes. “You leave them the fuck out of this.”

“Let’s make a deal.”

“I don’t even know your name, freak.”

“Vincent Hayes.”

“Well Vincent,” you said, getting up from your chair, and threw down a few twenties onto the stained countertop. “I don’t give a fuck what agenda you have planned or want to succeed at, but leave me alone or I will take a gun to your head.”

“You might want to care,” he suggested, grinning. “No one wants a father who commits tax evasion and bribery, and has multiple affairs.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” you replied, inching yourself closer to him. “And if you dare to come after my family, I’ll come after yours. Whatever you have, I’ll take it.”

“You didn’t have this much spunk before Ellie and Abby,” Vincent reminded you, and you dug your nails into the palm of your hand, a method you’d had to come to use to prevent any harmful flashbacks.”If I remember correctly, you were a loser bitch.”

“And so was your buddy,” you said, giving him a pat on his arm before you walked out of the bar, and back home. Once you were only a few miles away from the place, you took your phone out of your purse, and went to your phone app, contacting your dad immediately.

“Hello?” He answered after a few rings. “Are you okay?”

“Dad, I need to talk to you,” you started off, exhaling heavily. “Nothing’s bad happening, right? Like you would tell me if you were okay, or in trouble?”

He went quiet for a few moments, only static making prominent noise over the line. “You have nothing to worry about, okay? I am taking care of everything for this family, and I need you to continue staying with the girls because of that. Okay?”

Continue staying with the girls.

When you wanted to be out, there was always going to be a reason why you had to stay. You hung up the call, and continued to walk back to the penthouse, stifling your sobs as you walked past strangers and a violent urge to puke everywhere. 

You didn���t want to go back home; in fact, you were okay with staying at a hotel or anything else for that matter. You disabled the tracker on your phone, and went on to call Jasmine. “Good evening,” she picked up after only two rings, and you sighed. “Why are you calling this late?”

“I… I don’t want to stay with them tonight. And I know this is inappropriate to ask, but may I stay with you this evening?,” you wondered, sniffling, and looked at the ground. “There is just so much that has happened tonight since the session, and I don’t have anywhere to go because they’ll find me.”

Jasmine gave you her address, and you sighed in relief, minimal anxiety being lifted off your shoulders. “I’ll run a kettle of tea for you, and I’ll be sure to give the doorman your name.”

You were curled up with a soft throw blanket on Jasmine’s couch, a warm cup of tea sitting in your hands. “Did anything particular occur today?” She asked, and you sighed, soaking in the sweet smell of lemon. “Seems like you’re extra fragile today.”

“They recorded our session today, they know what I said,” you sniffled, looking up from your tea. “I don’t know how, and of course I know they pay you to keep things a secret, but… Yeah, they know.”

“I would still be silent even if they didn’t pay me,” Jasmine confessed, and you grinned, your ears perking up, too. “Not for their sake, but for yours.”

“You’re a therapist, not my savior,” you stated, taking a sip of the tea. 

“When will it be enough for you?” She asked, placing herself slightly closer to you. “You are exhausted, scared, and finished. When will you draw the line?”

You wish you had the answer to that, but you never would. You should have drawn the line the second they killed Brandon James or Delilah, but instead you ran back to them, and caved in you; you were indefinitely trapped forever, and the only way out would be death.

“You deserve better,” she whispered as you noticed her body leaning in towards yours, her head dipping to a side angle. You knew what was going to take place, and you reckoned with your loyalty as Jasmine didn’t hesitate to put her lips onto yours, you caving into the kiss. 

You were loyal and submissive to Ellie and Abby — you had been for years. If they knew you were with another woman, letting her kiss you and tell you that they didn’t deserve you, they would be cutting her apart before your bare eyes. 

You shifted onto her lap, the kiss turning into a messy, desperate makeout session as Jasmine’s hands found their way under your shirt, and unclasped your bra. “I got you, you’re safe with me,” she whispered between a kiss, your shirt and bra coming off during it. “I won’t let them hurt you anymore,” her lips dragged down along your neck, to your collarbones. 

Guilt and shame should’ve come so sudden to you, should have allowed you to push away but you only wanted more. 

It wasn’t like you were sex deprived because you weren’t — Ellie and Abby made sure sex was a continuous routine in your everyday lives. But it was the gentle touching, the soft reassurance and kisses that you missed, and Jasmine was filling that void, and that is what she was only doing. 

You were using her to fill your satisfaction. 

The sun cracked through the windows and flared across your eyes, forcing them open and adjusting to the brightness. An arm was wrapped around your waist, and you noticed the tattoos on Jasmine’s arms, your fingertips following the traces of them. 

Your touch awoken her, and she hummed, smiling the moment she saw you. “Hey,” she whispered. “Are you okay? How do you feel?”

“I think she feels just fine,” Ellie’s voice came about, causing you and Jasmine to both jump up, your anxiety spiking. “Considering the fact our girlfriend’s clothes are off, and scattered in your living room.”

Abby stood aside, seemingly irritated and disappointed in you. However, you made out the gun that was in her front right pocket, and you swallowed thickly, nauseous and scared of what was to come. “I think Jasmine here thought she was her property,” Abby said, gesturing to the hickeys on your neck. 

“Just leave her the fuck alone,” Jasmine spoke up, and you cringed to her defense, only knowing she was making it worse. “She wants nothing to do with you.”

“Oh?” Ellie grinned. “Is that true, lamb?”

You felt small and weak suddenly, not responding or moving. 

“She won’t answer that,” Jasmine continued, scoffing. “She is scared of you, and she is done loving the two of you.”

“I’m really done hearing you whine, you bitch,” Abby chuckled, stomping towards Jasmine’s side of the bed, and grabbed her by a fistful of her hair. She tried to fight off your girlfriend, but it was impossible as she then dropped her to the ground, kicking her repeatedly in the lungs. “This is just the beginning of it.”

“Come on, sweet girl. We have to take these affairs somewhere more private,” Ellie said, and you glanced at her, shaking your head. You seemed like a scared, afraid puppy who had just been kicked again, and the auburn cooed at you, giving a faux pout. “You know something like this would happen, baby. Did you really think you would get away with this?”

Abby was in the background forcing a coat around Jasmine’s nude body, and slipping on her shoes. You couldn’t make out what the blonde was saying to her, but you were sure it wasn’t kind things, and possibly reassuring Jasmine that she was going to meet the end of her life. 

“Get on up, sweetheart,” Ellie pulled out her gun, clocking it. “Or do I have to re-train you all over again?”

You got up hesitantly, but moved your yesterday’s clothes back onto your body as Ellie made sure to keep the gun in your eyesight. “Are you going to kill her?” You asked, voice hush and soft, on the brink of crying. “You should hurt me, not her, Els.”

“We’re gonna find out together, baby,” Ellie grinned, and cocked her head for you to start following her. 

Minutes later, you and Jasmine were tossed into the back of a limo with your girlfriends. Abby had to securely put tape around her eyes and mouth the moment the doors closed behind you all, and you had to do your best to ignore her sobs. 

“We weren’t paying you to fuck our girl,” Abby blurted, and Jasmine let out a sniffle. “Miss Hills… You should have known better, even after you knew how Brandon Jasmes died when he decided to be a stupid fuck.”

“But you aren’t going to kill her,” you defended. “Not her — she does have people who will miss her, and someone will find out?”

“Like who?” Abby wondered.

Your brain registered the night of last, how you met Vincent Hayes who was a friend of Brandon’s, and was warning you of what he knew, and was going to do. 

“Someone’s threatening me,” you stated, and the girls shifted their eyes entirely onto you. “When I left last night, I went to the bar and this guy started threatening me – saying how he had stuff on my dad that could land him in prison.”

“And you decided to what — fuck your therapist? How fucking cliché can you be, sweetheart?” Ellie asked, and you rolled your eyes, visibly irritated and frustrated. “What’s his name? What does he know?”

“He knows your guys’ slates are clean, and you killed Brandon,” you recalled, and they hummed. “But he said my dad is committing tax evasion, bribery, and more. And then he…”

Your girlfriends shifted closer in, panicked but alerted.

“Spit it out, bunny.”

You sighed, chewing on the inside of your cheek. “He then threatened to blow my brains out.”

Abby looked at Ellie, an unsettling laugh leaving her mouth. “Jasmine… Today is your lucky day,” Ellie said, Abby giving her a curt nod. “But we still need to take care of you for fucking around.”

The car came to a sharp halt as you looked outside to see an empty warehouse. Ellie opened up the door, stepping out while Abby grabbed and dragged Jasmine out of the car, the girl kicking her legs and screamed. “Bunny, you need to see this for yourself. This is your new punishment.”

It's not like you had a choice, you had to oblige and obey. You already put yourself in a grave for letting someone else fuck you, although you continued to see it as you using Jasmine. You got out of the car, following behind all the girls, and saw a table that had multiple objects on top of them; a wrench, hammer, pilers, and rope. 

Abby shoved Jasmine into a chair that stood in the middle of the large, empty warehouse. You eyed around, seeing dried blood spots scattered everywhere, and your body cringed and shivered. 

So this is where the killing takes place, you thought to yourself. This is where people I caused to die last saw before they went away.

And Jasmine was possibly next.

“I don’t want to see this please,” you cried, shaking your head. “Please don’t let me.”

“But you will miss all the fun,” Ellie said, frowning. “And I told you that this is your punishment.”

Abby binded Jasmine’s arms and legs, putting some around her waist to the chair to keep her entirely strapped down. “You think we must be exaggerating when we say we would do anything for you,” she started off, grabbing the wrench. “Or when we say that you lead all these people to die, and we just have to take care of them for you.”

The wrench then hits Jasmine in the stomach, a muffled scream coming out from behind the duct tape. 

Ellie stood behind you, her gun pointed to your back as her hand held and squeezed your jaw, forcing you to watch closely and attentively. “Some of those fingers of hers have to go,” she cooed, sighing dramatically. “It’s unfortunate. She was a good therapist for a while.”

The wrench went on to beat down on her legs, Abby taking a fun swing at every inch and part, bones cracking and breaking. 

“Abby, take off the tape,” Ellie suggested, and the blonde obeyed, ripping both pieces off. “We are going to give Jasmine a show, baby. Take off your bottoms.”

You nodded and sniffled, your shaky hands reaching to the waistband of your jeans and underwear as you snug them off down to your ankles. Ellie’s hand went from your jaw, down to your stomach and cunt, her fingertips grazing over it. You shivered to her touch, whimpering for more — it was sick how your body immediately responded and gave into her touch, wanting and needing more. 

“Who’s your daddy, angel?” Ellie asked, loud enough for Jasmine to hear. “Go on, and say who is. Let her know.”

“I–It’s you, Els. Only you,” you moaned, her fingers dipping inside of your cunt and perfectly curled in, moving at a harsh pace. “My body is yours and Abby’s.”

“You hear that, Miss Hills?” Abby wondered, dropping the wrench and picked up the hammer next. “Did you fucking hear that!” The hammer struck at her feet, a harsh scream escaping her but Abby got a cruel rise out of it, taking the hammer to her hands. 

Your brain ran around with what was happening around — Jasmine being tortured, Abby finding it humorous, and Ellie fucking you for her to see. 

Your climax approached you instantly, not giving Ellie a heads-up as you let it go, and continued to cry from how you wanted to cover yourself up and repent for how your body gave into Ellie’s demand. 

Abby shifted from the hammer to the piler’s in the blink of an eye, and used them to break and half-amputate a few of Jasmine’s fingers. You knew what they were doing, though — they were also torturing you, wanting you to understand that they could do worse than this next time. 

You knew about them being murderers, so why wouldn’t they give you a show. 

Jasmine Hills ended up being discarded in an alleyway hours later with a pulp face, dangling fingers, damaged palms, and a bruised and broken body. 

You decided to stay at your parents house for a few days after what you witnessed and endured. You didn’t know what to do about your girlfriends, almost terrified to even sleep around them, and you were already experiencing nightmares

“Amore, you have a guest!” Your mom shouted, and you groaned, getting up from your bed. You had been sinking in your comforters for those days, garbage of foods and cups dumped in mindless places, with you in days-old pajamas. 

You shuffled into the main living room of your parents Manhattan’s penthouse. Thinking it would be about anyone else, you were met with Vincent Hayes.

You couldn’t curse him out in front of your mother, without making it suspicious. “Um, hi?” You said, and he smiled, taking a close look at you. “How can I help you, Vincent?”

“We need to have a conversation,” he told you, and you sighed. Your gut wanted you to listen and have the conversation, a part of you feeling like it was something you needed to hear. You only nodded and gestured your head for him to follow you out to the terrace. 

You stepped into New York’s cold weather, sitting down at the small coffee table as he sat across from you. “So, you’re stalking me now?” You wondered. “I could have you arrested for that.”

“You’re barely with them,” Vincent said, taking out a pack of cigarettes. “I have eyes on you and them. Last thing I know is you were in some dingy warehouse.”

You sucked in tears to the memory, and he noticed, only tossing his pack and lighter to you. 

“They needed to do what they did,” you defended, lighting up the stick. “Nothing horrible happened.”

“The girl is in the hospital — the NYPD categorized her as a Jane Doe because she was that unrecognizable,” Vincent professed, and you let out a heavy puff. “You don’t want part of this, and I can help you.”

“What? Who said I want your help?” You scoffed and shortly chuckled, shaking your head. “Abby and Ellie are everything to me — you just don’t understand our relationship. They have done so much for me, more than my parents ever have.”

“A friend of mine in the DA office knows who has eyes on your dad, snitching him out and stuff,” Vincent started, lighting up his own cigarette as he dazed out for a second when he let go of his first puff. “You see, there is corruption in the justice system. Some of the prosecutors in the DA office know that the girls paid somebody to plant evidence on that other person, and that they are killers.”

“And you are telling me this, why?”

“You exchange information about Anderson and Williams, and the DA office will drop everything on your dad,” Vincent confessed, and your eyes widened, your heart sinking. “You don’t want anything to do with what they are doing. You were seemingly unaware until Brandon.”

“So let me get this straight,” you paused, deadpanning at him. “You want me to betray my girlfriends — the only people in my life who truly love me — just to save my dad’s ass? For all I care, my dad deserves to be there more.”

Vincent sighed, irritated and in disbelief. “I can see that you are struggling with what to do,” he stated, almost as if he wanted to sympathize, but just couldn’t. “If they get caught, you will be in just the same trouble as them. Imagine how that will look on your parents? What will it do to them?”

“It's like you said — I didn’t know what was happening until Brandon,” you repeated, nearly out and done with your cigarette. “The reason why your friend is dead is because he decided to be a prick, and think he was a high value man or something. If it wasn’t the girls going to take care of him, someone else eventually would.”

Vincent kept a calm demeanor, but with his hands tightened into vein-popping fists, it was sure he was going to blow at any moment. Minutes passed and his hands unclenched as he stood up from the chair, and burned out the bud of his cigarette. “There’s going to be a memorial for Brandon tonight at the St. Peter church,” he told you, and you raised a brow, tilting your head to the side. “Tomorrow will be one year since he was discovered dead. Just come by… I encourage you to do so.”

He excused himself out, and you continued to sit outside, staring at the skylines and sighed heavily. You felt an immense amount of guilt for Brandon’s death, it is something you couldn’t ignore, even as you tried to justify why he died or how he came to it. 

You were the only person at fault. 

Your phone buzzed in your pocket, and you took it out, seeing Abby’s contact name. For days, they have tried to ring you, text you back to back, and do anything they could to get an ounce of your attention. 

You decided to answer it this one time. 

“Bunny.”

The line was static for a few moments. 

“Bunny, come home,” Abby pleaded, and you sniffled. “We only mean to take care of you, love you — however we mean to do that.”

“I… Tonight’s not good,” you mumbled, gnawing on the inside of your cheek. “I have something to do, and I’m not just ready to see you and Els yet. I need time.”

Abby was quiet, and it caused you to shiver. Any silence that came from your girlfriends was not a good sign, and it could only mean they were a plot being made, or they were going to do something beyond inhumane. 

The line went dead, and you were left with the bustling noises of New York, your heart sinking into your stomach. 

How could anything get worse?

You stood outside St. Peter’s church, frozen and paralyzed in your spot as you watched people walk in. You swallowed thickly, your fingernails clawing into the palm of your hand to give yourself any hint of ease and calmness. 

Then you heard your last name being called out to you. You turned your head, seeing two older figures approaching you, a female and male. “I’m Detective Ramirez, this is Detective Adams. We are with NYPD Homicide, and we are revisiting a case involving Brandon James,” the female spoke, a smile playing on her lips to seem pleasant and kind. “It’s surprising to see you here.”

“His friend invited me,” you answered. “How can I help you?”

“Miss, you know why we are here,” Adams said, and you hummed, nodding. “You were declared a misfit for the trial, that’s why you weren’t in it, but you know what happened. And you can put them away.”

“If they were already found innocent, why retry them?” You wondered. “Doesn’t the justice system grant innocence to those who are innocent?” 

“The DA wants a retrial, but it is only possible if you agree to be part of it,” Adams added, and you scoffed. “If you consent to it, the DA will let go of your dad, and stop sniffing around.”

“You are some corrupted fucks,” you laughed. “Now if you excuse me, I have to get inside.”

Ramirez momentarily stopped you in your tracks, shining a small card in front of you. “Here are our contacts if you decide to change your mind.”

You stared at her and the card, back and forth, before your hesitant hand seized it and you nodded. You walked off, putting the cards in your purse and continued inside, a crowd filling the pews while some stood off to the side talking. 

“Welcome, child,” you heard the priest approach you, and you smiled, greeting him. “You are a friend of the deceased?”

You nervously smiled. “I guess you can say that, Father.”

You two shared a small, curt laugh until his eyes shifted a deep focus on you. “Something is troubling you however,” he stated, and you shivered, stumbling on your words as you tried to deny it. “The Lord never lies, my child. You are tackling something.”

“I believe I cannot confess here, Father,” you told him, and he hummed, nodding. He gestured his head for you to follow him, and before you knew it, you were in the confessional booths. 

All you could think about was getting fucked in one by the girls about last year. 

“Forgive me for Father, for I have sinned,” you began, blessing yourself and kissing the side of your hand shortly after. “Forgive me for I am not that religious but–”

“God accepts all,” the priest stated. “He forgives all.”

“Well Father, I think I killed a man,” you admitted, looking down at your lap. “My partners, they are protective of me, and it is in their nature. But they have taken it far multiple times, and I wasn’t aware of it until last year. And when I tried to escape them, I only allowed them back in, and now I am trapped in Hell.

“But, I love them, and I don’t want to. I don’t want to go to Hell for things they have done, or for God to hate me over it. They have killed so many people because I tattle-tale on them, and my partners showed no mercy, no kindness. And I just… I am so lost, and scared. Father, I don’t see no way out of this except self execution.”

“Self execution is a sin, I plead you know this,” he stated, and you broke into sobs, hunching over as you held yourself. “There is nothing wrong to love those who God brought into your life, child. The only sins that have been committed here are wrath, greed, and pride; and they have not been done by you. You are not responsible for the sins that have been committed, you are not destined for Hell.”

“But I have fueled their sins. I am their biggest one.”

The priest went quiet for a moment, a frustrated but saddened sigh escaping him as he himself struggled. He sympathized, knowing you were just a girl who was lost and landed herself in a wrong situation. 

For the past few years, the high was blissful and could not get better than that. You thought Abby and Ellie were your angels sent from God himself, but after Brandon, Delilah and Jasmine, you realized they were fallen ones, instead. Their fair beauty and success drew you to them, and you were blinded by it so much, you could not see what they were like beneath.

They used you to excuse their drive and need to harm individuals, to let out what they were made up of.

Evil.

“Am I wrong to love the Devil? Is that what this is, Father?” You asked. “I need to know.”

“Jesus loved Judas. God loved Lucifer. Does that make them wrong? Did they let Lucifer and Judas' betrayal and sins affect them?”

You sniffled, and only nodded to yourself, assuring you that this fate was old as time. You were not wrong to come to love them, but it was only about what you were going to do next. 

“I want you to do penance — charitable work, twenty hail marys for the next two weeks, and leaving these partners of yours soon,” the priest demanded, his voice tough and stern. “The Lord will then forgive you, my child.”

When everyone wanted you to stay with Ellie and Abby — even made a reason to — the voice of God himself demanded you shouldn’t. 

“Thank you, Father,” you said, and walked out of the confessional booth. Walking back into the main center of the cathedral, you saw Vincent, and his eyes immediately picked up on you. You decided to let yourself approach him as a smug look was plastered onto his face, and you rolled your eyes over it.

“Something change your mind?” He asked. “Thank you for coming, it means everything.”

“I just wanted to um… pay my respects,” you assured, and he hummed. “It is my fault he is dead after all. But I can’t stay long, I have some things to situate.”

“Going to testify?” He wondered. “I saw those detectives talking to you outside.”

“Wow, you do stalk me a lot,” you bitterly joked. “I am sorry about Brandon, though. I didn’t know they were so capable of… you know. I didn’t think they would do that.”

“The only way you can truly get forgiveness is if you leave them,” Vincent said, and you knew he was right, but it wasn’t that easy. Everybody made it sound like it was the most simple action you could make, but it wasn’t. 

Abby and Ellie had been your whole life, and they had committed so much towards you, and the thought of abandoning them after it all made you want to hurl everywhere. You knew that leaving them would end with catastrophic consequences, and it wouldn’t happen right away nor ever; the last time you tried to leave, you were brought right back in. 

You walked out of the church without saying much else, and you were met with your girlfriends right outside. You froze paralyzed, eyes scanning for the detectives as a precaution, and you shivered to their darkening gaze that rage with hunger and madness. 

“Come on, baby,” Abby beckoned you over to her car. Ellie fiddled with something in her pocket, and it made you hesitant and nervous. “We aren’t gonna hurt you, we just need to show you something.”

For once, your interest was piqued and you tried to let go of your anxiety, practically shuffling over to the car. Abby opened the backseat door, and you climbed in with Ellie trailing behind you. “I have to blindfold you, honey,” Ellie said, and you eyed her, shaking your head. “Not because of that. We are taking you to a sweet surprise, I cross my heart on that.”

“You could be killing me just for leaving,” you protested, and Ellie sighed, taking out one of her suit ties from her pocket. “No, no! I don’t want to die.”

“Oh, don’t be so hysteric,” Ellie groaned. “It is sweet and you’ll like it. It is what you have been waiting for.”

You wanted to hesitate, but instead slowly gave in and let Ellie blindfold you as your heart raced immensely under your skin, and you could feel a wave of nausea coming to you. They could be tricking you, and as foolish as you are, you had fallen for it and were about to be executed.

Maybe God heard one of your prayers, and decided to cave into it for you. 

The car ride went by in quiet, the only thing surely heard being your heartbeat and the sound of you cracking your fingers as a distraction.

Ellie put her hand over both of yours. “Stop that. You know it isn’t good.”

“I’m scared.”

“We would never kill you, bunny,” Abby stated, sincerity drawn into her voice. “We know you get caught up in your head because of things we have done and put you through, but the thought of taking your life has never crossed our minds. In fact, it still stands that we would not exist without you.”

You nodded, unknowingly of the grins that played on their lips. The car came to a full stop only minutes later, and Ellie carefully escorted you out, feeling hands on each side of your waist guiding you; Ellie’s hand was cold, while Abby’s was warm. 

They made sure you didn’t trip or fall down while altogether padding up a flight of stairs, always careful whenever they were the ones moving you around; you were that fragile to them. If you were to fall down on the pavement you were walking across and scrape your knees, they would immediately be kissing the wounds and tending to them, angry at themselves for being so mindless with you. 

“Okay, here we go,” Ellie whispered, and the second the blindfold was off, a symphony orchestra played a version of Hallelujah – but it wasn’t the original, but by your favorite 1994 version of it by Buckley.

A candlelit path remained in front of you with rows of your favorite flowers being placed everywhere, and you could see the city lights of New York in the background. 

Then you realized you were on the rooftop of Faye Academy – where history all started. Your partners moved you down the path as you broke into sobs with your face into your hands, and could not believe what was about to happen. 

A proposal. 

When you got to the end of the pathway, you were in a circle of roses and lilies that were in beautiful blossoms. Ellie and Abby stood in front of you, noticing them nervous for the first time ever in your life; usually they were so bold and confident, but in this moment, they were shaking and finding a way to calm themselves down. 

Ellie started off by stating your name, a shiver running down your spine. “You have been the bane of our existence for a few years now, and you will forever remain as our religion, and our sole reason for living and breathing. Abby and I never thought we would find the same soulmate, but it is one of the greatest and only blessings we got out of God, and we would not want it any other way.”

“Since the first day we saw you, mindful and occupied, we were instantly drawn to you,” Abby continued on, grinning as she could recall that very memory. “The light from the sun graced you that day, and we just knew you were meant to be ours for lifetimes.”

What you had just confessed to the priest fleeted through your head, and his demands for you were sunk into nothingness in this moment. You wanted to believe they were just finding a way to further hold you hostage, but the way their face and voices softened, laced with love and genuinity, you wanted to kiss them and forgive them for everything.

At the end of the day, they were your girls and they did everything for you. They were the ones who always took care of you and defended your honor when no one did, and when you were left abandoned and alone, they came to your rescue.

You were always meant to be theirs, one way or another.

“Will you be our wife, bunny?” Abby asked, and you broke into further sobs, nodding. Ellie took the ring box out of her pocket, and you saw a beautiful Harry Winston ring that made you nearly choke onto your sobs.

“I love you!” You shouted, jumping into their embraces as they both managed to hold you close. “Yes I will marry you– Fuck, I want to be your wife.”

A wife. You were going to be a wife to the loves of your life, and your brain managed to forget everything that had happened for the past year until only a few days ago. You believed that everything was worth it to lead up to this moment, and now everything would get better and healthier; you would be wives, and you would have to live a happy marriage if things were meant to be, or if a kid would come into the picture. 

“Our pretty little wife, hm?” Ellie teased, and you nodded again, earning a soft laugh out of them. 

In an hour, you were between the two of them back at your shared home, Abby kissing on your neck as Ellie groped your ass and bunched your dress up to your waist to get a feel of your soaking cunt. “So soon until we put a fucking baby in you, little one,” 

You purred at their touches and kisses, any ounce of purity and doubt moving out of you. You would let them desecrate you every time, and you would feel pure heaven and bliss in it, letting them own and control your body. 

“We missed you so much, baby,” Abby said, kissing behind your ear. “Make us proud and get on the bed.”

You hummed, maneuvering yourself onto the bed where you slowly removed your dress as you gave your girlfriends a strip tease, with your undergarments coming off last. You bent your body down, knees and elbows sinking into the mattress, able to feel it dip heavier from behind you. 

“Look at this pretty cunt,” Abby cooed, her fingertips grazing along it. “Will never be able to get enough of this; you just know how to make us want to destroy you, bunny.”

Ellie came onto the bed in front of you, her strap in front of your face as she pushed any strands of hair out your face, and gripped onto your chin. “You gonna be good for us, doll?” Ellie wondered, and your eyes softened before her primal ones, nodding.

“Yes, daddy.”

“That’s our girl. See, you still remember who you belong to,” she praised, and you giggled, putting your hand around the silicone, licking the tip. “There we go, baby. Jus’ like that.”

Abby spat down onto your cunt, rubbing it in before she roughly pushed herself into you, and you gasped harshly, eyebrows furrowing. “Left us hanging for a bit, baby. You let another girl touch you and everything; can’t lie to you, it made us wet and turned on. We knew she wasn’t better than us.”

Ellie grabbed your head and forced a mouthful of her cock into yours, earning immediate gagging noises and a glop of drool forming around the object. Your eyes rolled, light breaths coming out of you with each thrust from Ellie and Abby, your head already dizzy and cloudy.

“Oh, look at you, sweetheart,” Ellie teased, petting the top of your head with each thrust she put forth into your mouth. “She just always gets so messy, doesn’t she, Abs?”

“She’s fucking soaking and milking my cock,” Abby groaned, feeling her own wetness form under the harness. “Just needed us to fuck her and break her all over again, make her remember she can’t leave ever again.”

Abby pounding into you always feel intoxicating, you always needed to be bouncing on her cock and letting her know how desperate you were; you wanted to suck and gag on Ellie for hours, and let her fuck the back of your throat until it was hoarse and raw. 

You needed them in each, every little special way that could satisfy your needs to the fullest extent. They could do that, no one else. They could make you theirs and make you feel worship with their sweet nothings, or cocks breaking into you one way or another.

Drool dripped down your chin, your eyes drooping as Ellie had to practically keep your head up to keep her cock shoving back and forth into your mouth. You allowed her to use your mouth, let her get her own sick satisfaction out of this moment, Abby doing the same thing while your cum was looping around her dick.

“Let’s break her,” Ellie said, and Abby stopped all movements into you, a whine escaping your mouth. “You need another punishment, baby. You must think we are stupid.”

Abby grabbed a fistful of your hair, forcing you to be dragged to the floor before them, and your knees slammed against the hardwood floors. “Jasmine was one thing, baby,” she began, clicking the roof of her mouth in thought. “But the police are another. Where is your loyalty?”

You frowned, staring up at them back and forth. “It’s to you. It has always been to you.”

“And Vincent Hayes?” Ellie asked. “He is awfully close to you.”

“I wanted to pay my respects to Brandon,” you admitted, sniffling. “I… I felt guilty and bad.”

“Guilty? For what? For letting that sick fuck call you a bitch?” Abby questioned, and you shook your head. “Use your brain, sweetheart. You are clearly dumb, and need us to guide you through everything in life.”

“I’m not dumb, I—I just felt really bad,” you neared breaking down, eyes shifting away. “It is my fault he is dead. It is my fault so many people got injured or died.”

“Here is what you seem to forget – and look at us, baby,” Abby demanded, and you slowly peered back up at them. “It is our sole duty for us to take care of you, and protect you. Do you know where you would be in life without us? How sick and lost you would be? People would be using you and taking advantage of you if we never existed, sweetheart.”

“I… I would have minded my own business forever if we never met,” you stated, wiping your tears away. “I won’t talk to anyone, I haven’t spoken. This ring,” you lifted up your hand, “it states that I am yours for lifetimes, and I will do anything as your wife and partner. Nothing or no one could take me away.”

The pair seemed to be satisfied by your answer because in their heads, they got you right where they needed you forever; submissive, trapped, and loyal – like a fucking dog.

It took cunning patience to mold you into this state, and make sure you would never leave again; if putting a ring on your finger was the way, so be it — at least you could not go anywhere and your loyalty was finalized by a proposal, and soon a marriage. 

They could not risk you fleeing from them, and they had to keep as their pretty hostage for the rest of your shared lives; if they had to repeatedly kill, torture, and remind you where your lifetime stood, they would do just that.

After all, they loved you. They cared. Who else would?

A backhand came from Abby as she dragged you back to the bed, and in moments, you were stuck between Ellie and her. Ellie bent you slightly forward as spit went down your ass and she shoved her into your ass, and Abby wasted no time getting back into your swollen cunt. 

“Tell us who you belong to, sweet thing,” Abby said. “Come on, use your fucking brain.”

“I belong to Abby and Ellie, I be—belong to you!” You cried out due to their rigorous, violent pace, being able to feel them literally and physically break your holes. 

“Yeah, baby? Nobody else?” Ellie taunted, eliciting a breathy laugh. “We could fucking kill you, you know that? But we just love you so much, and wouldn’t want that.”

You shook your head, too spaced out to closely listen to what Ellie was saying; it should’ve been a sign, but you were focused on the feeling and motion of them pounding into you. “I—I love you so much, so so much,” you moaned, your back arching, and fingernails clawing into Abby’s wrist the second she put a tight grip on your throat. “So much, mommy. You don’t understand how much I love you.”

“Oh, we know baby,” Abby told you, grinning and panting. “Going to do anything for us, right?”

You nodded. “Anything for you. My loyalty and life is to you.”

“Then you are going to kill, baby,” Ellie stated, and the sexual high was shifted into terror and panic. “We are gonna teach our pretty baby how to kill, and take care of business.”

“N–No, please no!” You cried, their laughs ringing in your eyes as they sounded like maniacal psychopaths. 

“You need to– hey, focus!” Abby yelled, having to keep her hands on your waist to keep you up. “You need to take care of that boy, angel. That silly idiot, okay? We’ll teach you.”

That’s when you realized — you had taken the bait. You caved right into what they wanted and needed. 

And you would never have any way out every fucking again.

You broke into sobs, the sick high of pleasure and despair mixing into the heat of sex that lingeried and fully thrusted into the bedroom. Your body shook with anxiety, your climax rattling in you and took control over your nerves, the girls always finding a way to take a note. 

“No, you don’t get to cum,” Ellie spat, her hand wrapping around your neck from behind you, and you gasped when her fingers pressed into your throat; hard enough to leave bruising or any fingerprints. “Be a good girl, lamb. Don’t disappoint us more than you already have.”

“Please let me cum,” you managed to cry out, her strength tightening around your throat, almost slowly cutting off any airway. “Please!”

“Why should we let you cum, bunny?” Abby panted, pinching at one of your nipples. “You don’t think this is fun? Us using and breaking you?”

It didn’t take sex anymore in order for them to find their cruel ways to psychologically torture you, but rather mock and taunt at you for everything and anything. They did it with Brandon, Delilah, and Jasmine — everyone would be killed in front of you because it was the only way for them to break you into submission. 

You came anyways, and despite that they would usually stop and punish you further, they used it to their advantage and Abby’s put her hands on top of Ellie’s, both of them choking you and fucking harder into your sore, ruined holes, and your vision went blurry and you were croaking out cries and moans. It was sick that a part of you truly liked them being this vile and vicious with you, and that it would always get you off, but it was scarier that they would go further than this in the future. 

The violence was covered by affection, and now by marriage.

Abby and Ellie spent weeks teaching you how to use a gun on someone, be sleath and quick with it. They wanted you to kill Vincent Hayes at the very second you could, and be out of sight when you did it. You knew you couldn’t do it; you weren’t like your girlfriends. That’s why they liked you to begin with, because you were the complete opposite of them, and at some point, that must have changed. 

For those weeks, you spent time in isolation wondering what to do, what you could do without getting yourself or others killed in the process. You would stare at the ring, playing with it, and break into tears whenever your partners were around.

You were a hostage in a relationship for eternity, and the thought of escaping once more did cross your mind, but you knew what happened last time when you tried to; who knows, they could kill your parents just so you could come crawling back to them. 

You avoided any discussions about the wedding or future plans because you were slowly coming to terms with your decisions, with what you wanted to do, because you just simply couldn’t think about that. 

You sat in your parents home, telling the girls your mom wanted a spa day together in order to avoid suspicion; after all, you were doing well playing the sweet fiancée. 

Vincent sat next to you, a cup of coffee in his hands. “You can talk to me.”

“I want out,” you mumbled. “But I need you to do one thing.”

“Well, what is it?”

You gnawed onto your cheek, inhaling sharply. “I need you to kill me.”

Silence filled the room. 

“What the fuck did you say?” Vincent asked.

“I said I need—”

“No, I heard you. You just must forget that your girlfriends are insane, and will do worse to me,” he stated, and you looked at him. “Why do you want to die?”

“Not actually kill me,” you said. “I—I just need a way out, and death sounds fleeting and the only way.”

Vincent joined the quiet that tumbled back into the living room, the two of you now staring down into your cups of coffee. After what felt like hours moving by, he hums. “Okay, I’ll do it,” he tells you, and though your heart sank, you nodded. “Think of it as an eye for an eye because of Brandon. I’ll take what is most precious to your girlfriends.”

“Okay, so how should we do this then?” You wondered.

Vincent got up from the couch, putting down his cup. “You’ll come to find out. I have to make this even. But you should talk to those detectives if you want a full clean slate.”

“That’s why I’m telling you to do this,” you started, taking a sip of your coffee. “My death could be planted on them. I’m a heiress, and that would be bigger news. I’ll leave something behind to admit Abby and Ellie’s full guilt for Brandon's death.”

“No way you would do that. You wouldn’t betray them like that,” he shot back, shaking his head. “You wouldn’t leave anything behind; how do I know you aren’t setting me up?”

“I am betraying them by finding the only way out, and I know you want revenge,” you professed, realizing how calm and collected you were talking about potentially dying for good. 

It was a suicide ideation, yes, but maybe Vincent would find a way to sympathize; you believed in that. 

“This is the revenge I had in mind.”

You tilted your head. “It’s the perfect revenge. We both get something out of it.”

“Do you want to actually die, or are you trying to fake it?” Vincent wondered, and you shrugged your shoulders. “Do I get something from you for admission either way?”

You nodded, putting down your coffee and stood up. “I will leave something behind in my bedroom after it is done. But do not betray me, or I will fucking kill you instead.”

“That’s not very fair.”

“It is fair,” you said, brushing past him as you took the cups to the kitchen and he followed behind you. “Now if you excuse me, I have to prepare any finalizations.”

Vincent found himself out, and you went back to your bedroom, spending hours putting together forms and transferring money into offshore accounts, and even called over your family lawyer to discuss a will. The lawyer sat in front of you at the kitchen table, files out in front of you. “May I ask why you are doing this?” She asked, sliding over the paperwork. “I mean, you are so young and people usually prepare a will when they are about to die. Your parents have a will with your name in it.”

“I understand that, but I just want to be prepared,” you said, grabbing your pen. “I want all my profits to go to charities for women in shelters, to under class schools for children where they will be rewarded with new books and computers for them; along with fixing up any structures they need done. A grand total of 20K will be rewarded to research, world troubles, and more. I have put it all down.”

The lawyer knew not to pry any further, and pointed to where you exactly needed to sign, and you did it with such ease, finally accepting what was coming to the end. You were tying up all loose ends that you needed to before Vincent would take charge of your fate. 

After the lawyer left and you signed away your destiny, you went back into your bedroom and grabbed a hard drive stick, putting it into the side of your computer.

 You turned on the recording, and you sucked in a harsh, deep breath that came out shaky and unsteady. “Abby Anderson and Ellie Williams killed Brandon James. There was a bloody-stained shirt that had his blood on it that was burned by them only a year after his death. I know this because I told them what Brandon was doing, and they got killed. I know the other people they have injured and killed before and after him. This is my admission of guilt.”

You paused, staring blankly at the computer screen, and you cleared your throat shortly after. “They are violent killers; there is no innocence in them or this case. By the time this has turned over to the courts, I will be gone. But I will not leave without confessing the only sin that has been killing me for months.”

You stopped the recording, and made sure it was filed into the hard drive, putting it in a box on your vanity; easy access for Vincent to get ahold of. 

After your admission, you took a walk into the bustling city of Manhattan, having your own headphones in to take away distractions or thoughts of anything that was to come. The girls spammed your phone, but you decided to go on airplane mode, and let yourself cruise around the city you were raised and born in. 

If your death would be soon, you rather take in any last memories. Your walk went on and on, losing any track of time as you were on it. You would go home, get changed for bed, and go to sleep with the decisions you decided to commit to. 

You let yourself walk and wander for hours, grabbing ice cream on your way to home. The sweet flavor gave you sweet memories of your childhood; how your dad would take you out for ice cream and sweets whenever you did well in elementary school, or how your mom would let you mix candy into a huge bag whenever you had a bad day. Those were the parents you always remembered and wanted back, but when their careers and success became bigger than you, they had shut and tossed you out. 

If they hadn’t, maybe then Abby and Ellie would have not come into your life, and ruined it all. 

You tossed your cup of ice cream into the bin outside your penthouse hotel, and the busboy opened the door for you as you thanked him on your way inside. The building felt colder and eerie, seeming as if no one lived inside and you were the only resident. 

You were sure you were overthinking it after the day you had, and were just overly tired. After all, it was New York, and people were always going out. 

You grabbed the elevator, and selected the floor of your parents’ penthouse, your hands in the pockets of your coat with your headphones and phone tucked inside of it. It took a few minutes until you reached the floor, and when you walked in, you heard the sound of glass clinking together. You paused inside the elevator, hesitating to get inside your home.

Silence entered back into the room, and you assumed it could have been your mom pouring herself a cup of wine and was making a ruckus for no reason. You sighed, walking inside anyways and when you dropped your tote bag on top of the island, you found the horror scene and sight of your butchered parents. 

Your scream ripped out of your throat, falling down into their blood as you first moved to your mom. “Mom, mama!” You screamed, crying and panicking. You picked her up, lifting her into your lap, your blood-covered hand brushing her hair. “Mama, please wake up! Come on, come on, you’re okay.”

You turned over to your dad, letting your head rest on his chest which was repeatedly stabbed at. You sobbed into him, grasping onto his shirt. Your jeans soaked in their pool of blood, and you shivered, wanting to cradle into their embrace again.

Now what was there to live for?

“Eye for an eye,” a voice came behind you, and before you could see who it was, your vision went cold and black.

Waking up from a concussion was more hellish than anything.

Your eyes took their time to adjust to fluorescent lightning, feeling loose ropes around your wrists and ankles, a throbbing ache in your frontal cortex. You felt nauseous and feeble, like death was reaching out at you, and about to take you.

The second your vision and memory was intact altogether, you realized you weren't in your home anymore, or hovering over your deceased parents. Instead, you were in a quiet, dimmed room as you were strapped and hostaged to a chair, and you groaned.

“Where the fuck am I?” You groaned. 

“I brought you here,” Vincent’s voice erupted through the room, and came in front of your eyesight. “I told you it would happen soon.”

You swallowed thickly, and hummed. “You killed my parents?”

He nodded.

“That wasn’t the fucking deal,” you spat. “My parents had no part!”

“Killing you was just not enough for me,” Vincent stated, and you fidgeted with the ropes. “You need to know what lose truly feels like. How it killed me when my best friend died.”

“I’ll fucking kill you!”

“The deal was I'll kill you,” he recalled, and you groaned. “But that’s just too easy. I want to have fun with it.”

Maybe he was just as fucked as your girlfriends. 

“If you kick or bite, I’ll hit you,” he threatened as he moved over to you and slowly took off the ropes, you staring at him while he did it. “Play nice.”

“I could rip out your eyes and eat them right now!” You snapped, and he chuckled. “You are such a fucking asshole. I hope you see Brandon in hell.”

Vincent could only then grab a fistful of your hair, using it to crane you in whatever direction that he took you in, the two of you leaving the room you were trapped in just a second ago. You moved into another room later, and then found your girlfriends tied to chairs, and clearly unconscious.

“Abby! Els!” You shouted, sprinting over to the middle of them, shaking them by their legs. “Hey hey, wake up, baby. Come on, wake up.”

“I took pride in knowing I was able to overpower them,” Vincent confessed, and you peered over your shoulder back at him, shaking your head. “I just needed an extra pair of hands to help me out; they are a bit feisty.”

Ellie and Abby slowly awoke out of their unconscious slumber, taking their time to adjust to their surroundings. “Baby?” Ellie whispered, and you smiled, nodding. “What’s going on? What the actual fuck?”

“We are about to play russian roulette,” Vincent grabbed a gun out of the back of his pocket; a revolver being loaded with clearly only a single bullet. “I am going to answer questions; if we are all honest, I won’t kill your girlfriend. If we aren’t, I’ll make sure she is tortured in front of you, and she kills herself.”

Ellie and Abby paused, registering what deal he had just made until they looked back at you, pure concern and disappointment in their faces. “What have you done, bunny?” Abby asked, and for the first time in a while, they looked panicked and scared.

You retreated backwards, and stood up, now standing center in the middle of the room. Vincent came to the side of you, feeling the cold tip of the gun pressed up against your temple, and you sucked in every despair and anxiety that ran through you.

“How many people have you killed?” Vincent asked.

Quiet. Silence. An oath of silence.

“I’ll blow her brains out right now.”

“About a dozen, maybe fifteen. Including your shit friend,” Ellie confessed, and you sighed in relief. The revolver luckily didn’t click. “We tortured every one of them, some of them were taped.”

“What?” You gasped.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ellie brushed it off, clearly unfazed.

“What did you do Brandon?” Vincent asked another.

“Just fucking killed him, man,” Abby answered, and revolver clicked, but nothing came out. “Fuck, okay! We burned a cigarette, cut his tongue — it was a while ago, we honestly forgot.”

“You killed my best friend like he was just cattle,” Vincent spat out, and you trembled. “You’re lucky I don’t kill your girlfriend, even after she betrayed you.”

“What is he talking about?” Abby asked.

You would rather kill yourself at this point because he knew what you were referring to. You were the reason you got them into this spot, that they were so blinded by their love for you, you casted them under this spell that had caught them in these chairs, and were possibly about to witness you die in front of them.

“I… I signed my will. I told Vincent an eye for an eye,” you sucked in a harsh breath. “You were part of that agreement, but not this shit. He even killed my parents.”

“WHAT THE FUCK!” Ellie shouted; she had never shouted like this before. Her voice was laced with pure distraught and anger, like she was willing to kill you herself at this point. “What the fuck, what the fuck! Are you fucking stupid!”

“Oh, don’t act like you are such saints yourself!” You seethed, scoffing in disbelief. “You only married me so I wouldn’t leave your asses again! You didn’t marry me out of love, you married me out of pure Stockholm syndrome! You use me to fulfill your need and drive of violence; you need me as an excuse to kill people!”

The pair went absolutely silent, and that validated everything Jasmine had told you long ago. 

“New game; I am going to leave this gun with you,” Vincent took it out, showing it off as he untied you a few seconds afterwards. “Your little girlfriend will decide who gets to live.” He slowly walked out of the small four by four room, only then tossing the gun your way shortly after he walked only, the trigger off and the door closed and locked.

It was you, a gun, and the loves of your life. It was now a sicker, cruel game between the three of you. You put the gun in your back pocket, going on to untie your girlfriends as they massaged their wrists and glared at you with utter betrayal, and slight disgust. 

You made sure to careen yourself backwards at a steady pace, getting the gun out and instantly got the gun out of your pocket, pointing it up and direct at them. They took rapid notice, both of them raising their arms up in self defense and protection.

“Okay, bunny… I know you are probably really scared right now,” Abby started off, and your hands became shaky, the sweat from your palms forming around the handle. “Just give us the gun, and we will figure it out together, okay?”

“Please don’t make this any harder,” you whimpered, sniffling. “I should do this — you guys have put me through Hell.”

“Little one, we care about you so much,” Ellie added, and your gaze shifted over to her. “You know we do; from the first moment we saw you, we finally understood our purpose for existing in this world, and that was to protect you, to care only for you.”

Your body shivered with anxiety, your brain trying to refuse anything they were both saying to you. “You don’t understand anything,” you whispered, and you tackled with multiple options to end this moment; shoot them and kill them, shoot them in the legs and run off, or end your own life. 

If you were to shoot them and run away again, where could you possibly hide? There would never be anywhere for you to go. You needed a way out but there wasn’t any, and that made you face only one true fate for yourself; you had to take yourself out. 

You turned the gun onto yourself, the head kissing your temple.

“Angel, no no! Put down the gun!” Abby shouted, and Ellie carefully stepped over to you. “Els is gonna take the gun, and we are gonna get out of here. We are gonna go home and pretend none of this happened, and move on to our happy lives.”

���I have to do this, I have to!” You sobbed, and they shook their heads. “If I leave and run away, you guys will find me and kill anyone who stands in the way! You always do that, and make me witness it as your sick punishment!”

“Baby…” Ellie beckoned, and her eyes softened to you. “No more killing, no more hurting. We promise. We knew that chapter was over when we asked you to be our wife. We want to move elsewhere with you, and begin our exciting new life.”

You couldn’t decipher genuinity or manipulation that played a role in her tone, and you could not tell if she was being honest with you, given how many epiphanies you’d been having ever since the proposal. Maybe Ellie was being right for once; the way she glanced at you was pure and worried, almost like she wanted to embrace you, and let you cry into her hold. 

Maybe that little hope that danced in your heart was right, and going to come true. 

You slowly put the gun down, sniffling and nodding. “No more killing please,” you begged, hiccuping and sniffling. “I can’t take any more of it.”

“Just us and our happy life from here on out, babydoll,” Abby reassured, and you nodded, frowning. You held the gun out into her reach, and the second she grabbed it, the door swung open to reveal Vincent with his own gun.

“Eye for a fucking eye,” he said, and an immediate pain stung to the middle of your abdomen. You stood in shock, every nerve going numb and your brain falling quiet on you. Your hand touched down to where the ache and throbbing sensation formed itself, only to reveal a coat of blood. 

Vincent ran off before the girls could get to him, and their attention landed back onto you when they heard your body thud against the ground. You stared up at the ceiling, your vision blurring in and out, and you felt eerily cold. 

“Eyes here, baby,” Ellie coeed, Abby ripping a piece of her shirt off and putting it over the wound, and applied pressure. “There we go, you are gonna be just fine.”

“There’s too much,” Abby panicked. “Too much fucking blood— I’m gonna fucking kill that fucker—”

“It hurts,” you muttered, breathing heavily. “It hurts��� Please, make it go away.”

“We’re trying, angel, just keep breathing,” Abby worriedly smiled, Ellie stroking the top of your head. “You are gonna be okay.”

You just nodded, even though the fluorescent lighting was dimming and their panicked voices slowly turned into echoes, your ears ringing. If there is a Heaven, you hoped it’d be kinder to you than all your years were.

Privilege does not give you anything; you have to exchange many of it, just for a little something beautiful.

ONE YEAR LATER.

“Please rise before the court,” the judge said, and everyone stood. “This trial was once again complex and complicated, I will say that. The tape we got from the deceased was hearsay, and without her here with us, the jury had to make a decision based on other testimonies. Jury, do you have a decision?”

“Yes, your honor,” a juror lady stood, a card in hand. 

“What is your defense?” He asked.

“On behalf of the New York vs. Anderson and Williams, we hereby find them not guilty on multiple counts of first degree murder, manslaughter, torture,” the juror said, and the pair sighed in relief, knowing that their plans could fall back into place. 

When the tape was stolen and found from Vincent, he turned it over to the police which then resulted in the girls arrested. The trial took a while to begin, evidence being enough to upstart one, but they knew it would not conclude how Vincent intended for it, too.

You died horrifically before their eyes, and a funeral was held for you, and everyone attended for you; they knew you would have loved the turn out. You would have loved how Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley played for you, and how it is the only way they can easily cry.

But Vincent decided to go hide away, and what they did best was play cat and mouse. Vincent Hayes thought he could escape by murdering you, and trying to turn over your partners, but they love a good chase, and better yet – a needed murder.

“Miss Anderson and Williams, you are hereby dismissed and free,” the judge announced, and they cheered, hugging their top-tier lawyers. 

When Abby and Ellie left the courthouse, they took a trip to the cemetery and visited your grave. They sat down on the moppy gross, setting down flowers near your headstone.

‘Beloved Daughter, Friend, and Wife’

“We did it, angel,” Abby said. “We did it – and now we are going to avenge you. We promise.”

Abby and Ellie knew what they were going to do, and how they were going to get Vincent Hayes. They knew at the end of the day, it was the only way to remember you, and seek justice for your soul.

To the ends of the Earth. 

[earthsparked]

It just slips out as you climb out of Optimus’ enormous hands, cupped supportively around you. Thanks, dad!

Across the room, Ratchet drops a wrench with a ping and clatter onto the concrete. Jazz bursts into cackles and hoots of laughter. Bumblebee bzzts and hides his face behind his mask, also laughing but trying not to let you see.

You freeze, cringing like you’ve never cringed before. You did NOT just call this military-robo-Pope older than your entire species, “DAD.” You did NOT just call this mech, who is effectively your boss as a cultural ambassador to an entire alien species, “DAD.”

Except you did, and your face is flaming red as you slowly turn to him, apologies springing to your tongue as you imagine with a sinking heart the thrashing you’re going to get from your human handlers when they find out you’ve insulted the leader of the Autobots. Oh god, the Decepticons are going to take over your planet because your parents divorced when you were young and then your father died and it’s been so, so long since you had anyone in your life who made you feel like Optimus does, safe and cared for and wanted. You had started to take it for granted, how gentle he was with you, how it healed something deep inside you every time he picked you up in servos you’d seen rip into Decepticons as if their armor was tinfoil.

You didn’t even feel a flicker of worry anymore in the moments Optimus, a being the size of a living building who could crush you by accident, moved around you with thunderous, titanic footsteps. And when he moved you with the confidence of a father absent-mindedly tugging their toddler out of the way of danger.

You’d gotten too used to it, had come to crave it. And now you went and ruined everything and - no, you have to fix this RIGHT NOW.

I, I’m so sorry, it’s a human thing, sometimes we get words wrong, I apologize sir. You can’t look him in the optic. Maybe he’ll take your lowered eyes and dipped chin as the act of apology, submission, desperation it is. Your heart is pounding and even in the cold air of the base, nervous sweat is breaking out on your skin.

-He’s silent. Why hasn’t he said anything?!

You hold your breath as Optimus’ huge shadow falls over you, and his servo moves closer. One finger bigger than your entire body brushes under your chin, tipping your head up so you have to look at him. Dreading what you’ll see, you capitulate.

And he’s -

The look on his face is not like anything you’ve ever seen. No, wait. You’ve seen it once. When Bumblebee was badly injured, and Optimus stayed by his side around the clock until he was out of danger, talking to him in deep, soft warbles and trills of a language you didn’t understand.

Why is he looking at you like that?

You are welcome, ambassador, is all he says, but you don’t miss the way he lets his servo stroke gently - fondly - brushing your hair out of your eyes, before turning and walking away. Leaving you on the scaffolding that leads to your office, as his footsteps reverberate through you.

He speaks to the others, briskly interrupting their joking, wrangling them like a herd of cats as he changes the subject to the patrol assignments. You look after him, a series of complicated feelings bubbling up in your chest, none of which let you get a word out. Eventually, you turn and make for the shelter of your office, to hide yourself in emails and reports.

Unaware as you go, due to the increasing distance between you - of the tendrils of energy reluctantly wisping away from you where Optimus’ powerful EM field had wrapped itself around you, as intuitively and automatically as it had wrapped around his sparklings so many millennia ago.

You couldn’t pick up on what he was thinking - not yet, anyway, you were sharp and intuitive and empathetic. But he had to wonder, how shocked would you have been to know, as he went about his duties, part of his processor was taken up with thoughts of how fortuitous it was that both your species had found something they needed, in this alliance of mechanical and organic life?

How long had it been since he’d held something small and soft and so alive, so precious? Was it ever since he had doomed his people to a slow extinction?

Such thoughts were kept strictly to himself; these organics are sentient, deserving of respect, and you are an adult by your own people’s reckoning, even if his spark aches with a painful warmth now to know you feel this connection, too. Even if you seem even less willing to acknowledge it than he is - and he will follow your lead. Or at least that’s what he tells himself.

The others aren’t fooled; that laughter had been directed at him, though he doubts you realize that. They know him too well, see his solicitous treatment of you for what it is, what it really means in their society.

Ratchet huffs and comms him on a private line.

Just tell them. You’re not going to chase our allies away because you’re going broody. And it’s not good for your systems, fighting those subroutines every klik. I doubt it’s good for them, either.

Optimus pings him a thank you and a message not as sardonic as he could have made it. Your wisdom is appreciated, old friend.

Ratchet gives him a Look with his EM field, but Optimus keeps the talk to business. Not fooled for a minute. Knowing he’s not the only one keeping a sensor or three trained on the little being in their nook, just across the way.

[setaretjd]

In His Arms, Until Down (Sukuna X Reader)

In the past, the King of Curses and his former lover—back when Sukuna was human. A sorrowful, romantic tale.

English isn't my first language, so sorry if there are any mistakes!

Kneeling before him, blood dripping down your face, his expression twisted into pure disgust.  

*"What are you doing here?"* Sukuna spat.  

You stared at the monster before you, the scent of the man you once loved still lingering—but he looked nothing like him anymore.  

Desperation cracked through your voice.  

*"Please… don’t tell me this isn’t you."*  

His fists clenched as he glared at you in fury.  

You were the only fragment of his humanity that remained—the girl with **(your hair color)**, who once hid behind the rocks just to spy on him when he bathed.  

The one he called family, the woman he wanted to marry—the one he'd run from the fields every day to meet on that hill at sunset.  

The one who made rice balls for him, who let him rest in her lap as he ate them.  

But now, you stood before him drenched in blood, hoping the man before you was still the lover you once knew.  

Coldly, Sukuna turned to Uraume.  

*"Get her out of here."*  

You screamed.  

*"I’m going to die!"*  

His gaze snapped back to you, confusion flickering across his face.  

Breathless, you continued.  

*"The doctor told me—I don’t have much time left. I’m dying from tuberculosis."*  

Wild-eyed, you gasped for air. For the first time, Sukuna truly focused on you.  

He grasped your chin with long, sharp fingers.  

*"Explain."*  

You swallowed hard before speaking.  

*"After you disappeared, everything fell apart. They said you were dead. My family's wealth burned away with my illness. They wanted to force me into marriage but—"*  

You coughed violently, blood staining your lips. Sukuna could barely stand the sight of it—the way his body still felt weak before you infuriated him.  

Gripping his kimono, you pleaded,  

*"But I killed him! The man they tried to make me marry. I threw away everything—wealth, security—because all I ever wanted was you. It was foolish, but I wanted to believe that old man’s words—that you were still alive."*  

Looking into his eyes, you screamed,  

*"So don’t you dare tell me this isn’t you, Sukuna! You can't treat me like this—not when we’ve loved each other since childhood."*  

Sukuna pulled his kimono free from your grasp and stepped toward his temple.  

*"Give her a room,"* he ordered Uraume.  

*"Watch over her."*  

As Uraume caught you before you collapsed, Sukuna simply stood there, staring.  

He had watched from a distance for years—seen the news of your impending marriage, the sudden death of your parents, the tears you shed when you heard of his supposed demise.  

But your illness—your looming death? He hadn’t known.  

And he refused to accept it.  

He didn’t understand why, but something inside him decided—he would make you a curse.  

Even if, in the end, he had to kill you himself, he wouldn’t allow you to die like this.  

You were the only memory of his past life that remained.  

You were probably the most beautiful part of it.  

Every night, after you fell asleep, he would visit—watching over you until dawn.  

He hated it, but his body moved against his will. His hand would reach for yours, and despite the disgust clawing at his soul, he would press his lips to yours.  

And the more he did, the more he wanted you.  

The scent of your hair intoxicated him—even more now than when he had been just a foolish, greedy young man.  

You were the only one who had ever made that monstrous, four-eyed creature feel both agony and joy.  

But then the inevitable came.  

Even through the walls, Sukuna could hear your blood-choked coughs.  

As Uraume laid you down, trying to help, Sukuna entered the room and commanded,  

*"Leave us."*  

He sat beside you, his massive hands lifting you gently into his arms.  

You sobbed, trembling.  

*"No… please, no. I know what you’re about to do—but please, don’t."*  

He didn’t care.  

His finger brushed against your forehead, ready to imprison you forever within this world.  

But through your tears, you grasped his hand weakly.  

*"If there’s even the smallest part of you that still loves me, don’t do this, Sukuna. You know this isn’t what I want."*  

For the first time, Sukuna’s voice cracked into a near-shout.  

*"And what about me? Do you think I’d just let you go? Just like that?"*  

Gently, you cupped his face, smiling despite the pain.  

*"Sukuna, just this once, I wanted to be selfish—like you. I wanted to spend my last moments with the one I love. So please… let me go."*  

Somehow, in a way that defied every instinct, Sukuna surrendered—giving you control over both his mind and heart.  

He couldn’t resist you. Not now.  

Not ever.  

Even as a monstrous god, his body craved you.  

*"You’re even more selfish than I am, Y/N."* Sukuna whispered.  

You gave him a weak smile.  

*"Finally… you said my name."*  

Wrapping your arms around his neck, you kissed him.  

*"I don’t want this to be our goodbye kiss."* Sukuna murmured.  

Resting your forehead against his, you whispered,  

*"It’s not. We’ll find each other again. I’m in your fate, Sukuna. After this life, find me again."*  

He hesitated, desperate.  

*"Just let me turn you into a curse—"*  

You silenced him, tracing a delicate finger across his lower lip.  

*"Shhh… no. I won’t let those memories disappear with it. The only reason I’ve survived this long is because of the life we shared back in that village."*  

Sukuna pulled you closer, lying back with you in his arms.  

Your body was weak now—far too fragile. It made his heart, the one he thought he had long lost, ache with something terrifying.  

He held you through the night—until the first rays of dawn touched the horizon.  

Until your body, lifeless, lay still in his arms.  

Sukuna buried you atop the hill where you had spent so many days together. He swore to visit you each day.  

He refused to burn your body—to let its beauty fade completely.  

Even if your soul remained trapped there forever, he had to be selfish.  

In time, people would come.  

They would honor you, pray to you. Your shrine became a sacred temple, one of Japan’s holiest sites—  

The woman the King of Curses had once loved.  

Legends grew around you both—stories of devotion, suffering, and longing.  

But Sukuna knew the truth.  

You would be born again.  

And he would find you.  

So he waited—until the day he could feel your warmth in his arms once more.  

"Thanks for reading this one-shot! If you enjoyed it, please let me know. If you didn’t… maybe keep it to yourself because I’m on my period and not feeling great today—show some understanding! 🤣" 

[mikachondria]

The Bats favourite barbie movies:

Dick - The Barbie Fairytopia series, entirely based on vibes. Forced each of his siblings to a marathon at least once. He's the biggest Bibble fan. One time his siblings gifted him a Bibble shower curtain and bathmat for his birthday as a joke but he uses both, because 1) he unironically loves it and 2) his siblings always get really exiting when they visit him and see, he hasn't changed them.

Jason - Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper, I will not elaborate. He's also a Princess and the Popstar hater because “They tried to rip off their own movie but somehow lost all the good parts in the process. Like yeah, give us two very privileged white girls in slightly different situations and compare it to the criticism of the social class differences in a monarchy.”

Yes, he gets defensive over it.

Tim - Barbie in the Nutcracker. One time when he was little, his parents couldn't come home on Christmas eve (I'm a Janet and Jack Drake slightly neglectful but still loving parents believer, they didn't forget him, their flight was just cancelled) so he searched up Christmas movies to watch alone. When his parents got home the next day they found him asleep on the sofa and the end credit scene frozen on the TV. They take him to see the real ballet a week later and after that, Barbie and the Nutcracker becomes a comfort movie for him. He thinks it's objectively not the best Barbie movie but the nostalgia just hits him every time he watches it. (When Cass got a role in the nutcracker ballet, he was so excited. She played a rat and loved the role)

Cass - Most people would probably think it would be a ballet related movie like Nutcracker, 12 Dancing Princesses or Swan Lake but it's actually Barbie as the Island Princess. She deeply relates to Ro growing up in isolation, struggling to adjust to society and speaking a language no one else understands, though Ro's story is much more lighthearted than her own. When Ro gets reunited with her mother, Cass cries every time because it reminds her of her own adoption and finally finding her place.

Duke - Barbie and the Diamond castle, again purely the vibes. He's convinced that Alexa and Liana are gay for each other and sees the guys as inconvenient plot devices (“They rode away from the princes on a literal rainbow bridge!”).

Also sometimes uses his powers to ride away on a rainbow bridge himself, just because he thinks it's funny. This is inspired by this post from @jello-jelly-coconut

Steph - Barbie in a Mermaid Tale. Partly vibes, partly because when she was younger, she sometimes wished to have a second life, a second home too just like Merliah, with a father who loved her and her mom instead of being absent/in jail.

She knows the lyrics and dance moves to Queen of the Waves by heart.

She also loves picking the illogical things in the movie apart (“The mermaids breathe underwater so they have to have gills, but they can also breath air, that means they are some mammal-fish hybrids which would make Merliah a hybrid of a hybrid”) but defends it with her life as soon as someone else criticises it because how dare they disrespect her favourite Barbie movie?

Damian - Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus. At first he refuses to watch any Barbie movies with his siblings at all, but agrees after weeks of them asking. He wants to watch something with a dragon but Barbie and Rapunzel is not available on any streaming platform at that time and they have to buy/borrow a physical copy so he settles for the next best thing, a pegasus. He has low expectations.

Then he sees Annika trying to adopt a polar bear cub in the first few minutes of the movie and immediately likes her.

He's hooked till the end and has to admit that he liked the movie.

He still refuses to watch other Barbie movies though, this time with the reason that they wouldn't be as good as Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus anyways so it would be a waste of time.

Barbara - Technically not a movie, but Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse. She always has a tab with the youtube playlist open and will watch episodes when patrol gets boring. One time she forgot to mute herself and got teased by the other batkids but then she started streaming the episodes for them on their phones during stakeouts and they shut up because they got invested. Bruce is not aware of this.

Barbara's favourite character is the closet.

Bruce - He's doesn't have a favourite Barbie movie (it's Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses)

Unfortunately I don't know enough about Kate, Luke, etc to assign them a movie but feel free to add to the list

[sugardollcurse]

hi! do you think you can do headcanons of the guys with an s/o who has a southern accent? it’d be so funny clashing with their liverpool accent

𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒍𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒂 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒏-𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒏𝒆𝒓

꒰ pairing ꒱ paul mccartney x reader, john lennon x reader, george harrison x reader, ringo starr x reader

꒰ note ꒱ "ya'll" vs "lads"... ANYWAY HELLO I'VE GOT A SOUTHERN ACCENT TEW!!

꒰ JOHN ꒱

“You say that again, and I swear I’ll combust. D’you know what you sound like, love?”

He loves it.

Thinks it’s sexy, hilarious, and weirdly comforting.

Calls you things like “cowpoke,”

When you talk to strangers back home, he watches with awe.

“It’s like you’re speakin’ a different language,” he says, eyes wide.

That said, the clash is constant. You say “buggy,” he says “trolley.”

You say “coke” for any soda, and he’s like, “You want what?!”

“We’re gonna start a war with the way we talk,” he jokes, grinning.

But he always listens when you speak.

And when you get homesick? He does a terrible Southern accent just to make you laugh.

“Miss yer porch yet?”

You absolutely have miscommunications.

One time you said “fixin’ to” and he genuinely thought you meant you were repairing something.

“You’re fixin’ what?”

“No, I mean, I’m about to-”

“Well why didn’t you just say that?”

But he starts borrowing your sayings, throwing them into conversations just to make you laugh. “We’re fixin’ to leave, lads. Let’s go.”

꒰ PAUL ꒱

“You say things like molasses. Sweet and slow and hard to get outta your head.”

Paul is delighted by your accent. He finds it endearing, charming, and vaguely musical.

He leans in every time you talk, just to hear the curl of your vowels.

He especially loves when you say his name, “Paul” in your voice becomes “Paaawl,” and it drives him mad.

You tease each other constantly.

“Y’all alright?”

“Youse alright?”

He lives for the affectionate little phrases you use.

“If you keep talkin’ like that, I’ll do anything you say.”

When you visit your hometown, he asks a million questions.

“Do I have to eat grits?” “Why do you all wave to each other on the street?”

He starts using your phrases just to be cute.

Says it completely wrong and gets smacked for it.

He loves when you two blend accents in everyday life.

You say “supper,” he says “tea.” You say “y’all,” he says “you lot.”

Somehow, it works.

꒰ GEORGE ꒱

“Y’know, I reckon we confuse everyone when we talk. Good.”

It takes a minute for him to adjust when you two first meet.

He’s used to thick accents, sure, but yours is like molasses and light, and sometimes he has to ask you to repeat yourself.

“Wait, what was that? No, I’m not takin’ the piss, I swear. I just didn’t catch it.”

But once he does get it, he starts noticing the subtleties, when your accent gets stronger, or softer, depending on your mood.

He loves that.

George asks genuine questions about where you’re from, what it was like, what music played on the radio, how your voice got to sound like that.

Eventually, he picks up some of your phrases, quietly, without fanfare.

He kind of stereotypes you based off what he sees in movies.

He’ll tease you a bit, especially if you start sounding extra-Southern when emotional.

“Getting riled up, are we?” he smirks. “You sound like a banjo’s about to start playin’.”

꒰ RINGO ꒱

“I dunno what you just said, but it sounded sweet... so I’ll assume it’s nice.”

Ringo is delighted by your accent from the very first word.

“You’ve got such a nice voice. It’s all... soft an’ sunny. Like a radio show I’d fall asleep to.”

He grins every time you open your mouth.

“I mean it! You could read the phone book to me.”

The two of you absolutely have conversations where neither of you understands the other for a full 30 seconds.

He's like John with the miscommunications thing.

“I said I’m fixin’ to go.”

“You’re... what now? Fixin’ a toe?”

“No, I mean I’m about to go!”

“Ohhh! Right. Mad.”

He’ll try to imitate your accent and it’s terrible.

But he’s so earnest about it you let him get away with it.

He gives you cute nicknames that sound funny in his accent

He starts inventing phrases he thinks sound southern. You threaten to kick him. He thinks it’s adorable.

“Do I get points for effort?” he asks, pulling you into a hug.

“No,” you mutter into his chest.

“That’s fair.”

taglist: @sharksausages, @wavvytin, @wimpyvamps, @finallyforgotten, @lennongirlieee, @silly-lil-lee

[kdpartworks]

Ok so if the cloud people can’t communicate with other gods and people verbally, why don’t they use sign language?

Well, as far as I know, sign language wasn't exactly something existing yet, not like the modern one at least. Btw, Cloudysseus and Cloudyseidon aren't really interested in being understandable to others, they speak in their way and it's ok so to them. Ganymede instead tried to express himself as better as he can, but is not enough for rich conversations, of course. And actually, nobody exept Zeus or other clouds wants to have a conversation with him, so what's the point? :D

[better-setterv2]

𝒜𝑔𝒶𝒾𝓃𝓈𝓉 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒪𝒹𝒹𝓈 𝒫𝓉.2

Authors Note: Hi everyone, here’s is Part 2 of Against the Odds. I won’t be writing another part to this mini series as I didn’t feel as connected writing it. Possibly down the track I will do another series maybe similar.

Summary: Lewis Hamilton and his younger girlfriend embrace their love publicly during the Monaco Grand Prix, proving their bond transcends age and spotlight.

Warnings: mentions of sexual content, age-gap

Taglist: @harrys-hs-gf1 @hannibeeblog @nebulastarr

MASTERLIST

Pt1, Pt2

࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊

A couple of weeks later you and Lewis are lying in bed starring at the ceiling, relaxing before he had to head off to practice.

The quiet between you and Lewis lingers, stretching out like a thread of warmth woven through the soft light of morning.

Now, his hand rests lightly on the small of your back, fingers warm and still. His breath rises and falls in a lazy rhythm beneath you, his chest a steady, calming presence against your cheek. It's not possessive, the way he holds you, but it’s undeniable. He’s here, and so are you.

His arm tightens around you, drawing you even closer and you let him. His touch is not urgent, but it’s grounding. The pressure of his body against yours fills the space, a promise of something deeper than what’s visible on the surface. You hear the softest sigh slip from him as his fingers begin to trace the curve of your spine in slow, absent circles.

The room is still. But it’s a peaceful stillness, like a sigh after a storm. You don’t feel the need to fill the silence. You just let it be.

His heartbeat thuds under your cheek, steady and real. It’s the kind of thing that would go unnoticed by anyone else, but here, in this space it’s everything. You let your eyes close, matching the beat of his heart with your own.

For a long while, neither of you speaks. And yet, there’s an unspoken understanding that settles in the quiet a language only the two of you share. You think about last night - the way his lips tasted, how your bodies had moved together like it was the most natural thing in the world, even when it felt like a dream.

The way his eyes had held yours, not for just a moment, but like he was trying to imprint you onto his soul. Like he was trying to make sure you were real.

His voice breaks the silence again, quieter this time. “I can’t believe you’re here with me even after the media backlashing you.”

You lift your head just slightly to look at him, studying the lines of his face softened by sleep, the way his dark curls are tousled from being out of his braids. “You thought I’d run?”

There’s a pause and you see the flicker in his eyes, the moment of hesitation. It’s not a simple answer, not something he can explain away with a shrug or a quick laugh. When he speaks again, his voice is raw, almost uncertain. “I wasn’t sure.”

You nod, because you understand. You’ve felt it too - the fear that maybe this, whatever this is between you two, isn’t built to last. The quiet voice that wonders if something so perfect can really exist in a world that constantly pulls everything apart.

But you’re not running. Not this time.

“I’m here,” you whisper, offering him a soft smile. “And so are you.”

He looks at you for a long moment, his eyes tracing your features as if memorising them, then a small, tender smile tugs at the corner of his lips.

He moves a little closer, his lips brushing your forehead in a kiss that’s soft, grounding. Almost reverent. It’s the kind of kiss that says so much more than words could ever convey.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he says softly, as if the words are more for him than for you. “I didn’t go looking for someone younger. Someone like you and now the media it taking it all out on the person I fell for.”

You feel his words like a soft tremor against your chest. You don’t flinch, don’t pull away. You just let him speak, waiting for the truth to come as raw and real as it needs to be.

“I wasn’t chasing some cliché,” he continues, his voice thick with something you can’t quite place. “I just I don’t know. You showed up, and you made me feel something I didn’t even realise I was missing. You made me feel alive. Like I wasn’t just another headline or another name on a list.”

You shift slightly, brushing a stray lock of hair away from his face and his hand finds yours. His fingers are long and strong, but they tremble slightly when they slip into yours. You don’t mind. You squeeze his hand gently.

“I don’t need an explanation,” you whisper, your voice soft but sure. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

But he does. His eyes never leave yours, his chest rising and falling with the weight of what he’s saying.

“I’ve spent so much time running, you know? From myself, from the life I’ve built around me. Everything’s been in motion, like I’m just a part of a show. People love the idea of me, but no one really knows who I am. And then you came along, and you’re different. You didn’t care about the car or the fame. You didn’t look at me like I was something to be admired from afar. You saw me. The real me.”

You press your lips to the curve of his collarbone, taking a deep breath. It feels like he’s finally letting you see him, really see him, in a way he hasn’t let anyone else. The walls are coming down.

He exhales slowly, the breath leaving his body as if it’s the first time he’s truly exhaled in a long while. His thumb traces the curve of your jaw, a gentle caress that feels like a promise.

“I forgot what it felt like,” he murmurs. “To be wanted for just who I am. Not for the car. Not for the titles. Not for the history.”

His eyes soften, and for a moment, it feels like everything in the world pauses. No cameras. No fans. Just him. Just you.

“I don’t care about any of that,” you say quietly. “You’re someone good. A good man. And I care about you. Not the name, not the fame. Just you.”

His lips brush against yours in a slow, lingering kiss. It’s full of meaning, full of everything he’s been trying to say but couldn’t find the words for. His hands slide to the small of your back, pulling you closer. You kiss him back with a tenderness that surprises even you, as if you’re trying to say everything that words can’t.

When you pull away, your foreheads rest together, your breathing still in sync. There’s no need to speak. You’re both thinking the same thing, and in this moment, it doesn’t matter that the world is waiting. What matters is what’s here, between the two of you.

You remain like that for a while, letting the world wait before you finally pull away. With a glance exchanged, you both know what’s coming. The world isn’t going to let you hide forever.

࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊ ⊹ ˑ ִ ֶ 𓂃࣪𓏲ᥫ᭡ ₊

The next day is race in Monaco but it was going to be even bigger than yesterday’s practice. The cameras. The inevitable spotlight. And though you both know it’s coming, you can’t help but feel the weight of it. The moment when the world will finally know.

When you get dressed, slipping into the sleek red dress that contrasts perfectly with the sharp lines of his Ferrari team wear, you both know what this means. This day, you’ll be seen together publicly, unmistakably, more remarkable then the first hard launch yesterday. There will be no hiding. No pretending.

But when you meet him at the door, his hand finds yours without hesitation. He squeezes it gently, his thumb brushing over your skin like he’s grounding himself.

“Ready?” he asks, his eyes soft with something you can’t name.

You nod, your heart racing. “Ready.”

You both walk in to the paddock hand in hand, as the area is glimmering and full of people who think they know who you are, but who are so far from the truth. The press is relentless, snapping pictures, calling out questions you’ve already heard a thousand times before.

But you’re not running from it. You walk with him, your fingers tightly intertwined as you move together through the flashes of cameras, the shouts of reporters.

When someone calls out, “How long will you two truly last together?” Lewis doesn’t hesitate. His hand tightens around yours, his gaze flickering to you for just a moment before he answers, the words soft but clear.

“Forever,” he says, voice steady. “But we’re just getting started.”

And for once, that feels like the truth.

You both step forward, into the light, into the noise, into the world that’s waiting for you.

And in that moment, when you’re standing side by side, you know that whatever happens next, whatever the world throws your way, you’re not doing this alone.

The sun climbs higher over Monaco, casting a golden hue over the harbor. The anticipation in the air is palpable as the teams make final preparations. You find yourself back in the Ferrari garage, the familiar hum of machinery and chatter surrounding you. Lewis is beside you, his race suit pristine, the iconic prancing horse emblem gleaming on his chest.

He turns to you, a soft smile playing on his lips. "Nervous?" he asks, his voice barely audible over the din.

You shake your head, squeezing his hand. "Not for the race."

He chuckles, the sound grounding you. "Good. Because I'm going to need all the luck I can get."

As the call to the grid echoes through the garage, Lewis leans in, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. "See you at the finish line."

You watch as he strides towards his car, the embodiment of confidence and grace. The mechanics swarm around, making last minute checks. The tension is electric.

Taking your seat in the designated area, you slip on the headset, the world narrowing down to the commentary and the rhythmic thrum of engines. The lights go out, and the race begins.

Each lap is a whirlwind of emotion. You grip the armrests, heart pounding with every overtake, every near miss. Lewis maneuvers through the tight corners of the circuit with precision, his experience evident in every move.

Midway through the race, a sudden downpour adds chaos to the already challenging track. Teams scramble for tire changes, strategies shift on the fly. Lewis's voice crackles through the headset, calm yet urgent, discussing tactics with his engineer.

Despite the hurdles, he maintains his position, showcasing his unparalleled skill. As the checkered flag waves, Lewis crosses the line in second place, a testament to his resilience and mastery.

The garage erupts in cheers as Lewis returns. He removes his helmet, sweat glistening on his brow, a triumphant smile lighting up his face. Spotting you, he makes his way over with the crowd parting to let him through.

Without hesitation, he pulls you into a tight embrace, lifting you slightly off the ground. The world fades away, leaving just the two of you in that moment.

"I'm so proud of you," you whisper, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes.

He leans back, cupping your face. "Couldn't have done it without you."

Cameras flash, capturing the intimate moment. The age difference, the speculations - all seem trivial now. What matters is the genuine connection, the shared journey.

Later, at the podium ceremony, as Lewis sprays champagne and laughs with his fellow drivers, your eyes meet across the crowd. He raises his bottle in a silent toast to you, a promise of more shared victories to come.

As night falls over Monaco, the city transforms into a glittering spectacle. You and Lewis find solace on a secluded balcony overlooking the harbor. The distant sounds of celebrations drift up, but here it's peaceful.

He hands you a glass of champagne, clinking it gently against yours. "To us," he says, eyes reflecting the city lights.

You sip, savoring the moment. "To many more races, both on and off the track."

He chuckles, pulling you close. "I like the sound of that."

The conversation turns to dreams, future plans and shared aspirations. The age difference, once a looming concern, now feels insignificant. What binds you is a deeper mutual respect, understanding and love.

As the night deepens, you rest your head on his shoulder, the world below continuing its revelry. In this quiet moment, you find contentment, knowing that together, you can face whatever comes next.

Months later, as the season progresses your relationship with Lewis becomes fades away from the talk of the paddock. The initial whispers give way to acceptance, the focus shifting back to racing.

You stand by his side through victories and setbacks, your bond strengthening with each challenge. The age difference becomes a footnote in your story, overshadowed by the depth of your connection.

And as Lewis chases his dreams on the track, you pursue your own, supporting each other every step of the way. Together, you've found a rhythm, a partnership that transcends the boundaries of the sport.

In the end, it's not about the headlines or the opinions of others. It's about the love you've cultivated, the life you've built, and the journey that lies ahead.

[cami040405]

Vincent Sinclair courting headcannons but the reader does not know asl and tries to, but it’s very hard for her to be interested in it? Maybe they text each other? You can choose the genre

Vincent Sinclair Courting Headcannons

Summary: Vincent Sinclair quietly courts you, you struggle to learn ASL despite wanting to communicate with him. Though frustrated by your slow progress, you continues to try, and you rely on texts, sketches, and small gestures to connect. 

A/N: I loved writing this request, imagining how Vincent Sinclair would communicate with the reader. I found this approach interesting because in my story, Between Art And Silence, Vincent speaks. If you want to check it out, the link is in the text.

When Vincent first starts to court you, he tries to communicate mostly through body language and gestures — soft touches on the arm, a hand held out to guide you somewhere, or leaving little sketches for you to find.

He doesn’t expect you to know ASL at all — in fact, he seems almost guilty or hesitant to use it in front of you, not wanting to make you uncomfortable.

Bo teases him, of course: “Tryin’ to woo someone who can’t even read your love notes, huh?” But Vincent shrugs it off, used to being misunderstood — until you try.

You suggest texting. Vincent doesn’t like technology much, but for you? He adapts.

He keeps his old, beat-up phone charged just so you two can have late-night text conversations. He’s not wordy, but his messages are always careful and intentional.

“Did you eat today?”“You looked sad. Want me to sit with you?”“The stars are out. Thought of you.”

You try. You really do. But ASL doesn’t come naturally to you — the grammar feels strange, and your hands just don’t move the way you want them to.

Sometimes you mess up signs badly enough that he chuckles silently and gently corrects you, guiding your hands with his own, warm fingers. It’s frustrating — not because he’s impatient (he never is), but because you want to understand him better. Still, it’s hard to stay interested when your brain just doesn’t click with it.

Vincent notices right away. He sees the tension in your shoulders, the way your eyes dart away in embarrassment after a failed attempt. He never pressures you. Instead, he starts drawing more — sketching out how he feels, what he wants to say, or what he notices about you. You have an entire drawer full of little drawings he’s made just for you.

Sometimes he’ll use one hand to sign something simple and the other to type it on his phone — a hybrid method that eases the burden for you.

Vincent expresses love in actions: brushing your hair behind your ear, fixing a squeaky cabinet in your room without asking, leaving your favorite tea beside your bed. He sometimes signs I love you slowly, just so you’ll recognize it. Even if you can't respond in ASL, you always press his hand to your cheek, showing that you know. One night, you sign something almost right — “You’re beautiful,” maybe — and he just stares at you like you hung the moon, his face flushing under his mask.

You might not become fluent in ASL, and that’s okay. Vincent never wanted perfection from you. He just wanted your effort — and you gave him your heart, one crooked sign and midnight text at a time.

.

You sat on the edge of the bed, phone in hand, a pit growing quietly in your stomach as you stared at the screen.

Your latest attempt at learning ASL had ended with a migraine and three nearly-broken fingers from accidentally jamming them trying to mimic a video. The app had long been closed. You were done for the night.

The silence in Ambrose was heavy, as always, broken only by the low hum of the cooling fan in Vincent’s workshop down the hall. He had texted you an hour ago:

“Working. Come by when you’re tired. Want you near.”

You had smiled when you saw it. He rarely typed that much.

Still, you couldn’t help but feel like a disappointment. It had been weeks, and you could barely manage the alphabet. Meanwhile, Vincent was patient — too patient — like he knew you’d give up eventually and was already forgiving you for it.

A soft knock on your door.

Not Bo. Too gentle.

You opened it to find Vincent, mask reflecting the faint glow of the hallway light, tall and silent. He held a sketchpad in one hand and his phone in the other. He tilted his head.

“Hi,” you whispered.

He nodded once, then tapped on his phone.

“Can I come in?”

You stepped aside and let him in. He smelled faintly of wax and pine, and the sleeves of his long shirt were pushed up, revealing pale arms marred with old scars and dried streaks of charcoal.

He sat on the floor, cross-legged like always, and you joined him.

You watched his hands carefully as he began to sign something — slow, deliberate. You caught maybe one word. “You…”

“Wait.” You reached for your phone and typed:

“I don’t know what you said. I’m sorry.”

He read it, then looked at you. There was no disappointment in his eyes, no hint of judgment — only that quiet depth he always carried, something heavy and old and kind.

He pulled his sketchpad into his lap and flipped it open.

The drawing was simple — the two of you sitting together, knees touching, your head leaned gently on his shoulder. Your face was wrong — lopsided, eyes too big — but you recognized the moment. It had been three days ago. He’d remembered.

You blinked back the sting in your eyes.

“I’m trying,” you whispered. “I just… it’s hard.”

He nodded. Then, slowly, he lifted his hands and signed something else.

You didn’t get it. Not all of it. Maybe “feel” or “you”. Something about safe. But you couldn’t be sure.

Your hands lifted without thinking. You fumbled to shape a sign you’d practiced — badly — one you hoped you wouldn’t screw up again.

You signed “beautiful”, aiming it toward him.

Vincent froze.

Not like he was offended. More like… stunned. Like he didn’t understand the word could ever apply to him.

He reached slowly and took your hand — large, warm fingers wrapping around yours, guiding them, correcting the shape gently.

You laughed nervously. “I messed it up, didn’t I?”

He shook his head. Then, he signed again — slowly, so you could follow.

“I love you.”

Three motions. You’d seen them before, sure, but never directed at you. Not like this. Not from him.

Your breath hitched.

You didn’t know how to sign it back.

So instead, you leaned forward and pressed his hand to your cheek, closing your eyes.

He held still.

He didn’t pull away.

And in the silence that followed, in the soft weight of his fingers against your skin, you realized that love wasn’t always spoken — not in words, or even in perfect signs.

Sometimes, it was drawn.

Sometimes, it was typed out awkwardly at midnight.

And sometimes, it was felt in the gentle way someone stayed, even when you didn’t know how to say “I love you” the right way.

.

[alexanderlightweight]

okay so this is a super short article and definitely isn't the best one but basically, there is a Turkish language that originated for long-range communication in the mountains of Turkey. Which I realize is random but:

this is really cool and interesting and also there sadly aren't many people left who speak it (as often is the case with older and ethnic languages and dialects since colonialism AND capitalism both stamp out culture and individualism etc)... anyways.

so perhaps nephilim have slightly different vocal cords and their version of enochian (I do have a fic planned for them being able to speak and read in an angelic language but thats different) or a demonic language is in fact, through whistle/chirp/singing noises that are both ideal for battles, but also while they're in the air since wind and movement makes it hard to decipher words (i'm looking at you house of dragon fanfics where the dragonriders can communicate just by talking (not even shouting) across DRAGONS. i'm sorry you can hear over the sound of the wind and their breathing and their wingbeats and the feel of their heartbeat that probably can be felt even through the leather of a saddle? one of my partner's (say because i'll throw them happily under the bus) has several special interests from star wars (obi-wan) to GOT/House of Dragons/TSOFAI (basically both literature and media) along with a bunch of other stuff.

so yeah. anyways. yes most things I see in RL get filtered through a 'can I make this malec' lens. most of the time its 'yes' whether I like it or not and sometimes it's 'this is garbage and not worthy of turning into malec'.

because of say loving got/house of dragons did I mentally figure out exactly how malec would exist in that universe? yes. do I feel pretty silly about it since I'm not planning on writing it? no, because I had to do something with all the trivia knowledge I learn from the background noise of Say watching lore videos and since i'm not going to waste mental time plotting without malec involved... so basically any time I see something interesting I use it as malec inspiration fodder instead

Nightshade is really mad at me (and when I say mad I mean he's upset and a little angry and the only way he knows how to deal with that is to either throw a tantrum (barking and zoomies) or sulk. Currently he is just out of reach. like, if he moved his nose it would touch my toes or I stretched my leg out (which I can't do because bad leg) I could maybe touch his ear but otherwise he's next to me but just out of reach and he's like 'see. we could be cuddling but you don't love me enough to move the laptop so... here we are. together but apart.'

i need people to understand how melodramatic this dog is. the moment I finally concede and move the laptop, he will be in my lap and 'forgive me' for my sins and the travesty of not giving him the highest priority in the lands.

[delicateperspective]

The truth is I’m not great at expressing myself. I’ve had a thousand thoughts running through my head for quite some time now, but I’m going to try to put into words what I feel. English isn’t my first language, so please be patient with me.

There’s been one question I can’t stop thinking about: why?

I think in this fandom it’s necessary to stop for a second and ask ourselves if we might be wrong. And that’s okay. I’ve always liked to look at all sides, even the ones I don’t agree with. I think it’s necessary to understand the full picture.

I’ve chosen to support two boys who, I believe, loved or love each other, and who are in the closet. Not because I want to believe it, but because even after hearing the antis and seeing their “proof,” I still find more truth in what’s being hidden than in what’s being shown.

I’ve been in the fandom for about five years. I didn’t live through 1D in real time, but I’ve done my research. And even though in recent years Louis has been presented as a strong, straight man, a father, a family guy — I can’t ignore everything that came before. The signs are there. They’re not made up. They happened. They’re real.

So why so much effort to deny something that once was so obvious? Why deny it so aggressively? Why erase such an important part of his story?

I understand that if you only look at the last three years, all of this might sound ridiculous. But you can’t just erase the rest. You can’t deny a whole decade of glances, lyrics, silences, symbols, gestures.

You can see how far they’ve stretched this stunt. Louis commenting on Z’s post triggered all kinds of reactions — people saying he’s never been so emotionally open, that he was never like this with Eleanor. So why now? Why like this? Why so many denials of Larry lately, and done in such an aggressive, defensive way? Why did his team — I think it was the hair stylist, I don’t remember her name — speak badly about Larries? Why did his sisters deny it too? Why so much effort to erase something so big?

I understand that some people only see the recent image, but I can’t. And I believe many of us can’t either. You can’t erase what’s happened over more than a decade. You can’t reduce everything to “Louis is straight and the best dad ever” and just keep pushing that endlessly, because it doesn’t make sense. Social media exists, and whether we like it or not, everything is documented (even if some things get deleted).

You can’t tell me he’s dating a reality show influencer and also say he hates that whole world.

You can’t paint him as the straightest man alive while he sings “It’s a church of burnt romances and I’m too far gone to pray / It’s a solo song and it’s only for the brave,” surrounded by flags, saying he feels safe, wearing coded clothes.

You can’t say he hates Harry Styles and that the fans destroyed their friendship, and then watch those glances, those stolen touches, those songs about a love he met at 18 and a lasting relationship.

You can’t sell me the idea that his son is his top priority when he hasn’t even protected his privacy, when he hasn’t been there in key moments.

And you can’t say he’s homophobic or uncomfortable with gay rumors when he’s been in gay bars, has a triangle tattooed on his skin, and has written “be proud” on a flag.

You can’t erase who they’ve been. Who they’ve been for more than a decade.

You can’t just cling to what’s convenient now and forget what once was so evident.

Stories don’t disappear just because no one talks about them anymore.

Gestures don’t lie. And sometimes songs scream what voices stay silent about.

You can’t reduce someone full of layers and nuance into just one thing.

You can’t say it’s all black and white when there are thousands of colors in between.

Maybe this message doesn’t make much sense, but I needed to let it out.

Thank you for reading. And truly, thank you for creating a space where we can think with calm, with critical thought, and without losing empathy.💞

oh my heart — you say you’re not great at expressing yourself, and then you go and write something that’s so clear, articulate, and deeply moving. ♥

i agree with you 100%: it’s crucial to stop and check ourselves sometimes. to ask if we might be wrong. to stay open to being wrong. to look at every angle, even the ones that don’t match what we want to believe. that’s how we stay grounded, and that’s how we keep our integrity.

the truth is, we probably are wrong about some things. that’s just the nature of piecing together a story we weren’t meant to see. there are things we missed. things we misunderstood. things we only understood in hindsight. but at the same time — as some details have fallen away, so many more have been confirmed or made clearer with time. blocked interviews, old footage, behind-the-scenes leaks, deleted clips, unreleased lyrics — they’ve only made the picture sharper.

so when people ask, why the cover-up? why so much denial? — the answer is, because they never had another option.

this started in 2010. long before they were ready. long before they were famous enough to push back. and once the narrative was in motion, it had to keep going. the more their fame grew, the harder it was to untangle. one direction was the first social-media-made boyband, and that changed everything. before that, hiding things was easier — call up a tabloid, pose with a girl, plant a story. but as tech evolved — camera phones, twitter, stan culture — the control had to evolve, too.

and when you’re dealing with artists who can’t speak freely — who are bound by contracts, management, NDAs, and brand deals — sometimes the only option left is to erase the past and replace it with something easier to swallow.

and the truth is: most people don’t remember

they weren’t here for the beginning. they didn’t see the shift happen in real time. they’ve only seen louis post-2019. they don’t remember the glances, the lyrics, the tattoos, the interviews, the way he lit up next to harry. they never saw the subtle rebellion, the patterns, the coded language. they don’t see the full picture — because they were never given the full picture.

and unfortunately, context does disappear. media gets deleted. clips get scrubbed. narratives change. and unless you’ve spent years watching, researching, connecting dots — you’ll probably miss the nuance. and most people don’t want nuance. they want simplicity. they want red carpet kisses, instagram stories, public drama. they want what’s entertaining — not what’s true.

when your career depends on a public image, and you’re not allowed to tell the truth — you give the public a truth that works. and right now, that version of the truth is: louis is a straight, grounded solo artist dating someone who’s relevant and visible.

is it real? no. is it frustrating? absolutely. but is it strategic? without question.

if you're part of louis' team, and you're trying to keep him in the media, keep his name trending, or build a “palatable” narrative for the GP — you lean in to the image that works. and if you’re family or friends, you might go along with it (or stay silent like mark) because you know it’s not your story to fix. you know he can’t say what he wants to say — not yet. and maybe not ever. but like you said: you can’t erase a decade of truth just because it’s inconvenient now. you can’t erase the glances, the lyrics, the silences, the symbols. you can’t reduce layered, complicated people into one flat narrative.

and you absolutely can’t convince someone who’s been watching this unfold for 10+ years that their instincts, their memories, and their research are completely imagined.

[forestclan-clangen]

weird question, bu t i saw in the recent moon that Riversnow used human swears but Icicle thought 'mousebrain' in the writing part, does ForestClan use both human and warriors-based insults, or is it just an oversight?

Oh, it's not an oversight! It's on purpose! I'm hoping to go over this subject in the waaaay future of ForestClan, but much like how humans don't all speak the same language/dialect, I'm hoping to show that even cats speak differently! This is inspired by the Better Bones AU, where the Clans, the Tribe of Rushing Water and kittypets/loners all speak a different language with similar "root" words.

ForestClan uses insults based on the Warriors franchise, plus I'm developing a few more sayings that'll be unique to ForestClan themselves! A good example is that ForestClan will use the words "mangy" and "maggot-infested" to be synonymous with "crowfood, disgusting trash" sort of insult. I could probably make that a Clan culture breakdown tbh...

Loners and kittypets will, literally, use human loan-words. Many cats CAN understand their Twolegs and their language! Not all words, but they've heard humans say "fuck", "shit", and "god-damn it" enough times in response to frustration, anger or pain that they just borrow them and spread them around, lmao.

EDIT: I thought I added this but somehow I didn't. Rogues don't have basic insults, they have a LOT of threats though, LOL! They don't usually like sticking around humans but they don't like the Clans either, so insults, even playful ones, are rare in their native dialect. Lifelong rogues will probably have various, long-winded insults like "get away from me or I'm turning your eyeballs into raccoon-bitten cherries". Rogues that used to be former loners, kittypets or Clan cats may have more varied insults.

TLDR: Riversnow, Tree and Olive can and will say fuck. Everyone else will probably say some variation of foxdung, mange-pelt or any other creative insult I can come up with, lol.

[miss0atae]

Random Thoughts about The Next Prince (EP 2): Father-Son relationship and identity crisis.

There is much to say about the latest episode of The Next Prince. I want to focus on the identity crisis Khanin is actually living right now. Obviously it comes first from the discovery of being the heir of a royal family from another country. Until now, Khanin had no idea about his royal lineage. He knew he had Emmalian origin because his step-father was from this country, but I think from what we've seen, Khanin never really saw himself as Emmalian. He didn't face blurred lines of cultural identity, intellectual divide or not having a sense of who he is (as far as we've seen from his flashbacks). Khanin was raised with Emmalian culture at home because his step father taught him the language, he ate traditional food from the country and learned about the history of Emmaly. I also think his interest in fencing was probably inspired by his father who wanted him to know how to do it because it's a famous sport in Emmaly, at least for royalty (and something he may have to use to fight for the throne later in the story). Outside home, I believe Khanin grew up like any other English children. However, I think this is going to be a challenge when he is back in Emmaly.

This idea is reinforced by the comment Ramil made to Ava after their fencing session. One can know how to speak well or know the traditional and cultural aspects of the country, but if you were raised, at one point, outside of the country, some part of them will still not be fully understandable for you. I believe this is something that some children face when they visit or go back to live in the country where their parents came from. Despite Prince Chana's statement to Prince Rachata that Ava and Ramil are friends because they knew each other from childhood, I still think Ramil views himself as "better" for two reasons. Firstly, he is a man (and it puts him first on the succession to the throne) and secondly he was born and raised in Emmaly. Obviously, when Khanin is going to compete with them, this is going to be an issue. I don't know how they will represent it, but Khanin will have to find his place. While it is going to be a time of challenging thoughts and emotions for our main character, his identity crisis can also be a time of positive personal growth and change. As long as he keeps around him trusting people, he will be able to overcome the inherent challenges of his identity crisis. No doubts, Charan will be essential for this, as he is the only person he can rely on.

However, most importantly, I believe the identity crisis, Khanin is facing comes from the knowledge that he now knows his father isn't his biological father, but someone who was tasked to protect and to raise him. There is a very strong bond between Khanin and his step-father. He was raised with love and learning that it may just have been a job for him is putting Khanin into a very complicated turmoil of emotions. It is reinforcing the identity crisis he is feeling, on top of having to escape assassination and being a prince. I believe he is feeling betrayed more by discovering Thatdanai isn't his biological father, than discovering he is in fact a prince. It is shattering his core beliefs. I think the father-son relationship is a very important narrative in this series. As Khanin was raised in a single parent's home his personal construction of beliefs was influenced by his father. So now that Thatdanai isn't his real father, who is he? I hope the story will give Khanin the time to accept that you don't need to be biologically related to feel like you're a family. I wonder how he will react when he is going to meet his real father. Will he have an instant bond with him (which I don't think will happen) or will he reject him? How will it affect his relationship and view of his step-father? I'm glad Charan comforted him when Khanin voiced his fear about the fact he maybe have never been loved by his step-father. He told him that as for what he has seen Thatdanai truly loves Khanin. This belief will be essential for Khanin to be able to bounce back.

I truly hope Thatdanai isn’t dead yet and will reappear when needed to give Khanin the force he needs to overcome the upcoming challenges in Emmaly. As for his biological father, I want to see them slowly build a good relationship. It will never truly be the same as the bond Khanin has with Thatdanai, but it will probably help him learn more about his family and himself. It’s part of the journey Khanin needs to take to be able to overcome his identity crisis.

[not-so-stranger]

i feel like regulus & sirius absolutely learned another language to communicate with each other. but specifically a dead language purely so that their parents couldn't read it or understand it. their internal monologues switching to that dead language so the ligilimency was useless.

imagine them reuiniting, not speaking in english or french, but their dead langauge. sirius calling out for regulus in their language, regulus breaking down because he never forgot it & suddenly felt safe again. felt heard.

[w1w2]

The Slowest Heartbeat

Part 2 - Warming You Up (coming soon..)

Kim Taeyeon x Fem!Reader

Word Count: ca. 12k

Synopsis: When a scandal threatens to shake SM’s foundations, they call in the one person who’s never failed to make problems disappear. This young, impossibly composed woman holds more power than anyone else in the room.

English isn’t my first language so I apologize in advance for any mistakes.

♡ Enjoy! ♡

Rain tapped against the windows like a warning.

On the thirty fifth floor of SM Entertainment’s headquarters, the sky pressed heavy against the glass. Seoul was a blur of wet streets and honking traffic below, but in the boardroom, the real storm was happening in silence. An almost reverent kind of dread had settled over the table.

The executives barely spoke above a whisper now. Phones buzzed constantly, lighting up with notifications they didn’t want to read. Someone’s coffee sat untouched, going cold beside a trembling hand. The room, with all its sleek chrome fixtures and clean white light, suddenly felt like a box with no air.

On the wall sized screen, the livestream played without sound, but no one needed audio to understand.

Jieun.

Her face filled the frame, bare, no makeup, eyes swollen from crying but steady. This wasn’t some spur of the moment outburst, it was premeditated, precise. She had waited years to speak like this. And now, nothing could stop her.

“They silenced me,” the captions read. “They buried it all, but not anymore.”

She spoke of trainees blacklisted for speaking out, of favorites who were shielded while others were discarded, of contracts rewritten behind closed doors, of managers who shouted in soundproof rooms. Of one particular incident, years ago, that no one in this room dared to name. A minor, a cover up. The story they had all promised would stay dead.

But it was back, and this time? It had receipts.

She showed emails, recordings, and screenshots. The evidence ticked onscreen like a countdown.

A vice president in a pinstriped suit stood with his arms crossed too tightly. “She’s been collecting this for years, she waited for the exact moment we couldn’t contain it.”

Another man, the legal advisor, muttered under his breath, “She’s got enough to light the place on fire. No way she’s bluffing.”

The PR director hadn’t moved in ten minutes. Her fingers clenched around her tablet, knuckles white. The headlines rotated in grim succession.

Former SM Idol Exposes Years of Abuse.

Corporate Giant Faces Reckoning.

Kpop’s Star Pulls Back the Curtain.

“It’s global,” she whispered. “It hit CNN five minutes ago. Japan, the US, Brazil, everyone’s picking it up.”

The silence afterward was worse than yelling because there was no plan, no crisis memo could fix this. They were standing at the edge of a cliff and the ground had already crumbled beneath them.

And then, Mr. Jung moved.

He rose from his seat slowly, adjusting the cuff of his shirt with the kind of calm that made the others uneasy. His face was unreadable, composed in that way powerful people mastered, detached, efficient, inhumanly still.

Without a word, he stepped out of the boardroom.

He walked past the assistants, the managers, the panic. Down a short hall to his office, where the lights were dim and the air felt thicker, quieter.

He locked the door behind him.

At his desk, he picked up the phone. Not his personal one, but the second device he kept in the locked drawer. No contacts, no ID, just a black screen, a secure line, and the kind of number you only call when there’s no other option.

He pressed it.

One ring. Two.

Then a voice answered, soft and low.

“We need help,” Mr. Jung said. “The kind only she can provide.”

A pause. Nothing but the faint sound of breathing.

Then the voice replied, barely above a whisper. “Miss Lee will take care of it.”

The line went dead.

Jung set the phone down, slowly, carefully, and for the first time that morning, his hands were shaking.

By afternoon, the chaos had hollowed into something quieter, heavier. The boardroom no longer buzzed with frantic energy but sat in a dense, waiting stillness, the kind that preceded a reckoning. The lights had been dimmed, screens were muted, the livestream was gone, replaced by a digital map of headlines spiraling across the globe like a virus too fast to contain.

Most of the building had been cleared by now. 

Orders from above. Staff escorted out with vague apologies and stiff smiles, interns told to work from home, security stationed like statues at the elevators. Only the idols and the highest ranking executives remained, and even the latter had lost the armor of confidence that came with title and tenure. They sat in silence, shifting uncomfortably in their leather chairs, glancing once in a while toward the door as if that alone might speed up time.

Even Mr. Jung, who rarely betrayed emotion, now looked older somehow. His shoulders had dropped, his jaw had set.

At exactly 2:03 p.m., the elevator chimed. The sound echoed far too loud in the quiet, a sharp, sterile note that made several heads turn at once. 

And then she stepped in.

She entered the boardroom with a presence that felt less like arrival and more like an eclipse.

Quiet, total, inevitable.

She was tall, not dramatically so, but with a posture so exact it seemed carved, as if no part of her body had ever slouched. Her suit was black and tailored to perfection, the fabric matte and sleek, accentuating the sharp lines of her figure like a shadow given form. No jewelry adorned her hands or ears. No badge, no title, nothing to announce who she was or why she belonged. 

And yet, not a single person asked.

Behind her walked a single assistant, a young man dressed in similar monochrome. Silent, alert, eyes scanning the room as if memorizing it for someone far more important. He carried nothing, he spoke even less.

The woman did not greet anyone, she didn’t offer handshakes or pleasantries, and she didn’t sit, though a chair had clearly been pulled out at the head of the table, waiting for her. She remained standing, her heels silent on the stone tile, hands gloved in black leather as she leaned slightly forward to scan the documents that had been carefully laid out for review.

Her eyes moved quickly, too quickly.

One of the board members, a woman with a twenty-year career and the resume to command entire departments, opened her mouth to offer a summary, but was immediately silenced by a glance from Mr. Jung.

They watched as the stranger read the reports. Her gaze was swift, precise, moving from one page to the next as if she had already known their contents and was simply confirming what she’d suspected all along. When she finally spoke, her voice was low and clear, with no strain, no emotion, and no desire to perform.

“You’ve let the fire burn too long.”

The room froze. The assistant behind her didn’t even blink.

She straightened, not a single wrinkle in her suit, and allowed her gaze to travel over the men and women in the room. The kind of look that weighed rather than measured, that judged.

“Containment is still possible,” she continued. “But only if you follow every instruction, there is no room for error now. Do you understand?”

Nobody nodded, nobody spoke. 

The silence was answer enough.

She turned then, just slightly, directing a low comment toward the man behind her. Her assistant, who stepped forward with silent efficiency to begin distributing sealed envelopes to the table.

The only words he spoke came gently, like a reflex.

“Yes, Miss Lee.”

And that name, just two syllables, hit the air like a stone dropped in still water. A single ripple, and then a flood.

The room inhaled.

They all knew the name, of course. Everyone at this level did. “Miss Lee” was more myth than person, a figure whispered about in investor circles and high level acquisitions. There were no photos, no records, just rumors. That she represented a family with too much power to trace, that she advised more than one global empire, that she never appeared unless something was truly at risk.

No one knew exactly who Miss Lee was.

But now, standing before them, it didn’t matter. She was here and no one, dared question her authority.

The meeting lounge on the thirty third floor wasn’t meant to be cozy, but it was quiet, and that was enough for Taeyeon. Especially after yesterday’s spectacle.

She sat curled into the corner of a leather armchair, legs crossed, a paper cup of coffee cooling in her hand. Outside the panoramic windows, Seoul stretched beneath a bruised sky, thunder cracked somewhere distant, rolling along the skyline like a slow breath.

She checked her phone again. Still nothing.

Her meeting with the A&R director had been pushed back without explanation, and now she’d been told the CEO himself would be joining. Something about “restructuring priorities.” Vague corporate language that usually meant trouble was blooming higher up the chain.

Taeyeon didn’t care for boardroom politics, but she could feel the tension in the walls.

People moved differently today. Quieter, faster, the kind of shift that wasn’t broadcasted, but leaked through closed doors and lowered voices.

Down the corridor, the main boardroom doors were sealed shut. A pair of men in black suits stood just outside, security, though they didn’t wear badges or earpieces like the usual guards. No one lingered near them, no one even looked directly at them.

Taeyeon sipped her coffee and tried to focus on her notes for the meeting. But the stillness outside that room kept pulling her attention. It was like waiting at the edge of a storm you weren’t sure you were invited to.

And then, without warning, the elevator at the far end of the corridor chimed.

Taeyeon didn’t mean to look up, but something shifted, and her eyes followed it on instinct.

The figure moved past the glass wall like a shadow. Tall, sharp in black, each step exact. Her posture was impossibly straight, as if balance itself bent around her. She didn’t slow, didn’t glance sideways.

It wasn’t theatrics, it was worse.

Quiet control, presence without announcement.

The kind of woman who didn’t need to be introduced because the air had already made the introductions for her.

Taeyeon’s fingers tightened on her cup. She didn’t catch the woman’s face, just the briefest edge of it, pale against the corridor’s light.

Behind her came the same assistant. Black suit, unsmiling, alert.

The boardroom doors opened without anyone knocking. A man inside, one of the top executives, stepped back quickly. And for a moment, just a second, Taeyeon saw something rare flicker across his face.

Fear.

The woman walked in without a word, and the doors closed behind her with a soft thud.

Taeyeon blinked. The air around her felt heavier, she couldn’t explain it, not exactly, but something had shifted on a level deeper than logistics or scheduling. Even down the hall, she could feel it, like the floor itself had stiffened beneath her shoes.

A manager passed by then, holding the laptop too tightly, muttering to the man beside him in a voice not meant for eavesdropping.

“She’s the advisor. From above.”

Taeyeon straightened. “Who is she?” she asked, not sharply, just curious. Her tone casual enough to pass.

The man paused mid step, eyebrows lifting in surprise, as if he hadn’t expected her to speak at all.

“They say she works with the Lee family,” he said, lowering his voice. “Some kind of strategic asset. No title, no socials. She doesn’t do calls, she appears when she wants to or when things are burning.”

Taeyeon tilted her head. “Miss Lee?”

“That’s what they call her, but no one really knows her name. Hell, we’re not even supposed to know she exists.”

Taeyeon smiled politely, but something cold tugged at her spine.

She turned her gaze back toward the boardroom. Closed door, silence pressing against them like a held breath.

“Never heard of her,” she said.

The man gave a short laugh, already walking away. “That’s the point.”

Minutes later the boardroom doors opened with a sound too soft to match the weight they carried, and for a moment, the hallway itself seemed to hold its breath.

Taeyeon glanced up, not because she expected anything in particular, but because the air had shifted, almost imperceptibly, the way it does when a storm skirts the edge of a quiet sky.

She saw a woman step out.

Her assistant followed at a respectful distance, silent and watchful.They moved without pause, without any acknowledgment of the small group of assistants and managers now scattering ahead of them like leaves blown out of formation. There was no rush in her steps, but every inch of her projected purpose, as though she already knew the shape of every hallway, the ending of every sentence, the problem long before it had ever been named.

And then, just as she passed the lounge, her eyes lifted, and her gaze met Taeyeon’s.

Only for a second. A single, unbroken moment.

But something passed between them in that glance, something quiet and invisible, like the subtle shift of weight before a dancer’s first step, or the exact second a match sparks before it catches fire.

Taeyeon wasn’t sure what she’d expected, perhaps someone older, someone lined by years of strategy and corporate maneuvering. But the woman looked younger than her, mid to late twenties, maybe. Youthful, yes, but not in a way that invited approach. Her stillness had nothing to do with shyness, nor did her silence suggest distance. It was control, absolute and unshakable, the kind that either comes from extraordinary discipline or something far older than discipline itself.

There was no smile, no nod of recognition, no attempt at casual politeness. Just eyes that saw everything and gave back nothing.

Taeyeon found herself holding her breath without realizing it.

And then, just as suddenly, the woman turned her head, gaze cutting away like the closing of a book. She resumed walking, her heels barely making a sound on the polished floor, vanishing around the corner without a word, leaving nothing behind except a strange hollowness in the space she’d just occupied.

Taeyeon blinked.

The hum of voices resumed down the corridor, but something in her chest hadn’t settled.

The meeting started late, nearly half an hour, as if the building itself needed time to exhale after whatever had just happened.

Taeyeon sat at the long walnut conference table with two A&R leads and a senior producer, the usual energy oddly dulled. Paperwork was passed around, polite apologies mumbled. Someone offered her coffee she didn’t need.

She nodded, smiled and pretended to listen. But her mind hadn’t followed her into the room, it remained in the hallway, suspended in that strange quiet after the boardroom doors had opened, replaying the image again and again. Black suit, unreadable face, that stillness like a blade laid flat on velvet.

She couldn’t focus, couldn’t bring herself to care about the single release calendar or the budget breakdown they were reviewing. The numbers blurred, the voices flattened.

Who was she?

Not just some advisor, no one looked at an ordinary strategist like that. Executives had stood straighter in her presence, like schoolboys hoping not to be called on. Even the CEO, calm, calculating Jung, hadn’t spoken a word in her direction, he’d just followed.

And then there were her eyes.

Not cold exactly, but old. A kind of depth Taeyeon couldn’t define, like staring into something that had watched kingdoms fall and hadn’t flinched once.

But she’d looked at her.

Not past her, not through her.

At her.

Like she was already part of some equation Taeyeon didn’t know existed yet.

She glanced down at her open notebook, the page still mostly blank despite twenty minutes of talking. No song ideas, no project notes, no questions. Only one thing, written in the center in small, slanted handwriting she didn’t remember making.

Miss Lee.

The name felt heavier than it looked on paper.

She closed the notebook quietly and nodded at something she hadn’t actually heard, giving the illusion of participation, but inside, she was already somewhere else.

By the end of the first week, the firestorm had dulled. Not extinguished, just controlled. Statements had been issued, platforms scrubbed, deals rebalanced. But the tension hadn’t left, it had only gone quiet, and quiet meant planning.

The meeting room on one of the top floors of SM Entertainment had turned into a war room. The large rectangular table was lined with department heads, creative directors, logistics coordinators, and now, for the first time, both Taeyeon and Y/N.

The Girls' Generation comeback had been greenlit less than forty-eight hours ago, and already the company’s corridors buzzed with nervous energy. The deal to reunite all eight members had required days of legal acrobatics, especially with Tiffany, Sunny, Sooyoung, and Seohyun now attached to different agencies. But the opportunity was too valuable to pass up.

Nostalgia had power, iconic legacy had weight. 

And right now? SM needed both.

Taeyeon sat near the center, back straight, eyes alert. She wasn’t there as just an artist. Today, she was part strategist, part guardian. Girls’ Generation wasn’t just a name to her, it was history, friendship, blood and sweat pressed into a decade of stages and stadiums.

She had heard whispers that Miss Lee would be attending, but it still caught her off guard when the woman walked in without preamble, without announcement. Just the soft press of black leather shoes on tile, her assistant trailing behind with a tablet and a file so thick it looked military.

Y/N didn’t sit immediately. She moved around the table once, scanning faces and documents like she already knew the answers and was merely checking for sloppiness. Her eyes didn’t linger on Taeyeon, but they didn’t avoid her either. There was no flicker of recognition, just that cool, steady calm she carried like armor.

When Y/N finally spoke, it was with the precision of someone used to being obeyed.

"The tour needs to be global, not regional. Stadium ready, if we're staging a resurrection, we stage it in full daylight. Tokyo Dome, Singapore Indoor, O2 Arena, SoFi Stadium. We believe you can sell them out."

A murmur moved through the room, one of the coordinators started to object, citing costs, schedules, logistics.

Y/N cut through it.

"SM will handle it, logistics are irrelevant if demand is engineered correctly. Nostalgia is predictable. We create scarcity, we drive hysteria and then we manage it."

It was all delivered without passion, without even raising her voice. And yet, no one interrupted her.

Taeyeon watched carefully, trying to fit the presence in front of her with the fragments she’d picked up, the silent advisor, the unnamed strategist. She looked young, but her posture, her words, her tempo, they all spoke of something older, colder.

When the team shifted focus to creative concepting, Taeyeon finally spoke. "We don’t want to feel manufactured, we’re not a novelty act. If this is going to work, the comeback has to reflect who we are now, not just who we were."

Y/N didn’t smile, she didn’t agree. But she didn’t dismiss the comment either. She turned slightly, considering Taeyeon not as an idol but as an equation.

"Then we build around evolution, not repetition. Eight identities, one mythology, the brand isn’t the past, it’s the transformation." Her reply was soft.

It wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t cold. It was just precise.

Taeyeon nodded once, even though part of her still bristled at the idea of someone who didn’t know their story being given the power to shape it. But something about Y/N made it hard to push back fully, there was a gravity there, a sharpness she couldn’t look away from.

By the end of the meeting, schedules had been drawn, launch phases laid out, and roles assigned. Y/N remained a constant, never loud, never rushed, but always watching, always absorbing. And Taeyeon felt something she hadn’t expected to feel.

Intrigue.

Not attraction, not yet, but interest.

Like standing too close to something dangerous, and realizing, against all logic, you want to know what happens if you don’t step away.

A few days passed, but the pace didn’t slow. If anything, it accelerated.

The rumors had gone out, cryptic enough to ignite speculation, clean enough to avoid backlash. Headlines shifted, the scandal faded into page two and Girls’ Generation was trending.

Another meeting was called, this time a smaller room, tighter circle. Just the core team now, creative, marketing, production. 

And her.

The private meeting room sat tucked at the far end of SM Entertainment’s executive wing, small and windowed, its walls padded in sleek, soundproofed suede. Outside, the sun had begun to sink behind the skyline, casting long shadows across the marble floor of the corridor. Inside, the lights were dimmed to a soft, amber hue, making the room feel more like a discreet negotiation chamber than a space for creative planning.

A pot of untouched tea rested in the center of the polished table, its steam long gone. The room was too quiet, too sterile, for casual conversation, and that seemed to suit one of its occupants just fine.

Taeyeon sat near the end of the table, legs crossed, posture relaxed but eyes sharp. Across from her, Y/N stood beside the screen, navigating slides with the same precision she brought to everything else. She moved like she had all the time in the world, and none of it to waste.

“Revenue projections are aggressive, but achievable with staggered rollout,” Y/N said, barely glancing at her notes. “If we time the digital drop with the Tokyo teaser campaign, engagement could double within the first forty-eight hours.”

Her voice was low and even, clipped yet elegant. Every word was measured, weighted, no flourish. Just fact.

Y/N turned toward Taeyeon with the faintest tilt of her head. “Feedback?”

Taeyeon raised a brow. “Are you asking what we think or just checking off a box that says you did?”

Y/N’s face didn’t flicker. “I don’t ask questions I don’t want answers to.”

Taeyeon paused, watching her. “You don’t smile much.”

There, barely perceptible, but there. A pause, a subtle, almost mechanical shift in Y/N’s stillness.

“This isn’t a social call,” she replied, voice cool. “We’re not here to be friends.”

Taeyeon leaned back, arms folded. Her tone, when she spoke, was calm but pointed. “If you’re steering our comeback, you might want to understand what the music means to us, what it means to the people waiting. This isn’t just strategy, it’s personal.”

Y/N held her gaze for a long moment. Something sharpened in her eyes, but it wasn’t disapproval, it was attention. She blinked once, slow and deliberate.

“I’ve listened to the back catalog,” she said. “The sound evolved, the brand didn’t. That’s rare.”

Taeyeon blinked, caught off guard. She hadn’t expected that, not insight, not admiration.

“Most groups lose their identity trying to chase relevance,” Y/N added. “You didn’t, you carried it forward. That matters, even if it complicates things.”

Taeyeon’s lips quirked slightly, not quite a smile, but enough. “That’s the first human thing you’ve said since we walked in.”

Y/N turned off the display. She didn’t reply, but the air in the room shifted, less tense, more watchful. Not warmer, no, just aware.

“You care about the legacy,” she said finally. “So do I. Just from a different angle.”

Neither of them spoke for a while. The quiet between them was no longer stiff, but measured, like they were both listening now.

A soft knock came at the door. Y/N’s assistant stepped in just far enough to announce the next meeting, she nodded and gathered the folder in front of her.

But before she left, she passed by Taeyeon’s chair, paused just briefly enough to leave an impression, and said without turning, “Next time, bring a better argument, not a smile.”

Then she was gone.

Taeyeon sat alone, staring at the closed door. Her fingers tapped lightly on the table, the rhythm unthinking. 

She didn’t know whether she’d just been dismissed or invited.

The hour was late enough that the building had exhaled most of its daily tension. Elevators sat idle, desks were abandoned, lights on the executive floors had gone dark, save for a few emergency strips glowing along the baseboards. But one wing still hummed softly, far from the corporate hush of the upper levels, deep in the artistic heart of SM.

It was quiet in the recording corridor, not silent. The kind of quiet that held intention, not absence. Behind a thick pane of glass, the main studio pulsed with low, steady rhythm, just the instrumental line looping over and over while Taeyeon stood at the mic, hoodie sleeves rolled halfway up her arms, one foot lightly tapping to keep time.

Y/N stood behind the observation glass. She hadn’t intended to, her visit to this wing was meant to be brief, an anonymous check, a glance at progress logs and engineer notes. But then she heard a voice, familiar but stripped bare, and instead of turning away, she stopped.

And watched.

Taeyeon’s voice wasn’t flawless in this moment. That’s not what caught her, there were moments of strain, clipped endings, a faltering breath she clearly didn’t like. But she wasn’t trying to impress anyone, she wasn’t “performing” in the glittering, polished sense of the word. She was working, crafting, breaking something open just to rebuild it cleaner, sharper and truer.

Y/N didn’t move. Her hands stayed buried in the pockets of her jacket, her posture relaxed but alert. Her eyes followed every subtle shift, how Taeyeon leaned slightly into the mic during certain lines, how her fingers gestured unconsciously as she searched for a note’s shape.

Inside the booth, Taeyeon paused. 

She pulled one side of her headphones loose, exhaled sharply, and rubbed the back of her neck, and then, maybe because she felt it or maybe just on instinct, she turned her head.

Their eyes met through the glass.

It wasn’t dramatic, no gasp, no startled flinch, just a long, level look, two women seeing each other across the silent divide. Taeyeon didn’t offer a nod, or even a smirk. She held the gaze for a second that stretched too long to be casual, then she turned back to the mic and adjusted her stance like nothing had happened.

Y/N didn’t smile either, but something in her face, tight, composed, softened by a degree so small only someone watching closely would notice. She stayed another minute, maybe two. Enough to hear Taeyeon sing again, enough to realize that the choices this woman made inside a song said more than any of her polished interviews or press smiles ever could.

There was instinct here, and discipline. But also loneliness, not the kind born of isolation, but of being understood only in fragments, by fans who saw her light, by colleagues who saw her value, but rarely by someone who actually listened.

Y/N understood that feeling. 

More than she cared to admit.

She left without a word, footsteps soundless, disappearing into the cool, clean silence of the hallway like a shadow receding from a flame. She didn’t comment to her assistant, she didn’t file a report.

But for the first time, she thought of Taeyeon not as a piece of strategy or a variable in crisis management, but as a presence, a force that didn’t need to raise its voice to be heard.

And something inside her, something long buried under centuries of precision and distance, stirred.

Just slightly.

The parking garage was nearly silent at this hour, emptied of its usual bustle, stripped down to cool concrete, white lights, and the distant hum of generators buried in the bones of the building. The air was colder here, still tinged with the faint scent of oil and rain brought in on tires from the outside world.

Taeyeon walked slowly, her steps echoing. She wasn’t in a rush to go home, not tonight. Something about the day had stayed with her, something unshakable.

She reached her car but didn’t get in. Just stood for a moment, fingers resting lightly on the handle, her eyes drifting toward the elevator across the lot. The hum of its machinery broke the silence, a soft mechanical groan as it descended from the executive floors above. Her eyes lingered on the closed doors, though she couldn’t have explained why.

Then it opened.

Y/N stepped out.

There was a stillness about her, not the stiff kind, but something deep and rooted. She didn’t move like someone who was observed, she moved like someone who chose when and how she would be seen. Tonight, she wore long black wool over a slate grey turtleneck, her hair loose around her shoulders, her face unreadable.

She was mid sentence with her assistant, voice low and precise, until she looked up and saw Taeyeon.

She didn’t stop, but she paused. A subtle shift in posture, a near imperceptible change in the tempo of her steps. Her gaze touched Taeyeon, just briefly, before flicking away like it didn’t matter, except it did. The assistant caught the cue instantly, falling behind and disappearing with practiced silence, as if this was how it always went.

Taeyeon stood her ground. Her hand fell away from the car door, her body angling slightly toward the woman now walking parallel to her. Not toward her, not away. Just adjacent, as though orbiting the same center without knowing who pulled who.

They didn’t speak at first.

Just footsteps echoing between them, a narrowing space filled with something too quiet to be tension and too alive to be indifference.

It was Y/N who finally stopped one car over. A modest, black luxury sedan, not flashy, not ostentatious, just clean and precise like everything else about her.

“I didn’t expect to see anyone else this late,” she said, not exactly breaking the silence, but easing it open.

“I never leave early,” Taeyeon replied, her voice softer than in the meeting rooms, stripped of performance.

Y/N’s eyes flicked to hers again, just a moment, and lingered.

“What keeps you here?” she asked.

Taeyeon hesitated, but only slightly. “Same thing that brings me in early. Music. It doesn’t exactly punch out at five.”

Y/N’s mouth lifted, just the barest curve, not a full smile, but the trace of one. It made something inside Taeyeon stop and recalibrate. For weeks now, she’d been trying to decipher this woman through glances and rumors, and now here she was, real, close, and ever so slightly cracked open.

“You care about the work,” Y/N said. Not a question, a statement.

Taeyeon gave a small, quiet laugh, her breath fogging slightly in the cold air. “That’s the nice way to put it. Obsessive would be more accurate.”

Y/N’s eyes stayed on her. “Obsession can be a strength, it builds things most people are too lazy to imagine.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Taeyeon asked, not bothering to dress the question up. “Building something?”

Another pause.

“Sometimes,” Y/N said, her voice low. “Sometimes I just keep the ruins from collapsing.”

There was something in her tone, too measured to be bitterness, too flat to be pride. It was the voice of someone who had lived through the collapse enough times to recognize the shape of it before it started.

Taeyeon tilted her head slightly, watching her. “That’s a lot to carry.”

Y/N didn’t respond. But she didn’t deflect either. Instead, for the first time, she looked at Taeyeon not as an artist or an asset, but as someone who might understand.

“You're not what I expected,” she said, after a beat.

Taeyeon blinked. “And what did you expect?”

Y/N gave a faint shrug. “More polish, less substance.”

It wasn’t a compliment, not exactly, but it landed like one.

“I surprise people all the time,” Taeyeon murmured. “They forget I’m not here just to smile and sing.”

Y/N nodded slowly, her gaze intense but not unkind. “I didn’t forget.”

And there it was again. The moment where nothing was said, but something shifted, as if some thread between them pulled tight, not enough to break, but enough to notice. The kind of awareness you don’t talk about yet, because naming it would make it real too fast.

Taeyeon stepped back toward her car. “Goodnight,” she said, tone casual, but her eyes didn’t lie.

Y/N didn’t answer right away. But just before turning away, she offered something unexpected, something simple and unguarded.

A smile.

Small, real, almost shy, except Y/N didn’t do shy. Which made it all the more arresting.

“Goodnight Taeyeon.”

And that was the second time she said her name.

It could’ve ended there, a simple goodbye, a name spoken like a promise. But some moments don’t fade, the echo.

And four days later, it echoed still, beneath the beat of a track looping in high volume, under the breathless push of choreography that wouldn’t quite click.

The floor of Studio 3 was slick with effort, scuffed soles, condensation on mirrors, and the residue of an afternoon stretching too long into early evening. The overhead lights hummed with that sterile brightness only found in rehearsal rooms, casting sharp reflections across eight bodies trying, again and again, to land in sync.

Girls’ Generation, reunited after a few years for a full comeback, weren’t rookies not by a long shot. But tonight, it didn’t feel like muscle memory was doing its job. The moves were all there, technically correct, sharp where needed, fluid in places, but the feeling? Off, like a heartbeat out of rhythm.

They were dancing as ghosts of themselves, not as the force they had once been.

Taeyeon wiped sweat from her brow with the hem of her shirt and took a step back. She could feel it, not just the ache in her legs, but the dissonance in the room, the way smiles had become thin, the way laughter had been replaced with silence. Everyone was trying to hold it together, and everyone knew it wasn’t quite working.

Hyoyeon was frowning at the monitor, arms crossed. “We’re off by just a hair,” she said, her voice sharp with frustration. “But it makes the whole thing feel stiff, mechanical.”

Yuri was kneeling by the speaker, hitting replay with short, clipped motions. “It’s the bridge. That pivot after the half count, it’s not breathing right.”

Seohyun sat on the floor tying her laces tighter than necessary, as if control over her shoes could somehow translate into control over the rhythm. Yoona was massaging her neck, brows pulled in a tight knot of exhaustion. Everyone else stretched, paced, or stared at their own reflections like they might find the answer hidden in the glass.

It wasn’t that the choreography was bad, it was ambitious, layered with intention, meant to signal that this wasn’t a nostalgia tour, but a rebirth. But the execution hadn’t caught up to the concept, not yet.

And then the door opened.

It didn’t slam or creak, it wasn’t loud, but the shift in the room was instant, like air pressure changing before a storm.

Taeyeon glanced toward the entry without meaning to.

Y/N stepped inside with the quiet of someone used to commanding attention without raising their voice, she didn’t carry anything, she wore no credentials. Just a black blazer, loosely tailored, over gray trousers and a pale silk blouse with a neckline that didn’t quite distract, but didn’t try to disappear either.

Behind her, two junior staff members entered and immediately faded into the background, a third, a choreographer’s assistant, hovered awkwardly with a tablet in hand.

Taeyeon felt the energy of the room tighten around her like invisible thread being pulled.

Y/N stood still for a moment, just watching. Her gaze didn’t dart, it glided, like she was collecting data in real time, dissecting the mood, the footwork, the beat, the microexpressions of eight women who had been icons before some of the current staff had graduated high school.

The music played again. Y/N didn’t interrupt.

When it ended, she moved closer to the screen, lifted the tablet from the assistant without a word, and scrubbed backward through the video.

“This section,” she said, voice calm, almost detached, as she pointed to a moment in the second chorus, “Is where the momentum breaks, it’s too angular for what the sound is doing. The instrumental curves upward, but you’re slicing through it, you’re forcing clarity when it needs ambiguity.”

Hyoyeon blinked. “That’s exactly what I said.”

Y/N didn’t smile, but her tone softened. “Then you were ahead of the room.”

She turned the tablet toward the group, tapped the screen once to highlight Taeyeon’s placement during the bridge.

“This pivot,” she said, tilting the device slightly, “if you shift your weight half a beat sooner and round the shoulder, the visual will echo the vocal phrasing. It won’t feel choreographed, it’ll feel inevitable.”

It was surgical, not unkind, just direct.

Taeyeon stepped closer. Not because she wanted to challenge her, but because something in her body moved before her mind decided to.

“Are you a choreographer now?” she asked, not hostile, just curious.

Y/N’s eyes flicked to hers. “No. But I understand shape, sound, and how memory forms when the two align.”

There was something in the way she said it, not defensive, not arrogant. Just matter of fact, like she wasn’t trying to prove she belonged here. She knew she did.

The choreographer nodded, quietly. So did Yuri.

Y/N handed back the tablet without ceremony and stepped away, as if she’d never planned to stay long.

But just before she turned to leave, her gaze caught Taeyeon’s again. A flicker, a pause, an unspoken pull that neither of them named.

In that one, still moment, Taeyeon felt something stretch and then tighten inside her chest. She didn't know what it was. Recognition? No, not quite. But something adjacent to it, as if a door had cracked open, not loudly, not wide, just enough for light to slip through.

Then Y/N turned and walked out, her silhouette swallowed again by the hallway.

The girls ran the routine again ten minutes later.

And this time, the bridge, Taeyeon’s bridge, didn’t just land.

It breathed.

They wrapped rehearsal an hour later, sweaty and spent, but lighter somehow. The choreography had found its rhythm, or maybe Taeyeon had. She didn’t linger that night, just a quiet goodbye, a hot shower, and silence.

The next day moved like static, meetings, fittings, noise, but the moment stayed with her, tucked under the noise like a secret.

And when the main corridors of SM Entertainment were long empty, hollow with the kind of silence that only came after too much noise. Most of the lights had dimmed to energy saving mode, casting faint reflections against the glass and steel. But deep within the recording wing, buried behind soundproof doors and layers of technical equipment, one room remained awake.

Inside, Taeyeon sat with her legs tucked up in the chair, face dimly lit by the LED panels of the mixing board. A half empty cup of tea had long gone cold on the armrest, forgotten. Her eyes were closed, but her mind was alive, tracking every beat, every chord progression, every breath in the track playing on loop. It wasn’t the group song this time. This was hers, just hers, a solo track still in development, still raw.

She had listened to it so many times that the edges had started to blur. It wasn’t that anything was wrong—not in a technical sense. But it was missing something she couldn’t name. It didn’t breathe right. It didn’t move the way her heart did when she thought about her fans, about the stage, about the kind of truth she wanted to put into every note.

It should’ve been enough, it wasn’t.

The track played again. 

And again.

Still not it.

She leaned forward, elbows on the soundboard, forehead resting on the back of one hand. She wasn’t tired, not really, just tangled. The kind of creative knot that didn’t untie easily, the kind that could drown a person if they stayed in the silence too long.

The studio door opened, quietly, without flourish, but her senses caught it before her ears did.

She turned slightly, expecting a staff member, maybe a tech with another round of takes or someone telling her to go home. But it wasn’t that.

It was Y/N.

No blazer this time, no assistant at her back. Just a soft, almost soundless presence, dark blouse, slacks, hair pulled back, eyes alert but unreadable. She closed the door behind her, but didn’t say anything.

Taeyeon blinked. “Didn’t think you’d be the drop by type.”

“I’m not,” Y/N replied. Her voice was calm, lower than usual. “But I heard something looping from the hallway. Figured it wasn’t just background noise.”

Taeyeon hesitated, then shrugged. “It’s just a song, one of mine.”

Y/N nodded once, stepped closer, not invasive, not cautious either. Just measured. She glanced toward the screen, letting the track play through one full loop again before speaking.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, which surprised Taeyeon. “But it’s holding back.”

Taeyeon sat up straighter, eyes narrowing a little, not offended, just intrigued. “What do you mean?”

“The second pre-chorus,” Y/N said, crossing her arms. “You lift the vocal, build to a release. But the instrumentation doesn’t rise with you, it stays grounded. There’s a tension in the contrast, but instead of resolving it, you let it slip away. It should be one more beat of silence, just a moment, to create ache before the chorus lands.”

Taeyeon stared at her. “That’s what I’ve been feeling, but I couldn’t figure out why.”

Y/N didn’t gloat, didn’t even acknowledge the agreement. She just stepped forward and pointed at the waveform on screen. 

“This space right here, let it breathe. Don’t race the feeling, let the ache land before you soothe it.”

It was an exact analysis, not just right in theory, but felt right. Taeyeon wasn’t easily impressed. But this? This was something else.

“Where did you learn to hear music like that?” she asked, genuinely curious now.

“I’ve been around long enough,” Y/N replied, her gaze drifting back to the monitor. “Longer than most.”

Something about the way she said it made Taeyeon pause.

She studied Y/N in the glow of the soft light. Her face looked young, too young for the weight in her voice. And yet there was something in her posture, in the way she listened, that felt ancient, like she didn’t just understand music, she remembered it.

“Are you always like this?” Taeyeon asked quietly.

“Like what?”

“This sharp, observing. Always on.”

Y/N’s expression shifted, barely. A soft crease at the corner of her mouth, not a smile. But maybe the idea of one.

“It’s how I stay useful.”

Taeyeon looked down at her hands, absently spinning her ring. “Music’s not useful to me. It’s survival, I’ve been doing this most of my life, but it never gets easier to explain.”

“You don’t have to,” Y/N said. “Not here.”

They sat in silence for a few seconds, not awkward, not even quiet, not with the soft thrum of the track looping again.

It was Y/N who stood first, pulling back from the soundboard. “You’ll get it, the song, you always do.”

Taeyeon turned her head, watching her move toward the door. “You sure?”

“I don’t say things unless I’m sure,” Y/N replied over her shoulder.

Then, just as she reached the threshold, she hesitated.

Glanced back.

“Try adding the cello,” she said. “One line, low register. It’ll carry the breath you’re missing.”

And then she was gone.

Taeyeon sat there for a long time after, the song still playing. Her hand moved to the mixing dial. She opened a new track layer, searched the library, found a cello sample, slow and warm and she placed it just beneath the pre-chorus.

Hit play.

And there it was.

The ache.

She didn’t leave the studio until well past midnight, but when she finally stepped into the cold air outside, something in her had settled. Not solved, not soothed, just aligned.

In the days that followed, the work moved faster. Concepts locked, edits approved, the team had found its rhythm again and so had she.

Two weeks later, the spotlight shifted.

Not to the stage, but to the past.

The gallery was quiet in the way only powerful spaces could be, designed silence, with warm lights washing the white walls in gold. Rows of framed memories stretched through the room, curated with ruthless precision. The evolution of an empire in photographs, costume pieces, vinyl pressings, candid rehearsal stills, and carefully preserved debut stage sets.

It wasn’t for the public yet. That would come tomorrow.

Tonight was different.

This night belonged to SM’s innermost circle, the artists who shaped it and the people who ran it. Staff entered through a separate entrance. No influencers, no press inside, just idols and executives and the kind of power that didn’t post selfies.

Taeyeon had walked the press line outside, smiling briefly for the cameras, dressed in understated black, her hair pinned in a soft wave. Inside, it felt like walking through time. Her own face stared back at her from the walls, grainy footage of early rehearsals, snapshots of their first dazed wins, the group crowded into vans, bright eyed and exhausted.

A cocktail was offered, but she barely sipped it.

She was studying a vintage stage outfit, one she hadn’t seen in years, when a quiet presence shifted beside her. She didn’t have to turn to know.

Y/N.

No greetings, just there, beside her, looking at the same piece of history. The silence stretched long enough to feel deliberate.

“You wore this, didn’t you,” Y/N said, not asked.

Taeyeon looked over. “Yeah. Inkigayo, summer. We could barely breathe in those.”

Y/N didn’t smile, not exactly, but something in her expression eased. “They stitched them overnight. The seamstress was going through a divorce, she added a hand-beaded detail to distract herself. Only a few people noticed.”

Taeyeon blinked. “How do you even know that?”

Y/N’s gaze remained steady on the costume. “I remember the moment.”

“But you weren’t,” Taeyeon stopped. “You weren’t working here back then.”

“I wasn’t,” Y/N agreed. “But I’ve been around.”

They wandered further, Y/N didn’t lead, but she moved with strange assurance, like the gallery was familiar, like she’d walked it before.

They paused at a black and white photo from the company’s earliest days, three men at a cluttered desk, stacks of demo tapes around them, the logo barely recognizable.

Taeyeon folded her arms. “They built all this from a basement.”

Y/N tilted her head. “It wasn’t the basement, it was the third floor. The wallpaper was peeling, and they kept losing power during playback. The first artist signed that week couldn’t hit her high notes because the A/C kept cutting out.”

Taeyeon turned to her, frowning. “You say that like you were there.”

“I read a lot,” Y/N replied easily.

“Did you read what color the wallpaper was?”

Y/N didn’t answer, but her mouth lifted at the corner.

There was something surreal about walking through decades of history with someone who hadn’t lived it but seemed to carry the shape of it inside her. Not in fragments, not in fan facts or archived interviews, but with a kind of lived in quiet that suggested memory.

It should’ve been unnerving. Instead, it pulled Taeyeon in.

They paused before a final installation. A slow rolling projection of every SM debut, playing on a loop across the gallery wall.

Lights dimmed slightly, music fading under the hush of conversation elsewhere.

“Does it ever feel strange,” Y/N said softly, “To be part of something that started before you and will likely outlast you?”

Taeyeon considered. “Sometimes, but I don’t think about that when I’m singing or dancing. It’s just the moment. The now.”

Y/N turned her head then, studied her face in profile. “That’s the part I envy.”

There it was again, that flicker, the faint crack in the armor.

Taeyeon didn’t press, just let the silence settle again between them. They stood there, the legacy of a company wrapped around them like a second skin. Not speaking, not smiling. But something, slow and unmistakable, was shifting between them.

Not just curiosity.

Recognition.

Eventually, they parted, no words, no promises. Just a glance that held a little longer than it should have.

The night went on, and the days that followed moved with that same quiet tension, like something unspoken threading itself tighter between them.

The main floors of SM Entertainment had emptied out hours ago, and what remained now was a skeleton crew of night shift staff and a few scattered lights that stayed on out of habit more than necessity.

Taeyeon’s sneakers echoed softly against the polished floor as she exited the rehearsal wing, a towel slung over her shoulder, the hum of adrenaline from practice still in her bloodstream. Her muscles were tired in that satisfying way, the way that meant she’d worked through something. Not just steps, but something that had been sitting under her skin.

As she made her way down to the underground parking garage, a breeze of cooler air greeted her. She dug for her keys without looking, her thoughts already drifting ahead to the shower waiting at home, until her gaze flicked up, half automatic, and landed on a car parked a few spots away.

Y/N’s.

The matte black luxury coupe sat in reserved space, sleek and untouched, its presence as deliberate and composed as the woman who drove it.

Taeyeon slowed.

She stood still for a moment, keys clutched in her hand, brow furrowing just slightly. It wasn’t odd for Y/N to work late, people whispered about how she never seemed to stop, but something tugged at Taeyeon now, an impulse more instinct than plan.

She turned back toward the building.

Up the elevator, past the darkened meeting rooms and locked executive offices. The lights on the CEO floor were dimmed, casting long shadows across glass walls and stone floors. Every step felt strangely loud, this place always felt too clean after hours, like it was holding its breath.

When she reached the corner office, not marked with a nameplate, Taeyeon paused. The door was ajar.

She knocked lightly on the glass and peeked in. “Working late?”

Y/N didn’t startle, she never did, but there was a flicker of genuine surprise in her eyes as she looked up. She sat behind her desk, sleeves rolled to the elbows, a few open folders spread neatly in front of her.

“Just tying up some loose ends,” she said, voice low but not unfriendly.

“You always say that.”

“It’s always true.”

Taeyeon stepped inside, letting the door ease shut behind her. “Care for a tea break?”

Y/N raised an eyebrow, almost amused. “At this hour?”

“Why not? There’s that little café two blocks over. They’re still open.”

There was a beat, a pause stretched too long for something as simple as tea. Y/N’s gaze held hers, steady, assessing. She glanced briefly toward the window, where the city lights blinked cold and bright against the dark.

“It’s not a good idea,” she said, quietly. “Dispatch never sleeps.”

Taeyeon let out a breath, somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle. “Fair. I keep forgetting I can’t be a person after nine p.m.”

Y/N’s mouth twitched, just slightly, not quite a smile, but almost.

“Then let’s have tea here,” Taeyeon added. “You’ve probably got some stashed away, right? Knowing you, it’s probably aged and imported from a mountain somewhere.”

That earned the smallest huff of amusement. “Stay here. I’ll get it.”

She disappeared briefly into the adjoining side room, part pantry, part private retreat and returned with a cast iron teapot, two porcelain cups, and a tin that looked too old to have a brand label. The scent hit first, something herbal and deep, almost smoky.

“I was joking about the mountain,” Taeyeon said, grinning as Y/N poured.

“I wasn’t.”

They settled on the couch near the windows, not too close, not too far. The kind of careful distance where something could happen, or not.

Taeyeon sipped. The tea was hot, smooth, and unexpectedly grounding.

“I thought you didn’t drink caffeine late,” Y/N said.

“I don’t,” Taeyeon replied. “But I figured if I’m going to stay up thinking, I might as well enjoy it.”

Y/N tilted her head, studying her. “Are you always this direct?”

“Only when I’m tired or when I want something.”

“And what do you want?”

Taeyeon didn’t flinch. “To get to know you.”

Y/N looked down at her tea.

There was silence for a moment. Not awkward, just full.

“I’m not very good at that,” Y/N said finally, softly.

Taeyeon’s voice lowered too. “I’m not asking for everything. Just a little, let me in.”

Y/N’s hand lingered on her cup, fingers unmoving. “You really want to know the kind of person who chooses an office over sleep?”

Taeyeon gave her a look, gentle, dry, but pointed. “You think I’m normal?”

That made Y/N laugh, just under her breath.

Taeyeon leaned back, watching her, the city lights catching in her hair. “You don’t have to keep performing all the time. Not with me.”

Y/N’s gaze flicked up, sharp and unreadable. “And what makes you think I’m performing?”

Taeyeon didn’t smile. “Because you haven’t once called me ‘unnie’ even though I’m older.”

Silence again. Then, very slightly, Y/N smirked.

“I think we can stay on a name basis,” she said, voice wry.

“You have no respect for your elders,” Taeyeon teased, then took another sip of tea.

But the atmosphere had shifted, softened, like something had clicked between them, quiet and unseen, but definite.

Outside the windows, Seoul kept shining, indifferent. Inside, the tea cooled slowly, forgotten on the table.

It started as something unspoken.

After that first night, tea shared between desk and window, half truths and lingering glances, a quiet rhythm settled between them.

Taeyeon started stopping by more often. Never planned, never announced, just small, quiet visits after rehearsals, when most of the building had emptied and the only sound on the executive floor was the hum of vending machines and distant elevators.

Sometimes she brought snacks.Tangerines, a bottle of barley tea, once even a paper cup of sweet potato latte she insisted Y/N needed to try. Other times, she came empty handed, just herself and that persistent calm curiosity that always lingered in her eyes.

Y/N never told her to stop.

She didn’t speak much at first, always looking like she was mid-thought when Taeyeon arrived, a pen resting between her fingers, half turned in her chair like she’d forgotten how long she'd been working.

But she always made tea.

And after the fifth visit, she started setting out a second cup before Taeyeon even said hello.

Their conversations weren’t loud or fast, they weren’t the kind that filled silences, they let the silences stay. Instead, they talked about music, about the strain of always needing to be seen, about how Y/N preferred the quiet because noise made it harder to think.

Taeyeon listened.

And Y/N watched, cautiously at first, then with something warmer. She noticed the way Taeyeon fidgeted with the sleeve of her hoodie when she was thinking, or how her voice softened every time she mentioned Zero, like the little dog was the only creature in the world she didn’t have to perform for.

Taeyeon, in turn, noticed how Y/N sometimes lost her place mid sentence, like she was too used to keeping her thoughts inside. How she always hesitated just a second before opening up, as if every answer came with an invisible cost.

But slowly, the walls started thinning.

One evening, after a long rehearsal and a brutal meeting, Taeyeon sank into the familiar couch with a sigh and leaned her head back.

“I’m starting to think you might be the only person in this building who actually listens.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow over her teacup. “That’s a dangerous thing to say to someone with this much power.”

Taeyeon grinned. “And yet I keep coming back.”

Y/N didn't reply, but her lips curved, faint, reluctant, the kind of smile that looked like it hadn’t been used in years.

It was two nights after that when Taeyeon finally said it.

The tea had already been poured, they were sitting closer than usual, something about the chill in the room pulling them toward the couch cushions like gravity.

The conversation had meandered, from the latest recording session to why people lie when they say they don’t care what others think. And then, casually, as if she’d just thought of it.

“You should come over sometime,” Taeyeon said, swirling her tea, her voice light. “I make a decent kimchi stew.”

Y/N looked at her.

It was that unreadable expression Taeyeon was starting to learn, the one where Y/N was taking in every word, every meaning beneath it, and running them through whatever inner algorithm she used to measure risk.

“It's just dinner,” Taeyeon added, softer now, a hint of a smile ghosting across her lips. “I don’t bite.”

Silence stretched.

“Are you always like this?” Y/N asked.

“Like what?”

“Persistent.”

Taeyeon shrugged, casual. “Only when something matters.”

That made Y/N look away, she took another sip of her tea, let the warmth sit on her tongue longer than usual.

Then, without looking back at Taeyeon, she said quietly.

“Text me the date and the address.”

And just like that, the air shifted again, not dramatically, not like a door flinging open. Just a quiet hinge, turning.

A few days passed, just enough to let the idea settle, to let intent become action.

Then came the text, short, precise. Just a date and address.

The elevator doors opened with a soft chime, spilling warm hallway light over the polished floor outside Taeyeon’s apartment. Y/N hesitated for a moment before stepping out. She wasn’t used to places like this, places that felt lived in, not curated. Real.

When Taeyeon opened the door, barefoot in a loose sweatshirt and hair pulled back messily, it struck Y/N that she looked not like an idol, but like a person. The kind of person who knew where her soy sauce was without looking and didn’t mind if her dog tracked a bit of fur across the rug.

“Come in,” Taeyeon said, stepping aside.

Y/N entered cautiously, as if unsure whether she was allowed to exhale inside. The apartment was warm in more ways than one. Soft lighting glowed from lamps instead of overhead fixtures, and the walls were scattered with framed photos, some candid, some stylized, none of them for display, a scarf hung haphazardly over the back of a chair, and there was a dent in the couch cushion from where someone actually sat.

She hadn’t even taken off her coat before Zero trotted toward her, tail wagging like a small motor.

The dog stopped a few feet away, sniffed once, then closed the distance with enthusiasm. Y/N froze. Animals rarely approached her so openly, they usually hesitated, caught in some instinctive awareness that she didn’t quite belong.

But Zero practically demanded affection, nudging his fluffy head against her knee.

“He likes you,” Taeyeon said from the kitchen, the faintest thread of surprise in her voice.

Y/N slowly crouched, brushing her fingers through the dog’s coat, his fur was warm, soft, his breathing relaxed.

“He’s friendly,” she murmured, as if still trying to process it. Her tone was gentle, almost reverent.

“Usually takes him a few meetings,” Taeyeon added, stirring something on the stove. “I guess he’s a good judge of character.”

Y/N glanced up, the corner of her mouth twitching into what might have been the beginning of a smile, but it was gone as fast as it appeared.

She stood, hands folding back into her coat pockets, eyes scanning the room again like she was reading something in it that only she could see.

Taeyeon motioned toward the couch. “You can sit, you know. I promise it won’t bite.”

Y/N gave a short nod and walked over, sitting carefully on the edge of the cushion, posture upright like she was waiting for an interview to begin.

“You’re really not used to this, are you?” Taeyeon asked, half amused.

Y/N turned her head slightly. “Used to what?”

Taeyeon’s gaze softened. “Being invited in.”

There was a pause, Y/N didn’t answer, she didn’t argue either.

The dining table was small, round, nestled by a window that looked out onto the quiet Seoul skyline. It was a view worth lingering over, dusky blues bleeding into warm yellows from the surrounding apartments, but Y/N barely glanced at it. Her attention was divided between the bowl of stew in front of her and the woman who had made it.

Taeyeon sat across from her, hair tucked behind one ear, sleeves rolled up, chopsticks in hand. She was relaxed in a way that was almost disarming, comfortable in her space, in her body, in the silence between them. Her presence filled the room with something gentle, something domestic, something Y/N didn’t know how to process.

Steam rose from the bowls, curling like invisible fingers. The scent was rich, fermented spice, slow simmered garlic, a hint of sesame oil. Y/N could tell from the balance of aroma alone that Taeyeon had done this often.

Y/N picked up her spoon, stirred, slowly. Then set it back down again. She reached for the chopsticks instead, turning over a piece of tofu with practiced politeness, as if considering it. Eventually, she brought a small bite to her mouth, chewed once, twice, then reached for her water.

The taste was fine, or should be. But she barely swallowed. Her body resisted it, not out of revulsion, but because it simply didn’t need it.

Taeyeon watched her with a sideways glance, amusement flickering in her eyes.

“You eat like someone who’s suspicious of kindness,” she said lightly.

Y/N paused, then set her chopsticks down, folding her hands in her lap.

“I’m not used to being cooked for,” she said, voice even. Not cold, just true.

Taeyeon smiled, leaning back a little in her chair.

“Have you ever even watched Netflix on a couch that didn’t cost more than a car?”

Y/N blinked at the sudden turn, startled for a second, then let out a quiet, almost reluctant chuckle. The sound was real, warm, but tentative. Like a note played too softly on purpose.

“Not recently,” she murmured.

Taeyeon’s grin widened slightly. “You say that like you used to.”

Y/N tilted her head. “Maybe I did.”

Silence again. Not awkward, just thick with something unspoken. Y/N glanced down at her untouched stew and nudged the bowl a fraction to the side, a habitual gesture of someone creating space without appearing to.

Taeyeon didn’t comment, but she noticed. Her expression shifted slightly, less teasing, more curious.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” she said, voice low.

“You didn’t,” Y/N replied immediately, too quickly. “I just… this isn’t my usual setting.”

“What is your usual setting?”

Y/N opened her mouth, then closed it. A heartbeat passed, then another.

She looked up, eyes sharper now, more guarded.

“Structured, predictable.”

Taeyeon’s smile faded into something smaller, more sincere.

“Well,” she said softly, “this is neither of those.”

“No,” Y/N agreed. Her gaze held Taeyeon’s for a moment longer than necessary. “It’s not.”

And yet she didn’t leave.

Dinner ended quietly, neither of them mentioned the mostly untouched stew, and Taeyeon didn’t ask questions Y/N wasn’t ready to answer. Instead, she stood, collected their bowls, and returned with two mugs of tea, jasmine for Y/N, ginseng for herself.

“No sugar, right?” she asked as she passed the warm ceramic into Y/N’s hands.

Y/N nodded. “Right.”

They drifted into the living room, the couch was wide and welcoming, a soft neutral tone with mismatched throw pillows that didn’t try too hard to match the aesthetic, comfort over perfection. Y/N hesitated for a breath, then sat on the far side, her mug balanced delicately in her hands like a prop she wasn’t quite sure how to use.

Zero padded in moments later and, to Taeyeon’s clear surprise, leapt up beside Y/N without hesitation. The little dog gave a single snuffle, circled once, and settled in the space between them with his head resting neatly on Y/N’s lap.

She froze.

Taeyeon grinned, sinking into her side of the couch. “He usually needs a few dates before that level of commitment.”

Y/N glanced down at Zero. Slowly, almost shyly, she rested one hand on his soft fur. Her fingers curled gently. He didn’t stir, just gave a small huff and burrowed closer.

“I guess he’s not as guarded,” she said, lips twitching with something that might’ve been a smile.

Taeyeon watched her for a long beat. Something had shifted, subtly, but unmistakably. The stiff line of Y/N’s shoulders had lowered, her jaw wasn’t clenched. Even the way she held the mug had changed, no longer with calculated grace, but simply for warmth.

Taeyeon turned on the TV, not bothering to ask what Y/N wanted to watch. It didn’t matter, she picked something light, something that wouldn’t demand too much of them.

But within minutes, neither of them was following the plot.

The movie flickered on, all color and noise, but the silence between them was louder, fuller. Their mugs sat cooling on the coffee table. Zero had completely claimed Y/N’s lap now, his body rising and falling with slow, contented breaths. Y/N remained mostly still, one hand resting absentmindedly on the dog’s back, her eyes trained on the screen, but unfocused.

Taeyeon shifted slightly. Her thigh brushed against Y/N’s.

Then, without meaning to, their hands met.

It wasn’t deliberate. Just a slight shift, a readjustment of posture, a stretch of fingers that met resistance and warmth.

Y/N’s reaction was instant.

She flinched, sharp and involuntary, like the touch had burned her. Her hand recoiled just slightly, not far, not rude, but enough for the space between them to feel colder.

Taeyeon didn’t look at her, didn’t apologize. She just stayed still, her expression neutral but her eyes distant, blinking at the screen like she’d suddenly remembered she was supposed to be watching it.

And then, minutes later, so soft it almost didn’t register, Taeyeon leaned sideways, head tilting gently until it rested against Y/N’s shoulder.

It wasn’t a calculated move, not a tease, it was exhaustion and trust wrapped in one simple gesture. The weight of her head was warm, familiar, heavier than it should’ve been.

Y/N froze again.

Her breath caught somewhere high in her throat. Her body was still as stone, but inside? Chaos. She didn’t know how to process softness, didn’t know how to carry someone else’s trust without breaking it.

Taeyeon breathed out, slow and even, clearly slipping toward sleep.

Y/N closed her eyes.

For a moment, just a moment, she allowed it.

The room was quiet except for the hum of the television and Zero’s tiny snores. And in that stillness, Y/N let herself feel it. Closeness, warmth, longing, the ache of possibility.

But the moment didn’t last.

Taeyeon shifted slightly against her, murmured something half formed, and stirred. Her head lifted groggily from Y/N’s shoulder.

And that was all it took.

Y/N stood suddenly, careful not to wake the dog.

“I should go,” she said quickly, reaching for her coat before Taeyeon could fully register what was happening.

Taeyeon blinked, disoriented, watching her move as if a thread had been cut. She looked up, confusion flickering in her eyes. "Did I do something wrong?"

Y/N shook her head, avoiding eye contact. "No, it's not you. I just need to go."

And then she was gone.

Taeyeon sat in the silence she left behind, one hand reaching to where warmth still lingered beside her.

The door had closed, but the echo of her absence didn’t fade easily. Taeyeon didn’t text or call, she waited.

Days passed. Not many, but enough for the air between them to shift.

Now, the city had moved on. And so had the work, but some silences didn’t feel like endings, just pauses, waiting to be broken.

Evening had settled over Seoul, and with it came a hush that blanketed the upper floors of the SM building in quiet. Most of the lights were off now, casting long shadows through the glass walls and polished floors. But one office, one particular corner suite, still glowed warmly from within.

Y/N’s office had become a strange kind of haven, not by design, not officially but over time, it simply became.

There was no formality left when Taeyeon walked in. No knocking, no preamble, just a soft greeting and the sound of the door clicking shut behind her. On the low marble table sat two teacups, always matching, always prepared in quiet anticipation.

Taeyeon sat cross legged on the velvet loveseat beneath the tall windows, a knit sweater draped around her shoulders, her fingers wrapped around the warm ceramic mug. She took a sip, exhaled.

“It’s like your tea always tastes the same,” she mused.

Y/N, seated on the armchair across from her, arched her brow. “That’s not a complaint, is it?”

Taeyeon smiled. “No. It’s comforting.”

A beat passed. No rush, no need to fill the quiet.

Then Taeyeon pulled out her phone and tilted it toward Y/N. A piano interface filled the screen.

“I downloaded this stupid app,” she said, chuckling under her breath. “I miss real pianos. You know? Not the rehearsal room kind, the ones in studios that are so perfect they feel dead. I want the ones that creak a little when you press the keys too hard, the ones that fight back.”

Y/N watched her for a moment, then gently placed her teacup down on its saucer with a soft clink.

“I have one.”

Taeyeon blinked. “You have a piano?”

“A Bösendorfer. 1884, if I remember right. Restored just enough to keep it alive, still has its character, still breathes like it remembers who’s played it.”

There was something in the way she said it, soft, almost reverent. Like the piano wasn’t an instrument but an old friend. Her voice dipped slightly, the warmth of the tea and the music casting a hush over her tone.

Taeyeon gave a quiet laugh, tilting her head. “Of course yours would remember its past lives.”

Y/N allowed a small, knowing smile to cross her face. “Memory isn’t just for people.”

Something flickered behind her eyes, too quick to catch. Taeyeon didn’t push, she just held the moment with a gentle curiosity, the weight between them shifting.

Then, like she wasn’t offering anything unusual, Y/N added, “If you’d like, you can come play it one day.”

Taeyeon’s eyes met hers.

There it was again, that quiet hum underneath their conversations, a thread they kept brushing against without naming. This wasn’t just tea anymore, these weren’t just words.

The invitation wasn’t grand, it wasn’t even deliberate.

But it was a door opening.

Taeyeon leaned back, thumb brushing idly around the rim of her cup.

“I’d like that,” she said, softly. “I’d really like that.”

The silence that followed was still not awkward, not expectant but charged. And neither of them did anything to break it.