#still need a minute to get ahead again so this doesn’t happen again

[iolite-flames]

RAGHHH WE BACK WITH THESE GORETOBERSSSS!!! DOUBLE FEATURE FOR YALL!!! Was really happy I finished these (was terrified it was gonna be late again, though it is ~30 min to midnight and i got class early)

The prompts are gutspill and drowning!

[kateschi]

what goes unsaid

synopsis: you started to notice small things todoroki does, but you’re not sure what they mean just yet.

pairing: timeskip!todoroki shoto x f!reader

⊹ ࣪ ˖ notes: i listened to you guys

the buzz of the office fades into background noise as you shuffle through the latest batch of mission reports.

your shoulders ache from a particularly rough day in the field, and the stiffness in your neck only serves to remind you of the long hours stretching ahead.

you rub your temples, trying to stave off the impending headache.

“rough day?”

the voice pulls you from your thoughts, low and calm with a subtle edge of concern. shoto todoroki stands in the doorway to your shared agency’s common room, his presence as composed as ever.

his hero uniform is slightly scuffed, evidence of his own busy day. still, his mismatched eyes fix on you, quiet but observant.

“yeah, you could say that,” you reply with a weak smile, closing the folder in front of you. “I’ll be fine, though. just a few reports to finish up.”

without another word, todoroki crosses the room. he places a paper cup on the desk beside you, the warm aroma of your favorite coffee wafting up immediately. you blink, glancing between him and the cup.

“thought you could use this,” he says simply, his tone casual but laced with that understated sincerity that’s so distinctly him.

your lips twitch upward despite yourself. “thanks, todoroki. you didn’t have to.”

“I know,” he replies, his voice steady as he turns to leave.

it’s not the first time he’s done something like this—little gestures that seem small on the surface but hold a surprising amount of thoughtfulness.

you’ve chalked it up to his polite nature, the way he’s always been one to notice when someone needs a hand.

but lately, those gestures seem to happen more often, and each time they do, you can’t help but wonder if there’s more behind them.

a few days later, the intensity of the work begins to weigh on you again. a gruelling mission left you feeling physically and emotionally drained, and your muscles protest every movement you make.

you collapse on the couch in the break room, still in your hero gear, too tired to even think about a shower.

todoroki walks in, fresh from the shower, his damp hair sticking to his forehead. he eyes you for a moment before disappearing into the adjacent kitchenette.

you don’t think much of it until he returns a few minutes later, setting a small ice pack on the table beside you.

“for your shoulder,” he says, nodding toward where you’d been absentmindedly massaging your arm.

you blink, caught off guard by the quiet care in the gesture. “oh, thanks. you didn’t—”

“you overextend that side sometimes,” he interrupts, his voice calm. “you should be careful.”

your mouth opens, but no words come out. instead, you nod, pressing the ice pack against your shoulder as he sits in the chair across from you. the silence that follows is surprisingly comfortable.

you can feel the weight of his gaze occasionally flicking over to you, but it’s not heavy or demanding—more like a quiet understanding, the kind that doesn’t require explanation.

there’s a certain ease between you two, even when neither of you says much.

it’s in the way todoroki always seems to anticipate what you need, how he quietly adjusts the environment around you without ever making a show of it. and for reasons you can’t fully explain, it feels…right.

the moments continue to add up, each one more subtle than the last.

after a long patrol, you find a bottle of water placed carefully on your desk with a note—drink up, you’ve been dehydrated all day.

it’s an obvious thing, but the gesture still feels personal, like he noticed something you hadn’t even considered.

the next day, you’re struggling to get through a particularly difficult set of paperwork when your phone buzzes on the table. you glance at the screen to see a message from him: how’s the report going? 

you smirk at the simplicity of it. he knew exactly what you were doing.

when you reply that you’re about to hit a wall, todoroki doesn’t respond immediately.

but later, when you make your way into the break room for a quick break, there’s a sandwich on the counter—your favorite kind, carefully wrapped in a napkin.

no note this time, just the quiet understanding that he had noticed, even from across the building.

it’s when you’re sitting on the rooftop of the agency a few weeks later that the weight of it all really hits you. the city sprawls out before you, the lights twinkling against the night sky.

you’re lost in your thoughts when the sound of footsteps pulls you back.

todoroki appears at your side, a familiar calmness in his expression. he doesn’t say anything right away, just leans against the railing beside you.

the silence between you is surprisingly comfortable, the kind that doesn’t demand to be filled. you’ve shared enough of these moments that you don’t feel the need to say anything.

“figured you’d be up here,” he says eventually, his gaze still fixed on the horizon.

you glance at him, a small smile tugging at your lips. “needed a breather. what about you?”

“same,” he admits. “it’s been a long day.”

there’s something in his voice, a small shift, and for the first time, you realize just how much of an emotional weight he carries.

you’ve always known him to be calm, calculated, and collected, but there’s something more underneath, a pressure he doesn’t always show.

when he looks at you now, there’s something in his eyes—something softer, more open than usual.

“thanks for the coffee earlier,” you say, breaking the silence. “and…everything else. you don’t have to do all that, you know.”

he turns his head slightly, his gaze meeting yours. there’s a flicker of something in his expression, a subtle, almost imperceptible shift. “I know,” he says simply. “but I want to.”

his words hang in the air, quieter and more vulnerable than usual, and for the first time, you see the full weight of what he’s been doing all along.

these small gestures, these little acts of kindness, have been his way of showing something he’s never been able to put into words.

weeks pass, and despite everything happening around you—missions, deadlines, late-night training—there’s a steady rhythm to the way shoto treats you.

he’s never one to speak loudly about his emotions, but the small things he does start to stand out in a way that feels undeniable.

there are days when you catch him looking at you from across the room, his expression slightly more intense than usual.

he doesn’t say anything, but you notice the way his eyes linger a little longer than they should, as if he’s trying to figure something out.

he’s quiet around you, often lost in his thoughts, but when he speaks, it’s always with a softness that’s impossible to ignore.

it’s as if every word he says carries the weight of more than just friendship—though, he’ll never admit it outright.

it’s late one evening when the two of you find yourselves standing side by side in the agency’s common room.

the glow of the lights is soft, the building nearly empty after the day’s work. you’re both exhausted, but neither of you is quite ready to head home.

shoto hands you a fresh towel as you come out of the shower, his movements slow and deliberate. you notice how carefully he looks after even the smallest details:

making sure the towel’s warm and that the temperature in the room is just right.

you take it from him with a soft smile. “you’ve been really nice to me lately.”

shoto pauses, his eyes flicking to yours. there’s an emotion there you can’t quite place, something quiet and unspoken.

“I don’t mind,” he says, his voice steady. “I want to.”

the words hit you harder than you expect, and for a moment, you’re both silent, the air between you charged with something that hasn’t been said aloud but feels clear all the same.

you’ve always known shoto in pieces—quiet, introspective, deeply caring in his own way—but this is different. this is more.

when you step closer, your heart thumping louder than it should, he doesn’t pull away.

instead, he looks down at you, his mismatched eyes soft with something that’s not quite a confession but feels like one all the same.

“I’ve always wanted to be there for you,” he adds quietly, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. “I just…couldn’t figure out how.”

the quiet honesty of it leaves you breathless, and for a moment, you let the words come freely.

“you’re doing it, shoto,” you say. “you’ve been doing it.”

before either of you can say another word, the space between you seems to shrink of its own accord.

his gaze lingers on yours, and there’s a long moment of quiet before you close the small gap, your breath mingling with his.

his hand lifts, brushing against your cheek, and it’s the gentlest touch, but it sends a warmth through you that settles deep in your chest. without a word, he leans in.

and when his lips meet yours, it’s not forceful, nor is it rushed—it’s as natural as everything else that’s happened between you.

when you pull back, there’s a soft smile on his lips, a look of quiet satisfaction as he rests his forehead against yours.

“guess this makes it official,” you chuckle.

he hums, “yeah.”

kofi — navigation — masterlist

do not copy, translate, or plagarize

[salemlunaa]

SURE TIME IS A CONCEPT, BUT THE CLOCK IS TICKING ◔

what more do some of you want?…

A lot of you need to fix up. stop doomscrolling and complaining and actually apply knowledge.

Do you wanna know how to be like those people who enter the void/ induce pure consciousness with ease after struggling, some of them not even struggling at all? All those success stories that you idolise, screenshot, like, reblog and envy all have one thing in common:

They wanted it. Bad. You need to want it

Those people saw all this shit that they didn’t deserve happen to them, they saw how other people were born with the lives they want, and they decided enough was enough. They weren’t taking shit from the world anymore, they were tired of living lives that they dread, tired of looking at people’s lives with envy, tired of the way life was going for them and how the world treated them unprovoked. They were tired of dreading waking up another day in their shitty realities. Tired of hating themselves in the morning because of another unproductive night. They were TIRED and you need to be too, that fuelled their want for their new lives and got them where they are now.

I’m not saying you can’t be in my asks or you can’t be in my dms. But at what point is it enough? at what point does it become pathetic? You go in these bloggers asks and dms and question them on shit that 1: has been said multiple times or 2: is common sense. But fine, keep playing dumb, keep indulging in the assumption that it “just doesn’t work for you” keep pretending that your just this innocent little baby who “doesn’t understand why it’s not working🥺” 🙄anyway…. You can sit here in this community for as many years as you like while people get what they want.

And although time is a malleable concept that can be manipulated, the clock is ticking, it’s almost 2025 and some of you are right where you started. I need to ask you to sit with your self, look at 2025,2026,2027 heck even 2028, do you see yourself still here? be honest, do you genuinely see yourself with your dream life? if not you need to change your mindset, and stop asking how, you know how!!

Locking in and changing your mindset isn’t this big character development that lasts weeks, it can take seconds. So you could’ve had everything yesterday, 15 minutes ago, an hour ago, even a fucking minute ago, but you’re still here choosing to scroll and act stupid, inhaling new information each day like you were born yesterday. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO DO!!! Are you not tired of the same routine, you get motivated from some posts, you get this high, this amazing feeling like you’re so ready to do it, then you procrastinate and if you do manage to try you “fail” and run back to tumblr for the 100th time. Are you not tired of the same shit?

Again, do yall wanna make it to 2025,2026,2027, even 2028 without all the shit you want? At what point does it become enough information and enough questions asked? I know it feels validating and comforting to complain about your circumstances knowing others can relate, but at what point do you stop aligning with the loser who “can’t do it”? Stop acting like you actually give a shit when you say you’re going to apply and then you come back whining. Start acting like you actually want it.

You’re the only one who can change your life, if you want to still complain sure go ahead. Keep the tumblr “for you page” some company while everyone else is actually applying and getting their dream lives. A lot of you don’t want to hear it but with the way you’re wavering you’re probably going to be here for a few more years.

That doesn’t mean you cant change that, i’m not the one who writes your story, it’s you, again, it’s not hard work to change. Like the art of inducing pure consciousness, nothing is hard, nothing needs effort, so you can change your mindset within the snap of a finger and be good to go. But wavering brings you right back to square one.

the clock is ticking and you are STILL here…. LOCK TF IN!!!

SOME OF YOU HAVEN’T MADE ANY SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS, THAT CHANGES NOW!! ⏳💋

[withleeknow]

moonstruck.

pairing: minho x f!reader genre/warnings: established relationship, fluff, angst if you squint; they're in love <3, mentions of menstruation, there's a bit about orpheus and eurydice so you're not familiar you might want to look it up beforehand idk, not as edited as i'd like. not a lot of warnings here tbh it's just pretty mild and mellow saur 🤷‍♀️ (also i don't exactly love this but i hope you'll still tolerate it anyway lol) word count: 4.7k playlist 🎧: moonstruck - enhypen // this is how you fall in love - jeremy zucker ft. chelsea cutler // pansy - taemin // tightrope - zayn

as always, i’d appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, and please drop a like and/or reblog if you enjoy reading ♡

navigation / masterlist / ko-fi

Minho is the kind of love that you thought only existed in movies and fairytales. Make-belief, too good to be true, out of reach.

When he rests his head on your shoulder, drifting in and out of sleep like he’s been doing for the past hour or so, you give into the urge to stare at him in wonder. An angel on earth, if there ever was one.

His long eyelashes that you could only dream to have, the slope of his nose, his pink pouty lips, his impeccably sharp jawline, and even his fluffy hair that’s ticking your cheek as you look at him as if you don’t get to see him like this every day. But that kind of beauty is something that demands to be showcased in the world’s most exquisite museum and admired by anyone who comes across it.

Minho is beautiful in every sense of the word.

And you adore him. You do. You love him with every single beat of your pathetic little heart and then some.

Surely, you must’ve saved a nation in one of your past lives to deserve someone as ethereal as him.

Turning your face to the side, you press a kiss against his forehead. The touch makes him stir awake, eyelids fluttering open as he groggily looks around and stretches out his limbs, in the limited space that he has anyway. His sleepy voice asks you, “Are we there yet?”

“Not yet. I think they said we still have about forty minutes before we land. Do you want to go back to sleep?”

Minho shakes his head, covering his mouth when a yawn forces its way out. He straightens his back to his full height sitting down, then slumps against the seat a little bit. He rests his cheek against the top of your head while his hands find one of your own to hold in his lap.

He rubs the skin of your fourth finger for a moment before he eventually stills, lightly snoring again while you look out the window, gazing at oddly shaped clouds and blues and the reflection of the sun on the waters below.

–

After you’ve checked into the hotel, freshened up and readied yourselves to explore the scenery, Minho takes you down to the beach. It’s a little chilly, spring hasn’t yet settled into summer. Even with a light jacket on, you still shiver every time the wind rushes by like it’s playing with the waters. But it’s nice – the sea breeze in your hair and the sunlight on your face, your lover by your side, his fingers intertwined with yours as you walk along the shore together. The blue of the sea almost blending in with the sky where they meet somewhere out there on the horizon. Seagulls flying overhead, families enjoying their relaxing vacation, children playing in the sand way down the shoreline where all you can make out are blurry silhouettes dancing about.

It’s paradise on earth. It’s an escape that you desperately needed. Exhilarated doesn’t even begin to describe how you felt when he told you that he’d booked a Jeju trip for your anniversary.

He’s always been the perfect partner. Always knows just the right thing to do for you whenever you need a pick-me-up. He may not seem like it, but Minho is beyond caring and considerate. He’s a man of few words but he certainly makes up for it with his actions.

“Hey,” he says, pointing somewhere ahead of you. “Remember what happened there?”

“Hmm?” Your eyes try to follow the direction of his finger, until they find a spot where two people are sitting, watching the water in front of them, content smiles passed between lips as they talk animatedly. “Didn’t you confess to me there?”

He smiles as the memory resurfaces in his mind. “Did you know I almost chickened out?”

You two started out as friends way before you got together.

Three years ago, just a few months after you’d both graduated from college, Minho asked you to go to Jeju island with him. You thought it was a little strange – though not that strange since you had been on trips with him before, but it was always in a group setting with all of your other friends. Never just the two of you.

Nonetheless, you agreed. You wanted to get out of the city anyway. You needed a change of scenery to clear your head and to recharge. Everything was starting to become too much for you - being 22 and in limbo. You felt like you kept falling behind no matter what you did. Everyone was moving forward and you were running in place no matter how hard you tried to get out of that slump.

Everyone around you was outgrowing you and your little life, and all you could do was pretend you were fine.

It was one of the lowest you’d ever felt, and you suppose that was why you said yes to Minho’s invitation. A vacation didn’t seem like it would help much, but it certainly couldn’t hurt.

A few days away, with nothing but the sun and the sea to help you get out of your own head.

A tropical paradise and Minho. It wasn’t the end of the world. There were worse things you could think of.

That, and the fact that there had always been something between you and him. Not crazy sexual tension or anything, but just enough of a noticeable spark. An inkling of something that neither of you ever acted upon.

“Did you?” you ask. “Didn’t you plan the whole trip back then to confess?”

“What? No. Why would I willingly do that when you could’ve rejected me? Then I would’ve been stuck in a hotel with you and on the plane ride back.”

You squint at him. “Then why did you take me on that trip?”

Minho shrugs. “Friendship trip to cheer you up.”

Years with him and he still makes you feel as warm as he did the first time you kissed. You gaze at him with what must be the world’s most lovestruck look plastered on your face. You reach up to press your lips to the corner of his mouth, then watch as a blush spreads across his cheeks.

“You did confess though,” you argue.

“Well, yeah, but that wasn’t planned,” he tells you. “You just... We were sitting right there,” he tips his chin toward the same spot again, “and you had my jacket on because you were cold. You were watching the sunset and you looked so pretty. I couldn’t help it. Almost chickened out though.”

You stop walking, and this makes him stop too. Minho glances at you with his head slightly tilted, wearing a puzzled expression.

“You never told me that,” you say.

“You never asked.”

Pouting, you tug him toward you until he’s close enough for you to wrap your arms around his neck. Minho is good, so incredibly good for you that sometimes you can’t possibly fathom how you even deserve him. He never meant to get anything out of it; he just saw that you were struggling and wanted to make it better for you.

Maybe you didn’t do a very good job at pretending, not if Minho could see right through you.

Before him, you had a fear of heights. Not the literal kind, but rather the kind of heights that often accompanies big leaps, big changes. A fear of falling, maybe that would be more accurate. Falling and failing and hitting rock bottom with no way to climb back up. A fear that you would always be stuck with this life forever, trapped in an existence you never asked for. A fear that no effort to escape your reality would be enough, and you’ll always be trailing ten steps behind even if you try twenty times as hard.

You pull him down so you could properly kiss him, your lips slotting together perfectly like he was made for you, like he’s the only person you’re ever meant to kiss in this lifetime. You can taste his smile, minty and happy as he moves against your mouth, his arms sliding around your waist to hold you to his body by the small of your back.

“If I had known,” Minho pulls away slightly, mumbling against your lips, “telling you that would get me brownie points, I would’ve told you ages ago.”

You roll your eyes with affection.

“So all this time,“ he says, “you thought I asked you on that trip just to get into your pants?”

“You did get into my pants on that trip!”

“Let me remind you that I only wanted to do something nice for you. You were the one who almost jumped my bones right then and there after I said I liked you.”

You slap his chest as he throws his head back in a hearty laugh. Minho takes your hand in his once more as he drags you along, savoring the cool sea breeze and the golden daylight dancing on glittering waters before the sun bids you goodbye.

Minho is the kind of love that makes you want to curl up into a ball and ugly cry for an hour straight.

In a good way, of course. In the best way possible.

So that’s what you do, on a fine Tuesday afternoon, sitting on a couch surrounded by three cats as you wait for him to come home, perfectly sheltered from the harsh sun outside.

He returns eventually, toward the end of your crying session. When he sees the pile of tissues on the coffee table, soaked with your tears and snot, his heart nearly falls out of his ass.

Minho drops everything, rushing to you like you’re on the verge of spontaneous human combustion because clearly, this is a normal reaction to have when you come home to a girlfriend who’s been sobbing in the dark for god knows how long.

That, and the fact that said girlfriend doesn’t cry very often. Not by herself and certainly not in front of others.

Doesn’t mean that you’re immune to the occasional bouts of tears whenever shark week closes in, though.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong? Did something happen?”

Another rush of tears breaks as you look at him. You wipe your eyes and your nose with the tissue you’re currently holding, before throwing it on the table to join the pile you’ve accumulated.

You launch yourself forward, wrapping your arms tightly around his neck. The sudden force takes him aback, makes him gasp a little.

He freezes as you cling to him like a desperate koala, before his hands slowly land on your back, rubbing slowly, hesitantly, as though he’s afraid he’s hurting you.

“What’s wrong, baby? Why are you crying?”

“PMS,“ you hiccup your answer out, to which Minho only responds with a relieved Ah, his hands now moving more assuredly on your body.

“Anything hurt? Sore?”

“No. Just… missed you today. Love you a lot.”

There’s something saccharine in his gaze when he pulls back and regards you with his big doe eyes, softened and endeared, yet there’s still a twinkle of mischief peeking through the sugary glaze.

He moves to make himself comfortable next to you on the couch but still makes sure to keep a hand on you so you don’t grow impatient.

Once he’s effectively squished between you and the armrest of the sofa, he says, “You missed me so much that you started crying? You could’ve texted me, or called. I would’ve come home sooner, crybaby.”

“I didn’t cry because I missed you. I cried because I love you.”

He pretends to think for a moment. “I honestly can’t tell if I should be offended or not.”

You jab a finger at his ribs.

Sure, the mere thought of Minho brings tears to your eyes sometimes. It’s not really a secret anymore.

There’s something about him, just him, how wonderful he is and how all of the stars in the sky must have aligned themselves to make you and him happen. He’s the love of your entire life, there’s never been any doubt about it. Your other half, perfect for you.

You’ve never felt this way about anyone before, and you’re positive that you will never feel this way about anyone ever again. Your love for him runs so deep, so powerful that it overwhelms you at times, drowns you in nothing but affection for him and only him. A love that spreads like wildfire through your calm and sacred forest.

It’s cliché beyond words, that one day you would be having these thoughts about someone. You used to watch this kind of sentiment romanticized in movies, used to cringe and laugh at sappy lines in books and TV shows though there was always a part of you that longed for that kind of love.

You didn’t talk about it often, not even with the people closest to you. You always found it a little embarrassing to admit that you wanted love. To love and to be loved. There was something so utterly vulnerable in the act of yearning and isn’t it such a scary thing? To be vulnerable? You never saw the appeal in showing someone the deepest, darkest parts of you.

What if they leave? What if you bare yourself to someone and they deem you not worth staying for? How would you come back from that kind of rejection?

You suppose it always held you back - the fear of being open that goes hand in hand with the fear of being left behind. Maybe you have more fears than you’d like to admit.

Then came Minho.

No, that doesn’t sound right.

He didn’t come crashing into your life like a tidal wave and unraveled your every belief.

He was always there by your side, a calming presence that you could lean on when things got tough. A friend, a solid foundation. He’s the relief after every monsoon, the first day of sun after a long and harsh winter.

He saw you for who you were, all the messiest parts of you, and loved you anyway. In spite of your mess? Because of your mess.

He taught you that love isn’t always extravagant gestures and grand declarations that Shakespeare would applaud.

Love is acceptance. Love is staying with you on your gloomiest days and holding your hand through your dreariest moments. Love is lingering glances by the doorway before he goes to work because you’re half asleep but you’re still trying to reach for him even in your dreams.

It’s sharing joys and burdens alike. Reminders to eat and gentle wake-up calls. A photo of you in his wallet, a silly picture of him as your phone’s wallpaper. Giggling with him after he tells a joke not because of the punchline itself, but because his manic chortle is even funnier.

Love is Minho cradling your face in one hand and holding onto your shaking fingers with the other, his steady gaze holding yours, and his voice whispering gently in the darkest of nights, “Your storm is my storm.”

At the end of the day, love is pretty simple. Love is him.

“Do you ever think about Orpheus and Eurydice?”

Minho laughs, the sound vibrating where you lay your head, his hand still absentmindedly rubbing the skin of your waist over your shirt. “No, I don’t think about Orpheus and Eurydice.”

You figured as much.

Your fingers trace invisible patterns on his chest as you hum your acknowledgment. Then you ask, “If it was me, if you were Orpheus, would you look back?”

His hands pause their ministrations, a little taken aback by the question you suppose. Your brain tends to pingpong between the most random things sometimes.

“You know,“ he says with an even voice, though the corner of his mouth still curls upward in amusement. “Other people just ask the worm thing.”

“The worm thing is boring. And we both know you wouldn’t love me if I was a worm.”

“You wouldn’t love me if I was a worm either.”

“That’s true. I don’t like worms,” you agree, chuckling while your boyfriend scoffs. “Answer the question, would you look back?”

There’s no right answer because you’re not expecting a correct response. It’s a hypothesis that can never be tested because you aren’t a nymph and Minho isn’t a bard with the ability to sway all life with his music. It’s a silly thought but it’s one that you’re curious about nonetheless, just to hear what he would say. Why not?

You’ve read many interpretations of the tragedy. In some, Orpheus hears Eurydice stumble and turns to catch her fall. In others, he can’t hear her at all. The story will forever be among your favorites, one of the things that never fails to turn you inside out no matter how many times you mull over it.

Minho is quiet for a moment. You think he’s about to shoot back with a witty retort that he always has up his sleeves, probably something about how he would find a loophole and trick his way out of the deal, or that he would personally fistfight Hades to get you out of the underworld. This wouldn’t surprise you at all.

Instead, he says, “Yes, I would look back.”

But regardless of how you choose to view the myth, the ending does not change. Orpheus always turns around.

He turns around because he loves her.

Minho’s fingers slip under your shirt to brush your bare skin, angling his head sideways so he could kiss your forehead. 

Maybe he’s just saying it for the sake of being romantic, for the sake of saying what seems to be the right thing. It’s an answer that you can never give substance to, but you believe him with all your heart.

You believe him. You do.

“If it’s you, I would look back.”

Minho is the kind of love that eclipses the sun and dims the light of the moon. The kind of love that drowns out all the noise and makes everything a little more bearable. Not just the most horrible things – your fears and struggles alike – but even the smallest, most mundane things.

If there’s one thing that you absolutely hate, it’s the smell of nail polish. You hate the way it lingers in the air even after the bottle has been capped, hate how the smell of toluene stains your fingertips even after washing your hands several times with scented soap.

Though, the only time you try to tolerate it is when Minho convinces you to stay in and pamper each other. Pizzas that he picks up for dinner and tiramisu ice cream for dessert. Face masks and fancy candles that you save for special occasions. SoonDoongDori napping on various surfaces in your living room, an old vinyl playing from the record player he got you for your first birthday you shared together after you started dating.

You each take turns doing the other’s nails on the carpeted floor. It’s become somewhat of a tradition that you indulge in every month, where you would spend cozy Friday evenings indoors just because neither of you can be assed to indulge in a “proper“ date night. Being hermits together sounds infinitely more appealing to you than any other alternative.

“I’m not done,” you say, snatching Minho’s hand back after he pulls it away to admire your work. You blow on his fingers to make sure that the layer of black polish you applied earlier is dry, then you’re reaching for a bottle of beige polish sitting amongst the ones scattered on the floor. You take a tiny brush from the nail kit - one that’s rarely ever touched because neither of you knows how to do nail art - and dip it into the sand-colored polish.

“What are you doing?“ he asks, watching as you trace some squiggly lines on his middle finger, the lighter color settling nicely on top of the black even if he has no idea what you’re trying to draw. “What is that?”

“Soonie,” you say simply. “When you flip people off, you can show them Soonie.”

You don’t need to look at him to know that his attention is fixed on you even though he doesn’t give you a response. You feel his gaze on the side of your face, soft and warm and never leaving for even a second. He doesn’t say anything while you work though, maybe he doesn’t want to mess up your concentration while you’re so engrossed in what you’re doing. He only chuckles at your answer, then nothing afterward.

You don’t mind the lack of conversation. It helps you focus better on what you’re doing because you’re no artist by any means. You can’t draw to save your life, let alone master something as intricate as nail art, but this is therapeutic. It’s perfect to help you unwind after a long week - doodling your beloved cat on your boyfriend’s nails while Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls sets the ambience. You’ll get the ice cream when you’re done with your impromptu project, along with a little headache from inhaling too much of the polish scent perhaps, but isn’t that a small price to pay?

You take your sweet time with the teeny tiny details, like Soonie’s delicate whiskers and the darker strips of fur on his face. He still turns out a little wonky, a little lopsided here and there but it’s not like you expected it to turn out like a Picasso.

The real Soonie seems to sense a disturbance in the force when he wakes up from his nap and saunters toward you curiously. You pick him up and sit him in your lap so he doesn’t come too close to the fresh polish on Minho’s nails. “Look,” you say with a proud smile, pointing toward the small cat doodle. “That’s you.”

He studies it for a moment, focused on your portrayal of him but then he’s quick to decide that he’s not interested anymore before wiggling away from your lap to go join Doongie on the couch. You chuckle lightly, watching him as he walks off, wondering if this is what it will feel like when your future children enter their teenage years.

When you turn back to Minho, he’s still staring at you, a dazed look in his eyes as he blinks slowly, his hand resting limply on his thigh.

“What?” you ask. “Do you not like–”

“Marry me.”

The rest of your question dies in your throat, wilting away like cherry blossoms when summer nears. He doesn’t break eye contact, still that dreamy gaze when he peers at you. Nothing has ever changed in the way that he looks at you.

For a moment, you’re too stunned to speak. You think anyone would be when their boyfriend drops a proposal out of nowhere while you’re doing each other’s nails in your comfiest sweatpants.

Everything that you’ve been afraid of comes bubbling to the surface, every doubt, every fear, even every fleeting insecurity. They manifest as a ringing in your ears, a buzzing in your head that makes it hard to think about anything at all.

But then he shuffles closer, closer and closer until his warm breath fans your cheek, his nose nudging your cheekbone gently. It’s similar to what Doongie does sometimes when you’re lounging in bed and he just wants some love.

When Minho takes your hand and laces your fingers together in his lap, everything stills. The rumbling comes to a halt, the distant thunder fading slowly into the background of your mind palace until it’s reduced to mere white noise. “Marry me,“ he says again, and his voice is so tender that you ache. Tender and sweet and so full of wonderful adoration. If you ever have to describe what love sounds like, you would say it’s him and his voice, right here and right in this exact moment.

“A little dramatic to propose just because I drew your cat.”

He chuckles, presses a kiss to your cheek before he ducks down to deliver another kiss on the side of your neck. Then he pulls back, just enough to get a clear view of you and your now glassy eyes.

“Bottom drawer in our bedroom,” he tells you. You can’t lie; you have half a mind to leave him here and go check. “I bought the ring two months ago, but I knew I wanted to marry you two years before that. I’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to do it but I realized the perfect moment doesn’t exist, because every minute I spend with you is perfect. I love you so much. It’s not because you drew me my cat, by the way. I think I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you.

“I love your weird brain and your blanket-hogging ass. I love that you’re crazy enough to listen to a song literally over a thousand times without getting bored. I even love you when you set ten alarms in the morning and still manage to sleep through all of them. I know you hate your smile but it’s my favorite smile in the world. Did you know my favorite color is the color of your eyes? The best part of my day is when I get to come home to you and the kids waiting for me. I want all of you forever. I promise I’ll love you twice as much on days that you don’t love yourself. When we’re old and gray and we look like raisins, I’ll let you go first so you won’t have to spend a single day alone. I’ll–” He stops when you let out a teary giggle, no bite in his voice at all when he says, “Please don’t laugh at me during my big romantic speech.” 

It only makes you laugh harder, though it’s just as emotional. If you focus on the other part of his sentence, you’ll only crumble into a million pieces right here.  “How very romantic of you to include the visual of us as raisins in your speech.”

Minho rolls his eyes – fondly, of course. When he pretends to squirm away from you, you tug him back by the collar of his shirt to plant an apologetic kiss on his lips which he eagerly accepts.

“Please continue,” you say, smiling against his mouth. “Tell me all the ways that you’ll love me.”

“You ruined it. I retract my proposal,” he grumbles, but his arms betray his words when they tighten around your frame, holding you close to him to steal another kiss. Then another, and another, until your faces are wet with tears and you realize that you’re both crying.

“I’m sorry,” you say through sniffles and tears. “Please keep going.”

“Make it up to me first.”

“How?”

“Marry me,” he repeats a final time. “I’ll give you a better speech on our wedding day.”

Years and years from now, when you’re old and gray and look like raisins – as he so poetically put it – you’ll remember this moment down to every miniscule detail. How the cats’ peace is disturbed by your tearful giggles and the strange look they give you before wandering out of the room, in favor of somewhere without two crying idiots. How the record starts skipping but neither of you can be bothered to do anything about the obnoxious sound. How the material of his shirt feels when you bunch the fabric in your hands because you need to kiss him, need him to be as close as humanly possible.

You’ll remember the sob that he hiccups when you tell him through choked up whispers, “Yes, I’ll marry you,” and how his lips feel when they tremble against your skin. You’ll remember the way he holds onto you like a lifeline, because he’s always been your salvation for as long as you’ve known him. You’ll remember what happens after, later that night when he finally slips the ring onto your finger. The words he whispers into the crook of your neck, “You mean the world to me,” and the emotions in his voice when you both realize this is the start of the rest of forever.

You’ll remember everything, all of it, every clumsy touch and every graceless kiss. Ugly crying on the floor and yet, it’s more perfect than anything you can ever dream of.

all rights reserved © withleeknow. reposting, translating and/or modifying is not permitted by any means. [posted 13.07.2024]

[clockwayswrites]

City Pigeons Part 12 CW: blood, past trauma and experimentation

Jason could almost go to sleep. He wouldn’t, not when he was the only Bat in the apartment, but it would be so easy to. Danny made a really good weighted blanket.

It seemed once the kid got over touching someone, he basically became a koala. Cass and Danny had spent the morning wrapped around each other on the couch. Cass was playing one of her weird clicking games and Danny, blue bear in his lap, was scrolling through articles on the tablet that Tim had brought him the other day.

Now, though, Cass was out on a snack run and Danny had slowly slumped over until he was laying across Jason. It wasn’t minded. Jason could admit he still had some trouble with touch himself, but it was easy to be there for Danny like this.

The problem was, Jason needed to get back to Crime Alley for at least a few nights. He was already past when Red Hood should have made an appearance. It he didn’t go back soon, rumors were going to start that he was dead. Again.

Jason waited for Danny to start searching for a new article to read to ask, “Are you alright with meeting someone soon?”

He didn’t expect Danny to tense like he did.

“Robin?”

“No, Dandelion,” Jason said, stroking Danny’s white hair. “N talked with Robin and he knows not to stop by like that without warning. We’ll have him over when you’re comfortable but not before.”

“Okay. Sorry. I don’t mean to…”

“None of that. He freaked you out,” Jason said. “I know he didn’t mean to, and from our guess it’s not his fault how he feels like to you, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t. It’s okay to set boundaries.”

“He… doesn’t feel weird to you?”

Jason sighed. “No. I guess I don’t sense it. I didn’t know you had died until you told me.”

“Oh.” Danny’s voice was small and quiet.

“But I knew that I had died— the others know it’s too,” Jason was quick to add. “It’s alright that you died. No one will think differently of you.”

“They might. It’s… you’re different than me, I guess.”

“I don’t know, because I don’t know what happened to you, but I actually hope so. The way I came back wasn’t pleasant.” Jason had to take a breath before he continued. “I was murdered by a rogue in town called the Joker. I woke up… we’re still not sure when exactly, but somewhere about half a year later. I didn’t have any of my memories, but I still had most of my injuries.

“I was picked up by some people you might hear us refer to— the League of Assassins. They put me back together about a year after my death by tossing me in something called the Lazarus Pits. Those things come with a price though, one that I’m still paying. Coming back was… hard, in a lot of ways.”

“Oh,” Danny said. He clung a little to Jason’s shirt, like he wanted to make sure Jason was still there. It was a feeling Jason understood all too well. “I, um, don’t think I’ve ever stayed really dead for more than a minute or two. At least not like… not like you were.”

Jason rested his hand on Danny’s back, feeling him breath. Feeling him… feeling him not breathe.

“…Danny?”

Danny clung tighter to Jason’s shirt. “Go ahead, ask.”

“Are you… somewhat dead right now?”

“Yes.”

Just one word. A simple answer.

“Okay. That’s— okay. I’m glad there’s a reason that you’re not breathing,” Jason said and pressed a kiss to the top of Danny’s head as he tried to calm his own pounding heart.

“I think B.B. knows. I usually… it’s habit to breath but sometimes I forget and—”

“She’s good at noticing things.” Jason would have to talk with her. “But that goes to what I said, right? None of the others will thinking of you differently.”

“Even if…”

“Even if anything.”

Danny sat up and Jason resisted the urge to reach for him. It took him a moment longer to release Jason’s shirt. Jason sat up slowly and waited for Danny to get the words out he was obviously working on.

“Can I show you?”

“Course.” Jason braced himself for anything.

“It might be bright, close your eyes.”

The flash still shown through Jason’s eyelids.

“Oh.” Danny’s voice wavered horribly. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Danny?” Jason was reaching forward even as he opened his eyes.

It was good he did.

He had to catch Danny as he wavered dangerously. Danny’s who hair was black. Who’s eyes were blue. Who looked all the more like Bruce’s son. Who was bleeding red.

-

“Jesus and Mother Mary,” Dick cursed, resting his forehead against his wrist’s.

Cass came over and peeled the bloody gloves off for him. “Breathe.”

“I am breathing,” Dick wheezed.

“Badly.”

Jason barked out a laugh at that. It was unstable in a way that reminded the room of worse days.

The door banged open and they all jolted, everyone but Cass, who was better than that, and Danny who was still out cold.

“Shit, fuck, sorry,” Tim rambled. “Is he stable?”

“Yes,” Cass answered. Her voice was calm, but but Duke could see the way that she fidgeted. For anyone else it wouldn’t be called fidgeting, but the way that she untied and retied and untied the trash bag in his visions told Dick otherwise.

Cass was as worried as the rest of them.

“Signal?” Tim asked. He came into the room, tablet already pulled up to record everything.

“Hard for me to say,” Duke said with a little shrug. He wished he could say, but he was still trying to understand what he was seeing. “The guy is… he’s like no one I’ve ever seen before. But I think he’s getting stronger.”

“That’s— holy fuck.” Tim paused as he finally got a look at Danny.

“Really looks like the old man like this, doesn’t he?” Jason asked. He was trying to hide how his hands were trembling by keeping his arms crossed. Everyone in the room let him pretend.

Duke sure wouldn’t have wanted to be the one Danny collapsed on like that. It was bad enough being the third one there as he swung over from his patrol. The cuts had still been appearing on Danny’s skin, ripping him apart like he was nothing.

He didn’t look much better all bandaged up.

“I think the cuts were ones he must have sustained before changing forms before he even met us,” Duke reasoned. “They… felt old.”

Dick rubbed at his face. “So the whole time they were there just waiting to bleed?”

Jason laughed again. “Waiting for him to be alive again.”

Slowly, Dick dropped his hands and looked up at Jason. “Jay?”

Okay, so they were at the point of forgetting cape-names now. That was a great sign.

Confusingly, Jason looked to Cass, who actually fidgeted.

“He doesn’t breathe. He does, not always. His heart beats, not always. It is like he…,” she twisted her hand as if trying to grab onto the right word. “Like he relaxes and forgets.”

Well that was weird. Dick nodded to the monitor that he had helped hook up. “He’s breathing right now and the monitor says his heartbeat is hella slow, but steady.”

“This is his alive form, I think. More alive form,” Jason said with a shrug. “His other form is his more dead form. He said he’s never stayed ‘really dead’ like I was. I think ‘really’ was the important word in that. He stressed it like it was… a technically or some shit.”

“Or a loophole,” Tim said. He was watching Danny with his head tilted just slightly to the right.

It was a pose that had Duke straightening up in attention. “What do you see that I can’t?”

Tim glanced at him and then back down at Danny. “The scars don’t match.”

“Ti—Red, please just say it,” Dick pleaded, exhaustion hanging on his words.

“Sorry, I was. I mean, the scars he has now don’t exactly match the scars he had in his— what are we calling it? Dead form?”

Jason flinched.

Dick’s eyes flicked from Jason to Tim. “Let’s go with… ghost. Undead, you know?”

Tim continued on valiantly. “His scars don’t match with what he had in his ghost form. There are a few like around his neck that I think are one-to-one and a lot of them are in the same place from what I can see and might be the same? I’d have to take photos and compare. But… he has more in this living form, I’m sure of it.”

“Okay, right, so that’s a thing,” Jason said. He slid down the wall he was leaning against until he was squatting. He hung his head between his knee and wrapped his hands around the back of his neck.

Duke could see Jason passing out with enough probability that he slipped out of the room to grab some sour candy for Jason and an icepack for the back of his neck. Being honest with himself, Duke could use the moment out of the room. It was a lot to deal with.

Man, someone would have to do something about the bloody couch too… Dick sighed and took the time to send a message to Babs about it as well as an update. Knowing her she had a list of all the furniture in all the safe houses and could get a slipcover ordered on same day delivery. At least he hoped so. Everyone was taking this pretty hard and they didn’t need the reminder.

Duke figured the bad reaction was pretty fair though, they had thought that Danny was getting better and now his healing was going to be set back. Dick would be guilty because he hadn’t been here, Jason going through his issues about kids and violence and death, and Cass already counted Danny as family. She was never good when family was hurt. It was even worse that Danny should have been safe, he was under their watch.

Duke set the pack of candy and ice pack down next to Jason’s foot, close enough that he should be able to feel the cold, and backed up to his corner. It was best not to touch right then. He wasn’t afraid of Jason ever hurting him purposefully, but he was also very aware for Jason it might not always be purposeful.

Cass joined him, leaning against his side, and Duke wrapped an arm around her. Tim was tapping away on his tablet, mostly muttering to himself, but Dick had gotten up to peer over his shoulder.

Jason tore open the packet of candies and popped one in his mouth.

They’d be okay.

It would take work, but they were Bats. They were stubborn.

Dukes wrist buzzed. The tracking number for slipcover flashed across his hud. It would be there by 9 pm.

They’d be okay.

-

Everything hurt. Everything ached all the way down through his skin and muscled and bones. His breath caught in his chest, ragged and frayed like his lungs were full of shattered glass.

He tried not to make a noise.

He tried to stay quiet.

They would notice him if he made a noise. He couldn’t take any more attention. He didn’t think he’d survive more attention. God, that thought was almost enough to kill him. Once he would have done anything for his parents attention and now—

There was a hand in his hair. It was gentle.

Oh, he was crying.

“…going to be okay. We have you, Dandelion, and we’re not letting them touch you ever again. The two Reds will make sure it can never happen again. Once you’re better they’ll take a little road trip.”

That was… that wasn’t… a sob broke through Danny’s lips and he didn’t stop it. He didn’t even try.

He wasn’t there.

He could make noises.

He was safe.

“Danny? Hey, are you awake.”

Danny nodded as much as he could manage.

“Hey there,” Nightwing said, voice so kind that it just made Danny cry harder. “Can you open your eyes for me?”

Danny shook his head.

“Okay, that’s okay, thank you for answering me Danny. How’s the pain? Um, squeeze my hand once if it’s okay, twice if it’s really bad.”

Danny squeezed it three times.

“Really, really bad, huh? Okay. Okay… we can give you some pain meds through your IV. We have you on a saline drip because you looked really bad. We didn’t want to give you any meds without your consent though. Are you alright with some pain medication? Once for yes, twice for no.”

One squeeze.

“Okay, let me go—”

Danny clung to Nightwing’s hand a tightly at he could. His breath stuttered around the glass.

“Not leaving, Dandelion. I’m going to text Red Robin, okay? He’s in the living room. Hood and B.B are out… running an errand. They’ll be back soon. I’ll text Red and he’ll bring the pain meds.”

Danny nodded. Nightwing shifted around, but didn’t let go of Danny’s hand. The breathing calmed, got easier. Danny let out a slow breath.

“Hey Danny,” a new voice said. “The medication will make you feel fuzzy and maybe disoriented. You’ll probably sleep a lot. We don’t want you to wake up panicked. Is there anything we can do to help you know you’re here with us and safe?”

“Bear,” Danny croaked. He wet his lips and tried to continue. “Smells that aren’t… Touch. Warmth.”

“Red will get your teddy bear as soon as the meds are hooked up and we’ll work on the other things. One of us will always be here with you,” Nightwing said.

Danny squeezed his hand again.

“Okay. We won’t leave you alone, Danny, we’ll keep you safe. You’ll be okay.”

Danny trusted that.

It was surprising.

He didn’t think he could trust anymore, but Danny trusted that, trusted them.

The warmth of that thought followed him back into the black.

---

AN: This all Danny's fault, not mine! He decided to reveal his form early and then... welp.....

...Stay delightful, darlings?

[oreosmama]

Voicemails After the Breakup (Haikyuu!! Headcanons)

*GIFs not mine*

A/N: I pity the fools who ignore this a/n bc WARNING, these are hcs without those stupid bullet points bc I have suddenly emotionally decided that they fucking suck. Anyways, I hope y'all enjoy the light angst, for all those survivors who are still vibing in this fandom. Enjoy!

Word count: 1968

Tooru Oikawa:

“I’m totally and completely over you.”

That’s how the message starts. 

Part of you wonders if you missed something, or accidentally skipped ahead. It’s so immediate, like Oikawa could barely wait for the beep before tearing into you. Like he needed to spit poison the second he had the chance. 

And it’s one of those biting remarks that he wants to let fester—for a while, evidently; he doesn’t say anything else for another five minutes. 

All that follows is a loud thud, like he’s thrown the phone away from him. And then footsteps, like he’s pacing, pacing, pacing back and forth, trying to think of more scathing words by burning holes into his carpet. 

You hit a point where you think you should delete the message, maybe try and not care about whatever else he may or may not say after waiting for so long. You nibble on your nails and tug at the snarls in your hair. You pick four pieces of lint off your sweatshirt and seventeen more off the blanket draped over your lap, and you know how many there are because you line them up and count them afterwards as you wait, anxious, listening to your ex-boyfriend’s panting. 

But a small rustle stirs at that five-minute mark, right against your ear. And a sniffle. 

“Fine.” Oikawa’s voice cracks. “You win.” 

You suck in a breath. 

“What do you wanna hear? That I miss you?” He sniffles again, then scoffs bitterly. “That I miss you so fucking much I can’t sleep at night? That my bed is so fucking cold now I can’t even stomach sleeping in it? That every girl I see I automatically compare to you because I have to—I just fucking have to, all because she’s not you. And it makes me sick.”

His chuckle is sour and crackles harshly into your eardrum. “Am I stroking your ego enough, sweetheart? Because you win. You fucking win.

“I want you back.” 

He sighs, and it sounds like he’s rubbing his forehead. 

“I need you back.” 

More beats pass in the silence. More sniffles, too, but stretched out, like he’s trying to steady his breathing. 

You don’t think it’s helping him any. As you wipe the cuffs of your sweatshirt underneath your eyes, his voice returns, thoroughly raw and wounded. It squeaks out of him, barely above a whisper. His voice is so loud and tender, like he’s cradling the phone against his cheek. 

Your hand against his warm cheek, curled over that pink skin, fingertips inches away from brushing through those soft strands, wiping tears. That’s what you wish it was. 

“I didn’t know…” 

A shaky breath. You hold yours in return. 

“I didn’t know anything could hurt this bad.”

He swallows thickly. 

“Those last few moments after you left—I thought that would be the worst of it. When you just walked out. And I keep seeing you do it, over and over and over, in my head like I can’t help but torture myself with it.

“I never knew it would get so much fucking worse.”

He whimpers a little, and your heart constricts unbearably. You tear at the damn thing buried underneath your sweatshirt, massaging the skin like it can soothe that phantom ache. 

Oikawa must hate you. Maybe he hates you like you hate him: not because of the breakup, but because you can go for weeks without seeing him, holding him, kissing him, and everything still hurts like that last time. 

“Thing is, I could’ve sworn you weren’t always in my life. It’s been two years. Only two years. And yet I can’t remember a damn thing before us. It feels like it was always us. Some fog, and then you, and then everything afterwards. Everything that was us.”

“And I hate that we had it so good, YN. I really do. Because missing you has been the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

The frustration in his voice is familiar, a sickening sense of deja vu around it, and you latch a hand over your mouth at how vividly the image comes to you: Oikawa tearing his fingers through his hair, teeth gritted, cheeks flushed and shiny. Like when he lost a game, but different somehow. 

Like this was something he didn’t even know he could lose.

He’s crumbling in a way he doesn’t know how to stop. That ugly part about having something wonderful and new—the moment it’s gone, what the hell are you supposed to do then?

“I just—Goddamnit, I can’t stand how badly it hurts anymore. I can’t,” he cries, desperate and aching, like his hand is fisting at his heart. You can hear the breath hitching in his throat, the hiccuping breaths after his sobs. You can hear every tear, feel it against your own cheeks, a soreness building at the front of your skull. 

Too many tears. Your body is screaming at you, too many fucking tears. 

But it’s him and he was yours and you were his. 

Were. 

You were his. 

You had no idea how much that single thought could make your entire chest throb. 

Oikawa inhales, and it makes your heart race against the thick wall caging it in, squeezing against it. 

“I need to see you.” 

He says the thought like it’s just slapped him across the face. 

“I need to go see you, I—I have to.” 

He mumbles to himself unsteadily, like he’s rocking back and forth. Debating, really, what he’s supposed to do, if he should do it at all, if it’s right after everything.

You should probably think he’s wrong.

You probably shouldn’t be curled over your phone, eyes wide, mouth open, not making a fucking peep. Waiting to hear what he’s going to do. 

Maybe—just maybe—you shouldn’t be telling yourself that as the voicemail counts down to its final seconds, if he decides he’s not going to go to you, that you’ll definitely be going to him.

“I can’t just sit here. I can’t stay in here, without you. This isn’t right, I—”

Your breath hitches when you hear the frantic jingle of keys. 

Then the sound of a door slamming. 

His footsteps racing down his apartment’s stairwell.

A car engine revving. 

“I need to see you.” 

And the voicemail ends. 

_________________________

Satori Tendou: 

The message begins with a scoff of utter disbelief. 

“Is that what we’re doing now?”

He pauses, almost like he thinks you’re going to respond. 

“Heard from someone that I suddenly have syphilis. Yesterday, I had herpes though, so I guess I’m gonna have a tough week.”

A rustle like he’d shaking his head, like he can’t fucking believe it. 

“And sure, okay, I figured that’s fine. You can say all that shit, and it won’t really stick because everyone knows it was us and that it’s you and you’re hurt.”

He sighs. 

“But I saw it, sweetheart. I saw it.” The phone whines like he’s adjusting it against his face, and his voice is suddenly lower, darker. 

“You don’t get to have it both ways, you know. You can’t spread all that shit—all those rumors about how shitty everything was and how we didn’t have anything going for us—and then turn around two days later wearing my sweatshirt. And you don’t get to wear that necklace I gave you for our anniversary and then run away from me the second you see me. That’s just not fair—you’re not playing fair anymore.”

Something swishes around like loose clothing, and a large huff greets your ear from what must be Tendou collapsing into a seat. When his little sounds become quieter, that relentless humming and the excitable clicks of his tongue against his teeth, you figure he must have put the phone on speaker and balanced it on his knee like he always did. Mid-conversation with Ushiwaka, he always used to spin his phone with those long fingers, or bounce the damn thing up and down against his frantic leg. 

And the voicemail came through late last night, one of those dead hours where the only ones awake were Tendou, his scrambling thoughts, and the moths flitting back and forth outside his glowing window. He was always awake, always thinking, always doing something. 

When you’d first broken up, after one long, wrenching fight where you’d both lost your voices and the frustration welled so high you just couldn’t breathe anymore, you’d been thankful for the idea of sleeping soundly for the first time in months. 

You’d been wrong. You weren’t even sleeping anymore; just long, slow blinks where your phone screen would magically turn from 3:45 a.m. to 7:25 a.m., and in five minutes you’d have to get up and slug your way through another day. 

Tendou had been the same. Those naturally wide eyes sagged under the pressure, and the curve of his spine had deepened like he’d been hauling the lack of sleep everywhere he went. 

He must be sitting at his window now, at this moment in his message, pale skin aglow with wispy tendrils of moon. And he’s calling you. And he saw everything you’d done. 

“Not fair. Not fair at all,” he whines, teasing. Always, always teasing, and if you hadn’t heard the slight cripple in his voice on the last word, you’d have gone on thinking he viewed it as one big joke. 

You’re sure he heard the same thing you had—that he couldn’t keep acting like it was all fun and games. His usual, cat-like smile surely fell into a pert little frown, pale lips twisting like he’d sucked on a lemon. 

No fun, no fun, no fun, he must have been thinking. 

“Ya see, I thought we had a little deal,” Tendou drawls. “You’d talk smack and start dressing all pretty just to spite me, and then–and then I’d go ahead and delete all your pictures and put your name as ‘Bitch’ in my phone. And in, like, two weeks, we’d just be two ships, whoosh, whoosh, passing each other on the high seas of life, ya know?”

He breathes a ghost of a laugh. 

“But, sweetheart, you look like shit.” He chuckles for real this time, and it’s disgustingly hollow. “I’m not even kidding. Like someone ran you over three times every morning—it’s horrible, really.”

You curl into yourself even further, and you’re smiling, grinning, lips peeling with how much you’ve cried and how little water you’ve drank after. You hate him; God, you hate how he can make you laugh and cry at the same time. 

“But that’s okay, I’ll give you a pass just this once. I haven’t deleted your pictures yet, so I botched my end of the deal, too.” Tendou tsks his tongue. 

“I won’t go easy on you, though. Here–here, how’s about this: for every day you stop wearing my clothes—because they look horrible on you, sweetheart; really, you’re painful to watch—I’ll delete one of your pictures, eh? That means, in about–uhhdivideby365daysinayearignoringleapyearbullshit–ah, seven years, I’ll have held up my end. S’that good with you?”

You lean your head back, letting the tears flood your hair as he chuckles to himself. 

“Fuck it,” he says after a pause. Hopeless. Breathless. “Fuck it.” He must be gnawing on that pale lower lip, biting and nibbling until it bleeds. Because he lets something go to sigh again, and he must have smacked his head against the wall, and then you think he sniffled. 

“I still want you. I’ve always wanted you. And I’m tired of missing you and wanting you. Doing both hurts too much.”

Tendou soughs.

“So I’m still your Chicken Tendy, baby. Always. And I’ll be here when you're ready, syphilis and all.”

[obislittleone]

Too Sweet

Dbf!Joel Miller x College!Reader

A/n: hey guys so i may or may not take a writing break (i know i said i was gonna write more but like) the stress of all the nazi shits that keep plaguing my comment sections on every post i make, regardless if it’s political or not is making me wanna tear my head off… so I might just go away a while.

Warnings: fluff, awkward mentions of past relationships, dbf!joel, smut, piv (unprotected), so much teasing. It’s actually pretty cute guys.

Is anyone at all surprised by the song choice? Hozier has us all in a headlock rn… also this is dedicated to my favorite joel writer @macfrog bc she’s just amazing and you should read her work.

MASTERLIST

“Babygirl,” he breathed, pulling back but not away, his face still inches from your own. You could clearly see his blown pupils and focused expression. “Get upstairs.” Though you wanted to tease him, wanted to quip back a quiet ‘or what?’, you needed him just as much, and you weren’t going to be told twice. 

“Dates are a bad idea,” you reminded him, handing over another nail from the box in your hands.

A last minute kitchen Island was added to the kitchen’s floor plan on the current house the team had been working on, so now it was up to yourself and Joel to make that happen. Well, it was up to Joel to make that happen, and it was up to you to stand by and watch him. 

“I know, s’just,” he shook his head, hammering the nail down and holding his hand up for another. “I don’t get the whole thing these days where relationships are built on hookups.”

Your lips turned up in a smile. He was an old fashioned guy, with old fashioned ideals about love and dating and relationships. It was sweet, albeit a little obnoxious. You rather liked hooking up with him, however little it may be.

“Where would we even go?” you saw how on the first hit, the nail went crooked, so you handed him another before he even reached. 

“I don’t know, hadn’t thought that far.”

You had to laugh at that. 

“You wanna take me on a date but you don’t know where we would go?” 

“Well,” he finished the last nail then stood up next to you, scratching the back of his neck. “This ain’t exactly an easy situation, we got your old man to avoid.”

Very reasonable, but sort of an obvious point by now. This entire thing started based on the fact that: you know each other because of your father, as in, they are each other’s closest friend. Pair that with one man hooking up with the other’s daughter, it becomes a disaster waiting to happen… except for he doesn’t see it that way, and neither do you. 

You sighed, looking around to make sure everyone was still outside with the boss. Joel had just wiped his forehead on his arm to rid himself of the sweat, and you could see the tension in his muscles from the work he just finished. You stepped up to him and wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him close enough to peck his lips once. 

“If you can find a place where we won't get caught, then I’d love to go on a date with you.” 

He smiled, kissing you again. He had wanted to tell you he was too sweaty for hugs right now, but as soon as you wrapped yourself around him, those thoughts suddenly left his mind. You just fit so well against him, he wonders how he never realized. 

-

He was even older than you thought. Not actually, but this man had decided on a date location, and as you were pulling in, the things packed into the backseat started to make sense. 

“Drive In movies?” You shouldn’t be surprised, the guy is practically a fossil, he even texts like he's still got a flip phone.

“Your dad’s never taken you here?” He chuckled, pulling into the line at the front. 

“No,” you laughed, leaning back in your seat as the cars ahead moved up. 

“Good, then we won’t run into him.” 

You reached and grabbed his hand over the center console. He always gave two little squeezes before readjusting his grip, rubbing his thumb on the center of your palm. It was sweet, comforting. 

He rolled down his window and paid the attendant in the booth, just a kid, probably still in high-school… but he certainly had an attitude on him, given the nasty glare he served Joel after making eye-contact with you. Joel had never let go of your hand, the kid knew he wasn’t your dad. 

“What’d you tell him, anyway?” He asked, driving off towards the lot on the opposite side of the land. The big screen was not even rolling the trailers yet. 

“Hm?” 

“Your dad,” he seemed almost shy about mentioning your dad in front of you, in this context. How did you lie to him this time? But he knew what he was doing, what he’d been doing and still plans on doing. 

“Told ‘im I was gonna go shopping with a friend, that I may or may not sleep over.”

He raised an eyebrow and smirked, never taking his eyes off the road. He pulled into a spot in the very back corner, where it was likely to remain empty the entire duration of the movie. 

“Oh did you, now?” 

You turned a light shade of pink at admitting to him you wanted to sleep over… not like it was a new occurrence, but you hadn’t really asked him yet. 

“I didn’t tell him for sure, I know Sarah-”

“Sarah’s with Tommy at a concert in Dallas,” he said, unbuckling his seat belt and turning off the engine. “Text your dad, let him know that friend of yours is keepin’ you till tomorrow.”

He got out of the truck, walking around the front to open your door, holding his hand out to help you down. Ever the gentleman. 

“Thank you, kind sir,” you teased, walking around the backseat door and helping him unload the piles of blankets he’d managed to stuff in. The man practically emptied the top shelf of his linen closet for this. 

“Anything for you, M’lady.” 

He ended up taking almost everything into his arms, letting you carry one pillow and a single blanket towards the back of the truck. Normally it was all dusty and gross, proof of the work it helped him do. You wouldn’t even have noticed, because you don’t often pay attention to the state of other people’s truck beds, but he had cleaned the whole thing out, making it look as if he’d just brought it home from the dealership… minus the odds and ends of dents from his toolbox and timber. 

“What’s playin’?” You nodded up to the screen as he took the pillows and blankets, tossing them across the truck bed to make a cozy little area for the two of you. 

“It’s uh…” he reached into his pocket, checking the nightly double stubs. “Jaws and E.T., it’s a Spielberg double feature.”

You don’t remember telling him that Spielberg was your favorite director, but maybe he was just already at that place where he could read your mind… or maybe it was just a coincidence and he thought that the throwback double feature at the drive in would be fun. Either way, he hit the nail right on the head. 

“Sounds good to me.” 

When everything was settled just the way he wanted, he turned to you, his hand out towards the blankets. “After you, darlin.”

You tried to step up on the tailgate, but your foot slipped for how high it was. 

“Want me to give you a toss?” He joked, but you rolled your eyes at him. You would not be acquiring his help after that joke. 

“I’ll be just fine, thank you.” 

It may have been embarrassing, but like hell you were gonna give into him, his chuckles of amusement under his breath as you slowly and steadily climbed up by yourself. It was much harder to grab onto the dip in the bed when there were so many blankets spread out. Eventually you made it up, collapsing onto your back into the mound of bedding. 

“First try,” you raised a fist in the air, looking back to him to see his amusement had not ended and he was smiling wide where he stood, arms crossed and brows raised when your eyes met. “You comin’?”

And as easily as he could walk, he used the ridge along the underside of the tailgate to climb up over on the side, sitting down next to you and giving you a light hearted side eye. “See how easy that was?” 

“Oh yeah, sure. You must be so proud, you’re a pro at climbing into your own truck.”

He laughed, laying back beside you. “Baby, I think anyone looks like a pro compared to you.”

“Maybe I’m just more athletically inclined, wanted to take the long way,” you chided, sitting up onto your elbows and looking over at him. The trailers had started running, and the light was hitting his features so nicely. He looked so nice. You could argue that he always did. At work when he was a sweaty mess, he looked real good then, too.

“I’m sure that’s it.” 

He settled against the pillows, nodding his head upwards for you to join him. He brought you near with open arms, one that settled under your shoulder and the other that settled on your waist. You’d tucked your head under his chin, feeling him rest his head on top of yours. 

You both had fucked around, sure… but this was a little slice of heaven right here. No amount of sneaking around or giving each other temporary pleasure beat the simplicity of laying next to one another, breathing in each other’s air, and being on a date. A real one. It wasn't a hasty exchange built upon needing to get off, but a choice to spend genuine time together, in which you receive nothing but the pleasure of one's company.

You couldn’t remember the last time you went on a date. Joel was right, hookup culture had become too strong in this day and age. It stands to reason that you haven’t actually slept with anyone in a while. You like being asked out, but guys your age don’t exactly want to give you that satisfaction. Joel asked you out. Sure, he fucked you silly on the stretch of his fingers only a week ago… but he still asked you out.

Jaws ended sooner than you thought it would. Back when you were a kid, and afraid of sharks, it seemed much longer of a movie. There was a lull between it and E.T., assuming the kid working in the projection tower had to change out the film roll himself. It made for a sweet and quiet conversation that sparked up as soon as the credits rolled. 

“You bring a lot of girls here?” 

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, even though it was meant as a teasing question. 

“Nah,” he said anyway, turning a bit more to face you. “Usually, I don’t have to hide from my girlfriend’s dads. Not since highschool, anyway.”

You almost didn’t catch it. His use of the word girlfriend, which subtly implied that’s what you were… but you weren’t one to assume, or at least, not with Joel and the risky business of your relationship. You laced your hand with his between your bodies, looking down at his fingers while you did your best to recover the conversation without acting awkward. 

“The more I think about it, I’m not so sure my dad would be angry.”

Joel wished he had the mindset to think that way. 

“You kiddin’ me? If your dad found out I’d been messin with his only daughter, I’d get his shotgun to my head.” 

A laugh escaped your lips, but you shook your head. 

“You’re not just messin with me, though…” 

At least, you hoped he wasn’t. Of all things that could be said about you and Joel, it was that you had already gotten attached. Already been to a place where you miss seeing him at work every day when you go home. Miss talking to him and learning more about his life, and having him listen about yours. There have been so many people in your life who told you that you talk too much, or that you never shut up. But Joel never has. He listens, and he’s happy to. You’d hate to lose that one day and never get it back.

“No,” he lifted your chin so you’d meet his eyes again. “I’m not just messin with ya.”

You held his stare for a moment, neither of you leaned in. It was just a nice moment, to look at one another, and to appreciate what you saw. A moment to see that hey, Joel has little flecks of gold in the brown of his eyes. A little moment for when you get sad that he isn’t around, that way you can remember how he looks at you when he is around. It’s something mixed with longing and contentment. Two opposites that somehow come together on his features and tell you more than his words could ever say. 

“Good,” you finally replied. “In any case, my dad won’t shoot ya. I think he loves you too much.”

He laughed, the low rumble vibrated through his chest, and you felt it against your joined hands.

“You don’t suppose I could woo him over too, huh?” 

“I don’t think your charm would sway him as easily.”

“Oh I got charm, now?”

“No, not really… nice ass, though,” you giggled, and he playfully shoved your arm back, causing you to fall into a fit of laughter on your back. “Just bein’ honest, mister.”

“I see how it is,” he pulled you back in with a swift move of his arm. “Only want me for my body.”

“What can I say? I’m a modern woman in a modern world.”

“S’all the same to me, whatever gets you to agree to a date with me. Still can’t believe you did…” 

He says it half jokingly. You know he doesn’t see himself as desirable. Even though he’s in the prime of his life and is quite literally one of the finest men this town has to offer, he looks at the obstacles. He works too often, has a teenage daughter, he doesn’t look the way he used to, some people find him incredibly boring… but only the worst people. 

“Joel, I'm lucky to be on a date with you.” 

“Yeah, sure… s’not like you ain’t got a hundred guys your age lining up behind me to-”

You kissed him. He was not going to be permitted to speak if he was not going to say nice things about himself, a new rule you were establishing. He didn’t seem to care much for the rest of his sentence after you pulled away, the words slipping from his mind the second your lips touched his. 

“I like you,” you told him, making your intentions very clear to him. You weren’t just messing around, either. “You treat me better than all those shitheads, anyway.”

-

You’d been passing in and out of consciousness on the drive home. You’d been up since the crack of dawn this morning, the neighbor’s dog barking incessantly. You’re sure Joel heard it too, unless of course he’d been laying on his good ear, the bad one would have canceled out all the noise. 

The streetlights go by in waves over your eyes, lids closed lightly after each time they flutter. You were curled so sweetly into the passenger seat of Joel’s truck, finding such comfort in the place. You’d have thought it was where you spent most of your time. His hand was on the edge of your knee the whole drive, rubbing small circles over the area. 

By the time you both had gotten home, you had to scan the yard for signs that your dad may be in the near vicinity. He was usually never home on a Friday night, unless there was a Rangers game or if he had company. It made sense that his car was gone when you both pulled up. 

“You text him, yet?” 

You shook your head, pulling your phone out of your back pocket and completing the task meant for three hours ago. 

“It’s only ten, he might be at the bar, still.”

You didn’t over explain anything in your message, no need to make him question your thoroughness. Just something simple and quick. 

Staying over at Amy’s, I’ll be back before lunch. Drive safe.

But then you immediately deleted the last part. Because how would you know he’s still out? 

Joel had cut the engine, getting out and walking around to meet you at your door, except you’d already opened it and stepped out yourself.

He gave you an unserious look that feigned offense. 

“Hey now,” he settled his hands on his hips, the sass evident in his voice. “We’re still on a date, miss. I’m supposed to get the door.” 

You knew he wasn’t really upset, but you found it funny pretending as if he was.

“Modern woman in a modern world, remember?” 

“Yeah,” he waved you off, shutting your door and taking your hand as you both walked up to the front door. “What all does that entail, anyhow? Bein’ a modern woman?”

You smiled, watching him take his damn time with the keys. He knew exactly what he was doing.

“Well, since achieving the vote, we’ve made quite a bit of ground. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re allowed to work with you guys, now.”

“Ah… how did I miss that?” 

“Weren’t looking hard enough. We also get to wear pants now, so I can see why you’re confused.” 

And once the door was open, he lazily slung an arm around you to let you inside. Ladies first and all that. He didn’t actually respond to your last comment until you were both in the entry hall, door closed. 

“Shame, I kinda like you without pants,” he hovered in close, partially teasing but otherwise just to get his body nearer to yours. The heat between you blossomed, and it could easily be sensed on both sides since leaving the truck. 

“Mister Joel Miller, don't you know the best part of a modern woman?” 

He raised his eyebrows, his head shaking once and eyes rolling over. Just say it already.

“We can ask any man we want to take our pants off.”

There was barely a second between your words and the speed of his lips meeting yours. It was different from the kisses at the drive in, now it was harsh and hungry. A stark contrast to the softness and the serenity. This was clouded by lust, by the human need to devour.

Joel was not gentle by nature. He was often brutish in his work and day to day. There were few people who genuinely saw him gentle. Sarah, Tommy, your dad, and you, his other side neighbors, and Carol, the lady who takes Sarah to school when he can’t. Maybe not in that exact order, but that was the list nonetheless.

You’d always seen him gentle, so the moment he backs you into the door, your back slamming on the painted wood, something stirs. You liked Joel how you knew him… but maybe there was other unexplored territory to delve into. 

“Joel,” you whined out on the end of a breath. His name falling from your mouth was always how he preferred to hear it, but under this context had to be his favorite.

“Baby,” he trailed his kisses to your cheek, then jaw, then neck, resting in the crook of your shoulder and seemingly finding a home there. Your hands dove through his hair, tugging ever so gently and feeling the vibrations on your skin as a repercussion. His hands never found a resting place, running up and down your sides, every few seconds reaching down for a feel of your ass. He seemed to like yours, too. 

When the arousal became too much, you tried your luck at rolling against him. The sound he made alone would have been enough for you to know how badly he wanted you, but the feel of him through his jeans was a physical show of it. He gets hard so fast for you. 

“Babygirl,” he breathed, pulling back but not away, his face still inches from your own. You could clearly see his blown pupils and focused expression. “Get upstairs.”

Though you wanted to tease him, wanted to quip back a quiet ‘or what?’, you needed him just as much, and you weren’t going to be told twice. 

He watched you from behind, taking the stairs two at a time until you reached the top. You nearly tripped over the last stair, but before you could go toppling over, his arm around your waist stopped you dead in your place. 

“So damn clumsy,” he shook his head, the edge of a smirk forming. He tapped your hip with his free hand, getting you to move forward again until you got to his door. “Can’t get in a truck, can’t climb stairs…”

Now that he’d teased you first, you felt you had a small bit of free reign to mess with him. He was still gonna have you, but why make things so boring? You stared at the handle, gripping it, but making no move to twist it and open the door. 

“Doorknob too much for you, too?”

You narrowed your eyes over your shoulder, where he was lingering closely. You could feel him pressed against your backside, the arousal evident in every breath he took, but he was still having fun with his little pokes of annoyance at you.

“I think I remember a rule about your room being off limits…” You trailed, cheekily smiling at him before he reached around you and opened the door himself. He held out his hand with a cocky raised brow, and waited for you to step in. 

“Ladies don’t always have to go first, y’know. S’all part of-”

“Bein’ a modern woman, I know.”

But still you went in first, taking a few steps backward until your knees hit the edge of the bed and caused you to sit. You tilted your head at him, still leaning in the doorway, his hand on the frame above his head and his other hand still steadily on his hip. What’s he waiting for?” 

“I ain’t gonna wait all night, cowboy…” 

He chuckled, shaking his head and slowly coming forward. For someone so eager, he was taking his sweet time. 

“You’re cute,” he gently pushed you back into the mattress, crawling one arm at a time over your form. “But something tells me that you would wait all night.”

He leaned down and met your lips with his, feeling your hands climb from the bed, to his shoulders, then to the sides of his face. He loved the feeling of your hands on him. Loved the way that with each pass of your skin against his, you began to learn the feeling of him as well. With one hand still supporting himself, his other raked down your side, then up over your middle, hugging the curves of your stomach, the stretch of your ribcage, and the gentle peaks of your breasts. He stopped there, paying mindful attention according to every sound you made, every groan of approval, or whimper of satisfaction. It was all he could hear, and became his instruction on how to touch you. 

You wrapped your legs around his hips, pulling him closer between them, trying to spur on the friction that would give you relief. Joel knew the signs of your arousal clearly by now, but there was still ground for him to cover. 

“Gettin’ so needy already, baby.”

His murmur against your mouth was interrupted. You whined at the loss of his lips, but were quieted in a moment when his hands trails downwards. He knelt one knee between your legs, the other still on the ground. He lifted behind your knees and gave a quick shove to drive you further up his mattress. His next move was to go for your shorts, given the fact they’d been causing him to mentally strain himself all evening. 

“Gotta get these damn things off,” he said.

They went flying to the floor, and then he had to stop a minute. With your knees raised, either side of his hips, he had the most ethereal view of your soaked underwear, a dark and increasingly wet stain against the soft blue cotton. When you noticed how long he’d stopped to enjoy the scenery, you grabbed his hand on your knee. 

“Joel, please-”

“I know, babygirl.”

And he didn’t make you beg for it. Not like the silly college boys would, and have in the past. He sunk down on the ground by his bed, leaning over on his elbows, hooking them under your legs again before pulling himself inward. He kissed over the wet fabric, hooking his fingers underneath it at your sides and slowly sliding them off. 

Your hands found his hair and your mouth parted in a shaking breath. The slow contact he made was like sweet torture. Your skin arose goosebumps under his touch, agonizingly slow and increasingly annoying, given your absolute need for him. 

“Need you… Joel I can’t- fuck.”

He kept it slow, but he licked upward, meeting your clit in devastating motions. You needed more, and as if he read your mind, his first finger was brought down and inserted to your seeping entrance. Your cries of approval met her ears like a happy melody, pushing him to go faster. 

You’d already been pushing the edge, just from him touching you… but now that the contact was area specific, you weren’t sure if you could take much more. The hard feeling of him pressed against your earlier had seeded a thought that you would not be satisfied until he was inside you, heavy and full. 

“Want more,” you tried to tell him, but he would not allow his feasting to be cut short. He’d made up his mind about the first time he would actually have sex with you. It wasn’t going to be rushed.

He shook his head, the sensation from the motion even more impacting. You took one hand away from his hair, fisting his sheets as tightly as you could. 

“Gotta work you a little,” he pulled back to say, adding another finger to the mix, feeling you tightly around him. He climbed back up your body, hand never leaving its place between your legs. “Relax for me, yeah?”

You did your best, taking a breath and keeping your eyes trained on his, but they soon fell to his mouth, lips licked clean and the very corners covered with you. It somehow flipped a switch in you that you weren’t sure was good or not. Joel was the first man to go down on you. Joel was the first man to kiss you without immediately putting his tongue in your mouth. Joel was the first man to be so invested in your relationship, that he asked you out on a date… after you messed around. It stands to reason that Joel may be the first man you genuinely fall in love with. Not puppy love like in high school. Not conditional love based on what he can get out of it. Actual love. 

You dawn on this realization quickly, still in the moment and feeling his every move, every grip of his hand or every curl of his fingers. It’s all so instant, and in your present state of mind. Like, every time he moves an inch, it somehow contributes to your relative thought. 

“Joel?” you look up at him with glassed over eyes. 

He pauses his movements below on account of how sincere you sound. 

“Yeah?”

It’s not I love you… not yet. It’s I know you, it’s going to be you.

You reach down between your bodies, his fingers still sheathed in yours, and palm him generously. Without losing eye contact, you undo his jeans, doing your best with one hand to maneuver the waistband of his boxers and pull him from his confinement. You aren’t looking yet… but you know from the feel of his sheer size alone, you’re in for the pain of your life. It bothered you last time, the thought that he may break you on his girth, that you may feel differently or resent him from how he feels… except you don’t feel that way anymore. Because of your aforementioned realization, you now feel that though this may hurt, it would not change your desire for him. He’s not a boy who’s hurting you to get off. He cares about you. 

Not just messin’ around…

“You’ve made me wait long enough,” you told him, the awestruck glaze in your eyes slowly fading as your smirk crawled over your face. You grabbed the hem of his shirt, allowing him to help you get it off. Seeing more of his skin, and feeling it against you when he settled back down was elating. It felt like the doorway to something, the hallway leading to reward. 

“Baby, you’re still tight, I don’t wan-”

“I’ll be okay, I promise.”

He sighed, trying to look anywhere but your eyes because dammit they were convincing. 

“I hurt you, you tell me. Promise that,” he looked at you sternly, and you can’t say you’ve ever seen him so serious like this alone with you. He almost seemed, for lack of a better word, scared. Like you were a flower petal he was afraid to touch for the fear it would fall from the blossom. 

“Promise.”

He nodded, smiling weakly, still unsure but willing to let you lead him blindly. 

He picked you up and put you down on the proper region of the bed, your head meeting the pillows behind you. You giggled at his rapid motions to strip you of your shirt and bra next, his pent up anticipation now getting the better of him. He’d kicked off the last of his remaining clothing, looking back to you, sprawled out on his bed, waiting patiently for him. 

“If we’re gonna do this, we’re doin’ it right,” he joked, crawling back over you. 

He nuzzled his nose against yours, then leaned down to collect a kiss. The kiss met your lips but then parted and moved to your neck, then shoulders, licking the sweet spot in the crook between them. He traveled down your chest, his kisses never stopping, although his hands paid special attention to each peak of raised flesh. 

Your noises fell on grateful ears, the appreciation for them showing in every eager kiss, every soft grope of your skin. When he reached your lower region, he kissed both thighs apart, lifting one at a time and making sure they were set aside his hips comfortably. Once done, he kissed his way back up. Tentative, and slow. Joel is often strong and silent, and in this instance, it showed immensely. The way he can easily move parts of you around without hassle, and do so without uttering a word. It was dangerously addicting, how he already knew your body so intimately after only a few experiences. 

Once his lips again found yours it lasted, and lasted. The feeling of him right against you was breathtaking. No barriers, no clothing, no promises of ‘another time’ between you.

“You let me know, alright?” 

You nodded, his voice had become gentler from his first worrisome words minutes ago. 

He kept his eyes on you, trying to gauge your reaction moment by moment. You wrapped an arm over his shoulder, holding the hairs at the back of his neck to ground yourself. He lined himself up to you and ever so slowly began to push in, holding himself after the first sharp intake of breath through your nose. 

“M’okay,” you said assuringly, the sensation dulling slightly when you focused solely on him and not his actions. 

He went further, and deeper, slower than sludge but making sure you could feel every inch comfortably before moving again. You twirled his hair between your fingers, the other hand digging nails into his side. His face, eyes still focused on your expression, was becoming the product of bliss. This entire exchange, the build up, the stretching pain, and the way your lungs couldn’t seem to exhale, was all worth it… just to see this look on his face. The way he was having to fight himself to stay in the moment and not get lost in the euphoria, it was the most beautiful you’d ever seen him. When he was dazed and confused just by feeling you around him. 

“You gotta breathe, baby,” he let out, trying to keep your comfort in the forefront of his mind. He took a deep inhale of his own, and when he felt you following his steady pattern he was able to relax a little more, just like you did. “Atta girl, just like that… keep doin’ that.”

He started to move, a single thrust once he could be sure that there wasn’t any stiff pain. The only sting left over was fading, the slow and measured pace he set was becoming like a lifeline. Comparable to a heartbeat. In and out, in and out, the feeling becomes more pleasurable and addictive. You need a heartbeat to live, and in this moment, you need Joel to live, his easy and gentle pace. 

“S’good,” you murmured, your eyes fluttering closed and his head dropping to your neck again. “Feels so deep.”

Joel bit down on your skin, tethering himself. The praise was something he wasn’t quite used to. He’s self deprecating to a fault, but hearing the opposite from your lips, which he adores, makes him feel stronger somehow. Keeping a tether is all he can do to keep from rutting against you. He wants so badly for you to be different, to not end up just a one night stand or a friend with benefits. He wants you to feel how much he cares about you, wants to take care of you. 

“Doin’ so good, baby,” he whispered, your neck absorbing most of the sound. “Taking me, so tight.”

Your muscles started contracting the moment he sped up his rhythm, only one thrust that was different from the rest. It hit you so fast, the coil in your stomach, building up and aching for relief. 

“Joel… shit,” You could barely even get your words out, interrupted by a whimper of white hot euphoria. “I’m gonna…”

“I know,” he growled, his desire to rut into you slowly fading as he increased his pace to meet that carnal need. “I feel you, baby. Give it to me.”

It built only a little more, but then you couldn’t take it. It was too much, too full. The tightness in your stomach burst, letting go of every tense muscle in your body. It was so intense you practically screamed for him, his name a repetitive mantra on your tongue. Joel. Your hips jolted and writhed around, the feeling increasing with every hit against your cervix. Joel. Your walls tightened even more around him, the sting only slightly returning but in a way that made you crave it. Joel. He came right after you, unable to even try pulling out, just for how tightly you held him in. Joel…

He dropped half his weight, pulling away from your neck to kiss your lips. He needed to. It didn’t feel right to stay hidden in your neck when he had such gratification for you right now. The way you made him feel was no simple thing, and he felt you needed to be thanked for that. If a kiss was all he could give you in the moment, then so be it.

Joel…

“I’m sorry,” he let out, leaving his forehead against yours. 

“For what?” 

“I came in you… I didn’t ask,” he furrowed his brows, hoping you wouldn’t begrudge him too badly. He’d say he got lucky when you pulled him back down for another kiss. 

“It’s okay… wanted you to,” you were still coming down from your high, possibly the most intense feeling you’ve ever experienced. He smiled and kissed you again, and again. He shifted the way you both laid, on his side, and brought you close to his chest. 

When your breathing went back to normal, you spoke again. 

“I was scared, y’know.”

He looked closely at you, unsure of what you meant and why. 

“I thought you might hurt me. I didn’t care if you did, but I still thought you might,” you told him, running your fingers in circles over his skin. Though you seemed in bliss, perfectly happy, he couldn’t help but be frightened that maybe you weren’t telling him.

“Did I? Hurt you?” 

“No.” you shook your head, holding a smile and making sure he saw it was genuine. “You didn’t hurt me, it was good. Really good. No other guy has ever…” 

He again was confused by the trail of your voice… no guy has ever…? Oh, shit.

“No other guy’s made you come before?” 

The embarrassed blush on your cheeks told him all he needed to know. You weren’t sure why it was so awkward to let him find that out, but you suddenly felt like you were more of a child, having not experienced things that he has for years before. 

“No one before you… and you’ve already got four on the board,” you laughed, trying to make it feel like it wasn’t as big a deal. Like it was funny. 

He narrowed his eyes, raising his head up to look at you closer. 

“Ranger’s night, last week, tonight… that’s three,” he corrected, counting out on three fingers and holding them up. 

“You technically weren’t there the other time,” you smirked, giggling once he looked at you with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. 

“Should’ve called me,” he kissed the tip of your nose, your smile still prominent and growing. “I love hearing you.” 

Over his shoulder you heard his phone buzzing, once, twice, then three times. He huffed, hoping it wasn’t from someone at the work site that wasn’t able to lock up the property after reviewing. 

“Hold on,” he rolled his eyes, turning just far enough to reach his jeans on the ground, pulling his phone from the pocket. He squinted against the harsh light, swiping through the message notifications that appeared when he unlocked the screen. He laughed, turning to you. “S’ your dad.”

“It’s late, I would have thought he was either drunk or asleep by now.”

“Apparently neither,” he slid his phone back on the nightstand, regaining you in his arms. “Wants to know if I’m still awake for a drink.”

You laughed, “Oh, really?” 

“Yeah. Not sure if you’ve heard but, you’re actually at a friend’s house till tomorrow.” 

“How fun for me… so that means a guy’s night for you and my dad?” You played along with him, the sweet tone in your voice turning teasing.

“It would… too bad I’m already asleep.” He reasoned, which is probably what he would repeat to your dad tomorrow if asked. 

“Damn, you old men go to bed early.”

“Hey now… let’s not go crazy.”

-

tags: @justanothersadperson93@moonchild-warrior@hopplessilse @brittmd115 @michilandcof@untamedheart81@just-someone-broken@joelalorian@xybil @yvonneeeee @anoverwhelmingdin@theatrelove3000

[blackhairedjjun]

rebound and restoration

pairing: choi yeonjun x fem reader | genre / tropes: angst -> fluff, friends to lovers, post-breakup, non-idol au; ft. soobin + mentions of the rest of txt; reader is yeonjun's age (soobin calls reader "noona") | word count: 5.4k | warnings: post-breakup heartbreak, profanity, food, kissing

additional note: fic is mostly written but contains a few texts

summary: with his heart still aching after just getting dumped, yeonjun turns to you, one of his closest friends, for comfort. that is, until he kisses you - and your friendship starts to change.

author's notes: honestly i feel like if i don't post this soon i'll be dissatisfied with it forever and edit it endlessly and it'll never get past my drafts LOL perfect is the enemy of done!! anyway i wrote this while i was feeling stressed and insane during the holidays and wanted... an angsty kiss for whatever reason. lmao yeah

(support by reblogging banner by @cafekitsune)

when yeonjun arrives at your apartment, it’s still early in the evening; the two bowls of pho you ordered for takeout are still hot, and you’ve left your laptop open at a selection of cheesy netflix rom-coms. perhaps the selection is a bit ironic, but you mused that the feel-good escapism is just what he needs.

he pulls you into a hug and you give him an extra squeeze and a few pats on the back. you can’t help but ruffle his hair a little as he pulls away. 

“hey, jjun...”

“y/n!”

“how are you feeling?”

“ah, a bit better, i think.”

he gives you a slight smile, and you’re too relieved to notice that it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. it’s a miracle to you that he’s even smiling again two weeks after his breakup. you still remember the cracks in his voice when he called you after it had happened, the rims of his eyes red with crying when he finally crashed at your place half an hour later. that night you held him tight as he told the story to you in between sobs: hana had broken up with him over a call that lasted less than a minute. she was bored and tired of him and just stopped caring, she said, if he were a toy she could throw away if she didn’t want to play with it anymore.

you swallowed back the anger in your throat back then, though you couldn’t help the tears of your own that fell. now you push the anger back down again as you lead yeonjun to the small table at your kitchenette, one of the bowls of pho steaming in front of him. now is not the time for indignation; your friend needed comfort, and it’s comfort you will give.

yeonjun’s eyes light up at the sight of the pho. your heart swells, and you don’t hold it against him when he sits down ahead of you and picks up his chopsticks, ready to dig in. in between slurps he grins like he’s just received the best present of his life. “this is so good!” he said in between mouthfuls of noodles. “it’s been way too long since i had this.”

“i know! feels like we haven’t had this in ages.”

“remember when we tried to make our own?”

“oh god, not that!” you laugh, dropping your chopsticks. “we got impatient and that broth tasted like nothing.”

“your kitchen smelled like ginger though,” yeonjun recalls with a giggle. “it was nice visiting for a while.”

“my kitchen smelled like ginger more than the actual broth, jjun.”

“maybe we can try again one of these days? and if we mess up, at least you’ll have a nice-smelling kitchen again.”

all you can do in response is laugh, and for a moment you forget that you stopped having pho nights together when hana entered his life.

he fills you in on video game night with soobin and kai, shopping with beomgyu, and his so-called revenge gym day with taehyun; he beams with pride while describing his new weight record just as much as he does when talking about managing a hard-earned victory over soobin at tekken. you laugh along with him, knowing that his friends blocked out their schedules just to comfort him for a day. and when you talk about your new project at work and the new books you bought yourself as a treat, his eyes fill with that indescribable look you’ve seen before. you can’t quite place what it is, but it reminds you of afternoon light, of summer days, of lingering hugs after a long day together.

you don’t need to ask for yeonjun to help you clear out the table and pick up the snacks you set aside for your movie, and you make no effort to resist. there are no words exchanged: he simply places all the disposable pho bowls and chopsticks together, and you reach for a clean garbage bag and put them all in. the only communication between you is a shared look and a nod.

perhaps it’s just your imagination, but that look lingers a little longer than you’re used to, and you can’t help but give him a satisfied smile.

you’ve seen him look at hana that way, too many times to count, especially during that early-dating phase when the thrill of emotions was still high. you wondered what it was like to be on the receiving end of that gaze, for yeonjun to look at you as if you were the most precious thing in the world. and you wondered if hana really was that precious 一 if she were just as precious to him as you, his best friend, if not more so.

you let yeonjun select the movie. at first you doubt your idea to present him with rom-coms, of all things, but you let out a sigh of relief when he happily chooses one of them. both of you have seen this one many times over, but you don’t mind. there’s comfort in knowing that a happy ending is guaranteed to happen.

the two of you are slouched on your couch together, the laptop balanced on a pillow between the both of you. yeonjun sits close to you, an arm around your shoulder, a gesture that he hasn’t done with you since he started dating. you let yourself lean against him (so that you can see the screen better, you tell yourself). the two of you start a running commentary on the movie 一 “why would he say that?!” “aww, they look so cute together,” “oh god, that was so stupid!” 一 and both of your laughter fills the apartment, the sound like a duet in harmony.

it’s so easy this way, you think 一 just you and your best friend in your own little corner of the world. you steal a glance at yeonjun while he’s absorbed in the final confession scene, a soft smile on his lips and his eyes gleaming with anticipation for the big kiss. a string of memories flash before you before you can help yourself.

“she said yes,” he says, his whole face flush with excitement. “she said she’ll be mine.”

his hands are on your shoulders and he gives them a gentle squeeze. “there’s no way hana can’t like you. you’re one of my best friends, i’ll make sure you get along.”

“i think hana’s mad at me,” he tells you as he fiddles with the beanie in his hands. “but don’t worry about it, we’ll talk it out, i promise.”

his head is in his hands as you sit across him from a restaurant booth. “i don’t know what i did wrong, she looked so bored through the whole date...”

you hold him close as he sobs in your arms, his whole body shaking. “sh-she said she’s... tired of me…”

“y/n?”

you snap back to reality as yeonjun glances at you, his head tilted. the ending credits of the movie have started to play. “are you okay?”

“i-i’m fine.” you reach out to touch his cheek, then hesitate. “are you okay?”

“i’m fine, y/n.” he picks up on the meaning of your words. “i know i looked really bad that night, but i’m getting better, i promise.”

“good.” your eyes meet his, and your cheeks grow warm. “we can have nights like this as many times as you want until you feel better, okay?”

“yeah, i know. i missed having nights like this, actually.”

“me too. i really liked it when we did this all the time...”

“i know. i’m sorry. hana didn’t like一”

“hey.” your hand comes up again and this time, you gently hold on to his cheek. “it doesn’t matter what she thinks anymore.”

“y/n... i’m really sorry. i feel like i neglected you, and you’ve been my friend for so long...”

tears form in his eyes, and you feel them warm against his cheek. you wipe them away with your thumb as you move closer to him. he continues to ramble as you do.

“i feel like an idiot. like a total dumbass.” the pitch of his voice begins to rise. “god, i was so convinced that hana and i were the perfect couple, that we’d be happy. i-i thought about her more than she d-did about me, y/n, and i stopped hanging out with you一 when you’ve always一”

“jjun, please don’t apologize anymore,” you say, your voice trembling. “i’ve never been mad at you over her, not even once. i just want you to feel better, okay? i... i just want to see you be yourself again.”

you want to see the yeonjun you’ve always loved.

you’ve lain awake at night wondering if he’s ever sensed your feelings for him, and if he’s ever felt the same way. on the day he told you that he and hana were officially together, you spent that night sobbing in your bed, convinced that your friend would never see you as a lover. and yet you said nothing of that night, and of other nights similar to it, because you told yourself that if hana made him happy, then you would be happy too.

and now you want more than anything to see him happy again.

yeonjun says nothing, but instead places a hand on top of the one you have resting on his cheek. you feel it trembling, but you don’t resist as he grasps your hand to intertwine his fingers with yours. he swallows hard to push back the rest of his tears, and his eyes soften. once again there’s that indescribable look of his that makes you feel light.

“y/n...”

he says your name softly, as if in reverence. his face inches closer to yours and you don’t pull away; instead you feel lighter than ever, your gaze falling to his lips as your eyes flutter shut. everything that follows feels slow, gentle; his nose brushing against yours, then your lips on his.

he kisses you slowly at first, but as you kiss him back you fill with a new fervor, wrapping your arms around his neck and letting him wrap his arms around your waist to pull your body flush against his. warmth blooms in your chest, and every movement of yours betrays your feeling: your lips moving against his, your hands making their way into his hair. you want to kiss him until the pain he feels has been replaced by the love you have for him 一 i love you, i love you, i love you.

you’re completely absorbed in him and let out a soft sigh when yeonjun snaps out of it 一 he breaks apart from you, breathing hard, eyes wide as he’s hit by what he’s just done.

“shit, y/n一” he gets off the couch, one hand running through his hair over and over again. “i’m so sorry. fuck, i shouldn’t have done that一”

you’re snapped out of your trance as you stand up to chase after him. “jjun, hey, wait! listen to me—”

he’s picking up his bag from the foot of your couch. he can’t even look at you, instead occasionally letting out a shit or two under his breath.

“yeonjun, please一”

you stand in front of him to block his way from the exit. at first his head is bowed, avoiding your gaze, but when he finally looks up his expression is solemn.

“you are not a rebound to me,” he says at last. “please don’t ever think that i just used you to make me feel better.”

“i never accused you of that! look, i’m sorry too, it was my fa一”

“i’m really sorry, but i can’t stay here anymore. i’ll make it up to you, y/n, i promise.”

“wait一”

yeonjun walks past you and before you can protest any further, he’s out your door. you push it open and try to chase after him, but after a few steps you stop, thinking better of it. what would stopping him even do?

you walk back inside and slump back down on the couch. the screen of your laptop faintly glows, and a half-eaten bag of chips has fallen to the floor. all at once the reality of what happens sinks into you: the kiss, his words, his departure.

you are not a rebound to me. the words echo in your mind.

a strange tension fills you, and you can’t even tell what emotion it’s supposed to be from: confusion, frustration, anxiety. with your whole body seemingly on edge, you grab a throw pillow from the opposite side of your couch and press it into your face.

you sob into it the tension crashes down on you in full force.

一

for the next few nights the scene replays in your dreams: yeonjun leaning in ever closer towards you, your lips meeting his in a fervent kiss 一 each night’s dream-kiss more fervent than the last 一 and him suddenly pulling away. you awaken each time just as he breaks the kiss, the shock and confusion coursing through you again, and immediately after you reach for your bedside table to check your phone.

still no text from yeonjun.

you consider texting him again, but each time you type a new message you erase it, the blinking cursor driving you mad. how would you even know what to say? do you want to apologize? to beg for his forgiveness? to ask if you can still be friends?

you hate to admit it, but every morning you lie in bed for a few moments more to allow the dream to sink in. the look on yeonjun’s face appears vivid to you, from his eyes blown wide to his mouth slightly agape. your mind travels back to the moment he breaks the kiss, as if a sudden force pushed him away, the shock of it hitting you. then it wanders to the kiss itself, the feeling of his lips soft against your own, his arms warm as they hold you by the waist…

you shake the memory away, drag yourself out of bed, and continue on with your routine: breakfast, shower, get dressed. you resist the urge to check your phone for as long as you can. you stare at the little contact photo you set of yeonjun and remind yourself: you’re his friend. you need to help him heal. 

you recount your worries to soobin over snacks one day.

“i feel like i’m being selfish,” you say in between munches of potato chips. “he hasn’t even moved on from hana”— soobin winces at the acridity you mutter her name with—“and now one of his closest friends kisses him like she’s madly in love. how is he supposed to move on? he’s hurting enough as it is.”

soobin sets aside the bag of chips you just finished. he rubs his face with his hands as he tries to choose his words carefully.

“you’re not being selfish, noona. you sound like you’re trying to be careful so that you don’t hurt him,” he says at last. “and yeonjun hyung feels just as bad about it. he feels bad that he even started the kiss, and for making you feel like a rebound. you two sound like each other, to be honest.”

“i know he feels bad, it’s just 一 i don’t know how that will fix...” you wave your hands wildly in the air, “this.”

“you can start by talking to each other?”

“he didn’t reply to my last texts. and i… i don’t know if i should text him again.”

a moment of silence. soobin opens a pack of candy and chews on it, just to give himself time to think. he fiddles with his phone as he does, absentmindedly scrolling through his old texts, when one of them catches his eye.

“so, there’s this new restaurant that beomgyu wants to check out.”

“really, soobin, what does this have to—”

“he was thinking of inviting all of us there to hang out,” he continues. “including you and yeonjun hyung. we can plan for it a week or two from now so that you have space? and then you can get used to talking to him again there. if things get awkward, i can ask beomgyu to fill in.”

you purse your lips. “i dunno, i might cry if i see his face again.”

“if you don’t feel like it, just call in sick.” soobin’s mouth twitches into a small grin as he says it — you know he’s used that excuse to get away from social situations he doesn’t want to be in. now you’re starting to see the appeal of it.

“okay. i’ll think about it.”

—

ultimately you do decide to go, and two weeks later you’re the first to arrive at the restaurant. you can feel your hands trembling as you push the door open and your heart hammering in your chest. in your head you’ve prepared what you want to say to yeonjun and you mentally rehearse your words for the hundredth time.

you slide right into the booth and take a deep breath. you check your phone to keep yourself busy, letting yourself calm down until your hands have stopped shaking. as you’re scrolling through your camera roll looking at some memes beomgyu sent you, someone slides into the booth seat opposite yours.

“hey, y/n.”

yeonjun gives you a shy smile and the nervousness in your stomach kicks into overdrive. he looks much better now; the bags under his eyes have lessened, and his smile seems genuine. still, you can’t help but remember the last time you saw him, and you shudder.

he sees your reaction and winces, averting his gaze. when he speaks, his voice is soft. “y/n... are we okay?”

the question breaks you and whatever words you have prepared fly out of your mind. as you try to grasp at them again, tears prick at your eyes.. “yeah... yeah, we’re okay,” you say. you take a gulp of water to hold back the tears. “i was never mad at you, jjun, i’ve been worried out of my mind一”

“i’m sorry i never replied to your texts.” he places his hands atop your trembling ones. “i just felt so ashamed that i didn’t know how to face you.”

“and i’m sorry i never tried texting you again, i just didn’t know what you thought of me, and i was so scared that i lost you...”

“i was so scared that i lost you.”

you sniffle. “that makes both of us then. god, we were so stupid.”

“i missed you, y/n.”

“i missed you too, jjun.”

you let out a laugh of relief and he laughs too. with the sound of his laughter melding with yours, everything else seems to melt away: the tears in your eyes, the other noises of the restaurant, the baggage of the last two weeks. sitting before you is your old friend, holding onto your hand to comfort you, laughing together with you just like you always have. 

and just as always, you want nothing more than for your friend to be happy.

“so,” you begin, giving him the most reassuring smile that you can muster, “let’s start over?”

yeonjun glances down at the table, but you can see his eyes crinkling as they usually do when he smiles. “yeah, let’s do that.”

when beomgyu enters the restaurant right afterwards, all it takes is one glance at the scene before him to understand what happened. he turns his head towards you, meeting your gaze, and you give him a nod.

it’s going to be okay.

一

the kiss becomes an unspoken part of your history together, never mentioned and never acknowledged. you stop searching for hidden meanings to it, and instead settle on the explanation that it was simply a spur-of-the-moment reaction from pent-up post-breakup emotions. it doesn’t matter to you whether or not this explanation is true; it’s the explanation that gives you the most peace of mind, and that’s what matters. as the days pass, you think of it less and less, and eventually it is filed away in your memory, like a book never checked out of the library collecting dust. 

in the meantime, you pour your energy into rebuilding both your friendship with yeonjun as well as his fragile heart. the first few hangouts with just the two of you are awkward with a tinge of melancholy, with conversations feeling a little too short. fortunately, your shared friends are there to help: you and yeonjun are invited to video game nights at soobin’s, or a cute new cafe that kai wants to check out, or just a walk around the park. the silences feel less awkward when it’s quickly filled by a joke from beomgyu or witty remark from taehyun.

from time to time you see the shine in yeonjun’s eyes disappear, even for just a moment, when he encounters something that reminds him of “the ‘h’ word” (as beomgyu refers to her): a park bench where they had a date, or a dress on a passerby that looks a lot like something she would wear. sometimes one of his friends would recognize it and quickly divert his attention elsewhere. soon those diversions occur less and less often as fewer and fewer things remind yeonjun of her.

but things don’t truly feel normal to you until a month and a half later. your project at work has gone well, and yeonjun has completed the first draft of a mixtape he’s making. just as you muse to yourself that a reward would be nice, your phone buzzes.

that afternoon you and yeonjun stroll down the shopping district a few minutes away from his house, trying on this and that. it isn’t long before you find yourself spending over your budget; it’s hard not to when yeonjun is constantly egging you to buy something you really want. “c’mon, y/n,” he whines as you put back another cute button-down on the rack. “you deserve it! you can wear it to work for the next phase of your project!”

he giggles when he sees your eyes light up at his words. “we do have another presentation for it,” you muse.

still, you draw the line when you spot an elegant tan jacket worn by one of the storefront mannequins. you stare at it longingly as if you’ve found your soulmate, and yeonjun sweet-talks you into entering the shop and trying it on. but when you see the hefty price tag on it, you sigh.

“i can’t justify this, jjun…”

“but you look great in it! and you want it so much. you’ll feel worse if you don’t get it.”

“maybe…” you glance down at the shopping bags in your hand. “i dunno, i’ve spent so much already.”

you sigh in defeat and turn back to the store exit before you can second-guess yourself. yeonjun doesn’t follow immediately, but instead watches you go as he lingers a bit longer.

later that day, the two of you sort through all the things you bought (mostly clothes and accessories, but also a vinyl for yeonjun and a novel for yourself) in between giggles and wide eyes and a shower of compliments. yeonjun puts on a completely new outfit for you and struts down his apartment like a runway model, and he pulls you up from the floor to do the same. soon you’re laughing and clapping at each other’s performances, and yeonjun even whips out his phone to take photos of each other’s best looks.

as you rummage through your haul for one more outfit to assemble, your eyes land on a familiar spot of tan fabric. your mouth falls open when you pull it out and see that jacket — the one you’re pretty sure you didn’t buy. you glance up at yeonjun and he licks his lips before forming a mischievous grin.

“jjun, is this...”

“it’s yours.”

“you didn’t have to一”

“i saw the way you were looking at it, y/n. i just had to get it for you. c’mon, put it on.”

hesitantly, you take off the jacket you’re already wearing and put on the new one. it fits perfectly, just a little loose to let air flow in, and you love how it frames your figure. yeonjun is still smiling at you, but it’s a different smile. he looks at you as if you’ve transformed in front of him.

“you look really pretty,” he says. “let me take a few pics, okay?”

he snaps a few photos of you and you pose for the camera, and a comforting warmth settles over you. if this happened a few months earlier, you would have blushed and your heart would be doing somersaults, but now all you feel is a light flutter. everything feels fit in, like the final piece of a puzzle slotting into place.

you lock eyes with yeonjun as he takes the last photo and puts his phone away. as you whisper “thank you” to him, the gleam in his eyes is reflected in your own. there it is, that indecipherable look of his that makes you feel warm.

you still love him 一 there’s a part of you that still knows that. but over the last month and a half you’ve simply learned to live with your feelings, letting them fill you with lightness for a few moments and then letting them go. feelings or not, you’re just glad to have yeonjun in your life again. even as a friend, his presence is a soothing balm against the stresses of life.

一

months later, yeonjun is sprawled on your couch again, his head on your shoulder as you scroll through your list of rom-coms on your laptop. at one point the two of you resumed your pho and rom-com nights, and you’re glad for it; few things give you as much comfort after a long week of work.

after scrolling back and forth a few times, you pause on the same movie you’ve always watched together and give him a quick look. he simply smiles.

“don’t you get sick of this one?” you ask.

“not really, the ending always feels nice. are you… tired of it?”

“no no, i— i was worried that you’re tired of it.”

“me? never.”

“perfect, ‘cause i’m not either.” you give him a knowing grin and press play.

at this point you both know this movie so well that you recite along to every line. you do the female lead’s lines, yeonjun does the male lead’s, and you even sing along to the soundtrack. yeonjun stretches out on your couch even more, his head ending up in your lap, and in the movie’s quiet moments you find yourself playing with his hair. when the big confession happens you can feel him holding his breath and then releasing it in a laugh when the two leads finally kiss.

the credits roll and he glances up at you, smiling in satisfaction. you smile too and hum along to the end credits song. as the movie ends, you let yourself bask in it: you stretch out your arms, yeonjun sits up to lean on your shoulder again, and you lay your head atop his. the two of you remain like that for a while, sitting in comfortable silence.

“don’t you ever get jealous of them?” you ask.

you feel his head shake a bit as he chuckles. “i hate to admit it, but yeah. rom-coms always make getting together look so... fun.”

“right? i wish my life was like that.”

“god, me too.”

“i swear, it drives me insane,” you huff. “every time i watch this i want to start dating again or something.”

a few more moments of silence. yeonjun lets out a soft exhale and you feel his body grow tense. the air in your apartment seems stuffier.

“speaking of which, i have to tell you something.” 

“me...?”

you’ve never heard yeonjun sound so solemn. his head weighs down on your shoulder. “y’know, i’ve been uh... thinking of dating again.”

“oh... where are you dating this time? did beomgyu set you up again?”

he shakes his head, looks up at you for a split second, then looks down at his hands. you see the tips of his ears turn pink.

“actually, i... i have someone mind. someone i want to ask out, i mean.”

with those words the feelings you’ve brushed aside for so long come back in full force. your heart beats so hard it feels like it’s slamming into your chest. when you speak, your voice shakes.

“oh... who’s the lucky one?”

“i-i’ve known her for a while. she’s sweet and fun to be around... we’ve been hanging out a lot more often these last few months. we get along really well, at least i think we do...”

“sounds like you have chemistry with this special girl,” you say, the words heavy on your tongue. the hammering of your heart floods your ears. “so what’s stopping you from asking her out?”

yeonjun sits up to face you fully. you sense the effort it takes for him to look at you 一 has he ever been like this around you before? 一 and you reach for his hands. they’re trembling, and his ears go from pink to red.

“a long time ago,” he starts, voice shaking, “i kissed her. i kissed her after my last breakup. and i wasn’t thinking straight, i was just so lonely that i wanted to be loved again 一 but i can’t do that to yo— to her, she’s one of my best friends, i don’t want yo— her to be a rebound 一 but then you said we could start over so we did and i dunno, at one point i started liking you, i fell so hard i don’t know wh一”

you interrupt him with a kiss, your lips gentle on his. you feel him kissing you back, his movements gentle as his hand comes up to hold your head in place. you find yourself pressed against him and he’s even warmer than you remember, warmer than those dreams you had so many months ago.

when you break apart, his eyes are glazed over in a look of pure admiration. 

“y/n...”

“jjun, i...” heat spreads across your face. “i’ve loved you for years.”

“then why didn’t you say anything?”

“how could i? what if you didn’t feel that way and it ruined our friendship? and with all the other guys too?” your heart is still beating fast but you let out the words while your boldness still has a hold on you. “and then you dated hana and i cried but i wanted you to be happy 一 then you broke up and you kissed me and i liked it, and i hated myself for liking it because you were 一”

yeonjun pulls you into him, arms encircling you, and as you keep rambling into his chest he soothes you with one hand combing through your hair. his other arm grips you firmly, and your own arms find a firm hold around his neck.

“i love you too, y/n,” he whispers into your hair before leaving a kiss there. “it’s okay.”

“i love you, so much...”

he pulls apart to get a good look at your face. as he sees a few tears start to roll down your cheeks, he brushes them aside with his thumb.

“so this girl,” he says, affection lacing his words, “after we kissed, she said we could start over. and we did. and i’m really glad we did, because i fell for h一 for you so hard.”

you lean your head forward so that your forehead touches his. “really?”

“really. and i...”

“do you want to kiss her again?”

yeonjun’s breath hitches and his eyes meet yours. there it is 一 that same look of his that makes you feel light. the one that, you realize, makes you feel loved.

“can i?”

“please,” you whisper.

he closes the gap between your lips and his, and this time you feel only relief and bliss.

[soonyoungs]

any thoughts on virgin jun and giving him a blowie for the first time 🫣

ఇ virgin!jun and gn!reader

ఇ warnings: smut! jun is teased a little bit! if anything else needs tagged lmk!

ఇ wc: 625 (i wanted to do bullet points but i hardly see many pieces for jun so this happened!)

ఇ notes: i had many, many thoughts about this and i thought them every day since u sent this in! i hope this meets your standards, lmk if you liked it! mwah! 💗

[2:33 pm]

“slow,” he squeezes his eyes shut, grip on your hair tightening as he swallows thickly “slow down, please,” he’s begging at this point. you’ve only been working him for five minutes but he’s already too sensitive, ready to explode.

you take him out of your mouth and look up at him “you asked for it to be messy and now you’re begging me to slow down,” you tease him, holding him in your hand, stroking slowly “make up your mind, jun, baby,” you stick your tongue out and softly lick at his tip.

he’s never done this before. not just this, but he’s never done anything before. jun isn’t sure how he should feel, how he should act or even how to respond to you. you the person he’s most comfortable with in the world. he’s even entrusted you with his deepest secret. “never felt this good,” he tosses his head back against the couch “never done this before,” he opens one eye to look at you, barely able to focus. 

you giggle at the sweetness in his honest confession before you take him down your throat once, quickly taking him back out. “i know baby, you’re just a sweet virgin,” you pump him in your hand, squeezing the head. you take him in again, this time in earnest. you’re moving slowly this time, making sure to press your tongue against the bottom of his cock tracing any veins you can find, you’ve learned he goes wild when you do that.

“ah,” he grips your head in both hands holding you in place “i’m gonna cum,” jun whines, scrunching up his nose and adjusting his hips. he’s uncomfortable: a million insecurities running through his mind, he knows he’s going to bust too quickly, doesn’t know where you want it, or even if you want it. he’s panting as he tries to form a coherent sentence.

“junnie,” you say his name, voice full of more lust than he’s ever heard. you lean your head over, resting it on his thigh as you continue stroking him. “go ahead and cum. i want the first time you cum to be in my mouth,” you playfully stick out your tongue before moving forward and taking him completely down your throat. you’re moving quickly now, taking him as deep as your throat will allow, suckling the tip as you come up, almost letting him fall out of your mouth before taking him deeply again. anything you can’t get inside you gently squeeze and stroke in rhythm to your mouth.

jun is whining and moaning your name as his hips lift off the couch, thrusting himself deeper into you. “so good,” his voice wavers as he repeats praises “you make me feel so good,” he’s enunciating his words with deep thrusts. abruptly jun stills, spilling himself in your mouth before he can even warn you. “ah, ah.. i’m sorry,” he throws his hand over his face, tips of his ears turning beet red.

you grab his hand and remove it from his face so he can see the spectacle you make of swallowing his cum. as you stick out your tongue to show off what you’d done jun shakes his head and slumps into the cushions of the couch. “you didn’t have to do that,” he juts out his bottom lip and turns his head “just because i’m a virgin doesn’t mean you need to tease me so much.”

a laugh leaves your lips as you rub your hands up and down his thighs “oh jun, baby,” you cock your head to the side, a sly smile spreading over your face “you’re so fun to tease and,” you lean in to whisper in jun’s ear “i’m nowhere near done with you.”

[apclyptc]

TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN PT.2—matt ver.

foreword: please read the first part linked here for this to make any sense! i mean technically u could read it as a stand alone but it’s best read with part one 😇

warnings: nice little makeout sesh, fingering, love bites, praise, lots of praise, erm insert more warnings here

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

“i pick… matt.” you spoke.

matt’s eyes widened, but only for a moment. you suddenly felt like a fool, he was one of your best friends, you’d known him forever.

but at the same time, this had been a long time coming. it was going to happen sooner or later, right?

nate’s voice brought you out of your thoughts.

“i was not expecting that! i think this game has been my best idea ever so far.”

you rolled your eyes playfully, “don’t get so ahead of yourself, this game is still stupid. but i will admit that it has been funny.” you turned to matt again, his face unreadable and it made you nervous.

“so uh, which room are we even going in?” matt’s eyes averted from yours. oh god, is he going to let you down gently? was his hand on your thigh just a friendly pat and you’d read into it too much because you wanted him to touch you just once?

you’d simply die if that was the case. was it too late to choose waylon?

nate pointed towards upstairs. oh god.

“pick any room. well maybe not mine, i still have to sleep in it tonight.” nate winked, causing a few of the others to laugh.

“cmon, we’ll only be up there for ten minutes. don’t be ridiculous.” matt shrugged off his friend’s suggestive comment and stood from his chair, signalling you to stand too.

‘we’ll only be up there for ten minutes’. you wondered what you’d get up to if you had longer.

you followed matt up the stairs into what looked like a spare room, and he shut the door.

“nate has really outdone himself this time, don’t you think?” matt asked, as if he was putting himself off of an inevitable and awkward conversation.

“yeah… it almost makes me scared to think he’ll try to one-up this next time.” you responded. now that you were up here alone, you were realising the errors of your ways and you desperately wished that ten minutes would be over as quick as it started.

“listen, y/n. we’ve been friends for a long time now, so i understand if you want to just sit here and wait out the ten minutes.” he explained.

the way he worded it made it seem like he didn’t want to just sit here, but he was okay with it if you were.

surely not…

“we could do that,” you began, mentally noting that his face dropped ever so slightly, “or maybe we could… never mind.” you realised half way through your reply that you couldn’t bear to hear yourself say the words to him.

but matt wasn’t going to let that happen, not now, knowing that maybe what he was feeling was reciprocated.

“we could what?” he stepped closer to you, the room feeling smaller than it was when you first walked in.

“it doesn’t matter, it was stupid.” your breath hitched in your throat, he was getting closer and closer to you until there was barely any space left between you.

“tell me. i just want to hear you say it, once.” matt’s hand came up to rest on the side of your neck, the hand that was adding pressure to your thigh not long ago.

“i mean, it’s just a game, right? so we could… just…” you trailed off as his lips came into contact with yours. it was a soft, slow kiss, that melted your brain into mush.

“this isn’t just a game to me.” he spoke before reconnecting his lips to yours. soft and slow was no longer how your kiss could be described. no, this time it was desperate, charged, with clanging teeth and roaming hands.

you couldn’t believe one silly card game could put you in such a position.

matt walked you to the edge of the bed, sitting both of you down and placing his hand back on your thigh. you pressed them together, trying to distract yourself from the arousal that was no doubt pooling underneath your skirt.

pulling away from you, he mumbled, “i was hoping you felt the same way.”

the needy expression on your face was more than enough of an indicator, but if there was any doubt in his mind, it was instantly quelled when you took his hand and let him touch the dampness of your underwear. he sighed with want, dragging his fingers along the wet spot.

“please, we don’t have long.” you pleaded, and who was he to deny you?

tugging the waistband of your panties down your legs, he admired the glistening of your pussy, begging to be touched.

“so pretty.” a single finger swiped at your core, and you let out a short breath.

matt slowly increased his pace, stroking up and down at your leaking cunt, as if mesmerised by it.

truth be told, he couldn’t believe such a thing was happening. he’d had only the smallest of feelings for you when you were younger, but they had quickly blossomed into something much more, or rather they had torpedoed into a carnal desire for you once you had traded hoodies for tube tops.

he couldn’t control his urges for you any more than you could.

“matt,” you pleaded again, aching for more, “please.”

matt could cum solely from the sounds escaping your throat alone, but he had decided to use his ten minutes to make you feel good rather than himself.

using his fingers already coated in your slick, he pushed them inside you. the moan you let out had surprised the both of you, and you quickly covered your mouth with your hand, letting your other stabilise yourself on his shoulder.

“keep quiet, you don’t want everyone downstairs to hear, do you?” he spoke softly, and you weren’t sure if he actually wanted an answer to his question, though you weren’t in any position to answer. you were too focused on muffling your moans with your hand.

just like he had done downstairs, matt attached his lips to your neck, leaving another bite next to the other, this one darker than the first.

he pulled his head back to admire his work.

“i’d love to cover you in these,” he continued thrusting his fingers into you, “they suit you.”

you felt a twang in your stomach.

“you, fuck, you should leave them in places where no one can see but you.” you panted, struggling to speak without whining expletives.

“yeah? you want that?” matt glanced down at where his hand connected with your pussy, and used his thumb to touch your clit.

“ohhh fuck, yes i want that, keep doing that.” you felt yourself already slipping over the edge, getting closer and closer to sweet release.

“knock knock!” nate’s voice taunted from outside the room as he thudded on the door, “times up!”

you instantly felt embarrassed. did he hear all of that?

“i guess we weren’t quick enough.” matt pulled his fingers out of you.

“yeah i guess no-” your words were cut short by matt sticking the fingers that were just inside of you, into your mouth.

“clean my fingers for me, would you? i got them all messy.” he smirked at the implications of his words.

you did as you were told and licked your own arousal off his hand, feeling your cunt clench.

“there’s a good girl.”

straightening yourself out, you opened the door to a beaming nate.

“so? did you keep my sheets clean?” he asked.

“shut up, dude. we didn’t even do anything.” matt denied, walking past nate and back downstairs with you to the others.

nate followed behind, “then how come y/n has another hickey?”

like a deer in headlights, you stopped in your tracks.

“no comment.”

༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶

a/n oh my god this is so so so ass. this is what i get for getting drunk instead of updating and having to rush writing this bc everyone’s waiting.

regardless, i hope it was worth the wait! now all i have to do is write the whole chris chapter and pray it doesn’t come out as terribly as this

bye….

© APCYLPTC 2023. do not repost, translate, or duplicate any of my works here or any other websites.

[mphoenix-7]

Bitter Allies [Soap x Reader]

Chapter 12: The Cabin: Day 5 (pt. 3)

Summary: Soap thinks that taking a walk through the woods is just what you need to help you get over your new fear. Your walk isn’t as pleasant as you hope it’ll be.

Word Count: 5,176

Warnings: NSFW, 18+, swearing, angst, strong language, panic attack, arguing

A/N: I didn’t know if this would be ready or not to be posted on time, but I managed to get it done! Please enjoy loves!!

Masterlist | <- Previous | Next ->

Bitter Allies • Part 12

This was such a bad idea. Why the hell did you agree to this? The hike was most certainly not helping you overcome your anxieties; it was making them worse. You thought being cornered in the outhouse and standing in the open field was bad, but try walking through thick foliage where you can’t see your surroundings. Your poor heart is doing double-time in your chest, pounding so hard it feels like it might burst.

Soap, oblivious to your mounting dread, is making so much noise as he plows through the brush that you can’t even listen for any potential threats. Every rustle of leaves and snap of twigs sends a jolt of panic through you. The fear in the pit of your stomach is growing stronger with each step. The oppressive canopy above blocks out most of the sunlight, not that it would help to ease your nerves if it didn’t. However, it does make it feel as though the forest is closing in on you, suffocating you with its dense undergrowth and unseen dangers.

About five to ten minutes into the hike, you desperately want to turn back. By now you’ve gone at least a mile, but the feeling is the same. Nothing has happened yet—you haven’t even run into any animals—but that doesn’t help to quell the anxiety flooding your system. It feels like you’re just waiting for something terrible to happen. Just waiting for another bear to catch your scent and come after you.

Like it had that morning you went out by yourself…

A shiver runs along your spine as you recall the feeling of being chased. The heavy, thudding footsteps behind you, the growl that sent you sprinting for your life. That had been your warning, your sign of the dangers waiting in the woods, and you hadn’t listened. Maybe the fear gripping you now was also a warning, screaming at you to head back before it was too late. Your hands tremble slightly, and you clench them into fists to stop them from shaking.

“Holding up back there States?”

You glance up, your teeth releasing their hold on your lip as you meet Soap’s eyes. He’s been walking ahead of you this entire time, leading the way and stomping down the brush for you. You’ve been mostly silent since you left the cabin. The only communication you’ve had since you left are moments like this where he’s just checking to make sure you’re still following him and not completely breaking down.

“Yep, just peachy.” You tell him, the answer seeming to be enough to satisfy him for the next few minutes. He turns forward again and keeps on going.

As you continue trudging through the forest, your mind races with what-ifs. What if a bear does come? What if you can’t handle it? What if this hike is just a terrible mistake? You should just go back now… give up and-

No.

You were not going to just give up and quit. That stubborn, won’t quit attitude had gotten you through a lot during your time in the military. It was the very thing that kept you in the Task Force despite how much of an ass Soap was.

You can do this… you can push through it.

“Hey Soap,” you start, hoping that talking might help distract you. The only problem is, you don’t know exactly what to talk about. “Uh… do you know where we’re going?” You settle on.

“Course.” Soap answers easily, not even so much as glancing over his shoulder at you. “I know of a few bear caves around here that we can-“

“Are you fucking serious?!” You shout at him, stopping immediately in your tracks. The thought of walking to the den of a bear, practically handing yourself over on a silver platter, is enough to make you want to ditch Soap and bolt. He can’t be serious.

At your outburst, Soap instantly turns around, his eyes locking onto yours. He sees the panic glazing over your eyes and immediately raises his hands in a gesture of surrender, his expression shifting from confusion to concern in a heartbeat.

“I’m kidding! Just joking! Fucking hell, States. I don’t know of any bear caves around here.” Soap's quickly says, a hint of defensiveness in his tone.

“Don’t fucking do that! My God, you’re going to give me a fucking heart attack!” You shout, your voice shaking with a mix of fear and anger, fists clenched at your sides. You were stressed enough as it was, you didn’t need him saying shit that was only going to add to that stress.

Soap gives you an exasperated look, his mouth hanging open just a bit. “Fuck’s sake! It was a joke! Lighten up!” He snaps back, his initial confusion giving way to irritation.

“It’s not funny!” You retort, your own anger only growing the more defensive he gets.

“Oh come on. Anyone else would have taken that as a joke.” Soap's tone turns sharper, his frustration evident as he glares at you.

You’re steaming now, fists clenched at your sides. The fear that had been bubbling under the surface is now mixed with a growing anger. Your heart is pounding, not just from the anxiety of being out in the woods, but from the frustration of dealing with Soap’s insensitivity. You already felt vulnerable and on edge, you don’t want to have to deal with Soap being a total ass as well.

“Really? Forgive me for not wanting to laugh about walking into the home of the animal that almost took my life. I’m already freaking out about seeing one out here, so what makes you think I’d find that funny? This isn’t a joke to me, and I don’t want to joke about it.”

Soap rolls his eyes right back at you. “We haven’t even seen anything yet. You’re working yourself up over nothing.“

“Nothing?” You snap back. “It’s not nothing to me!”

“Well, it needs to be,” Soap retorts, his tone firm. “The 141 doesn’t get hung up over stuff like this.”

You feel another surge of anger rush through you at his words. “Easy for you to say! You weren’t the one with a bear practically on top of you, trying to claw and bite your face off.”

“And you think I haven’t faced things just as bad, if not worse?” Soap counters, stepping closer and invading your space. “I can tell you this, States. I have faced much worse than something like a bear! If you’re this freaked out over a little joke, maybe you should reconsider if you’re cut out for the military.”

His words cut deep, reopening old wounds. From the beginning, Soap has always been trying to get you kicked off the Task Force. You’ve lost count of how many times he’s told you that you should quit. Hell, he’d even told Price to get rid of you while you were in the room with him.

You stare at him for a long moment, disbelief mingling with hurt. “Is making me quit all you ever think about?”

Soap’s expression hardens. “Maybe I wouldn’t if you didn’t keep proving to me that you should.”

You bite your cheek harshly. “If my fear of a bear that nearly killed me is a reason enough that I should quit, then what about your fear of thunder? Shouldn’t freaking out over that mean you should quit too?”

Your words are met with a confused expression from Soap. It’s like he doesn’t remember having a full blown panic attack the day it stormed.

“What?” He finally says after a moment of not being able to figure out where you got that idea from. “The fuck you talking about? I don’t have a fear of thunder.”

You roll your eyes at him and cross your arms over your chest. “What do you mean? Yes you do. You don’t remember that big storm that rolled in like the first or second day we were here? It was thundering so loudly, and you had an episode. How can you not remember that?”

Soap is silent another moment while he thinks back. He opens his mouth to reply, but then shuts it, his face shifting as he figures out what you were referring to. However to you, it looks like he realized his argument was flawed and is now trying to come up with some kind of excuse. He couldn’t tell you to get over his irrational fear if he had an irrational fear himself.

“I-I’m not scared of thunder. That’s not what I was…” He trails off, further adding to your suspicion.

“Really? If you’re not scared of thunder, then why the hell were you freaking out like that?”

Soap is silent for a moment, his eyes distant. You think for a moment he’s trying really hard to come up with an excuse, but when you really look, his eyes look slightly glazed over and there’s a pinch of worry between his brow. It’s almost like he’s actively reliving something. His thoughts are racing, though with what, you aren’t sure. The silence stretches on and almost begins to get uncomfortable. You’re about to say something, but Soap finally speaks up.

“It wasn’t the thunder…” He finally says, his voice tight. “Just... let it go, alright?”

You scoff at him. “Let it go? So you can give me shit about being scared of a bear, but you can have some irrational fear yourself, and it’s just fine? You’re allowed to be scared and have stuff freak you out but I can’t?”

Soap instantly snaps back, his voice firm and defensive. You’ve hit a sore spot.

“What happened that night it stormed was different! Alright!? What happened to me is nothing like what happened to you and that bear. I actually got fucking hurt! All that bear did was fucking growl at you and threaten you, I took fucking glass to the face.”

He points at his face, specifically more towards his chin than any other area. Your glare dips down to where he’s pointing, naturally locking on to the now faded, but still visible scar that runs along his chin.

You follow the thick, long scar that runs in a jagged horizontal line below his lip. It was his most noticeable scar and one that you’d always been curious as to how he got it. Apparently there was quite the story to go along with it. You always imaged he’d got it from some kind of explosion to the face, though he didn’t sport any burn scars that would support that theory. It was far too complex to be from a knife, but a shard of glass made perfect sense.

He must have been tortured. Maybe at some point in his career, he’d been a POW and gotten tortured for information. You did not put it past the enemy to go to any means necessary to get information. Using broken glass off the ground to slice someone up for military secrets was quite a common tactic too. Soap’s files didn’t say anything about him ever being taken hostage though. Then again, it could have been something that had been redacted. A lot of the things in his files regarding missions were heavily redacted.

You don’t focus too heavily on his comment about the broken glass though. That was something you could table for a little later. Right now you’re far too upset that he’s completely dismissing your own fears just because he’s seen worse.

“So would my fear be more valid then if I had gotten hurt? Almost getting hurt isn’t enough to justify having a fear of something? Whatever the fuck happened to you, it would have been absolutely nothing if your precious face hadn’t gotten cut up?”

Soap tenses up, his voice dropping a few octaves and taking on a dangerous drawl. His entire body goes rigid, and his fists clench as his sides. “States, you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about, so I suggest you shut the hell up.”

He’s probably right. You have no idea the kind of things he’s been through, so you shouldn’t be making assumptions without knowing the full story. But you’re so angry with him right now that you can’t bring yourself to care.

“And you have no idea how I feel, so you can shut up too!” You shout back at him, and his eyes ignite with anger. You can practically see the spark before it flares up, and you’re sure he can see the same thing happening in yours.

His inhales sharply through his mouth prepared to absolutely lay into you, but before he can, you notice his eyes flicker away from yours for a moment. They quickly snap back to you, but then look away once again, his mouth slowly closing. At first, you don't think much of it, but then the hairs on the back of your neck begin to stand up. Your body senses danger before your mind can process it.

The anger drains from you in an instant, replaced by a growing unease as you try to understand why Soap isn’t looking at you anymore and why you suddenly feel so on edge. Then Soap says the most panic inducing words, his voice dropping to an unnaturally calm level after the shouting he’d been doing not a second prior.

“States, listen to me, do not panic.“

You feel yourself instantly freeze. Usually when someone tells you not to panic it’s because there’s a reason you should be. The nagging feeling of danger intensifies, your hands almost feeling numb from the rush of sudden adrenaline.

“What? Why?” You ask softly, mouth quickly going dry.

“Don’t turn around, don’t freak out.” He tells you carefully, eyes staying mostly locked off somewhere behind you now. “Just walk over to me, lass.”

“Is it a bear?” You ask bluntly, feeling your whole back tense up. You want so so badly for him to say no. You wouldn’t care if he was joking. You wouldn’t even care if it was any other animal, just not a bear. Not right now.

“Yes, it is. Just stay calm.” He reaches out to grab your arm, but you move it away from him, hugging it to your chest instead.

“No… no please…” Tears start to blur your vision. “Tell me you’re joking. Please. This is a joke, right?” You feel yourself starting to shake. You so desperately want him to be kidding. “I swear to God if there isn’t a bear, I’m going to kill you.”

“I swear to you, I’m being serious, lass.” He insists.

You want to call his bluff, convinced for a moment that he's just being an asshole and there really isn't a bear. But then you hear it—the sound of something big moving slowly and deliberately. Each step is measured and heavy, rustling the foliage on the forest floor. You hear a snorting sound, similar to the one that the bear at the lake had made as it sniffed the air. Your heart skips a beat as the reality sinks in: there really is something behind you.

You feel the panic set in, your body simultaneously hot and cold. Adrenaline surges through your veins, making your hands both numb and hypersensitive. Your heart pounds in your chest, and you can hear the blood as it rushes through your ears. Your breathing starts to quicken, shallow bursts as your mind races. Every muscle in your body tenses, poised for action, wanting to bolt and create distance between you and the thing behind you, but also frozen in fear.

“States…” Soap says, almost in warning. He’s trying to watch you while also trying to keep an eye on the animal behind you. “Please, just walk over to me.”

You want to do as he says, but first you just need to see for yourself. You need to know there really is something behind you.

“Don’t.” Soap warns, almost like he knows exactly what you’re thinking.

You don’t listen though. Gathering any remnants of courage you had left, you take a deep breath and start to slowly peak over your shoulder. And there, a few feet away, is a black bear. You don’t give yourself proper time to really look at it. The second your peripheral vision spots it, your terrified gaze snaps back to Soap.

Your eyes lock onto Soap's, breathing picking up now that it’s been confirmed. You want to scream and cry out, but you’re too scared to even do that. “Soap…” You sob, making him just reach out for you instead of continuing to wait for you to come to him.

He grabs ahold of your arm firmly, gently and slowly pulling you close to him. “Shh, it’s alright, come here.” He says as he moves an arm to wrap around you. It’s surprisingly comforting to feel him holding you. Your bickering, all the things that were said, are momentarily forgotten.

“Just stay clam, it’s gonna be ok.” He mutters to you, and you nod, more out of instinct than understanding. You’re a bit more focused on listening for the bear than you are to Soap’s words.

You try to sneak another look at the animal, only really wanting a quick glance, but Soap takes that opportunity to turn you fully so that you’re facing it. His hands settle on your hips to keep you in place, and your breath hitches as your eyes land on the bear. On instinct, you press back firmly into Soap, his chest acting as a solid wall to keep your from moving any further.

“I’m right here.” Soap reminds you, whispering softly into your ear. “Not gonna let anything happen to you.” He promises, thumbs brushing softly against your hips, though you can hardly focus on that right now. Still, his presence alone is grounding. Feeling him behind you, him holding you tightly, it reminds you that you’re not alone.

Facing the bear now, you can finally take in the scene before you. The bear is a few yards away, its black fur glistening in the dappled sunlight filtering through the trees. It’s a smaller bear, not as large as the one that attacked you, but the sight of it still sends a jolt of fear through you. Its eyes are fixed on you, nostrils flaring as it sniffs the air. The memory of the bear in the lake doing the same thing before it approached you flashes through your mind.

Your heart pounds faster, and you feel your breathing stutter. For a moment, you're back there, alone and vulnerable, with the bear bearing down on you. Stalking towards you, about to strike.

Then you feel Soap give your hips a squeeze, and his voice cuts through the haze of fear. “It’s okay, States. It’s just passing by. It’s more scared of us. It doesn’t want anything to do with us.”

His voice brings you back to the present, and you shake your head a bit to focus on what’s happening right now. “Look at it,” he whispers softly in your ear. “It’s just curious. It’s not here to hurt us. Not all bears are aggressive.”

The bear takes a tentative step forward, then pauses, its ears twitching. You tense the second it moves, and Soap’s arm around you tightens slightly, a subtle reassurance. “Stay calm. It’s going to move on. Just keep breathing.”

The bear snorts, shaking its head before taking another step. You can tell that its muscles are tense under its fur. It takes a few more steps, its eyes never leaving yours as it slowly moves. A deep growl rumbles in its chest, and you are tempted to take a step back, but you can’t with Soap standing directly behind you.

“Don’t back away.” He tells you gently, able to feel the muscles in your back twitch against his chest. “If it starts to come this way, wave your arms above your head and shout at it. Just like I showed you.”

“I don’t think I can.��� You whisper back to him. Your mouth is so dry, and it feels like your throat has completely sealed itself off. Even talking was a challenge, and your voice already sounded weaker and slightly hoarse.

“You can, States. You can do this.” He encourages you.

The bear takes a few more steps, still just trying to move perpendicularly past you, but it stops once more to huff softly. When you don’t react to it, it takes a small steps towards you, its head lowered cautiously, but eyes still fixed on you.

“It’s not being aggressive, it’s just curious. Just tell it to go away. Nice and firm.” Soap whispers to you.

You take a deep breath, trying to gather any bit bravery you had. “Go away.” You say, voice a bit wobbly, but still managing to be firm.

The bear hesitates, lifting its head a bit as you speak to it. Its glossy eyes keep locked on you, and it starts to sniff the air once more. Speaking just seemed to make it more curious. It takes another step forward, and you feel Soap’s grip tighten again.

“Alright, it’s getting too curious now. Gotten show it you’re not something to mess with. Get loud now, wave your arms and yell. Make yourself big.” Soap instructs, his voice steady. He’s not panicked at all, or at least he’s not showing it. “Do it now, States. Nice and loud.”

You take a deep breath, trying your best to push down all the anxiety eating away at your courage. Drawing on every ounce of strength you can muster, you raise your arms above your head and yell.

“Ahh!! Go away! Get out of here!”

The bear stops, taken aback by your sudden outburst. It jolts back, retreating a few feet away before stopping and looking back at you. Its ears are standing straight up, its eyes widen in surprise. You can see its hesitation, its uncertainty.

“Good, again!” Soap encourages softly from behind you.

“Go! Get out of here! Go away!” You shout again, making it jump again. This time, it turns and bolts, clearly not wanting to mess with you.

You watch as it crashes through the foliage, moving quickly to get away from you and Soap. Your arms stay raised while you watch it run off, only becoming heavy and dropping once the sounds of the leaves rustling fade into the distance. Your eyes stayed locked on the path it took, froze in shock for few seconds.

When it finally registers that it’s gone, you can feel your entire body become suddenly exhausted. You let out all the air in your lungs and sink back. You probably would have fallen to the ground if Soap hadn’t been behind you. He instantly wraps his arms around you, holding you tightly to him.

“Oh fuck...” You curse, making Soap laugh. “It-It’s gone, right?” You ask hesitantly. It was like your brain hadn’t fully processed what happened yet.

“Yes, it’s gone. You did it, States! It’s not gonna be coming back, you scared it.” He chuckles, his tone becoming light and filled with genuine joy. It felt like he was proud of you, excited that you’d been able to scare the animal off.

“Holy shit...” You curse again, still trying to wrap your head around it. And when it finally sinks in, you feel a rush of relief wash over you. Your body starts to tremble, not from fear, but from the overwhelming realization that you did it. You managed to scare off a bear. It’s a mix of pride, disbelief, and a strange sense of empowerment. You did it. You really did it.

“I did it...” You mutter, smiling as your shoulders behind to feel lighter.

“Hell yeah you did!” Soap laughs from behind you, giving you a squeeze. “You did fucking great! You just stood your ground against a bear!”

“Yeah! I… I….”

The intensity of the moment finally catches up to you. All the fear, the tension, and the adrenaline suddenly give way to a flood of emotions. You feel a lump form in your throat, and your vision blurs as tears well up in your eyes. The relief is so overwhelming, it’s like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders, and you can't hold back any longer.

You begin to cry, tears streaming down your face as you let out any remaining pent-up emotions. It’s relief, and stress, and joy, and shock, and pride. It feels good to let it all out, your body shaking as it releases everything through your tears.

Soap’s laughter quickly fades when he hears your sobs. He pauses for a second and then quickly turns you around to face him, concern etched across his face. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?” He asks, his voice soft and full of worry.

You try to speak, but it just comes out as a jumbled mess. The words catch in your throat, choked by the intensity of your emotions. You want to let him know you’re fine, but you just can’t get the words to come out. The more you struggle to speak, the more worried and confused he looks.

“Fucking hell, States, it’s okay, you’re okay,” Soap whispers, rubbing your arms soothingly. “You’re safe now. You did it. You faced your fear. The thing ran off.”

You nod at him, that being the only way you know how to communicate. Finally though, you manage to settle enough get a few words out. “I’m fin-e… j-just hap-py...” You choke out. “I-I feel b-better.”

Soap has to strain a bit to hear what you were saying, but he gathers just enough to make out what you said. It makes his shoulder relax and the worry lines in his face soften. He lets out a relieved sigh, hands dropping from your arms so they can run through his hair.

“Steaming Jesus. Thought you were going insane or something. Shite. I never know what it means when you start balling.”

You start to calm down, laughing a little at the poor man’s distress. Taking a few deep breaths, you steady your breathing and wipe at your eyes to dry them. “I mean I very well might be.” You giggle softly. “I’ve been hanging around you for five days, that would drive anyone insane.”

Soap scoffs at you, but there’s a smile on his face that he can’t hide. “You sound like Ghost.”

“Well, good to know it’s not just me who thinks that.”

“Oh shut your mouth.” Soap grumbles, giving you a light shove and making you laugh again. “That what I get for helping you? Should have just let the bear eat you if that’s the case.” He mutters, arms crossed over his chest as if he’s pouting at your teasing. “I am only kidding of course too, yeah?” He adds, making your laughter fade.

“Yeah, I know.” You sigh, feeling a little guilty now about earlier. Soap had always been the guy on the team to make jokes and lighten the mood when things got too serious. That’s all he’d been trying to do earlier, and you snapped at him for it.

In your defense, you had been horribly stressed out, but that didn’t give you permission to lash out at Soap. He’d only been trying to help you this whole time, both last night and this morning. Of course that didn’t excuse him from lashing out at you in return, but you could understand why he did. You would have done the same thing if you were him.

“Hey, I… I’m sorry for yelling at you earlier. When you made the joke about the bear caves. I was just really stressed out, and I feel a little bad now. I know you’re just trying to help and… well I appreciate it.”

Soap blinks at you in surprise. He looks shocked that you’re apologizing, though to be fair, normally you didn’t go around saying sorry to each other. That was something that only started happening recently.

“Oh, you know it’s… it’s whatever, really.” He stammers, clearly taken aback. “I shouldn’t have said the things I said either. So I’m sorry too.”

You smile at him, watching as he rubs at the back of his neck. You can feel your heart softening just a bit for him. “Thank you for that, Soap.”

Soap gives you an awkward smile back, nodding his head a bit. Neither of you are great with apologies. It feels unnatural for both of you, and it’s quickly starting to get a bit awkward.

“Well… Should we head back? Or did you want to go explore a bear cave?” You try to joke, which earns a laugh from Soap.

“I think I’ve had enough of bears for a good while, so I think I’ll pass.” He smirks, able to look back at you now. “But hey, if you wanna go though, by all means don’t let me hold you back.”

You giggle softly, shaking your head. “Nah, I’m alright. I think I’d rather just go back to the boring ol’cabin. I’m getting hungry anyway.”

“You hungry now?” He questions. “I packed us both a lunch since I didn’t know how long we’d be out here. And I know this really nice spot where we can stop and eat.” He says, which surprises you. Not that he’d packed a lunch—you were aware of that. What surprises you is that he’s suggesting you both go out and eat instead of going back.

“Really?” Ask before you can stop yourself. It makes Soap pause, his expression shifting just a bit.

“I mean unless you don’t want to. We can just head back if you’d rather do that.”

“No! No, I think eating out here would be fun. I haven’t been able to do too much exploring, and I could use a break from just hanging around the cabin all day.” You quickly say before he can change his mind. “Lead the way.”

Soap watches you for a moment, almost like he’s trying to figure out if you really wanted to go or not. He makes up his mind in a second and starts back the way you came. “Alright, follow me. We’re only about five minutes away at most.” He says, and you quickly rush to fall into step beside him.

A comfortable silence falls between you like it had before, though this time as you follow him, the tension and fear from earlier are gone. All your anxiety has seemingly melted away. The natural sounds of the forest no longer bother you, and even the thought of running into another bear isn’t as terrifying as it was when you first left. It’s a relief to be able to walk around without feeling the need to constantly be on alert. You just hope it stays that way.

[charliemwrites]

i cannot describe what keeper ghost is doing to me, i'm ready to sell all my belongings and leave my soft life to live in a crate for him

please charlie, tell me what happens when reader asks to go down on Simon but ONLY A LITTLE BIT and ONLY TO SEE IF SHE LIKES IT

Honestly same, I just wanna stop doing taxes and waking up before dawn 😭

But going down on Simon, you sayyyyyy?

You’ve been letting (demanding) Simon take care of you with his hands and mouth for weeks now. It’s your favorite pre-bedtime ritual in fact. You sleep like a rock after an orgasm or three and Simon always seems so enthusiastic to provide. (He is.)

That said, you haven’t reciprocated. Not on purpose, anyway. Sometimes while getting off on his thigh, yours will rub against his cock through his sweats. (A few times now, feeling it twitching and rock hard has been the thing to tip you over.) But mostly, intimate encounters have been one-sided and you-focused.

You’re not totally oblivious, you know he’s turned on by getting you off (which… took some time to wrap your head around but wasn’t entirely shocking either.) But again, he never pushes, suggests, asks, or even hints at wanting you to do anything. At most he’ll adjust himself and…. That’s it.

But now you want more. Simon is a private man - at least that’s the sense you get watching him interact with Johnny a couple times. It’s different with you though; he grants you liberties that you’re pretty sure would get anyone else very Murdered.

So, as is usual in your never-ending quest to stretch him to the limit, you pin him down on the couch one night, hands on his chest again. You’re sitting on him, the length of his powerful body stretched out over the cushions.

“What do you need, pretty? You want my mouth? My hands?” He asks.

You shake your head and wiggle down to perch on his thighs, palms in the hard planes of his stomach now.

“I wanna taste you,” you announce. “But don’t move. I might not like it.”

“‘Course,” he soothes, putting his hands up in mock surrender. “Go ahead and explore. All yours, little one.”

You tug at his belt and zipper, nearly rip the button off his jeans. You make an annoyed noise when you struggle to get them off.

“Easy, easy,” he coos. “Let me help.”

You hmph as he sits up a bit, tilting his hips to slide them down his ass, leaving black boxers behind. He’s already tenting the fabric, a single tiny dark spot just under the elastic waistband. You bat his hands away, mumbling that you’ve got it now so move, tapping your fingers along the outline of it. It twitches beneath your touch, hot and hard.

You dip a hand in, knowing and not caring that your hands are cold. If it bothers him, Simon doesn’t show any sign. Not that you’re looking, either, it’s your playtime after all.

For a minute you just explore the shape and size it through fabric, admiring the shadow where the flared head disrupts the polyester. Then you tug the band down, eyes going moony when his cock springs up, already flushed and wet at the tip.

“Ooh it’s so big,” you murmur, talking to yourself. That Simon is there and might hear is just coincidence. “How the hell does that fit anywhere?”

You trace a fingertip along a prominent vein on the underside, following the curve. When you reach the head, a bean of precum wells up. And you have to taste it.

Simon lets out a little puff of air when you swipe your tongue over the head. Then another when dip the tip into his slit, wanting more.

“Tastes good,” you muse, pleasantly surprised.

He doesn’t respond, knows you’re not talking to him. You press your lips just under the head and hum, giggling when you feel it vibrate throughout his shaft. It feels… good. Fun. You’ve never gotten to just have your way with someone’s cock before, and never been close like this with Simon. Usually there are still plenty of layers of clothes between you too. The novelty is intoxicating.

You lick along the shaft, up and down. Little, tiny flicks of your tongue that are probably maddening. Occasionally, you tilt your head to apply gentle suction along the side, like how it flexes against your cheek.

Eventually, you make it back up to the head and rap your lips around it. Just that much feels like a lots, feels like you’re playing a dangerous game with your jaw. You won’t be taking much more than this. He’s thick.

And all the while, Simon’s little grunts and sighs and gasps are so much background noise, just like the show running forgotten on the TV. He doesn’t thrust into your mouth, or twitch, or reach for you. He never does. He just lets you have your fun in silence.

You lose track of time lavishing just the head of his cock with attention before pulling away, feeling almost sleepy from the meditative headspace you’ve fallen into.

“Mm that was fun,” you conclude. “I want to do it again sometime.”

You wander off to bed, the taste of his precum like honey lingering on your tongue.

[lvvgyu]

Stay for me..? C.bg x you

warning ⚠️⚠️

🔞!! toxic!gyu, obsessive!gyu, gyu masturbates infront of reader twice. Pillow humping, panty sniffing. Yknow, all the shit in a stalker fic! Theres hardly an ending to this but its been in my drafts so long that I just needed to get it out, prolly will make a part two just say the word! 😉😉

Beomgyu didnt understand how you could just ignore him.

At first, the calls were normal. He’d call during your lunch break to make sure you ate, text if you ended up when working long nights to say goodnight and encourage you to get your work completed.

A few months into the relationship there was a sudden change. Beomgyu couldn’t stop messaging you constantly, calling you, and berating you about who you were with, how long you would be there..When you’d come back to him..

He’s just showing you that he loves you, why would you get mad at that?

But are you even mad? He’s not sure, he’s just assumed that since you haven’t texted him or called him back, you’re mad. God, he wants to hear your voice again.

His calls are one after another. Why won’t you answer him? Did you find someone better? You can’t leave him..He loves you so much, and you love him! So why are you doing this to him?..

“baby?..Why didn’t you answer my calls? I’ve been texting you all night, are you okay? Did something happen?” His voice is laced with worry.

You glance at the phone and start to respond, watching the traffic light turn to green.

“I’ve been busy at work, Gyu..I’m sorry I couldn’t answer, I was jus-“

“You’re on your way home right? I want to see you so bad, I was so worried..” He says, the worry in his voice not even slightly gone. You grip the wheel tighter and sigh quietly.

“Yea, Gyu..I’m on my way…” You say gently. You wish he would calm down a bit, he’s making it seem like you’ve been gone for days.

He speaks again, his voice softer this time.

“Are you mad at me?..” Even though he decided to ask, his guts twist at the suspense of what you’ll say. What if you are mad at him? He just wants to be good for you, he wants to be yours and he wants you to be his!

“No..Gyu, baby I’m not mad..” You say, looking at the time and then glancing ahead at the road.

“Yeah you are..” He says gently

“I-I just want you here, I need you..I really need you..” As the words fall from Beomgyu’s mouth, you can hear how slurred they are. And you figure that he’s worked himself up so much that he can barely speak coherently.

“Gyu, I’m almost home. We can talk about this, yeah? I have to hang up but, im not m-“

“You don’t even wanna talk to me?…What did I do? Did I say something wrong? I-im just worried about you and that..that guy, Yeonjun or whatever..You’re always with him and then..you come home, like you’re angry at me..”

You don’t respond, trying not to fuel his anger anymore. When you hear his sniffles and hear shuffling, you decide to hang up.

He calls back immediately, spamming you with text messages and begging for you to call him back. To stay, to be with him for just a bit longer. He needs you, that’s what he always says.

The car ride lasted about 5 more minutes, and when you reached for keys to the front door Beomgyu had already opened it.

“Baby! I missed yo-“

“Gyu..I need to talk to you…”

Beomgyu still doesn’t understand. A break? Why would you want to take a break from him?..You love him, so why would you ask for a break?

“No..no, no you can’t do that..” He moves closer to you quickly. Trying to grab your hands.

“Gyu, I love you. You know that, but all of this is overwhelming..” You say, kissing his hands gently.

He shakes his head, searching for your gaze with his own teary eyes.

“But I NEED you..” He whispers.

After moments of silence, there’s a soft rustling sound and frantic movements made by Beomgyu. When you look up, you see him removing his clothes. He wipes his tears and sniffles as he grabs your hands again.

“Let me show you! I can be good, I’m worth it I promise.. I’m-..I…” He stops once he sees your worried expression. Not frightened, at least not visibly.

“I’m leaving for now..I need time to think…”

Beomgyu watches you leave, wanting his tears to stop you somehow. When he sees that you’re actually leaving, he’s already trying to find a way to make you come back to him..

You were pleasantly surprised by how distant you two were becoming. No more constant calls from Beomgyu, or text messages.

Until one day.

When you received a video from Beomgyu titled “come back :((?” You were beyond confused. He hadn’t texted you in days, never called, and it was refreshing.

Opening the file, you didn’t expect much. But as Beomgyu came into screen and fixed the camera, you were utterly confused.

“I miss you baby…I know you miss me too..” He says softly, His hand moving away from the camera as he gets comfortable on the bed. He pouts softly as he looks into the camera.

“I know you’ll come back, you always do..” He says softly as his fingers come up to rub his nipples.

You always loved how sensitive they were, and how his body would react. Beomgyu let out soft moans and tilted his head slowly, moving his hand down his body gently.

You want to turn it off, to tell him that he’s gone too far this time. But..

He looks so pretty, and you know it just for you. His legs are spread perfectly infront of the camera, his hair falling onto from his forehead. Just slightly covering his pretty eyes.

Beomgyu grabs something from off of screen, a pair of your panties. He gently takes them and brings them up to his nose, taking a gentle whiff.

You should be disgusted, really..Hes jerking off infront of you, using your panties to get off.

But you aren’t disgusted..in fact, you’re turned on.

Beomgyu pants gently, sniffing the panties as he jerks off.

“I love you..I love you, i just want you to come back..I-I need y..” He can hardly continue to speak, stroking his cock faster and faster.

His hips thrust up constantly, and he grinds against his palm. “Please, want you to come back..just want you-“

Beomgyu whines in frustration, every attempt at trying to get off comes to no avail..Because its not you..Its not you stroking his cock, its not you silencing his moans because hes always a bit too loud.

Tears brim in his eyes as he pulls his hand away from his cock. He whimpers and reaches for your pillow behind him, slowly shifting and straddling the pillow.

As you watch, your gaze falls onto the way his hips thrust, desperate and needy. Normally, you’d be there to soothe him. But now, all you can do is watch.

“Y-y/n..” He whines gently, thrusting onto your pillow. Beomgyu tilts his head back, finally finding some relief after all these tries to cum.

And for some reason, you turn off the video there…

You immediately open up your text messages and stare at his contact, attempting to find something to say.

But, you leave it at that. Turning off your phone and sliding it to the side. Of course Beomgyu wouldn’t let this break happen…

Guess the break’s ending already, hm?

[themusingsofacurlyhairednerd]

In Love and War (9)

Summary: The completion of the wards falls on an anniversary Warlord!Rhys can't forget.

Content Warnings: Mentions of Death/Infant Loss; Depression; Mentions of Drinking.

Author's Note: Brought the story back just to fill it with angst, I'm so sorry!

Previous Chapter/ Masterlist

---------

Rhys is gone by morning, his side of the mat cold. My head feels like it’s full of cotton; mouth full of sand. My bones ache, most of all my hands, it’s an effort to stretch out my fingers without feeling like my skin might tear right off the bone.

At least I haven’t covered the tent in vines while I slept.

There’s a waterskin and some rations left beside the mat for me, after a couple minutes of trying to rub the stiffness from my fingers, I sit up and scarf it down like I haven’t seen a meal in a week. My stomach certainly rumbles like it. I wonder if an increased appetite is a side effect of expelling so much power?

Once I’m finished, I slip back into my armor, wincing at the smell that clings to the leather. I need a shower, desperately! We’re supposed to be meeting up with Cassian’s group today, hopefully that means we’ll return to the valley soon and I can find some place to get clean. 

By the time I’ve finished with the laces, Azriel’s poking his head in the tent and giving me a five minute warning before camp starts to move. He doesn’t offer up any answers as to where Rhys is before disappearing again.

Hoping the minatiny of this familiar task will help lessen the tension in my muscles, I make quick work of tearing down the tent and getting it all rolled up to leave. My head still feels terribly foggy, but I suppose I could still feel like I was going to tear out of my skin, so I’ll take it as a win. 

Azriel helps me get the supplies mounted onto Rhys’s horse, but the warlord still doesn’t show himself until right before we leave. He wears his cowl again, the stars covering his eyes, the heavy fabric shielding his wings from the cold mountain air. His gloved hands grab my hips and lift me into the saddle and he swings silently into his seat behind me without so much as a hello. 

I try to not let the silence get to me, but worry worms its way into my chest the longer we go without speaking. Had I done something wrong yesterday? Was he irritated with how slow my progress has been? He seemed pleased last night, had I misinterpreted it?

His powers seem… dull today. The starlight not so bright, his shadows sluggish as he stitches the wards back together. His body is heavy against my back, like he’s having a hard time holding himself upright.

“Are you ok?” It takes a couple hours for me to work up the courage to ask.

He nuzzles his cowl covered head against my neck. “I’m all right.”

“You’re quiet today,” I say gently.

“Just a little tired,” he assures.

“Did you not sleep?” I was so exhausted last night I hadn’t been aware enough to see if he’d fallen asleep with me. He’d been so exhausted when we’d made it back to camp I’d just assumed he was out as fast as I was.

“I’ll sleep when this is done,” he replies.

My chest aches at the thought of him being up all night, tying these wards back together after spending all day babysitting me and my errant powers. “You need to rest too.”

He kisses my temple, his lips like ice against my skin. “I’ll be alright.”

A few more minutes of silence stretch out between us, the only sound the horse’s hooves against the rocks and boisterous conversations of the men behind us. They’re in good spirits today, making bets on whether or not we beat Cassian around the mountain. Rhys makes no attempt to join the conversation, his focus still on the wards.

I see no sight of the other group ahead of us, just lots and lots of mountain, and some dark clouds ahead of us. We might meet Cassian as the storm arrives to meet us. I shiver at the thought of what might have happened to me if I was still out alone in that kind of weather. It’s almost cold enough to snow, if I had still been looking for game in that poor excuse for clothes, no real shelter to be had, I’d be dead. It still hits me like a slap to think that Tam left me out here, knowing I could die, knowing I wasn’t prepared to make it on my own.

“How do you feel today?” It’s not the first time I wonder if he can hear my thoughts somehow. He always seems to know when they turn to Tamlin.

“My head feels like it’s full of cotton,” I say truthfully. “But it is better than yesterday.”

He twists to find the waterskin and passes it to me. “It might feel like that for a while.”

I subconsciously bring my fingers up to rub my temples. “Suppose it’s better than clawing at my skin all day.”

“It will help if you keep practicing,” he assures. “The more you get comfortable with it, the less energy you will have to put in expelling it. It will come out naturally and it will hurt less.”

I think the bones in my fingers might snap in half if I keep trying to summon claws after yesterday. 

He stops warding long enough to cup my hands together in my lap. “Just practice making those flowers, like last night. No shapeshifting on Midnight, he doesn’t like having fangs near his neck.”

“Your horse’s name is Midnight?” I can’t help the laugh that slips out of me. Death Incarnate rides a horse that sounds like it got its name from a child! It’s so very un-Warlord like of him that I can’t help but smile.

“He was born at Midnight, so his name is Midnight,” Rhys counters and Midnight huffs in what sounds like agreement.

“Oh of course, I was just expecting something… more intimidating, I guess.”

Midnight shakes his mane in a way that looks to me like I’ve insulted him and I run an apologetic hand over his silk smooth neck. 

“It’s intimidating,” Rhys insists.

“It’s cute,” I amend.

He huffs as he leans his chin down against my shoulder, hand leaving mine to resume his stitching. “I was ten, it sounded cool to a ten year old.”

I try to picture a scruffy haired ten year old Rhys, but come up empty. “Even cuter!”

“Hush, you’ll ruin my reputation,” he warns, nipping playfully at the juncture of my throat and shoulder. 

“Your reputation is safe with me,” I swear.

He chuckles at that, but as my focus shifts to practicing like he suggested, he once again slips back into silence. His shadows drift lazily over my arms and wrists as I practice, as if watching my progress. Sometimes they brush soothingly over my shaking wrists, or rub circles into my palms when the tension becomes too much, but Rhys says nothing for hours.

The storm on the horizon continues to drift closer, the temperature dropping the further into the mountains we go. When I start to shiver, he draws his cloak around the two of us, and tucks himself a little tighter around me to share the blissful warmth of his body heat, but even then he says nothing. 

Worry once again worms its way into my chest. Is he hurt? Did I do something wrong yesterday? Did he somehow figure out what I’d done?

I worry my lower lip between my teeth to avoid him seeing me wringing my hands the longer this drags on. We don’t stop for lunch, only for a brief period to let the horses drink from a small stream, and not even long enough for us to dismount and stretch our legs. It’s a quick drink and then we’re right back to it. The men seem pleased with this, the less stops mean the sooner we reach the rendezvous point and beat Cassian. If any of them think something is amiss with Rhys, they don’t voice it.

It comes to a point that I try to catch Azriel’s eye to see if the other male notices anything off with his warlord, but Rhys keeps us steadily ahead of the others, leading the way into the coming storm. 

The wind beats relentlessly at us now, I have to shield my eyes by tucking my head inside Rhy’s cloak. Still, Rhys doesn’t slow, even if I hear the heavy rasp of his breathing beneath his chestplate the harder he pushes. 

By nightfall, lightning streaks across the sky in angry slashes, thunder echoing off the mountain tops. I can smell the rain on the wind, though trouble finds us first when a lightning strike hits the side of the mountain and a rush of boulders and debris come raining down on our heads. 

Rhys’s magic flares in a protective shield above our heads, sheltering us from the worst of it, and once he’s sure everyone is unscathed, he presses on. 

Still, none of the men protest. Not even when the rain finally comes. It beats down on us like thousands of icy needles, pelting relentlessly against every bit of exposed skin it can find. Rhys’ cloak protects us from the worst of it, but even for all its magic properties, it can’t keep the rain from sliding down into our boots. 

I try not to complain. I’ve been through worse. But my teeth are chattering and I’ve done my best to curl up into his chest to try and preserve any bit of body heat I might have left. “Rhys, are we going to stop soon?”

I’m not sure at first that he can hear me over the rain, but his body shifts, an arm wrapping around my waist and then Midnight is moving faster, uphill. A few minutes later, the rain stops. Well, not stops, I can still hear it, but it no longer beats against us. 

He slides off the horse and I hear the wet thwack of his boots against stone before he hauls me down onto the ground next to him. I don’t know how he’s not shivering, he’s as soaked as I am.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, pressing a damp kiss to my forehead. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

We’re in a large cave carved into the mountain. It’s cold and damp and so dark I can barely see, but it’s not raining on us any longer so I’ll take it. The rest of the men file in behind us, proving the size is bigger than I can make out in the dark. 

“Az, get a fire going,” Rhys orders. 

“This the spot we’re meeting the others?” One of the men asks.

“It’s up the ridge,” Rhys returns as he pulls off his gloves and shoves them in his pocket so he can help rub some warmth back into my fingers. “I’ll finish it in a moment.”

He brings my hands up to his lips and as Azriel gets a fire going with some debris littering the cave, I get the first real look of him all day. “I’m sorry, Darling,” his eyes are rimmed with dark circles and bloodshot, face pale. “I’m sorry.” He keeps repeating it even as he kisses my knuckles, more like he’s talking to himself than me and my chest cracks open a little more.

“It’s ok,” my teeth are still chattering. 

Some of the men find the wood they’ve kept wrapped and dry and get the fire growing, but Rhys pulls me farther into the dark, deft fingers unlacing my chestpiece, the leather sticking to my damp skin. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers again and even though he’s still brushing his lips against my forehead while he works, I don’t feel like he’s seeing me at all. He’s far, far away from me, body moving on instinct and I reach out to touch his face.

“Hey, I’m ok,” I promise.

But he won’t stop moving, not until he’s completely stripped me of all my wet clothes and found something dry to slip me into in his pack. They’re all way too big for me, but they're dry and I can’t make any complaints about it. 

“Was distracted,” he mutters to himself, hands pulling my damp hair off my neck and into a swift braid. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m ok, Rhys,” I assure. Some warmth already returning to my stiff limbs.

He still doesn’t hear me as he leads me back over to where a roaring fire now blooms in the heart of the cave. A few of the men stand around it, warming their hands, but the rest remain dutifully near their horses, waiting. 

Rhys throws a blanket around my shoulders as he helps me sit like I’m incapable of doing it on my own. At least all the supplies had been covered in waterproofing before we set out. Nothing has been ruined. Anything too soaked to be of use gets left draped over some rocks near the fire to dry out.

“Better?” His own wet clothes make a puddle around him as he kneels next to me, making sure I’m fully wrapped up in the blanket. 

“Better,” I confirm, and I mean it, the heat is delicious, warming the rock beneath us so that the chill is no longer seeping through my clothes. 

He leans in to kiss me gently on the lips, like I’m made of glass or something. “I’m sorry.”

I try to reach for his hand to assure him that I am fine, but he pulls away before I can. 

“Stay with her while I finish the wards,” he orders Azriel.

I drag my attention away from Rhys to look at the other Illyrian. The orange glow of the fire of the sharp planes of his face make him look like a primordial god. 

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Azriel returns, muscular arms crossed firmly over his chest.

Rhys huffs as he strides past him, “Stay. With. Her.” Then he’s back on his horse and riding back into the rain before anyone else can try and stop him. 

Azriel sends some of the men out with him before settling down next to me on the floor.

I don’t know Azriel well enough to start up a conversation, at least, rationally I know that. That doesn’t stop me from trying anyway. “Is he ok?”

Azriel throws his wet boots to the floor to dry out with a sigh. “Today’s a bad day.” His wings flair out behind him, shaking out water droplets that make the fire hiss and sputter.

I glance at the remaining men, who make themselves comfortable and busy doing anything other than sit near the two of us.  “What’s today?” 

Hazel eyes flick briefly to me, and I get the distinct impression he’s sizing me up, before he goes back to starring in the fire. “Feyre…”

Shit.

“She died five years ago today.”

I glance back towards the mouth of the cave, out into the rain, even though I can’t see him out there in the dark. 

“She…” Azriel throws another log into the fire with the energy of someone who just needs to be doing something with his hands. “She was pregnant. A boy. They’d just found out the gender.”

I don’t know what to say. The beast that lives caged beneath my skin howls and rages against my bones, like it might break free and rip through the pain I feel shred my soul at the realization of how deeply Amarantha had hurt him. My claws tear easily through my nail beds.

“He always gets like this on the anniversary,” Azriel continues. “Usually does some reckless shit and drinks himself half to death.” He too glances out the mouth of the cave. “Give him some space tonight, ok?”

I nod, not trusting my voice to speak. 

“He’ll need you in the morning. It’s usually worse the day after, when he wakes up and realizes…” he trails off.

“When he realizes she’s not coming back,” tears prick the corners of my eyes. How many mornings had I awoken, still anxious that my mother had wandered off while I slept, only to remember she was gone?

“Yeah.”

“Will you check on him, in a bit?” I tuck my head against my knees. 

“No,” Azriel replies. “If I leave you alone tonight…” he lets the words hang there, but I get the point. The look in Rhys’ eyes earlier was clear enough. If he thought for even a second that I was in danger tonight, after what he’d already lost, he might just tear the whole world apart.

I pull the blanket tighter around myself and lean back against a boulder, trying to get comfortable. I’ll just have to wait up for him then. He has to come back eventually, right? He’s not so distracted by the date that he’d stay up in the rain all night, would he?

Azriel brings some food out for me a little while later, and some of the men start playing card games to pass the time. We don’t speak any more after that though, the silence only broken by the pounding of the rain against the mouth of the cave. I barely have the stomach to eat anything, I just keep staring at the entrance, waiting.

Today isn’t the day to ask him why he chose me. Tomorrow won’t be either. That’s ok. For whatever reason, it doesn’t feel like it matters right now. He needs me. I’ll be here. Whatever the reason fate brought us together, whatever either of us intended to do, tonight it’s irrelevant. Tonight I don’t want to think about all the trouble behind me. I just want to be here for him, like he has been for me. 

The hours start to tick by. Some of the men unfurl their sleep mats around the fire and drift off. Azriel sits dutifully beside me, spinning his dagger in his hands, only getting up every now and then to feed the fire. Rhys still doesn’t return. 

My fingers drift absently to my chest, to that spot where I sometimes feel that thing that ties me to Rhys. I don’t know that it’s really a bond, it seems cruel that the Mother would tie me to him when he deserves someone better than me, but tonight I hope that it is something. I push on it, hoping that there’s another end where he can feel me. An end that tells him I’m here if he needs me, if he wants me. I can’t replace her. Or what he’s lost. I won’t even begin to try, but if he wants me, I will be here, waiting.

“You should get some sleep,” Azriel says after a while.

I shift my position to be a little closer to the fire. “No.” I don’t need to explain myself, so I won’t try.

An hour past midnight, horses come into view through the downpour. As I sit up, hopeful that he’s finally back, Cassian dismounts from a horse covered in mud. Mor follows, barely conscious, her rain slicked hair plastered to her face. She yawns as she stumbles over to the fire, and strips right there in front of everyone, her wet clothes hitting the floor with a thwack. 

I don’t miss the way Azriel quickly looks away from her. 

Cassian only chuckles as he throws a fresh pair of clothes at her. 

Once she’s changed and holding her own blanket, she settles down next to me with a grin. “Guess you guys win this time around!”

“Yeah,” the words come out of me absently, my gaze still fixed over her shoulder, trying to see past Cassian and the rest of his men as they file in. 

Azriel stands to help them light a second fire, further blocking my view. 

“He was right behind us,” Mor assures, following my gaze. 

I find myself biting my lower lip again as my gaze jumps from one male to the next. Where is he? He should be back by now! But none of the faces that slowly come into view as Azriel gets the fire going is the one I want to see. 

My lip is bleeding from how much I’ve been biting on it tonight; I move to start biting at my nail instead. He shouldn’t be out there this long! Azriel says he gets reckless, did he do something stupid? What if he’s hurt?

Mor reaches out to grab my wrist and only then do I realize how deeply I’ve been digging my knuckles into the knot that’s been steadily forming in my chest. Her eyes are gentle as she pulls my hand away. “We weren’t followed, he’s fine.”

The beast beneath my skin snaps and growls. He’s not fine! He’s alone out there in the cold and rain, in pain and I can’t shake the feeling that he needs me… but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it.

“He shouldn’t be alone.”

She glances over to Azriel and Cassian before looking back to me. “Trust me, he wants to be. Just give him space.”

The minutes drag on for eternity. Mor lays down next to me and drifts off almost immediately. I’m so restless I’m about to start pacing. I might have actually gotten up and done it if Azriel’s disapproving gaze didn’t land on me the moment I tried to stand back up. Bastard!

It’s probably no time at all before Midnight finally comes riding through the rain into the mouth of the cave, but it feels like eternity, as if I’d been holding my breath the whole night. The knot in my chest loosens as Rhys jumps out of the saddle and finds some scraps of cloth to dry the horse off with. 

His cloak is still drying across the fire, his clothes now sopping wet. Every move he makes leaves a puddle behind him. The strands of his dark hair have slipped free from the knot he’d tied them in, the long locks now clinging to his face. It takes everything in me not to get up and push them out of his way for him. 

He strips down to his boxers quickly, tossing his ruined clothes somewhere behind him carelessly. The glow of the fire makes the circles under his eyes darker as he snags a wineskin from one of the men. 

I watch as Cassian tries to make a joke, but Rhys just huffs at him as he pushes his hair out of his face and takes a long drink from the skin. 

I’ve waited all this time to make sure he’s ok, but now that he’s back I don’t know what to do. Azriel told me to stay away tonight, and by the looks of it, he’s following his own advice as he finally retrieves his mat and lays down near the entrance of the cave. Cassian hovers for a few minutes, trying to make conversation, but Rhys just keeps drinking and ignoring him, his gaze lost in the flames. Eventually he gives up and gets his own mat ready for bed. 

I wait, watching as Rhys finally sits down in front of the other fire, the light glistening off his damp skin. The shadows trace his tattoos like I often find myself wishing to do with my fingers. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how I’m supposed to make this better for him. But when my world fell apart, he’d come and held me, so maybe he needs that too?

I swallow the lump in my throat as I finally stand, dragging the blanket with me. 

For once, Rhys doesn’t seem to notice me, eyes still locked in the flames as he brings the skin to his lips and drinks again and again and again. 

I should be afraid of him. All the males in my life were violent drunks. The scars on my side are a testament to that. Rhys is stronger than all of them, and I have no idea what he’s like drunk. But I only feel trepidation because I don’t want to make his pain worse, not because I think he’ll hurt me. I don’t think he’s capable of that.

I take the blanket off my shoulders and drape it around his, careful of where his damp wings drape across the floor. Only then does he glance up at me, his eyes glassy. Wordlessly, his hand brushes over mine, barely holding on, just enough to give me a little tug, asking me to sit. For a moment, I just sit next to him under the shared blanket, but his skin is so cold! He’s not shaking only because he’s had enough to drink to keep him from noticing.

Damn me, and the stupid thing that lives in my chest that feels like it’s breaking from my inability to fix this. I’d thought what I was feeling might be pity at first, but now… now I can’t help but think I manifested this somehow, when I asked him all those days ago if he would show me how to be a good mate. 

I had spent most of my life wishing this kind of pain on him. I’ve gotten what I wanted and I hate every bit of it. This isn’t what  I want at all!

Slowly, unsure of myself, I twist so I can wrap my arms around his waist. At the very least, my body heat might keep him warm. He stills under my grip, body rigid. Maybe this was the wrong move, maybe Azriel was right and I should have stayed away.

“What are you doing, mate?” He whispers in my ear, voice slurring.

I tuck my head against his bare chest. “Want to hold you.”

“Why?” His hands shake as they trail down my spine. 

“You’re sad.” That’s an understatement, but I don’t know how else to put it. “I’m not very good at this comforting thing, you know? But you’ve held me when I’ve been sad so I thought, maybe, you would want that too.”

He goes quiet for a bit and I think maybe I’ve lost him to the horrors that plague his mind again, but then he tosses the wineskin to the floor and rolls us both onto our sides on the rough stone ground. The stone is uncomfortable without a mat, but he shifts so his arm is beneath my head, and glides my leg up over his hip so we’re chest to chest. I’m not sure how warm he’ll be with the fire at my back, but I hope my body heat will transfer to him well enough. 

“You didn’t have to stay up for me,” he says.

I gently trace my fingers over the swirls of ink on his chest. “I know, but I wanted to. I didn’t want you to be alone.”

He nuzzles his face against mine. “Will you stay with me?”

“For as long as you need,” I assure.

His wing comes up to cover us, but he doesn’t close his eyes, fingers drawing lazy shapes against my back. 

“You should sleep,” I try but he shakes his head.

“Not tonight.”

I wonder if he sees what he’s lost as clearly as I do in my dreams, but it feels like a bad time to ask. No need to further dredge up those awful memories. 

“You said you used to tell your mother stories,” he says, the firelight dancing over his face. “Will you tell me one?”

It is an easy rhythm to fall into, as easy as breathing. The words spill out of me, the tale weaving itself along with the tempo of the crackling wood and the pouring rain around us. I tell story after story about the nymphs and the dryads, in a world long before Hybern and Amarantha, long before war tore our people apart. I talk until the fire starts to die, and the rain becomes a dull thud against the rocks outside; until the words become as heavy as my eyes. He never says anything during my tales, but he never closes his eyes either, hands still wandering absently up my back. The gesture more soothing than he realizes, I don’t think anyone had ever held me like this. My eyes droop despite my best efforts, words starting to slur.

“You should sleep,” he says.

“Don’t want to leave you alone,” I confess, but my eyes are so, so heavy. The strain of the last few days still weighs on me. 

My vision is blurry, sleep pulling on the edge of my consciousness, so it has to be a trick of the light that I see tears in his violet eyes.

He buries his head in the crook of my neck, breath stuttering out of him, and I realize that it’s no trick. Not when I can feel the damp stain across my sleeve. He muffles a sob in my shirt, the dull thundering of the rain enough to cover the rest. My fingers move instinctively into his hair, brushing through the tangled strands., my senses once again alert and awake.

The knot in my chest aches so deeply I think it might keep me awake for days.

“I wasn’t fast enough,” he whimpers. 

Gods, how many times had I whispered that very thing into the dark, rocking myself to sleep, trying to soothe myself with all the possible ways I could have saved my parents, even when I knew it was futile? 

“There was nothing you could have done.” That’s what you’re supposed to say, right? It sounds right. Sounds like what I wanted someone to tell me when I spiraled down into the depths of my depression. 

“It should have been me,” he sobs.

I draw him tighter against me. If I had any way to draw that pain out of his chest and take it into my own I would. I’d do anything, offer any distraction, sacrifice any plan, to take that burden off my mate.

The world feels like it zeroes in to that one, particular point.

My mate.

Of all the godsdamned times for it to click into place, for him to be right, it had to be here, in this damp cave when I have no idea how to make any of this better. I’m out of my element, in more ways than one.

“You…” I’m having a hard time breathing around the knot in my chest--no, the tether in my chest, all jumbled and tangled by all the fucked up stuff between us, but a tether none the less. “You can’t think like that.”

“You don’t understand-” he growls into my throat, but I cut him off, “Yes, I do. I do understand what it feels like to have the people you love ripped from you.”

His body stills under my hands again.

“I understand the emptiness, the loneliness, how… dark and cold and fucking brutal the aftermath is because there is suddenly no one there to tell you that it’s not your fault. There’s no one to assure you that they would want you to live and not carry the weight of it on your shoulders every godsdamned day.”

He slowly tilts his head back to look at me, his face tear streaked. I move my hand out of his hair to brush some of it off his cheek. “No one can replace what you lost.”

Slowly, he leans his head into my touch. “And I’m so sorry that you’ve lost so much.”

It’s unfair that one person should have to lose so many of the people that he loves; looking at him, I can’t believe how close I was to bringing even more pain into his life. If I had succeeded… gods I would have been worse than my father!

“But I have to believe that you are still here for a reason.” He should get to have a life! Whatever that costs me, he’s more than earned it. “Even if you haven’t found that reason yet.”

Rhys leans back down against my shoulder with a sigh that makes his wings shake. “It’s so heavy,” he whispers.

My hands go back to his hair, working through the knots the rain has created. “Show me how to help you carry it?”

His wing comes back over me again, his weight now fully on me. Somehow, it feels like that helps the tether linking us together settle. The ache… soothed, just a bit. I drift my hands from his hair down his back, careful to avoid his wings, soothing over hard muscle, until his breathing stops feeling so shaky. 

“Distract me,” he whispers.

“Whatever you need, Rhys, I’m here,” and I mean it.

“Tell me another story?”

“As many as you like,” I promise. It’s the least I can do, for my mate. I shove all the fear and uncertainty the word brings to mind into a quaint little box in the back of my mind; bury it under layers of emotional damage I’ve never dealt with and refuse to let my thoughts run away with me. I will figure it out tomorrow. I will find a way to make sure I don’t become another scar on his heart. He can’t ever know what I planned to do… it would ruin him.

And I wouldn’t survive it.

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Thank you all for your patience! <3 I'm trying to get back on schedule with this!

[daistea]

I started writing an imagine request but got distracted and produced This Thing. I’ve been wanting to write out my thoughts and my analysis on Mithrun’s state of mind for a while, actually

tw suicide, depression, discussions of mental health and self worth

Dungeon Meshi Spoilers ahead ‼️❗️

Sooo despite a lack of desires, Mithrun lives by habit.

These habits aren’t driven by preference, likes or dislikes. They’re still culturally acceptable though, mainly because Milsiril and his brother were the ones that instilled these habits in him(Mithrun doesn’t care what’s acceptable if it has nothing to do with the demon.) And there are still a few quirks leftover from his old self, things he never had a stark desire or choice to do but still did simply because he was used to them. Even after 40 years, the ins and outs of what the demon did to him remain still so complex.

Mithrun doesn’t really care about the details all that much. I like to think that outside of the dungeon, he has a regular bathroom schedule. He bathes every day when possible. He brushes his teeth for exactly two minutes, twice a day. It isn’t that he desires to not stink, it’s that he has to do these to keep his team willing to be around him so he’d have a better chance at finding the demon again and finishing the job.

In my headcanon, there are a few small habits he hasn’t quite picked up yet. He often doesn’t bother to brush his hair— the thought doesn’t even enter his mind. It gets stringy, something his old self never would’ve allowed. Its only when he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror— a very rare occurrence, since mirrors remind him of the demon and the demon makes him want to shatter things— that he realizes that he should probably brush it for the sake of functionality.

Taking care of his skin is yet another habit he’d never really formed. Elves have naturally perfect skin anyway, so there’s no use. But they could still be scarred, and marred, and reflect physical neglect. Like with dark eye bags, a lack of sunlight, and dehydration.

Mithrun is incredibly dehydrated.

He doesn’t realize that, of course. While his body would feel the neglect, it doesn’t send those signals to his brain. With things like peeing, he only realizes that he needs to go to the bathroom because he recognizes the physical feeling, not because his brain says ‘got to pee now.’

With hunger, he feels pangs, but those pangs dont translate into appetite or a desire to eat. He only eats because it would keep him alive long enough to encounter the demon again.

Dehydration is also slightly physical, in that his throat will sometimes feel dry or his lips will chap, but he has not a single thought of ‘I’m craving water,’ Plus, what does that have to do with defeating the demon? Applying burts bees watermelon flavored lip balm ain’t getting him nowhere.

Everything goes back to the demon. Every move he makes is either because it’s a necessity of staying alive(to kill the demon) or because it’s part of the intricate web that will eventually lead him to the demon.

Mithrun gets hurt, he feels the physical pain, but his only desire is to patch it up quickly and keep moving to get to the demon. Healing himself for the sake of relief doesn't matter. Demon comes first. The demon is everything. It’s in the air he breathes, it’s in his bloodstream.

He doesn’t realize that he’s still Mithrun. He doesn’t consider himself as Mithrun anymore, that’s just his name. He lives for revenge(so he says) He Is An Instrument, a weapon that exists and is only maintained for the sole purpose of Revenge

A common misconception is that he has no emotion. Not true, he just doesn’t desire to fake a smile or joy or laughter for the sake of making someone feel comfortable. He can still smile quite naturally when he’s, ya know, getting closer to the goddamn demon. He can still be surprised and feel adrenaline and be angry at the things that happen in life. He can still get irritated or annoyed at his companions. He still has opinions, thoughts, feelings. He’s himself.

Idk. It’s incomprehensible almost, not having desires. It brings up so many variables. It’s not something you can be very literal or cut-and-dry about. My most effective way of connecting with his character is applying my experience with depression and the lack of desire I feel for doing certain things, and how I only do them for the sake of my family and friends. I think that’s considered relatively functioning. And I think honestly Mithrun would be considered high-functioning. But it’s not that he wants to do those things, he does them because he’s supposed to, because it all leads back to the stupid bitch face demon.

Mithrun tells himself he wants it dead. That’s his desire. But he knows if he ever succeeded in getting rid of it, he would have nothing. He’s okay with that. He’s going to die anyway, no matter if it’s by passively wasting away or by the mouth of the lion. He’s prepared for death, it’s inevitable. He’s not scared.

But once he decides to live again, he still functions mainly by habit. Except he starts to apply himself a little more.

“I’m going to wash myself today because my companions would appreciate that” and not “I need to stay clean to keep the team around to lead me to the demon”

And “I’m going to make noodles today to keep me busy.”

“I’m going to get a dog so I’ll have an obligation to go outside every day to walk it, because it’s good for me to do that.”

They’re still conscious choices, and sometimes he falters, he doesn’t register that he should do something. But he’s chosen to live and he’s trying to function not for the sake of his one goal, but for the sake of the gift that is existence.

He’ll learn to love, to have genuine friendships. On good days, he’ll appreciate a warm meal, the feeling of relief when drinking water, the soft touch of someone close to him. And he’ll experience these things because that’s what living people do. They’re nice things. He doesn’t do things anymore simply because they’ll take him closer to the demon.

It’s freeing, in a way. It’s scary, in another way. Imagine you’ve lost your one purpose in life, the one thing that keeps you on your feet, how would you react? Terrifying.

Mithrun is incredibly brave and strong for making the choice to find a new purpose, to exist, to eat.

[hergrandplan]

Hi! I hope you're having a nice day!😊 Not sure if you're still taking the 5 sentence thingy but I was thinking of Wilmon💜 and "So you're saying we got lost and we don't know where we are?".

Hi! I'm so sorry that this is so late, but I couldn't figure it out until last night lol. Warning: angst ahead (disclaimer: this thing is inspired by a little AU I worked on a few months ago and is partially written on a train so please excuse any mistakes💜

“So, you’re saying we got lost and we don’t know where we are?” Simon stared aheaf of him, at the snow-covered road, the miles and miles of nothingness.

Beside him, Wille hit the navigation again, but it still wouldn’t come to life.

“Told you we should’ve taken a map.” Simon thumped his head against the headrest, closing his eyes. At least they were in a car, somewhat warm and shielded from the elements. “This wouldn’t have happened with a map.”

“I’m sorry,” Wille said. “I know this probably isn’t how you wanted to spend your Christmas.” He was silent for a moment, then Simon heard him let out a bitter chuckle. “Stuck in a car with your ex.”

Simon opened one eye, glancing at Wille next to him. “I’m not stuck in a car with my ex. I’m stuck in a car with my friend.”

Simon didn’t miss the quick grimace that came over Wille’s face, before he schooled it back in a more neutral look. “Right. Friends. Forgot we were that for a second.”

Simon turned his head to look at him, frowning. “I mean – we are. That’s why I invited you along to pick up my mom’s gift.”

“Don't lie to me. You called me ’cause you needed my car." Wille's hands gripped the steering wheel tighter, even though they hadn't been driving for at least 15 minutes now.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I called you ‘cause I wanted to spend time with you, because you are my friend.”

“Because that’s the only reason you call me nowadays!” Wille snarled, whipping around to face Simon. “You only reach out when you need something from me, whether it’s picking up your mom’s Christmas gift or se—“

“Don’t,” Simon warned. “Don’t you dare go there.”

“It’s true though, isn’t it?” It was now that Simon saw the anger simmering in Wille’s eyes, and wondered how long it had been there. “I don’t hear anything from you all year," Wille continued, "while you’re living your fancy life in Los Angeles or New York or wherever the fuck you live now, god knows I don’t know ‘cause you don’t talk to me, and then the minute you get back here you just pretend like everything is just as you left it. Well guess what, Simon?" Wille's breathing had become shallow, consisting of quick, angry breaths. "Things change in your absence. You may think that the whole fucking world revolves around you now, and your tours and your albums, but that doesn’t mean that we stop living the second you leave. It doesn’t mean that we don’t go on.”

“I don’t think the world revolves around me!” Simon yelled back, the car suddenly feeling too small to be having this kind of conversation.

“Don’t you? You certainly expect me to still be the exact same, knocking on my door in the middle of the night because you feel lonely. As if loving you wasn’t already the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done, there you go again messing with my head.”

Simon stilled, and he gazed up at Wille. “You once said loving me was as easy as breathing.”

He saw that bitter grimace cross Wille’s face again, but this time it didn’t disappear. “That was back when you still loved me too.”

Simon’s heart thumped in his throat and there were tears, threatening to spill down his cheeks. The words were soft, afraid that if he spoke them any louder his voice would crack. “Who says I ever stopped?”

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