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misted-dream · 10 months ago

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🦢 A WALTZ IN THE DARK ₊˚⊹ ˚ ༘ ⋆

ACT III THE CURTAINS FALL. | to the programme

chapter info . . . content the smut chapter. a little bit of miscommunication? warnings oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, profanity, exhibitionism maybe w. count 10k

series synopsis . . . the first and last time you and doyoung danced together was 5 years ago. 5 years since the mishap that founded your mistrust of him, at least as a duet partner. with the annual swan lake showing rolling around, you think you finally stand a chance to audition for the leads: odette and odile. it's every ballerina's dream to play this role at least once in their career. little do you know, rumour has it that kim doyoung just so happens to be auditioning for the role of prince siegfried this year.

tags @00127am @beomgyusonlywife @bloomyroses

If you were to describe your relationship with Kim Doyoung… it’d be a difficult task. If the saying, ‘opposites attract’ were true, then you and Doyoung would be the same pole on a bar magnet. It felt like with every pull comes a stronger push. But all those speculations and theorisations come to a halt as an elbow nudges you in the stomach.

“Hello?” Karina pushes you slightly with her shoulder, knocking you a couple of steps back. “You’ve got to quit staring at him like that.”

“I wasn’t—”

With one raise of her eyebrows, Karina shuts you up. You take a few steps to close the slight distance between you and Karina again, your shoulders pressed up against each other’s. “I was just… zoning out.”

“Sure,” Karina replies brightly, “Zoning out just fantasising about our Prince over there, I bet,” her head nods towards Doyoung across the room.

Now, it’s your turn to give your friend a nudge in the side, wanting desperately for her to stop speaking before anyone else hears you. She can barely hold back her chuckle and all you can do is hope that everyone else is too preoccupied with trying to memorise the sequence to pay attention to your personal gossip.

You were starting to dread these Fridays. With everyone in the company being in the same room at once, you felt like there were too many eyes on you. And Doyoung as well, but they don’t seem to be watching him for every mistake he makes like they do with you. Karina makes you forget about all that for a little bit, though, with her merciless teasing.

“Sorry! Sorry. I just never thought that you two would—y’know,” Karina leans into your ear, about to whisper the next part of her sentence before you stop her.

“Shh! What if someone hears?” You scan the massive stage as dancers line up row by row at the back.

Karina expels a shallow sigh, “Who cares! You two are grown adults, and it’s not like you’re doing anything wrong by kissing him.” She shrugs nonchalantly, watching as another lineup of ballerinas dance across the platform.

You try your best to ignore the acceleration in your chest at the mention of that. You’re not one to regret many things, but you do regret telling Karina about that night; she won’t stop questioning you like she’s some PI.

You run a hand up your opposite arm, giving yourself a slight squeeze on the shoulder. “We still haven’t talked about it,” you mumble.

Karina turns her head towards you and narrows her eyes. You flash a quick glance at her, then another, somewhat uncomfortable with how closely she’s studying you.

After a few moments of what felt more like hours of Karina intently just staring at you, it seems she has come to a conclusion.

She gasps a small breath, “Do you have feelings for him? God, you’re getting into character.”

“What?” You give her a light smack on the arm, “No! I don’t— I’m just bothered that we haven’t spoken in weeks. That’s all.” The words come out of you slowly and articulately, trying your best not to fall into the hole you’ve dug for yourself. One look at Karina’s face tells you that it’s not working as well as you’d hoped it would, though.

She turns her gaze back onto the stage in front of the two of you. Her eyes never leave Doyoung, now in centre stage, as she tilts her head sideways towards yours. “I believe you’ve fallen to what the professionals call, ‘method acting.’”

It was at this moment, that you knew you should never open your mouth about how your night-time practices are going nowadays to Karina if you still want to maintain some shred of dignity.

It’s another one of your customary late nights again. Thanks to this role, you’ve gotten a lot more familiar with each and every crevice of this practice room in the past month than you have in all your years working here.

Dejection seems to be a recurring theme during your OT hours lately. Not that you can help it. Colette’s still on you for not making your turns, though she has toned it down several notches, which is more than you can ask of her. And confronting failure face-to-face continually doesn’t necessarily boost the morale, especially when it’s 10pm and you’ve spent the last few hours by yourself, in silence. Just occasionally cussing yourself; your pointe shoes for giving out; or the wall that you spin into, out.

You sigh as you sit with your legs out in front of you in the middle of the studio, fingers squeezing the tops of your knees. For the first time tonight, you felt tired. You hadn’t paused to even breathe during this session, and now that you have, the weariness you’d built up is catching up to you. Still, there’s a tiny spark of determination within you that refuses to be extinguished—the only thing that’s stopping you from ending it here tonight and going home.

As a last-ditch effort, you pull your knees up to your chest and push yourself off the ground. One last try, for tonight at least, or you’ll end up causing more damage to your feet than you care to admit.

You don’t bother with the music, you haven’t bothered for a while now. Hearing the same build-up over and over again started to feel passionless. And something about it stirs a visceral reaction within you that you really wanted to avoid as much as you possibly can.

So, you position yourself in the very centre of the room. Eyes fixed on the ones staring back at you in the mirror. You spread your weight evenly between your two feet, one in front of you and the other behind. One of your arms round out in a semi-circle out in front parallel to your chest as the other stretches out to the side. You lean your weight slightly onto your back foot.

The room echoes with silence. A deep breath fills your lungs. Your eyes burn holes into the mirror, paying no mind to the stray strands of hair that splay out messily. You roll your shoulders back and straighten your spine. With one last breath, you sink into the heel of your back foot, and with all the remaining strength you can muster up, you push off into the starting turn.

You manage a double on the starting turn before coming back down on your heel to propel yourself up again. Your eyes never leave the spot you’ve marked on the mirror as you make your rounds. Mostly singles, some doubles, and some rare triples. In your head, you’re trying to keep count, but it’s not the easiest when you have multiple other things requiring your full attention.

12, 13, 14. Your heel lands again as you whip your other leg out to the side of you, forcing momentum when you draw it through into passé.

You’re nearly halfway there, and that’s when you remind yourself to not lose the strength in your core. You straighten back up as much as you can between turns, and you keep counting.

You’re starting to feel the inevitable stabbing of your nail against your own toe as you’re making your way through the 20’s. Your breathing is also getting heavier and heavier.

Expectations were low. You often get to this point, but fall short of just the 32 fouettés you need.

26, 27, 28.

You have to admit, there is a certain adrenaline that runs through you whenever you get this close. However, that’s the trap. You get excited, lose focus, and you don’t make it. So, as you catch a glimpse of your reflection, you try to steel the excitement threatening to boil over inside you. 29.

This time, as you come down, you push off again onto your toes with more force than ever, your other leg providing as much assistance as possible.

You spin once, meeting your eyes in the mirror. But you have enough momentum to not have to come down again. 30.

And again. Your gaze lingers as long as it possibly can before you have to whip your head around. 31.

The last, final turn you need. Friction is stretching your force thin. You’re on the finishing turn, and with the last bit of exertion from you, you manage to make a full spin. 32.

You land on your back foot, exhilarated at this small triumph that you shared with yourself tonight. Breath after breath, your chest rises and falls rapidly as you’re trying to blink away the dizziness.

Your arms fall to your sides, planting themselves onto your hips. An overwhelming sense of relief crashes over you as you watch your own reflection. A gentle smile starts to break onto your lips.

Then, something in the corner catches your attention.

Your eye darts over to the door. And what do you know—if this was any other setting, the very thought of being watched would be unsettling, but you should be used to it by now, you suppose.

“That was good.”

You hear it before you can clearly see anything. Perhaps your habit of not turning the lights on late on night does have its cons. But you don’t have to see for yourself to picture who it was in your head: Him and his devilishly handsome face.

On any other given night, you’d put up more of a rejection to his simple compliment and argue that you deserved a rating better than ‘good.’ But tonight, the urge just wasn’t there.

“Thanks,” you breathe out.

He walks in through the doorframe, more of him coming into light as he draws closer to you. With every step that he takes, it’s like your heart threatens more and more to jump out of your chest. Why am I feeling like this? It is the first time you’ve spoken in person since you kissed, yes, but that doesn’t change anything, right?

As he walks closer and closer towards you, the urge to have that sturdy wall of sarcasm you normally put up around you returns.

He stops a few steps short of being in reach of you. The planes of his cheeks highlighted by the glow of city lights outside. The man you’ve tolerated for as long as you can remember, Kim Doyoung, now standing in front of you, and it’s your knees that feel weak.

The thumping of your heart resonates in your ears—it’s so loud that you’re afraid even he can hear it. Trying to push all that down and stuff it into some locked up part of you, you try to think about how to navigate this conversation. Just two colleagues talking after ignoring each other after kissing each other; nothing to worry about.

“So. No lunchbox for me tonight?” You’re hoping that the cheek in your tone distracts from your undoubtedly rosying cheeks. But maybe acknowledging that was the wrong move—too late now.

“Actually, I was just about to leave it outside. But I saw you, instead.” He lifts his hand up and that’s the first time you spot the small, rectangular box in his grip.

You drag your eyes from the box back up to meet Doyoung’s. A beat passes.

Then, you muster up the courage. “Why… are you doing that for me?” You’ve asked yourself this question more times than you can count. Why is he being nice to you? That is strictly out of character for him, if you were to judge.

Doyoung crinkles his eyebrows, as if he’s offended that you’d asked him that question. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why are you bringing me…? Every night we’re here. I haven’t asked you to.” You speak slowly, as if you’re carefully treading through a minefield that is Kim Doyoung’s mind and reasoning.

“Skipping dinner’s bad,” he extends his arm out with the box in his hand, signalling for you to take it off of him. You’re reluctant, but he persists. “What? I’m… taking care of my costars.”

Your eyebrows quirk up at his choice of words. He holds it out a few more seconds before his patience wears thin.

“My arm is getting tired.”

And as his last push is met with nothing from you, he drops his hand to his side. Without a word, he scoffs and makes his way over back to where the door is.

“Fine, I’ll just put it in your bag.”

Subconsciously, you follow him as he walks over to the edge of the room, a bit dazed at the man in front of you.

He kneels down, shoving the box through the opening of your bag. When he stands up again, he seems a bit surprised that you’re literally right there behind him. Serves him right for all those other times he’s snuck up on you.

You stare at him and he stares back at you, his eyes widening at your silence, as if to say, “What?” in his typical bratty, condescending way.

“You’re overcompensating.” You shoot out.

“What?” His slight annoyance is replaced by confusion.

“Don’t worry,” your cadence loosens up as does your posture. In a more lax manner, you take a few steps towards the barre on the wall, next to Doyoung. “I’m not some charity case you’re condemned to because you feel bad for whatever.” You place your palms behind you on the barre, feeling somewhat pleased with yourself for having figured out Doyoung’s motivations.

Doyoung himself is slightly amused at your deduction. He leans backwards with his elbows on the barre, his legs stretching out in front of him. He turns his head, eyes looking down at you. “Believe it or not, I don’t see you as ‘charity work.’”

You take a second to still your heartbeat that seems dead set on betraying you with how you felt his breath fan faintly against your shoulder as he spoke. You turn to look him in the eyes, either to prove something to yourself, or to him—you couldn’t be sure.

“Then, why all this?”

Doyoung returns your gaze intently. You hadn’t planned for it, and now there’s no way you’re letting yourself back down. The way he looks at you—into you—hitches your breath. The last time he looked at you like this… You’re not sure you can stop history from repeating itself if he doesn’t stop now.

For a moment, you can swear his irises swirled like liquid pools of obsidian, the sheen in them barely visible under the dimness.

Before Doyoung even tries to come up with a way to talk his way out of this, he gives in. Into you.

In an instant, his lips envelopes yours. You wish you could say you were surprised, but deep down you were screaming at him to kiss you first.

You melt into the softness of his lips. The depth at which he takes you in makes the peck from last time seem like child’s play.

As both of you ease into each other’s touch, Doyoung’s eagerness becomes more and more apparent. One hand cups your jaw and the other settles on your nape, pulling you in as much as he can. Your lips fitted together like they were sculpted for each other. The way his mouth moved over yours as if they were connected to one mind.

Doyoung steps in between your legs, positioning himself in front of you with your back pressed against the wall. He never breaks his lips from yours, not even to take a breath. The hand that he previously had on your neck runs itself down to your waist, grabbing hold of it like he has so many times before. He pulls your torso closer to his, your chests pressed up together, your back slightly arched.

In all honesty, you would’ve expected Doyoung to be more the passive type, but you were gladly proven wrong. The way he presses his lips onto yours is with a force so strong that you’re sure it’s bound to leave your lips swollen and bruised. You don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but a groan rumbles in Doyoung’s throat, and you can feel it with a slight vibration. Your lips can’t help but draw themselves into a small smirk that he assuredly has to have felt.

It is only now that Doyoung pulls himself away from you, or more so pry himself away. In a way, you’re grateful because you don’t know how much longer you could’ve lasted before you completely lose yourself to his touch.

His face parts from yours with both of you trying to catch your breaths as quietly as you can.

With those eyes of his again, he switches between looking at your (only slightly swollen) lips and your eyes. He gently brushes the side of his thumb up your cheek, sliding under the hair that framed that part of your face.

His eyes follow the movement of his thumb, before glancing back at you. Breathily, he whispers, “Does that answer your question?”

It’s your lucky day. Karina had plans for lunch hour today, leaving you sitting alone in the middle of the canteen poking and prodding at your food. At first, you didn’t consider it entirely ‘lucky,’ but the more and more you thought about it, maybe it truly is. After all, if you tell Karina what happened two nights ago, she will no doubt hold it over you ’til the day you die. And not telling her isn’t exactly an option if she asks—she always has a way of getting inside your brain. And even if she doesn’t ask, she could definitely tell something’s up especially with how you’re having to bite back your own smile at random given moments of the day. So all in all, maybe you are lucky, at least for today.

That very sliver of luck lasted only moments, though.

Your eyes are down, staring somewhat blankly at your phone screen in an attempt to seem preoccupied. However, someone sees through your act—or maybe he just doesn’t care for it.

Doyoung slides his tray onto your table, swiftly taking a seat opposite you. You look up at him, watching his very nonchalant actions as if this happens every day.

“What are you doing?” You mutter, perhaps involuntarily. Some part of you is taken aback, another part is confused. Every single time—every one of your encounters with Kim Doyoung felt like a chess game. When you think you’ve seen through his tactics, he reveals that he already has several other countermoves calculated.

Doyoung does what he does best: ignore you. He places his hands on the table, eyes scanning over your tray and his briefly. Then, he lifts his gaze up onto you. “Are you free this weekend?” He asks with an expression on his face that’s a little hard to read. It’s a strange combination of politeness and formality that you’re not used to from him, at least not when directed at you.

“What?” Your response almost comes out as a chuckle. What is he up to?

“Well, if you are, I have two tickets to a show.” He ends his sentence with a small smile on the corner of his lips.

Is he…? Now, you’re almost certain that today is your lucky day because thank God, Karina isn’t here to witness this.

Back to the situation at hand… what are you supposed to make of this? Is this a date? Or maybe you’re jumping to conclusions for even assuming he’s asking you out on a date. Yes, you two kissed, twice. But does that equal a date now?

God.

Does he like you?—Why does that matter?

Stop thinking.

You open your mouth to start saying something, and Doyoung looks at you expectantly. You suck in a quick breath, then your lips purse together. But you have to say something.

“If this is because of the other night, you don’t have to—” You cut yourself off as Doyoung raises his brows, prompting you to go on. “What are you up to?”

Doyoung leans in closer, planting both elbows on the tabletop. He tilts his head slowly to the side, gaze fixed pointedly at you, “You keep thinking I have ulterior motives.”

The urge to push his head back with your finger entertains you for a second, before you shoo it away. “Because this is unlike you. 5 years, and I’ve never seen you speak to someone if you’re not forced to.” You lean back into your chair, folding your arms across your stomach. “You’ve always had a kinda cold, and mysterious aura to you,” you mumble, maybe more to yourself than to him.

That seems to pique his intrigue. “You think I’m mysterious?” His eyebrows lift, exposing his amusement.

“That’s not what I meant,” you refute bluntly. “I just thought you were keeping up an image. The whole, ‘I’m a loner, but I’m still cool’ thing, you know?”

If this whole encounter was a chess game, then you just found checkmate. Doyoung looks at you a bit in disbelief, and maybe slightly insulted.

“You think I—Okay, no,” he shuts you down firmly. He places his hands onto the table again, “Now, the tickets.”

Truth be told, you’ve been thinking about him ever since that night, but you would probably die before ever admitting that.

“I mean, sure. But you’re not denying that you have an image problem.”

At the first sound of your acceptance, Doyoung slides his fingers underneath his tray and is preparing to get up out of his seat. He stands up and tucks his chair in with his free hand. Once again, doing what he does best, he ignores the latter half of your sentence, “Saturday night, 7pm.”

With that, he’s set off in some direction to wherever he’s going. He’s just taken a few steps away and before he’s out of earshot, you follow up, “And what if people talk?”

He doesn’t stop walking away from you with his back turned, countering, “Sounds like you’re the one with an image problem.”

Saturday night, 6:55pm.

Shit.

Apparently, the entire population of Paris decided to get on this very subway all at the same time. The doors slide open but you’re having to budge and shove through row after row of people just to get off the car and onto the platform.

It’s a 10 minute walk and you have 5 minutes. If you don’t run to the theatre, Doyoung will inevitably be complaining about how you’re late for the whole night.

Running is a bit difficult though (and not to mention embarrassing) especially in the heels that you’re in.

You walk as fast as you possibly can out of the station and onto the city streets. The sun is just barely peeking out from the horizon and the lampposts begin to turn on as you weave your way through the avenues.

You’re just a crossing away from the theatre when you spot a particular silhouette. Their back is turned towards you, but you recognise that person as Doyoung. It’s in the way he stands, and the positioning of his feet. It’s undoubtedly him.

His head is down, presumably on his phone. The light turns green and you begin to cross. Just as you’re about to reach the other side of the street, you feel a buzz in your hand. You face the screen towards you. 7:02pm. And as you predicted, Doyoung is already starting his carping. A message pops up on the bottom of your screen, “Are you here yet?”

For whatever reason unbeknownst to you, your lips curve into a tiny smile that you have to force away, ignoring his message at the same time. You walk the couple of steps that separate you and Doyoung.

His back is still turned towards you, completely unaware of your being there behind him. He dons a long, black wool coat that amplifies his already broad shoulders, making him look and feel larger than life. To your surprise, the outfit you’re wearing coincidentally somewhat matches his—a long black dress with a coat over top. If people didn’t know better, they’d probably assume the two of you matched on purpose..

You hesitate before tapping his shoulder lightly with two fingers. His head turns around swiftly. And before you even get the chance to say anything—

“You’re late.”

You can’t resist the urge to roll your eyes and sigh. “By 2 minutes! And look,” You glance downwards at your shoes, Doyoung following your gaze. “You should be grateful I even made it here with two intact ankles.”

Doyoung eyes your heels, chuckling lightly to himself.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he looks at you with a satisfied smile on his face. “We should go in before we’re too late,” he suggests with a dip of his head towards the entrance of the theatre.

You mumble a quiet, “Whatever,” under your breath before you start heading towards the theatre ingress, Doyoung closely following behind you.

The theatre stands majestically. Every single element of it meticulously ornate, as is the rest of the architecture in the city, but this truly was something else. Its facade is adorned with intricate columns and statues sculpted to perfection. The golden lights illuminate the archways between the sculptures, leading to the interior. Every detail of the design echoed a timeless charm and glamour.

You’ve passed by this theatre more than a handful of times, but it’s your first time actually going inside.

“What are we watching, anyway?” You turn your head around to voice, being cautious as you climb the steps leading to the open doors.

“You’ll see,” is all Doyoung responds back with.

It’s your turn to follow behind Doyoung as he hands the tickets to the man standing next to the entrance doors. You glance down at the tickets as the doorman studies them briefly before welcoming the both of you inside.

You give him a polite smile as you pass by, still following Doyoung. You make up the couple of steps between you and Doyoung so that you’re walking parallel to him.

“Swan Lake? Really?”

Doyoung smiles at you gently, “It’s a classic for a reason.”

Three beautifully devastating hours later, the ballet finishes. And Doyoung was right, it is a classic for a reason. No matter how many times you watch Swan Lake, it still manages to completely beguile you. The ballerina they casted for the main role was incredible, undeniably so. It’s then that you begin to question if you should’ve came here tonight. All that it seemed to do was make you doubt whether or not you can give a performance half as enchanting as hers.

You and Doyoung are walking silently next to each other in streets illuminated by nothing but the warm glow of the lampposts. He insisted on walking you home, though he lives in the other direction.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Doyoung utters after a prolonged silence. He steps under the gleam of one of the lamps, highlighting the sharpness of his features as he looks back at you.

The mellow breeze of the night blows softly against you. “They were good.”

“We can do better,” he follows, resulting in you cracking a small smile.

“Cocky.”

“No—Just confident.”

“Fine, overconfident then.”

He takes a big step ahead, balancing on one foot as he tilts his head to catch a glimpse of your face, forcing you to look at him. “And what’s wrong with that? I believe in us.”

Soon enough, the two of you arrive in front of your apartment complex. The chill in the night lingers in the air between the two of you. You mumble a quiet, “So,” under your breath, disguised as a sigh.

Stuffing your hands inside the pockets of your jacket, you rock forwards onto your toes. You suck in a long breath. “Thanks for the date,” you make it a point to highlight the sarcasm in your tone, but really, you were just trying to see his reaction.

Doyoung, however, doesn’t buy your facade. His eyebrows tick up and his eyes glisten with a hint of amusement. “A date, huh?”

“That was a little something called a joke,” you quickly follow.

“Well,” he leans forward an inch or so closer to your face. “Joking or not, we can’t end the perfect date without a kiss,” he mutters lowly as he looks into your eyes.

You stare back at him, frozen. Your heart beats faster and faster with every second that he has his eyes on you. He raises an eyebrow, waiting for any sign from you.

Inching ever so slowly towards him, you drop your gaze onto his lips. Softly, you press a gentle peck onto him. When you lean back and open your eyes again, he’s wearing the faintest trace of a smile on his face that you’re sure has already burned its image into your mind.

“You should really find funnier things to joke about,” Doyoung utters. “Good night,” he whispers as he’s about to take a step back from you.

“Wait,” you reach out and grab ahold of his wrist. There’s an eagerness in your voice that you regret as soon as you spoke aloud. Doyoung looks at your hand wrapped around him, then up at you, causing you to loosen your grip. You know you’re probably going to regret this but—“It’s still early. Do you want to stay for a drink?” Your head and your heart has never worked against each other like this. You regretted it as soon as you made the offer, but your heart was just a beat faster than your mind tonight.

There’s a brief moment of quiet where you’re sure he would say ‘no.’ But instead, he looks down at the ground, biting back his bottom lip before nodding along. “Sure,” Doyoung agrees with an easy shrug.

You lead him into the lobby of your complex silently. The air only seems to thicken with every second that you spend with him by your side, and it doesn’t help that the lift takes forever to arrive. You step inside, your heels clicking against the marble floor, and Doyoung follows along.

He watches your every movement, from your pressing of the elevator buttons to you leaning back against the banister along the walls. You catch his eyes, and he doesn’t even try to hide his observing you.

A chuckle catches in your throat, “What?”

“What?” He echoes you with a certain smugness in his expression.

The lift stops right in time and the doors slide open. You let your eyes linger on Doyoung’s as you walk past him to exit into the hallway. Pulling out your keys from your pockets, you instinctually unlock your door in one swift motion and let yourself and Doyoung in.

Your arm reaches out to the side to flick the kitchen lights on. Stepping out of your heels, you slip off your jacket at the same time, throwing it onto the chair by the door. “Red or white?” You ask Doyoung, who’s slowly taking his own jacket off and setting it down on top of yours.

You open the cupboard to where you store all your wines, scanning through your options. Doyoung sidles up to you, looking up at the cupboard himself. Then, you make the mistake of turning your head.

He reaches his hand onto the handle of the cabinet, boxing you in between him and the wall. His gaze is fixed on the bottles, as if he’s really studying through each of them right now. The top buttons of his dress shirt are undone, the collar slightly crooked. A hum sounds from him, reverberating in the close distance between your bodies. His neck catches a sheen from the city lights filtering through your balcony doors behind you. And it’s only then you realise you’d just about made the biggest mistake of your life.

He angles his head downwards to look at you, an oh-so-innocent expression scrawled all over his face. “What do you think?” He asks with a feigned cluelessness in the lift of his brows.

You catch a subtle hint of his cologne—which was probably more effective than any other bottle that you had up in that cupboard in making you drunk. “What do I think?” you breathe out. Doyoung tilts his head towards the cabinet, but the look in his eyes told you he had no intention of opening up any of the bottles.

Doyoung drops his hand from the handle onto the edge of the countertop as he takes a step closer towards you. One step. And he’s cornered you between himself and the glass doors to the balcony.

“That’s what I asked, wasn’t it?” His voice is low and sultry as his eyes study each and every detail of your face.

For the last time tonight, you try to still the pounding in your chest, but it was clear that your attempts proved futile. “I think…” you start slowly, lightly tracing the tips of your fingers from up his hips to his collarbone. “Fuck the wine.”

Your fingers grab onto the silky fabric of his collar, pulling him close. His lips crash onto yours in an instant. Once you’ve given him the green light, there’s nothing holding him back.

Doyoung’s hands roams every inch of your body as he kisses you as if you are the very air he needs to breathe. One of his hands grip tightly onto the flesh of your thigh, fingertips digging into the sides of it.

You wrap your arms around his neck, holding and keeping him close to you. For a moment, it felt like deja vu with the way he’s kissing you. So deeply and fervently. You throw your head back to catch a quick breath, but Doyoung doesn’t let even the tiniest fraction of a second slip away from him.

He attaches his lips to your neck, leaving a trail of his kisses down onto your collarbones. His hand covers the small of your back, arching it into him as he sucks on your skin.

You move your arms down behind your back, hands searching blindly for something. Then, a noise clicks in between your panting and the sound of Doyoung leaving desperate kisses on your skin. Doyoung pulls back slightly with a darkness in his eyes, as if he knows exactly what you just did. A smirk overtakes his lips, quickly taking yours into his again.

“You want everyone to know what we’re doing up here?” He mutters breathily in between quick kisses. God. You can feel his smirk against your lips when he envelopes you, twisting your stomach in ways you never thought possible. “I don’t mind.”

The click was the sound of you unlocking the handles. He takes a step backwards, pulling you along with him as he swings both doors to your balcony open. Immediately, a breeze brushes against your skin that only adds to the butterflies in your stomach.

Doyoung presses you up against the cold, iron railing of the balcony, prompting a quiet ‘shit’ from you. The contrast of his warm palms on your thighs and the icy metal on your back sends chills down your spine.

His hands inch higher and higher up your legs, slipping under the chiffon of your dress. Meanwhile, his lips are never parted from you for more than a few seconds at a time. You open your arms, hands each gripping the top rail of the banister so tightly that your knuckles are beginning to change colours.

Doyoung moves your leg up, wrapping it around his waist. He trails his lips again over the delicate skin of your neck and chest. When the neckline of your dress gets in the way, he simply had no choice but to move onto the next part of you that’s uncovered by fabric.

Doyoung kneels down onto his knees. As he does so, his grip on your leg remained steady as he lapped it over his shoulder. He presses gentle pecks onto your inner thigh as he continues to lift the hem of your dress up, unveiling more of you bit by bit at a time.

Patience was never your strong suit. Doyoung, however, seemed to be the complete opposite. He takes his time peppering kisses all over the skin of your thigh as anticipation builds up within you. For a moment, you forget that you’re out on the balcony, but you’re reeled back into the present as another subtle gust of wind catches itself in your hair.

You bite down on your lip as Doyoung’s mouth inches closer and closer to the hem of your underwear. The anticipation practically pooling in between your legs. He lifts the dress up slightly above your waist, holding it in place as he grabs onto your hips with his big palms.

He leans in closer, moving excruciatingly slowly. You can feel the warmth of his breath so, so painfully close to you. He traces a finger along the lace trim, then softly presses his lips onto it—half of it touching fabric, the other half touching your bare skin. You wrap the leg you have thrown over his shoulder tighter around him at the sensation, or the lack thereof.

Doyoung slides two fingers under the hem. He’s a tease. He runs the tips of his fingers downwards along the edge. Doyoung looks up at you watching him expectantly, smirking at the sight of you, breathing so heavily. He bunches the fabric together, pushing it to the side, and immediately, the chill in the night jolts you.

This is remedied by the presence of Doyoung’s lips on your clit. He first plants a gentle kiss, then, doing what he did on your neck and your chest, he swirls his tongue over it. His humming adding to the pressure building steadily within you.

You purse your lips together, desperate to not make a noise, and your leg tries to clamp itself shut.

Doyoung pulls away, licking his lips before tutting his tongue. “You wanted everyone to hear, didn’t you? That’s why you opened these doors?” He presses the tip of his middle finger up onto your folds, drawing ovals as he spreads the wetness all over your cunt. “Don’t get shy now.”

He latches his lips onto your clit again, and without notice, pushes that very finger up into you. The surprise of his movements forces a moan out of you, one that you couldn’t suppress.

Steadily, he slides in another finger, continuing to go deeper and deeper, —threatening more and more noises from you.

You let go of the rail with one of your hands, unable to hold back from the aching neediness you feel between you. Your fingers find themselves entangled in Doyoung’s hair, drawing him closer to you as you begin to move your hips against the friction of his touch.

He mumbles contently against you, “That’s it, princess.” Humming approvingly as you continue to grind yourself down into him. The entire length of his fingers disappear inside you and gradually, he pulls them out before picking up his pace.

Still, you’re straining your whines and whimpers, as if you’re embarrassed for him to hear them. You throw your head back as he begins to slide his fingers in and out of you at an increasing pace, a strangled moan catching in your breath.

He mumbles again, “Don’t hold back for me.”

The next morning, you wake up in your bed. Pillows scattered over the floor, sheets sprawled out on top of you. You turn, facing the other side of the bed only to find it empty. A haze covers your memory of the night before, as if the events have been frosted over, sealing last night to the you in those moments only.

A sudden pounding plagues your head and you begin to feel the ache all over your body. You shut your eyelids tightly, trying to will away the pain searing through your muscles, but it doesn’t work.

Sliding on your slippers, you shuffle your way out of your bedroom only to find your entire apartment empty. There’s a sinking feeling in your chest for a brief moment before your eye catches something on your kitchen countertop. A note.

You sidle over, and immediately you can recognise the paper that the note’s written on. The neat handwriting on it read, “I’m off to practice. I made some breakfast for you with what you had, hope that’s alright,” with a small smiley face on the bottom corner.

You glance back at where the note was, and sure enough, there’s a plate of pancakes sitting on your countertop.

Taking a deep breath, you put the note back down. The sudden need to decipher and ascertain what last night means overtakes you, and you know just what you need to do.

You head back into your bedroom, throwing sheets and pillows all over the place to look for your phone. After scouring around for 5 solid minutes, you find it tucked into your bed frame.

Somewhat half-awake, you scroll through your contacts to find Karina’s name. The tone dials three times before she picks up.

There was no way that you wouldn’t tell her what happened between you and Doyoung—you could only keep things from her for so long. After Doyoung had left you that day in the canteen, it took you a little over 24 hours to spill everything to Karina. She was neither surprised or impressed.

“How’d it go?” She answers the phone, no greetings or anything.

You take in a deep breath, certain that Karina can probably hear you. “I don’t know,” you blurt out truthfully.

“Good-you-don’t-know, or bad-you-don’t-know?”

“Good? I guess? Karina…” You sigh, for probably the dozenth time since you’ve woken up this morning.

Karina waits a few seconds before she speaks again, “Tell me everything.”

You recap how the night went, leaving some details out when it got to the later part of things. Though you can’t see her, you can visualise her reactions just from her squealing over the phone.

“This method acting thing is really working, huh?” She chuckles to herself.

“No!” You rub your palm over your forehead. “I don’t know. I don’t know if he likes me or if I like him. It’s… weird.”

“Be so serious right now,” Karina says bluntly, “You’re kidding me.”

“What if it’s just physical?”

“Is it just physical for you?

“No,” you’re quick to answer that, “I don’t think so.” Karina stays silent for a moment or two, and you can picture her eyebrows shooting up in that familiar way when she’s trying to prove you wrong.

“Listen,” Karina sighs, “Friends who fuck for fun don’t cook each other breakfast. And go out on dates. I’m sure it’s a thrill to have anyone’s hands on you,” The sarcasm heavily blanketed her last sentence.

“It wasn’t a date,” you weakly try to object while thinking over her words.

“Yeah, just two people hanging out casually ending in a hook-up. Not a date. Just saying, that’s never happened to us before.”

Karina spends some more time trying to open your eyes to the truth that you were so repellent to, to no avail.

By the end of the phone call, you let yourself fall onto your bed, mind more muddled up than before. Not exactly what you hoped for in this situation.

It’s been exactly 4 days since that fateful night. The date, as Karina kept referring to it as. You haven’t had the opportunity to see Doyoung this week, yet, which, thanks to partner practice, will change today. As soon as you step through the door to the studio, to be specific.

The moment you do, you hear a voice squealing out your name. Jerking your head upwards, you catch the eyes of Colette who’s making a beeline towards you.

“So, how was it?” She asks excitedly, catching you off guard for multiple reasons. 1, she’s never that cheery in the mornings. 2, you have no idea what ‘it’ is.

“How was…?” You trail off, letting her fill in the blanks of her query.

“The date!” Colette exclaims. And in the corner of your eye, you can see a head snap sharply in the direction of the two of you in the front of the room. You look over, and Doyoung’s standing there, in the middle of rolling up his long sleeves. Your gaze locks with his for a second or two, and a sudden embarrassment burns within your eyes that you’re not sure if you need to hide from him. You look back at Colette, her anticipation evident in her features.

“It was delightful,” Doyoung answers from across the room, rolling up the other sleeve. “Is that enough gossip for you today?” He says pointedly.

Colette widens her eyes at you. She leans in to your right side, putting her hand on your elbow as she mutters quietly into your ear, “I asked him earlier before you got here and he wouldn’t say anything.” She pulls away from you, “Did you have a nice time?”

You give her a polite nod with a small smile and she seems satisfied enough with that answer, mirroring your grin. Colette drops her hand from your elbow, letting you settle your stuff down.

Doyoung makes his way up to the centre, where Colette stands facing him. You shoot a quick glance back at them, a slight nervousness bubbling up inside you as they mumble among themselves, too quiet for you to make out anything they’re saying. As you’re pulling your pointe shoes out of your bag, Colette suddenly remarks again, “And to think you wanted to drop the role because you didn’t think you’d have chemistry with him, Y/N.”

You look back again at the two of them. Doyoung is facing away from you, stretching his ankles on the floor. You flash a tight-lipped smile at Colette before standing up and joining them.

Practice ended earlier than usual today—you’re not complaining about it though. Despite you never going home until later into the night, you’re still thankful that at least you have a slightly longer break today before you start your individual sessions again.

You dig through your bag for your purse, wanting to maybe get a snack or two at the canteen. You’re fishing around, and instead of your purse, you find your box of cigarettes. Your arms freeze momentarily. Flipping over the tab, you see that there’s only one left, having not touched them since the last time Doyoung caught you smoking and being his usual irritating self, chided you for it.

A small curve forcibly tugs on the corners of your mouth. You fold the tab back over, burying the box into a pocket inside the bag.

That evening, Doyoung freely waltzes into your practice room whilst you’re in the middle of practicing your turns. You haven’t been able to execute them as well as you had that one time, and you’re determined to perfect it.

Leisurely, as if he owned the place, Doyoung coasts through the door. He leans against the barre in front of the mirror as he takes a sip of his water from his bottle, eyes fixed on you in midst of a set of pirouettes.

“I thought you got those down last time,” Doyoung speaks right as you land, appearing to be perfectly balanced despite the blur over your vision. He continues, “You can’t work yourself to the bone.”

“Once is a fluke,” you take a deep breath in.

“You’re plenty skilled.” He treads lightly towards you.

You look up at him coming closer, leaning your torso over to even your breathing again. “What? You’re done with practice so you’re here to distract me?”

Doyoung joins you in the middle of the room, taking a swig of his water. “I mean, nothing better to do.”

You plant your hands on the sides of your hips, eyes still locked on his. A beat passes by.

You drop your eyes from him, “Thanks for breakfast the other day, by the way.” You lift your foot from the ground slightly, pretending to be stretching it just so you don’t have to look at him.

“You’re welcome,” his tone is indecipherable.

The silence between the two of you quickly becomes awkward for you, desperate for some way to escape it.

“About the other night…” Doyoung’s voice softly begins as he sets the bottle in his hand on the floor.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” you reply trying to sound as nonchalant as you can, leaning your back into the wall of the pillar in the middle of the room. Truth be told, you were the furthest thing from nonchalant, but you couldn’t afford for him to know that.

Doyoung closes the gap between the two of you. He looks down at you, a hint of desperation in his eyes. “Okay, we don’t have to talk about it,” he repeats. He turns around so that his back is up against the pillar as well. “But we should do something about it.”

You glance over at him looking into the reflections of the two of you. In that moment, you’re not entirely sure what he’s hinting at. Then, you catch a glimpse of his hand, and suddenly your breath hitches. Without him even needing to say another word, your chest begins to burn, thanks to your sudden recollection that kicks in right at this moment. “Something like…?”

Doyoung pulls his eyes away from the mirror and onto you, watching as you take step and step closer, until you’re positioned in front of him between his legs. His gaze grows more intense as he continues to watch you, his smirk too. “That’s not quite what I meant, but I’m not complaining.” He finds himself putting his hand onto your hips without even thinking about it, as if it comes naturally to him. To be fair, he has already done so multiple times earlier in the day during your session, and it took all the will in you to focus on the choreography instead of his hands on you.

Your palms travel up against his chest, fingers clasping together at the back of his neck. You tilt your head slightly, “Really? This wasn’t what you had in mind?”

He purses his lips together briefly, and you can see his Adam’s apple bob slightly as he gulped. “You're right. Let’s not talk.”

In a split second, your lips were pressed against each others. By now, the feeling of his lips on yours felt familiar enough that you’re sure your features have been moulded to fit his own. The softness of his lips contrasted by the pure desire driving his eagerness is a deadly combination.

Your fingers inch their way into his hair, and his pulling on your waist. His palms slide downwards, and effortlessly, Doyoung hoists you up into his arms with your legs wrapping tight around him.

The sudden movement catches you by surprise, making your lips part as you gasped gently. Doyoung settles his hands in the nook of your knees, and with you around him, he walks the two of you to the wall nearby, setting you down on top of the wooden barre.

His fingers push the strands of your hair back as he slides them up along your jawline. Your entire body pressed firmly against the wall, Doyoung buries himself in the crook of your neck. His hand caresses your cheek as he laid down kiss after kiss on your skin.

The whole time, you’re letting stifled hums and whines out, and every time you did, you can feel Doyoung smirking against you. You can’t help but to pull his hips closer to you with every second that goes by, desperate to have something. Your fingertips work their way around to the front of his waistband, hooking a thumb inside. If he didn’t sense your agitation before, he certainly did now.

Doyoung pulls himself away from your neck. The visual of the low lighting combined with his disheveled hair, courtesy to you, was enough to drive you insane.

“You’re not very patient, are you?” He mutters as he runs a hand up and down your thigh tauntingly.

Can he blame you? Your mind has been driven to a place where you can’t even think straight anymore, only wanting to have your way in that instant. You bite down on your bottom lip, and slowly, with your eyes locked, you pull back the waistband of Doyoung’s sweatpants.

His eyes are filled with a deep carnal desire. Placed under his astute observation, you unhook your thumb from his sweats and instead, begin to peel off your leotard one strap at a time. He follows the movement of your hand as it slides the thin straps off of your shoulders, revealing your chest to him.

He hangs his head back, eyes closed, almost like he’s trying to not look at you. A quiet ‘fuck’ slips out from under his breath. You continue to strip off the rest of your leotard along with the thin, chiffon skirt that you had wrapped tightly around your waist.

Doyoung brings himself to look at you again, now with your entire torso bare. “Fuck, okay.” He sucks in the hollows of his cheeks as he brusquely pulls on the bunched up fabric and slides them off of you entirely.

You shoot him a quick look and he immediately pulls his shirt off with one of his hands. He takes your lips into his fervently as the tip of his thumb grazes against the underside of your breast repeatedly.

Your hand travel down to the front of his trousers and not as discreetly as you’d thought. Doyoung groans lightly as you palm his bulge, even biting down on your lip when you apply more pressure.

“Okay, okay,” he whispers breathily, grabbing your wrist to direct it away before pushing down his sweats.

You try to keep your eyes on him but even in the bottom of your eyeline, you can see it spring up, hard and red. Doyoung wraps his long fingers around his cock, giving it a quick couple of strokes as he grunts lowly.

The aching desire within you increases tenfold. And you couldn’t resist looking down, watching his hand travelling all the way up and down his length. A spark of frustration ignites within you, wanting desperately for him to just be inside of you right this second.

Doyoung watches you watching him. He tries to stifle a chuckle, which catches your attention. “If you’re just going to jerk off, don’t waste my time here.” The movement of his arm slows down slightly, but his smirk grows wider.

“I would never want to waste your time,” he mutters tantalisingly.

Doyoung holds a firm grip around the base of his length. He looks down, having to stop himself drooling from the sight in front of him. He taps the head of his cock on your cunt, catching you by surprise and making you clench your thighs around him harder, which does nothing but elicit a chuckle from him.

Doyoung tightens the grip he has around himself, trying to still his shaking hand. And not being able to hold himself back any longer, he gently pushes himself into you, knocking the air out of your lungs. Your nails find themselves dug into the skin of his back as he drives further and further in.

Your lips are parted, but you’re holding your breath. Doyoung’s gaze falls upon your face, watching every slight movement in your features as he pushes the last of himself into you. And though he hasn’t even done anything, yet, just the sheer size of him inside exhausts you. You rest your forehead against his bare shoulder, needing him to hold you steady with his arms.

He plants a gentle kiss on the back of your head, “You’re so fucking pretty like this.”

And when you think your body couldn’t feel any weaker, your thighs tense up at the sound of his words.

Doyoung lays his fingers on the nape of your neck, gently lifting your head and forcing you to look at him just inches away from your face. “You okay?” he mouths, earning an eager nod from you. You’re met with a small, pleasant smile from him at your response.

He slowly drags himself against the tightness of your walls, groans catching in his throat.

Doyoung begins to thrust his hips forwards and back, filling you up with his cock again and again. You let yourself wholly collapse into his chest standing up tall against you. The friction very quickly proves to be not enough for you, causing you to move your hips in unison with his.

A string of curses and moans falls from Doyoung’s lips as he picks up the pace. His hands also tighten around you, to steady himself or to steady you, it’s hard to say. He, once again, buries himself into your neck, panting into your skin and leaving subtle bite marks on it.

You snake a hand around to your clit, rubbing in synchrony to the rhythm of his hips. The stimulation overwhelms you, your mind solely focused on the desire to cum. Your head is propped up on Doyoung’s shoulder, and every time you moan into his ears, his heart skips a beat and he thrusts harder into you.

He mumbles your name over and over again, followed by a series of ‘fuck’s and ‘shit’s. His breathing, as well as yours, become rugged and uneven.

You can feel the pressure steadily building up within you, the circling of your fingertips becoming more violent by the second.

The bubbling of anticipation inside of you brings you closer and closer to the edge. Your body threatens to tremble, even when propped up by the strength of Doyoung's arms.

“I’m so close,” you manage to whimper next to Doyoung’s ear. And unbeknownst to you, that completely unravels him. Desperation taking over, he plunges himself deeper and harder into you.

The sudden change in tempo almost urges you to sink your teeth down into his shoulder. Your fingers are beginning to cramp but you’re so close to your orgasm, it’s basically within reach.

You lean your forehead onto Doyoung’s shoulder as weariness begins to take over your muscles. You just needed a little bit more to push you over the edge, and the sight of him ramming his cock inside of you made you fall apart.

Your walls clench so tightly around Doyoung that it’s physically hard for him to continue thrusting into you. Even if you tried to quiet yourself down, the overwhelming pleasure takes over any logical mind and you’re practically screaming out his name. Preoccupied with your own pleasure, you hardly noticed the stiffening of Doyoung’s arms around you, until you felt the warm ropes of his cum threatening to spill out.

For a moment, the whole world seemed to go quiet. Time stopped for a minute or two as your body slowly comes down from such a high. Your chests rise and fall in unison, both desperately panting to collect your breaths again.

You lean your head back against the wall, your half-lidded eyes meeting Doyoung’s. Your lips hang slightly ajar as the thumping of your chest increasingly gets louder and louder in your ears. You rest your forearms on his shoulders, weakly interlocking your fingers together.

You pant. “Do you fuck all your costars like that?” Lazily teasing him with half of a smirk.

Doyoung leans in, still inside of you, unthinkingly pecking the side of your lips.

He whispers into your ear, “Just the one I like.”

END OF ACT III

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brella-boi · 16 days ago

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lady-bess · 3 months ago

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Fallout - Chapter 9

"Collision"

Jack Daniels x F!Reader Explicit/18+ (Minors DNI please) Chapter Word Count: 9.7k Chapter Tags: Fighting, Self Defence training, planned fighting (they don't hate each other - yet), physical combat, physical intimacy, unexpected romance, first kiss, Jack in sweatpants (that needs its own warning).

Series Masterlist | A03 Link | Tumblr Masterlist

<- Previous Chapter (Ch. 8 - "Back to Basics")

After hitting a bump in the road, you work with Jack and adapt his training programme with more of a focus on physical defence training. But when you push his buttons a little too much during your session, your worlds collide in ways you never expected.

A/N: Thank you so much for bearing with me for this chapter. Life has been a hell of a lot recently, but I think we're turning a corner now! Not going to promise when the next upload will be, but it'll not take a month!

Jack’s session could have set him back a bit with progress, but fortunately he was at your office two days later with a smile on his face that you honestly weren’t expecting. He closed the door behind him and headed over to your desk.

“Sorry to disturb you, Mimosa. Is now a good time?” he asked. You looked him up and down and saw him clutching a small brown envelope, tucked just slightly under his suit jacket. Smiling softly, you replaced the lid on your pen and set it down on your desk, leaning back in your leather chair slightly.

“Of course, take a seat,” you gestured to the seat in front of your desk and smiled as Jack sat down, “What can I do for you?��.

Jack nodded, pulling the chair out from under the desk so that he could sit down. He leant forward over the desk first though, his arm outstretched, his hand still firmly holding the brown envelope.

“This is for you,” he said, handing you the envelope and clearing his throat. You took it from him, furrowing your brow as you did. You opened the drawer of your desk to your right and reached inside to grab something to open it with.

“What’s this?” you asked, sliding a small pen-knife under the seal of the envelope and tearing the delicate paper seal. Jack smiled taut as he sat down at last, breathing a slight sigh of relief as he settled into the seat - like parting with those papers had taken a physical weight off his shoulders, and now he could relax.

“It’s an evaluation of my latest session with Loretta, which I had after the…incident the other day. She’s given some professional recommendations going forward, given what happened to me,” he explained. You nodded, sliding the note out of the envelope, and scanning over it quickly.

It wasn’t really of any surprise that you would have to change things up to accommodate for Jack’s reaction. Perhaps he would be fine the next time he handled a gun, or he may never be able to fire a weapon again. Only time would tell which outcome was going to be your reality, so since his session the other day you’d been planning for a worse case scenario.

You did your best to interpret Loretta’s handwriting, chuckling to yourself at the note she’d attached to the paper last minute which apologised for what she described as her “chicken scratch”, and promised that she would get these notes formally typed up as soon as possible. She was more bothered by you having them immediately, rather than worrying about how professional they might appear.

Not much surprised you with Loretta’s summary of Jack’s condition, and a few phrases jumped out which you had expected to see; “patient exhibited negative response to the feel of firing a gun”, “patient and practitioner concerned about the potential of mental relapse if training is to continue”, “recommend a withdrawal from arms until a more thorough psychological evaluation can be performed”.

“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised,” you said, setting down the note and turning your attention back to Jack. He looked shy, a slight red creeping up his neck, and he couldn’t keep his focus on you as well as he had just a few days ago. You cocked your head to the side, surveying him for a moment.

“How does it make you feel, Jack?” you asked. At the use of his name, and not his moniker, his eyes shone out at you as he locked onto your gaze anew. A coy smile made itself known, bashful and nervous; not the Jack you had come to know these last two months.

“I-,” he laughed lightly, but it came out more like a scoff, “I feel ashamed,” he admitted.

“Why’s that?” you asked. Jack shrugged, then let out a deep sigh and sank back into the chair opposite to you, breaking eye contact again as he screwed his eyes up in frustration, one hand rubbing that familiar scar on his forehead as he spoke.

“Because I- I’ve been doing this for so long, London. And I know I’ve had a bump in the road, but still. I figured that by now I wouldn’t face any setbacks like this. I feel like I’m just wasting your time,” he said. You furrowed your brow and leant forward in your seat, bridging the gap between the two of you.

“Jack,” you said softly, making his attention turn towards you. His deep brown eyes flicked back up to yours, and you could see the beginning of tears forming in the corners. You didn’t know if they were from anger, upset, or fear; but you had to guess that it was probably a healthy mixture of all three.

“What you went through was not your average ‘bump in the road’,” you said, using air quotes and then chuckling softly in an attempt to lighten the mood. Jack laughed through his nostrils and one side of his mouth quipped up in the smallest of smiles, but still his demeanour remained downtrodden.

“I know, I know, I just-,” he began, and as he spoke you could hear words getting caught in the back of his throat. He sighed, removing his stetson and placing it on your desk, before running both hands over his face.

Concerned, you left your seat and walked around to the other side of the desk. Kneeling down slightly, you reached out and tenderly laced your fingers around the width of Jack’s hands, gently pulling them away from his face. He let you, a few tears tumbling down his cheeks as he let you grasp at his hands. Your thumbs softly caressed the back of his hands and that familiar quake you felt in the weapons room was evident again.

“Shh,” you cooed, speaking softly. “You’re alright, Jack. Look, you don’t need to explain yourself to me if you don’t want to. I’m sorry if I pushed you?” you said, worried that you had in fact pushed him a little too hard. He shook his head, and you felt his hands slowly shift beneath yours; twisting slowly to begin enveloping yours in his.

You let him.

“No, no, it’s not your fault. I don’t feel pushed, it's just hard to talk about. Took me months to even get to this stage with Loretta,” he half smiled.

It was then it dawned on him that he was being just as vulnerable with you now after only knowing you for two months than he was after Loretta worked for almost a year to properly break his walls down. He had always been open to therapy, and the benefits it would have for his rehabilitation programme, but that didn’t mean it was automatically easy for him to do so. But she had worked relentlessly for months to build up a rapport, to get Jack to begin speaking, and once he did the real healing had begun.

And then here you were; fresh faced to the agency, virtually still a stranger to him, but yet someone he was willing to drop all defences for. The fact he was almost scared him enough to throw them back up. But as he sat here looking into your eyes, which reflected back nothing other than kindness and a willingness to help, with your fingers delicately laced around his - he knew he couldn’t ever do that. You’d somehow worked your way in, and deep down he didn’t think he actually wanted to get you out.

“I guess I just feel useless, and like I’m wasting your time. And that’s a fuckin’ tough pill to swallow,” he chuckled, another tear cascading down his cheek. You squeezed Jack’s hands tighter and shook your head at him.

“Don’t be so silly, Jack,” you whispered, releasing one hand to brush away the tears that fell from his eyes. He closed his eyes softly as he relished in the feeling of your soft hands on his skin again, the feeling just as intimate and caring as it was the other day when you gently caressed his scar.

“You went through Hell and back just to wake up again. This was never going to be easy, so please give yourself more credit just for making it this far, okay?” you said. Jack opened his eyes again and looked down at you, smiling softly at the feeling of your hand now flattening out across his cheek and cupping it gently. As best he could without meaning your hand would move from situ, he nodded.

“‘Kay,” he sniffled, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to come in here and cry,” he chuckled.

The Jack sitting before you was a far cry from the file you had read about all that time ago. No longer would you, or anyone else, be able to describe him as stoic, unavailable, or emotionally closed off. He had come in here and laid all his cards on the table, and paid no heed to the fact it had made him lose his composure slightly. He let the tears fall onto the pads of your fingers, and cared not that you were wiping each one away that danced down his cheek.

Your heart shattered slightly that he clearly still, deep down, did not see himself as worthy of this second chance. He’d been a pain for you from the start, but even though he had his moments still it was evident he was trying so hard to make the best of his situation. Since you’d started as his T.O., there was nothing you cared for more than making sure he got back onto his feet and to go back to being the incredible agent he clearly once was. Just with…minor adjustments.

Still caressing his hand and cupping his cheek, you leant forward slightly and pressed your lips against his forehead. Jack’s breathing hitched as he felt you plant a tender kiss to his skin, and for the brief moment you made contact with him it was like time itself stopped. He held his breath and felt the muscles in his torso constrict slightly as his heart thudded loudly, blood rushing past his ears.

Because, for that couple of seconds, you were within reach. For the first time, he could have reached out and grabbed you, planting his own kisses on you and making you his. He had to fight every muscle in his body to not do just that, and instead gripped your hand a touch tighter. Your kiss ignited something that had long since laid dormant in Jack, and that was the want and need to love and be loved. He hadn’t even realised that was a desire he had the ability to have anymore. It was like it had been buried, and you kissing him so softly was like a fire melting an ice cube. Thawed out the need he had swirling within his veins.

Fortunately for Jack, you pulled away just as swiftly as you’d gone in for the kiss.

“Cut yourself some slack, Daniels. Okay?” you said, smiling wide, totally unaware of the mental anguish that was now going on in Jack’s mind. He blinked a couple of times to try and snap himself out of the small spiral he felt himself careering towards, then nodded.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“Good,” you grinned, now pulling away from him entirely. Once your back was facing him Jack left out a short exhale and composed himself as much as he could before looking in your direction as you sat back down.

“So,” he cleared his throat, “what’s next for me?”.

“Well, we have two choices. Ball is in your court for either,” you said, fiddling with a pencil on your desk.

“What are those then?” he asked. You lifted one hand and pointed to the tips of your fingers as a way of counting when you reeled off his options.

“We could either A, put you on a type of administrative leave so you can have a bit of time to yourself to process this. Or, B,” you tapped the tip of a second finger, “we can carry on with some adjustments. I had already assumed that you wouldn’t be back in weapons for a while, so I’ve made contingency plans until you feel ready,” you lowered your hands, “but it is entirely up to you.”

Jack bit his lip as he weighed up the options. On the one hand he really was quite shaken with how he had mentally reacted to just the sound and feel of a firearm going off the other day, and he knew that he definitely had a lot to work on before that could be attempted again. But on the other hand, he wasn’t convinced that hiding away from the world would do him all that much good - even if it was not the original plan, perhaps it would be better for him to remain with one foot in the door with his training, so he could at least make some progress somewhere.

“Option B…what will that entail?” he asked.

“More of the same, except I will swap out weapons training for hands on self defence and fighting. You haven’t done any of those classes yet as we’ve still had you working on your normal physical therapy, and didn’t want to push it too far,” you explained. Jack chuckled.

“That and I didn’t fancy Tequila giving my ass a whooping,” he grinned. You couldn’t help but giggle either, and suddenly your mind created a scene of the two men fighting with one another. Except it didn’t look like a proper physical fight, but more like a bitchy, slapping catfight.

You’d pay good money to see that.

“He’s a bit occupied with Astrid at the minute to be worrying about beating your ass, Jack,” you grinned, “I’d just do that training, like I have for every other aspect of your rehab. You know Eve and how well she’s trained me, so I think you’ll still get a fair fight outta me,” you smiled.

You’re fucked, Daniels, Jack thought.

“Alright, well you beating me seems preferable over Tex. If nothing else you might be kinder about it when I fall on my ass,” he grinned.

“I dunno about that,” you teased, “So, what do we say? Are we going for option B?”.

Jack smiled at you, nodding, his spirits feeling considerably lifted over how he was when he set foot in this office a short while ago. He had half expected you to just shut down any further training until he was ready to try using firearms again, but the sheer delight that filled him at the knowledge he wouldn’t have to stop his training was music to his ears. He could have hopped over the desk and kissed you for being given this chance.

Or perhaps there was another reason.

“Yes, if that’s alright with you?” he asked.

“Sure is. Meet me in the gymnasium tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.”

~~~

You’d gone into Jack’s physical fighting training feeling confident, and like you could really put a lid on the small crush you could feel bubbling beneath the surface. Ever since he’d left your office yesterday you’d replayed what the fuck made you lean forward and kiss him, but the thought you really couldn’t get out your mind was why did you so badly want to do it again?

Your hopes and dreams of this session going smoothly and without any more inappropriate thoughts were swiftly squandered though when Jack turned up to the gymnasium looking like he’d just stepped right out of your deepest, unspoken fantasies. Tousled curly brown hair which he’d clearly paid no heed to neatening out this morning, a slightly too tight white t-shirt, and grey sweatpants that hung just perfectly on his narrow hips.

He’d stepped in with a wide smile, and if you didn’t already have a minor desire to flirt with him relentlessly and see where things went, you were convinced you would have gained such a need the second you laid eyes on him.

Damn this man.

You did your utmost best, though. Two hours later and you’d done a thorough evaluation of his strength and cardiovascular health, pushing his body almost to its limit before even beginning the self-defence class.

You'd started him out on the treadmill, having him slowly increase his speed until he was borderline sprinting on the belt. He took periodic breaks, his body still not totally back to normal when it came to getting oxygen around him. All of his other physical rehab on the treadmill has been performed with a myriad of monitors and an oxygen mask, but you wanted away from that. There had to be a point in which these safety nets got taken away and Jack agreed he was ready to try. After the mental setback the other day, he wanted to feel like he was at least able to take a physical step forward.

He did well, all things considered. Since his injury, his performance this morning was the best he'd done since starting his rehab programme. You let him rest for ten minutes after his run, allowing ample time for him to catch his breath and clean himself of the sweat which had begun to pour from him.

“You alright?” you asked, hopping on the treadmill for a brisk jog while he rested. Jack nodded from the bench near you, his chest heaving.

“I'll be fine. Fi-,” he inhaled sharply, “first run without oxygen,” he said. Through the pain and breathlessness though, you noticed, was a small smile creeping onto his face. One of pride, that said even though he was paying for it now, he achieved something today.

You smiled over at him, happy for him that he had achieved what he had this morning. He turned to face you and returned the joyful expression, even brighter, and your heart fluttered at the genuine delight you could see written on his face. It spread beyond his smile, reflected in his softened brow and the way his eyes sparkled back at you.

The innocence of joy was swiftly ripped away from you though, as Jack lifted his t-shirt to wipe the remaining sweat from his face and neck. You had to avert your gaze to prevent the prickling heat you felt beginning to creep up your neck from reaching your cheeks and giving away your ever increasing desire for him. The mere flash of his torso was enough to hurl your mind back to the more unsavoury thoughts you'd had recently, the ones you desperately tried to bury.

Clearing your throat, you switched off the treadmill and came to a steady stop. Jack dropped the material of his shirt, thank heavens, and headed over to you for the next part of your session.

You'd planned everything down to a T. You needed him using each muscle, warming it up and pushing himself to the limit, so that you could A, properly gauge his overall strength, and B, figure out his weaknesses.

Starting Jack on the weighted gymnasium machines, you had him rifle through shoulder, chest, hamstring, and core workouts. Starting each one on a low setting, with each set you worked up the weights until finding his limit on each.

Surprisingly, his current “max weight” wasn't far off what it used to be. You smiled to yourself as you marked down his progress on a chart Clara had given you, flicking back briefly to look at previous sessions, satisfied to see such a major improvement.

Then you moved onto the free weights. Again, using similar exercises, you ran Jack through a routine of using dumbbells, kettlebells, and medicine balls to complete the circuit. Even though he’d just done very similar movements on the machines, you needed to gauge how well he could hold his own when he wasn’t supported by a seat.

Again, you were impressed at how well he did. He wasn’t hitting the same weights as he could on the machines, but this was to be expected. He didn’t have to think much about keeping a secure core when sat down on half the machines like he did when standing up with free weights in his hands. Still, you marked down any progress he’d made, noting that he was still doing the best he ever had since before his accident.

“Alright, what’s next?” Jack asked after the session, setting the weights down and running a hand through his thick hair. You swallowed the small lump forming in your throat, cursing yourself inwardly that your mind dared to be so unprofessional right now.

“Self-defence. I want you to show me what you’ve got,” you said. Jack grinned at you, a little cocky, and you felt a small flame of heat beginning to simmer deep in your stomach at that look alone. You weren’t proud of the feeling that rushed over you, but it was becoming hard to ignore.

“Sugar, do you mean to say you’re gonna try and attack me?” he asked, a faint chuckle in the back of his throat. You raised your eyebrows, hands on hips, and stared him down.

“You’ll do well to remember who trained me, Jack,” you smirked, “Don’t think I could take you?”.

“You can take me any day,” he muttered under his breath, praying to those on high that you didn’t hear him.

You did.

“I’ll have less of that, Daniels,” you chuckled, laughing through what you hoped was a joke so as not to let your own mind wander too far down the route of what that might actually be like. How it would feel to have him envelop you entirely, to take you as his. To mark you, claim you, and have any kind of way with you.

“You’re right,” he cleared his throat, “I’m sure Eve would kick my ass for even insinuating that you couldn’t hold your own.”

“A fate you do not want,” you grinned. Jack raised his hands in a mocking surrender, grinning as he stepped towards you.

“Not at all,” he said, his voice lower now as he dropped his arms to his side.

“So, why now? Why not see what I’m capable of at the start of this session?” he asked.

“I needed you tired,” you said. Jack furrowed his brow in confusion.

“Tired? Why?”.

“To replicate how well you could hold your ground during a mission. You’ll never be on top form when you’re out in the field if you’ve already been working for hours, and I shouldn’t have to remind you about that. I needed to see how you’d fare once you’d been on the job for a couple of hours, and exhausted.”

Jack nodded as he listened to you explaining your reasons, and he admittedly felt like a bit of an idiot for not seeing sense in your reasoning sooner. You’d tried throughout all of his training so far to make things as real to life as possible, rather than overly clinical and ‘by the book’. It was a stark contrast to his first round of training in the 90’s, which was far more akin to being back at school, with rigid examinations in place and a proper code to follow for everything. You threw him into situations head first, but given what he’d been through these last two years he was grateful for it. He had about enough of other people mollycoddling him.

“Okay, makes sense. So, when do we st- ah!”

Before he could even finish asking when this test would begin, you were on him. A quick shove to his chest combined with your leg subtly wrapped around the back of his, and Jack tumbled backwards to the ground. You chuckled as he grimaced, rolling onto his side to get himself up, swearing under his breath.

“Rule one; always be prepared,” you said, pacing around the agent as he stammered to his feet.

“Fuck you, London,” he hissed. A sharp pain shot through his spine as he stood straight, his hand resting on his lower back. Since his accident he’d definitely not been as nimble on his feet, his back having taken a significant brunt from both the nature of the fight before the accident and the subsequent months he spent comatose. Clara had told him in the weeks since he woke up that he was starting with a degenerative spinal disc disease, a consequence of his years of service, likely tipped over the edge by the months of not being able to stay active.

His symptoms were manageable, and fortunately it was in the very early stages, so on the whole he didn’t get too much trouble with it. But he knew that once he started this aspect of his job again, he’d have to keep a better eye on things. You practically throwing him to the ground sent a stark reminder that he was not the agent he once was.

“Come on, get up,” you commanded, reverting back into your role as his training officer, your voice raising louder to alert Jack that this was no longer a friendly encounter. You liked to keep things fairly informal with Jack, given how much time the two of you spent together - it would drain your social battery rather too quickly if you had to maintain the professional persona almost 24/7. But when the time called for it, you’d revert back into the role you were trained for, and reminded Jack in your tone alone that you were technically the more senior of the two of you, even in spite of his senior age to you.

Jack got to his feet and turned around to face you. He lunged forwards, trying to grab you, but you dodged his advances. Stepping to the side, you landed a sharp strike to the centre of his shoulder blades as he leaned forward, making him yelp again in discomfort and lean over, winded. He coughed a couple of times, and you contemplated striking again while he was resting on his laurels, pushing him back down to the ground. But you decided against it for now, and returned to pacing around him.

“Pick it up, Jack. If I were the enemy I’d have you on the ground gasping for air right now. I’m being easy on you,” you said.

Jack straightened himself back up and rolled his shoulders back, clicking a couple of joints into place. He took a few deep breaths and then turned to face you.

“Don’t be easy on me,” he said, his eyes slightly narrowed and his brows furrowing to be all the more serious. You grinned as you saw the determination begin to brew in Jack, his distaste at you having already bested him twice in mere minutes starting to tug at him. For as much as he was a changed man, there was always a deep seated need within him to make sure he was the best he could be. It was something Loretta had picked up on, and had been the thing to drive him to remain emotionally closed off for so long, but in times like this he could still call on that urge.

“You sure?” you asked. Jack nodded.

“Positive, ma’am.”

“Good,” you smirked, “Now treat me the same way. I can hold my own. I want you to give me everything you’ve got.”

Jack looked down at you and began calculating what he was going to do. The determination that lived in him which made him always need to be the best at everything was running rampant, but something stopped him.

The way you looked at him, so fierce but caring at the same time. He knew that you only wanted what was best for him, and that this was your way of pushing him to achieve what you knew he was capable of. But he also couldn’t hurt you, which is exactly what he’d have to do to prove he was still an agent able to do his job.

You watched as Jack’s eyes flitted across your face, and if you kept quiet enough you thought you might be able to hear cogs whirring in his head. He was working out what to do, but something was holding him back. Eventually he leant forward with the intent to grab your wrists and prevent you from being able to lash out at him, but you were quicker on your feet than he was.

You said you weren’t holding back. And you meant it.

You evaded his first swipe at you, grabbing his wrist and tugging on his arm to make him almost lose balance. He cursed as he almost lost his footing, but managed to stabilise himself swiftly. He pivoted back on his heels and turned to face you, a smirk on his face. You winked at him, before delivering your next sequence of attacks.

One hit, two hits, both blocked expertly. Even your attempt at a roundhouse kick, he blocked. Grabbing your ankle, he yanked hard and pulled your weight from underneath you, sending you crashing to the ground. It hurt like a bitch, but you grinned as you sprung back up again - he’d gained his fight back, you’d pushed his buttons just right, and for the first time you were seeing the agent that you knew he was capable of shining through.

“Good blocks, Daniels. You’ve impressed me,” you said, returning back to circling around him. Now it was your turn to roll your shoulders back and realign joints. You might not have the same physical limitations as Jack, but a sharp land on your back still had its effects, even for the most physically fit.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Jack said.

The two of you were now playing a game of cat and mouse, constantly suspicious of and awaiting the other to make the next move. You wanted to take him by surprise, but you figured he was likely doing the same. At this rate you’d never get anywhere, so you thought fast on your feet and suggested something new.

“Alright, let’s try something else,” you said, reaching into a cupboard at the side of the gymnasium with sports equipment in it. You reached in and grabbed an old table tennis racket which got left behind from a playful tournament the team all got involved in last summer.

“What are you thinkin’, London?” Jack asked, using the brief respite he’d gained wisely. He could feel just how hot and bothered he was, and the sweat pouring from his body was severely giving away just how unfit he felt now.

You stood up and headed back over to Jack, the racket in hand. It was the perfect size for what you wanted.

“Let’s pretend that this racket is a weapon I’m holding. A gun, a knife, whatever you want to envision. I want you to disarm me,” you explained, twirling the racket in your fingers. “Is that clear?”.

“Perfectly, ma’am,” Jack said.

“Good,” you smirked, “You may begin.”

What proceeded next was something akin to a well choreographed dance. Every step Jack made in your direction, every arm's length he extended, and each swipe of his hand, you evaded. You were light on your feet, something Eve had made sure to absolutely nail during your training. Her motto had always been that it didn’t matter how hard you could fight, what mattered more was how well you could get out of a mess. You could have the best weapons, or be the best hands on fighter there is, but when push comes to shove if you can’t evade attacks in the first place, you’re as good as dead.

Frustration rose in Jack for each move you dodged. So far he’d only managed to graze his fingertips against your forearm, before losing you as you spun out of reach. He grunted at each lost swipe, and you couldn’t help but chuckle at him. He knew he had to be smarter than this to out-manoeuvre you.

He knew he had to play you at your own game, and to mimic how you were trained, pushing aside his previous training. Unlike you, one of his original T.O's back in the nineties had opted for brutish power over nimble-footed attacks; which, the more Jack thought about it, was probably how he died in action just three years after the men met. Since then he’d retrained himself based on sheer experience alone, never thinking to ask for help.

But now a moment had arrived where he needed to think outside the box, and do something he’d rarely done before. Putting aside how hard he could punch, how fast he could run, how strong he was, Jack now needed to be clever in his moves.

He paid attention to your footwork, the movements you used each time he leant forward to try and disarm you. He made a mental note of how you twisted your body at each swipe of his hand, how you turned and spun on your heels effortlessly to put distance between the two of you. Step by step he memorised how you moved in sync with him, and he smirked as he plotted his next moves.

It was like the two of you were dancing a waltz together; stepping in time, circling each other, your eyes never leaving the other’s gaze. You desperately tried to think what Jack’s next move might be; it had been a while since he’d last tried to make a grab for your ‘weapon’, and it made you wonder if he was now calculating things. Was he finally learning the patterns, learning to be smarter with each move?

He reached forward again, as he had done dozens of times since you started this exercise, but this time he made sure to move in a way that prevented you from turning away from him how you had. Jack caught you off guard, making you stumble just enough so that he could reach for your wrist and disarm you. He squeezed your wrist just right so that the tendons and ligaments were constricted slightly, causing the tension you had in your fingers around the racket to weaken. The wooden racket crashed to the floor, narrowly avoiding both your feet.

“Gotcha,” he declared, his voice low and almost velvety smooth with how deep it was. You gasped as the wood ricocheted off the floor beneath you, the sound of it crashing being all that now filled the void between the two of you. Jack’s fingers remained around your wrist, and as you looked up at him there was a devilish twinkle in his eye that read ‘I win’.

Not today, Daniels.

“Oh, really?”.

With Jack’s hand still grasping your wrist, you rotated your arm as much as you could in his grip, turning yourself so that your hand now held his forearm. Once your fingers could clamour at his skin, you yanked him hard and had his body lurch forward. Ducking down, you manoeuvred yourself underneath Jack so that his chest hit your shoulders. He let go of you in the haze you pulled him in, freeing your arm so that you could tug on his waist, rotate yourself beneath him, and pull him over your back and off his feet.

In one move you’d used Jack’s weight against him, and had him laid flat on his back in the gymnasium. He grunted as you used his weight to keep his arms pinned back beneath himself, unable to reach forward and try to fight back. He fidgeted beneath you as you swung a leg over his narrow hips to act as another way to distribute weight onto his body, keeping him pinned to the ground and unable to move.

Exhausted, Jack’s breathing became more like panting as he almost accepted his fate. His chest heaved as he tried to collect himself and muster up an ounce of strength so that he might be able to salvage this.

“Fuck, London,” he half-whined, half-grimaced, still fidgeting underneath you. The familiar twinge in his back he had earlier came back to rear its ugly head, and he was reminded yet again that he was no longer the fighter he once used to be.

“Do you concede?” you asked. He shook his head, not wanting to appear like he was giving up the fight so easily. He might be older, still not recovered from his injuries, and significantly out of practice - but mentally, he was fitter than ever. That drive had returned in him, the fight he so needed, fuelling him each day to keep getting up and ploughing on. He had to keep going, he couldn’t stop to look back anymore, not after these last few years. He didn’t want to look back, either.

Not when looking forward showed him you.

“Where’s your fight then? You got cocky, delayed, and now look at you,” you smirked, taunting him.

That lit something deep within him. You watched as the metaphorical switch flicked in his head that ignited a part of his brain which had not kicked into action in the whole time you’d known him. Smirking, you watched him process your words and wondered what this taunting could result in. Intrigue took over.

Grinning down at Jack, you were just about to make him concede, to accept that there was not as much strength in him as you once thought, so that you might finally be able to begin a new training regime while he was being kept away from firearms. To make him see that things were not as they once were, and that he needed to get used to that. You plotted in your head what else you might be able to say to awaken whatever drive you’d seen light up his eyes just then, wondering if there was a button you could press which would make him snap. You needed, wanted, to see if those responses were still within the former senior agent, buried away after decades of use.

What you had not realised, was that you had already pressed that button. Jack then did what Jack did best - he took you by surprise.

Using momentum from what was left of his unrestrained legs, he hooked himself around your hips and flipped the two of you over. Your back hit the mat, and now with his own hands for himself again, he used them to grab your wrists and pin you down above your head. The weight of his legs on yours kept your hips firmly planted into the ground, Jack’s legs stretching down your thighs to stop you from moving them.

You were impressed he had that much core strength left in him, and made a mental note to tell Clara about his improvements. To say he had needed rails at the side of his bed for six months after waking up just to get himself up in a morning, he’d come along far.

But then, everything stopped.

Jack didn’t move. He didn’t try and go for another attack, nor did he move so that you could retry another form of self defence. Instead he remained hovering above you, your breath mixing together in the small space between you. He was so close to you - sinfully, even. And what’s worse is that you didn’t even hate how it felt to have his weight above you, keeping you pinned firmly to the gymnasium floor. Something about this felt oddly right, even if in reality it was never something you could ever dare dream to imagine taking further.

He felt that rush of adrenaline begin to die down within him ever since your taunting comment about him being implied that he’d lost the fight. Now he was acutely aware of what his movements in the last few moments had resulted in, and consequently where he now found the two of you.

Jack’s eyes dared to look down at your lips almost on instinct. He’d had his own suspicions that a crush was being harboured by him for you ever since you kissed him on the forehead in your office, but he’d done his best to quell any such feelings he had. Besides, it wasn’t like he could ever go through with doing anything…But that wasn’t to say he hadn’t thought about your lips, their softness, and you with your kindness, ever since yesterday.

He whispered your name as he breathed, his words softer now as the two of you began collecting your breath after your fight. He gazed down at you, and for a moment you succumbed to him - the hairs on the back of your neck stood on their ends, and a shiver ran down your spine. So much about this was wrong, but your mind was blank to any reason why you should tell him to get off you.

You watched as Jack’s eyes never left your face, flitting across every feature of yours, but paying particular attention to your lips. His tongue darted out a small amount, wetting his lips briefly, as if what he was looking at was becoming difficult for him to resist. Like he wanted, no, needed, to taste you.

Lord knows he was becoming hard for you to say no to…

His brain stopped working for a moment, and his heart took over. Still pinning you down, the two of you still collecting your breath after the fight, Jack threw away all professionalism you had both tried to maintain thus far. You might kick him off, you might slap him for this, and for all of it he’d take in a heartbeat plus any other punishment you deemed necessary if you didn’t reciprocate this. But something about this felt right, and like it wouldn’t be something you would be so against - the months of spending virtually every day together, the late nights working, the closeness, and the feeling he couldn’t shake that you actually cared for him. He was totally enamoured with you on a professional standpoint, but over these last few weeks that had slowly bled into an adoration for you on a more personal level.

“Sorry,” he whispered quietly, feeling like he would definitely owe you an apology for this, before he completely caved, dipping his head down and pressing his lips to yours.

You felt the air escape your lungs like a vacuum in space as he pushed his lips to yours in a soft but tender kiss. You knew that this crossed so many lines, but nothing inside of you cared to stop and question that right now. The softness of his moustache brushed against your top lip, a feeling that you were very unfamiliar with, but not one you minded. His lips were soft, almost delicate, which was a stark contrast to the rest of him. From your brief encounters physically you knew that Jack had calloused hands, and was plagued by the ailments of his injury. You didn’t expect that any part of him would be soft and delicate, especially given the hardened exterior he so often portrayed since his injuries.

Your brain took a few moments to catch up with what your body was doing, but you found yourself quite willing to submit to Jack. Without much hesitation whatsoever, you kissed him back, allowing him to take your bottom lip between his when he went back in for more. You wished that you had your hands free to be able to run your hands through his hair, to tug on the thick curls at the nape of his neck lightly and keep him secured to you; to show him with your body and touch that you didn’t want this to stop.

Closing your eyes, you got lost in the moment. Sighing gently, you parted your lips, and allowed him to have full control. You were telling him without any words that you were on the same level as him, that something had been growing between the two of you, and that he wasn’t totally insane for thinking it. You knew the look on his face just then when he looked down at you - pleading, desperate, and yearning for answers. Wondering if he was in the wrong for wanting to do this, to have you as his own. And while this could all come crashing down around you both any second now, for the moment you fused yourselves together neither of you dared consider what would happen once you parted.

Jack's heart pounded in his chest. Through the smallest of gestures, you'd shown him your guard was lowered, and he was allowed in. He released you from his grip swiftly, moving one hand to cup your jaw as he deepened the kiss, his tongue lapping at yours. He was confident that he wasn’t about to get violently pushed onto his back, smacked away, or kicked where the sun doesn’t shine. He could relax and let go of the fear he had that you would not reciprocate such affection.

He had you. Even if just for now, just in this moment laid out on the hardwood gymnasium floor, you were his. And he was yours.

All restraint was gone now. With your hands free, you laced your fingers in his thick hair, tugging gently at the short curls that flicked up at the base of his skull. Ever so lightly you applied pressure through the tips of your fingers, and with each tug you were rewarded with a soft groan in the back of Jack’s throat. A shiver ran down his spine with every grab your nimble fingers gave to the curls at the back of his head, and he felt his hair stand on end as you did.

For the first time in years, pleasure surged through Jack’s body. His fingertips pressed on your jaw harder, the desperation and need he had for you fuelling him to hold you tighter. His chest heaved with panting breaths as he devoured you, adrenaline coursing through him as he felt you react similarly to each touch of his lips on yours. His tongue nudged against yours, and the taste of you was almost enough to make him sinfully moan outright.

But then something crept into his mind which made his grip loosen, and a panic replaced the lust and desire that he was feeling for the first time in years. Guilt sept in through his bones, and softly he released you from his hold. Still on top of you, his lips left yours, and he screwed up his weary eyes in shame.

“I- I’m sorry, I-,” Jack stammered, a redness creeping up his neck in shame at what he’d done with you. Fear took over and he dared open his eyes to look at you, afraid of what your eyes would tell him. Would you be angry at him for overstepping the professional boundary the two of you had both worked on maintaining? Would you be upset at him for taking such a leap without either of you having ever discussed if this was something you’d be interested in?

But instead, he wasn’t met with either of those.

“Jack-,” you whispered, pleading with him, not wanting him to stop. Through all the missions you’d been on over the years, the simple act of having Jack kiss you made you feel more alive than any time you’d risked your life. He’d ignited something that had for so long been neglected, and you weren’t ready to let that go just yet.

“No, I shouldn’t have, I-,” he began, scrambling at his words to try and formulate an apology fast enough.

“Shut up, and kiss me,” you said, paying little heed to the consequences. You knew that this would be something the two of you would have to work to unpick after this session, but in the moment you didn't want to think about that. You yearned to go back to the little bubble the two of you had created in the vast expanse of the gymnasium - to close off everyone else, and have it be just the two of you, in sync and finally listening to the urges you’d been fighting off.

“W-what?” he asked, eyes wide and laced with confusion at your request.

“Kiss me, Jack. Please,” you said, giving no further reasoning. You didn’t want to stop and think about the justification, you didn’t want to have to clamour for a reason why. It just felt so good to be in this position, beneath a man you’d come to care for so greatly, his lips on yours and your hands laced through his hair.

You didn’t need to ask him a third time.

Jack didn’t question anything else - his head dipped back down and caught your lips in another kiss. He knew, as you did, that this wasn’t going to be a simple thing either of you would be able to move past. But that was a problem for the two of you later - right now, no problems existed.

With the reassurance you did want this as much as he did, Jack allowed his hands to wander across your body. Still with one hand cupping your cheek, the other traversed down the expanse of your torso, lingering for a moment over your chest. Your breath hitched in the back of your throat between kisses at the feeling of his deft fingers dancing over your nipples, so gently but yet with a need that showed itself in how eagerly he cupped the soft swell of your breast.

Jack’s mind span as you so eagerly let him explore your body as if it was his own. Caressing your chest, his kisses became firmer and more passionate as a heat rose between the two of you. For so long he had never contemplated true intimacy with anyone else, resigning himself to years of meaningless hookups in bars with women he’d avoid seeing a second time if he could help it. He’d take his time, give them a night to remember, but he’d never been all that interested in the beauty in what it meant to take things slow, and to submit himself to any of them.

But you were different. Like a siren calling lost men at sea, he was drawn to you in ways he could never explain. Taking you in was akin to taking an addictive drug, he knew that already, and that ever considering giving this up would be a near impossible task.

You had to fight not to moan loudly beneath Jack as his hands continued to explore your body further, making your hair stand on end as the fabric of your clothing rubbed against your body. He timidly made his way down until he reached the hem of your shirt, then hesitated. You knew what he was considering, and what he so badly wanted to do.

“Yes,” you whispered against his lips between kisses, giving him permission to explore even further.

Grinning, Jack slipped his hand up under the hem of your shirt, and slowly slid his palms up your bare skin. You felt the calluses on his fingers drag against your flesh, and the sensation was pleasurable enough that you dared to contemplate what it might feel like to have his fingers elsewhere on your body. Your cheeks heated up at the mere thought of what that could be like, and you bridged the gap between you both with a kiss to hide your obvious embarrassment.

Jack chuckled in the back of his throat as he gladly kissed you. He might not have noticed the heat of your skin, but he saw the dazed look in your eyes. The way your pupils dilated a little further, how blown out and glassy your eyes were staring back at him. He could tell from that alone that your mind was reeling as to what else the two of you might explore, and he’d be lying if he said that didn’t do something for him.

Just to know that you were amenable to such exploration ignited a desire in Jack that he’d not had for years. The desire to lay with another, and for it to mean something. The prospect was still relatively terrifying, but for you he was more than willing to try and push those fears to one side so that he might experience such beauty once more. His own mind wandered at the thought of how you would look for him laid out on his bed, devoid of any clothing, begging for him to take you.

Heat pooled in the pit of his stomach, and he felt his sweatpants begin to tighten as arousal continued to surge through him. A foreign feeling for Jack, with self pleasure being something he had only recently started considering again. There had been absolutely zero drive for him to indulge in such an activity for so long, with him being more focused on getting better physically, and then mentally. The act had very quickly fallen down the list of priorities that he had.

But laying here with you, his hand slowly travelling up your bare skin, and with your lips fused to his, that urge had reawoken. He moaned softly against your lips as his fingers reached the band of your sports bra.

How you wished you’d not dressed so practically for this session. You grunted beneath Jack in frustration as his fingers attempted to pry at the seam of your bra, but the strong elastic and reinforced band made it near impossible. It would only come loose if you were to release the entire band from the clasp that sat in the centre of your back, but from here there was no way that was getting undone.

Still, his hands remained. He cupped your breasts and rubbed his thumbs over the peaks, grinning against your lips as you whined and writhed around beneath him at the sensation. He adored every small whimper that you made between kisses, every heavy breath that heaved from your chest, and every movement of your hands against him.

Your short nails dragged lightly across Jack’s back, feeling every muscle that spanned across his broad frame. You’d admired his stature from afar before, but never considered that there would be a time in which you would get to hold him against your body like he was yours to have.

Jack was so easy to get lost in, and time almost stood still in the small bubble you’d made for yourselves laid out on the floor. The quiet moans and soft grunts, as well as the sound of your lips meeting in an embrace, was the only sound the filled the room. Both of you desired that louder moans and whimpers were what filled the empty space, but there had to be some element of restraint.

Not that it was easy to stop going further.

But then, cutting through the silence of the room; footsteps in the distance. Jack noticed before you did, and instantly pulled his hand out from up your shirt and went back to having you pinned down. You gasped as he pushed your arms back onto the cold floor, your lips breaking from his as he did. Looking up at Jack, his lips slightly swollen from the ferocity of your kisses, you heard the door to the gymnasium opening slowly, and the footsteps from outside the corridor coming inside.

“And what exactly am I looking at here, agents?” a woman’s voice asked.

Both of your heads snapped towards the direction of the voice, only to be met with the sight of a familiar redhead standing in the doorway. She was dressed in almost all black, even if she retained the cowboy aesthetic of the Statesman uniform, but today had opted to go without the hat. Instead, her curly red hair flowed around her face, which was adorned with a devilish grin and raised eyebrows.

Eve.

“Physical defence training,” you said, attempting to make it sound like you didn’t have a lump in your throat from being caught almost red handed making out with another agent.

“I can see that,” she chuckled, now heading into the room, “But why is Jack here on top of you?”.

“I disarmed her, she threw me to the ground, and I just managed to get the upper hand,” Jack explained, clearing his throat as he slowly began to peel himself off from you. You felt the weight from his body slowly begin to leave you, his legs sliding off yours and his hands loosening from your arms, eventually resulting in him getting off you entirely.

“Mhmm, okay,” Eve chuckled as the two of you got to your feet, “And that’s all that was going on, right?”.

“What else would there be, Eve?” you asked.

She wasn’t dumb. You knew that, and she knew that. Hell, even Jack knew that, and he’d not had much interaction with Eve in several years. You just prayed to any God that might exist that she hadn’t actually seen what the two of you had done - speculation was one thing, but to physically see what had just happened? You weren’t sure you’d ever live it down.

“Nothing!” she smiled as the two of you got back on your feet. You noticed out of the corner of your eye that Jack thrust his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants, and you practically burned at the realisation of why he had to do that in the presence of someone else, given what had just happened.

“What’s up, anyway? Wasn’t expecting to see you until later?” you said, taking your time to readjust your clothing which had been scuffed up during the course of the training session. Jack made no such effort, remaining as stiff as a board.

In more ways than one, you suspected…

“Champ sent me,” Eve began explaining, smiling sweetly at you both. “You’re both needed for a meeting. Separately, though.”

“Separately?” Jack queried. Eve shrugged.

“I know no more than you, Daniels,” she said, “All I’d suggest is you get a move on. He seems…I don’t know. Agitated, almost? I just wouldn’t keep him waiting.”

“Alright, thanks Eve. We’ll go get changed and head up shortly. We were almost done for today anyway,” you smiled. Eve chuckled, winking at you as Jack left your side to go and collect his gym bag. She leant forward so that she could whisper to you.

“I bet you were…,” she said.

Well, shit.

Series Masterlist | A03 Link | Tumblr Masterlist

Next Chapter (Ch. 10 - "Furtherance") ->

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marcia-11111 · 1 year ago

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Daffodils. II. The diary

I apologize for the late update, however I was busy due to the university's workload.

Tag list: @idk-bro-gay @kiopanxp @hellothere9597 @hsxhype @mareonyan

TW!

Breakup, angst, and heartache

Sae Itoshi is a Japanese prodigy pursuing his dream of becoming the world's best midfielder. In the race to his own goals, he loses the person dearest to him: you.

(y/n) (l/n) - Sae’s ex-partner. You are an exchange student from a Spanish university who came to Japan. You met him a few years ago during your year abroad in Spain and became his partner. You have moved on, or you thought you had. However, what will happen when the one who wanted you to avoid him the most finds himself again in your life? Is he going to prove his love to you? Or will everything turn into another heartbreak? Does your heart want the Japanese prodigy back?

All "Blue lock" characters belong to the authors of the manga and anime "Blue lock".

Please don't translate, plagiarise nor use my works on other social media platforms, etc.

----------------------------

Being abroad, far away from home isn't something one could deem as simple. Without an understanding of culture it's hard to fit in and adjust to your new "home".

You're one of many people who are able to relate to such a statement - having Come to Japan completely by yourself, left to your own devices. The country was the only one who offered a programme to your field of interest, therefore there was no other option. It didn't upset you though. With Sae's not being fond of his homeland, you could rest assured.

After the exchange students' orientation meeting, you bump into someone while you're returning.

"I apologize", you say, meeting a pair of blue eyes.

"すみません (Sumimasen)," the young man replies and then he checks if you are fine. You recognize him as one of the "Blue Lock" project's participants, however you couldn't remember his name.

"It's no problem," you answer, your eyes scanning his face.

"Wait? Are you also a fan of soccer?" He points at the necklace with a small soccer ball, causing your eyes to fill with sadness. Sometimes being sentimental could be one's weakness.

"No," your voice is stable, but even though your facial expression seems conflicted, you don't want to talk about your past with a stranger. The question reminded you of him, the one who broke your heart instead of guarding it. The blue-eyed soccer player couldn't stop you when he tried to understand your reaction.

When you arrive at the beach, you take your diary out of your backpack. You read some of the pages with the thoughts about the former relationship with Sae. The one you want to forget. The one who shattered you. You start to write.

"The soccer necklace Sae bought me… It is something that I cannot read off no matter how my heart hurts when I look at it. Please past, let me go…" You sob slightly, drawing lines in your diary. The waves cause your crying to be inaudible.

After a while, you calm down, but the wind starts to be faster out of nowhere and the sea level rises. You have to go back home.

The weather doesn't seem to improve anytime soon, therefore you take a bus to your place, not having noticed you left the diary near the beach…

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aintgonnatakethis · 7 months ago

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writing share tag!

Rules: Share a snippet of writing, no matter how long.

Tagged by @fortunatetragedy ❤️️

Tagging: @annwayne @bagheerita @autism-purgatory @wyked-ao3 @wolgerrswraith + open

It's a proven fact that there's nothing Telford loves more than Rush finding new and inventive ways to insult him...

"He passed his physical when he came here," Young insisted. "Just like you did. Bloods, every scan known to man. Fuck, they even sequence our DNA." That was news to Rush, who had admittedly not read much of the paperwork the programme had given him to sign. If it hadn't been related to his work, he'd deemed it unimportant when he'd finished reading the first page detailing the secrecy requirements he would now be operating under and flipped to the second only to find page two-of-forty-five staring back at him. He hadn't even bothered to fake a veneer of interest when faced with his medical disclosure forms before signing them. The only thing he remembered about the following tests was the pitiful paper hospital gown he'd been provided with for the duration, and how the damn thing wouldn't stay closed. "And there were no aberrations?" "Nothing--" Young started only to cut himself off as Telford lifted a hand and grasped angrily at his wrist. "Sorry, sorry." Young placed the backs of his fingers against Telford's forehead, letting out a soft displeased noise. "What exactly was the point of keeping me here if you weren't going to consent to tell me anything?" Rush demanded. "To make sure…" Telford just about managed, sounding extremely worse for wear, "you know… if you tell… anyone… I'll kill you." "Absolutely terrifying," Rush deadpanned. "I think you might have a hairball."

#literal hearts popping up above telford's head in response... 👀#writeblr #tag game #mine #my quote #fortunatetragedy #sgu #wip excerpt #wip wednesday #ww fic

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detroit-grand-prix · 1 year ago

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thistle and weeds - susie wolff x oc

i. in the wind and the rain

Summary: Maree McInnes is finally content with her life, she thinks. She felt stuck in a marriage that made her feel lonely, and in a job that made her feel horrible. Two years later, she's divorced and content with the place she is in her career, until a surprise reassignment at work leads to her to working directly under the person that indirectly made her realize that she didn't have to accept the circumstances she was given and that she could ask for more out of life.

Tags/warnings: brief mention of suicidal ideation, later implied polyamory/polyfidelity, no infidelity involved

Author’s note: A new series has landed. A few of you requested more stories with Susie and her assistant!Reader continuing at F1 Academy, but I actually find F1 x reader stories sort of clumsy to read and write, so instead, we have a new OC. This is intended to be a more mature, grown-up sort of fanfiction, and there probably won't be any drivers involved because it mostly centers around Susie and the F1 Academy.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. Please let me know what you think!

Maree couldn’t sleep.

Her body was crackling with the kind of feeling that she used to feel on the first day of school every year, as if she was a loaded spring, poised to fling her headlong into the unknown.

Tomorrow wasn’t the first day of school, or even the first day of a new job. She would be driving to the same expensive-looking building in Bromley that she’d been commuting to for five years now, charmingly called Sapphire House, though it was neither sapphire in color, nor was it a house. She’d park her Volkswagen Golf in the same spot in the car park she always did, say hello to the same receptionist she always saw, scan her badge at the same doors to go into the same office, and sit at the same desk in the same office she always sat in.

But she was still stepping into the unknown.

Two weeks earlier, the day she returned to the office after the holiday break, Maree’s boss called her into his office to discuss a future project.

After they discussed their holidays, Maree’s boss, James, told her that she had done outstanding work for Formula 2 and Formula 3, and a new feeder series needed a programme manager with her talent and experience. He told Maree that the managing director needed someone who could make things possible when the circumstances were impossible. Apparently, James said, hers was the first name that came to mind.

“As of January 31st, you’ll be working on the F1 Academy project.”

Maree could feel her face blanch. “Why is this happening so soon?” she asked, surprised. She tilted her head, trying to remember the planning meeting they’d had to discuss projects for the 2024 season, when The F1 Academy series was discussed. “I knew the Academy series was in the pipeline, but I thought it wasn’t planned to go live until next year.”

“I asked Stefano the same thing. He said that with the W-Series going into administration, there was a gap in the market that needed to be filled right away. And, they said with the right managing director, it would be doable to start in the spring. Fortunately, we found the right managing director.”

She remembered hearing the news that the W-Series, an open-wheel racing series just for young women trying to break into the higher echelons of motorsport, was insolvent. The series’ financial issues had been the industry’s worst-kept secret, but even Formula 1’s upper management expected the series to last for one more season. They came up with the idea for a similar series, under the Formula 1 umbrella as Formula 2 and Formula 3 were, to start in 2024.

“Oh, who did they hire? I didn’t even know they already had candidates lined up. Was it an internal hire?”

“They’re bringing in Susie Wolff.”

Hearing the name felt like someone had poured ice water down the back of Maree’s neck.

It wasn’t as if she was starstruck by the prospect of working with her. Maybe if someone had told her this two years ago, but she’d met Susie a few times since she’d started her current job. The world of Formula 1 was small, and they’d been introduced at some point by a mutual professional acquaintance who thought it was funny, for some reason, that he now knew two people from the Scottish highlands. But Maree was from Inverness, which was on the opposite side of the country from Susie’s native Oban, so it’s not as if they’d grown up together or were probably distant cousins, as the man introducing them implied. Their interaction was limited to a handshake and shared confusion at the things a Londoner found funny.

No, her nerves, the sinking feeling in her stomach… it came from the realization that she would now be working directly under the woman who was, without even knowing it, the catalyst for the avalanche of changes Maree’s life had seen in the past half-decade.

“Susie Wolff?” Maree said. She felt like her head was buzzing. “I didn’t know she - I was wondering what she was doing after leaving Venturi, but I didn’t -”

It was an amazing hire, really. Susie was a former professional driver, was the first woman in almost three decades to come even close to a full-time F1 seat. After she retired from being a test and reserve driver, she moved on to being the team principal and CEO of a Formula E team. Nobody else had the history and experience she did to bring this series to life, and to give it the gravitas it would doubtlessly need to be taken seriously by sponsors, suppliers, teams, drivers, and even fans. If anyone else was leading it, there was a good chance it would share the fate of the W-Series, too.

“Yes, it was just finalized.” James murmured, glancing at something on his laptop. “Hasn’t been announced yet, obviously, but she’ll be here in early February, and since the first round of the series is scheduled for April, things are going to be moving quickly, but, I think you can handle it.”

Maree blushed a bit at the praise.

James and Maree spoke more about the particulars, and about the current projects in her purview, what could be wrapped up and what could be transitioned to other teams.

Not long after she’d gotten back to her desk and was focused on wading waist-deep into the mire of her expanded “to do” list in Jira, she was startled by an email notification from an “S. WOLFF”.

It was just a generic “welcome to the team” email, sent as a carbon copy to many other names (some of which Maree recognized, most of which she didn’t) with Susie introducing herself as the new managing director and a calendar invite for the first planning meeting attached, but it drove home that it was all real.

And so, as Maree lay awake, at 12:23 AM, January 31st, she let her mind travel back five years, to 2018, when Susie’s unknowing involvement in her life began.

She was visiting her parents at home in Inverness. It was the off-season for the Premier League, where she worked at the time, but a few behind-the scenes moves within the league’s middle management ensured that Maree had a new boss that, for some reason, seemed to dislike her, and showed it by not only significantly increasing her workload, but by offering her a stream of very-not-constructive criticism, usually in the middle of meetings when he could berate her with an audience. Eventually, Maree had a preferred stall in the women’s toilets to cry in, and began to weigh out the relative risks and benefits of stepping in front of the number 6 bus that she took to work every day. She needed a break, so she took a few days of holiday and headed home.

Rowan, her husband, opted not to join her, as usual. He frequently declined when offered the prospect of traveling outside of the confines of the home counties around London, never mind all the way up to Scotland. He usually moaned that it was too long of a trip and that there was nothing to do in Inverness, so Maree let it go instead of arguing. She learned long ago that trying to get Rowan to do something or go somewhere he didn’t want to was not worth the fight. She normally flew on her visits home, but decided to take the Caledonian Sleeper train. Seeing the country by rail over a twelve-hour trip would give her some time and space to clear her head, and not to arrive at her parents’ house wound up and agitated. Plus, it reminded her of her first journey down to London for University, when her life seemed ripe with possibility.

After a pleasant train ride and enjoying a giant breakfast that her mum, Moira, made before heading off to work, she joined her dad, Arthur, in his daily post-retirement ritual of watching The BBC Scotland in the sitting room until noon.

Maree was barely paying attention to the newscast when they announced an upcoming segment with an interview of Susie Wolff, a native Scot, as she was just announced as the team principal of something called the Venturi team in Formula E. Maree knew who Susie Wolff was, at least, she’d heard the name before. Neither of her parents liked motorsport, or sport in general, but the segment caught Maree’s interest when the interviewer started asking Susie questions about the challenges of working in a male-dominated sport at a high level.

For some reason, the interview was still on her mind even after she and her dad ate lunch together, and as she was joining him on his daily bike ride around the shores of the Moray Firth, where he would comb the beaches for interesting-looking rocks that had washed up on the shores.

“How’s work going?” her father asked, as he bent down to pick up something apparently worth examining. “Not so busy in the offseason? It is the offseason, right? I haven’t seen any adverts for football matches on the telly lately, so it must be.”

“Yeah, it is. It’s…” Maree sighed, turning her gaze out toward the lighthouse in the distance. “I’ll survive.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” he said, tossing the rock out into the water. “Just more limestone.” He mumbled.

“What are you looking for out here, anyway?” Maree said, looking quizzically back at her father. “Even I know it’s all limestone, and I’m not the retired geologist.”

“Retired marine geologist, thank you!” he said, standing back up with another stone. “And it mostly is, but once in a while you can find a lot of agates here, or things like pyrite or quartz crystals. See? I found this one a few minutes ago while you were down the shore.”

He stepped closer to the rock formation that Maree was sitting on to show her a gray stone from his pocket, glittering with sparkling square inclusions.

She nodded, recognizing the appearance of the “fool’s gold” in the rock.

“Now, scoot over, and tell yer dear ol’ da’ what’s bothering you,” he said, mustering up a stronger accent than he usually had, as he plopped down next to her on the outcropping. He took off his round horn-rimmed glasses to wipe the sea spray off of them with the sleeve of his woolen jumper. Between the jumper, and the salt-and-pepper beard he’d been growing out, and the wellingtons he was wearing, he looked more like the lobster fisherman she remembered seeing once on a family trip to the Orkney Isles than a geologist, retired or not.

“Oh, well, it’s just…” Maree said, letting her gaze drift off to the lighthouse at Chanonry Point once more. She took a deep breath of the salty air before starting. “I feel… stuck lately. I’ve done everything I should have, you know? Go to a good university, get a good industrial placement straight away, get a good job from that, move up the ranks and turn that into a good job somewhere else, get married to a nice man, get a nice apartment in a good location… neither of us want kids, so that’s fine, but lately, the thought of going to work every day turns my stomach, and Rowan says I should just deal with it, because it’s stable and it pays well. And lately, it seems like he’s been treating me like I’m invisible, you know? It’s not just been this trip, you know he doesn’t like coming up here, but…”

Maree’s throat started to tighten.

“I really do like the work I do. But it honestly feels like my boss is trying to drive me out. He’s been adding so much to my workload lately, and it seems like nothing I ever do is good enough, even after years of being told I’m doing great, it’s just… it’s awful. I don’t know what to do. I don’t think going to HR would help, and I can’t really request a transfer without people asking questions, so I’m -”

Without hesitation, Arthur interjected.

“Leave.”

“What?” Maree said, turning her head to look at her father. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. Leave. You’re an intelligent, talented woman, and you’ve got one hell of a CV. You went to King’s College, you worked at Chelsea, and then the Premier League. I don’t even follow football and I know those names, Mare. Every company and organization has programme managers these days, there’s no sense staying somewhere that makes you miserable. Life’s too short for that. Just leave.”

“I thought about it, but Rowan said I should stand my ground and -”

“Mare, I like your husband -” Arthur said with a heavy sigh, interrupting her again “- I’m sorry, I do, but Rowan is the last person I’d take job advice from, especially in this case. I know he has that issue with his wrist and can't play cello in the symphony any more like he’d wanted to, which I feel bad about, but he decided the next best thing was to rot upright at a desk somewhere in the bowels of Lloyd’s of London as an insurance broker. I couldn’t imagine a more boring way to spend your life. If I thought less of him, I would assume that he wants you to be as miserable as he is, but you don’t have to be. Life is too short, and if your boss doesn’t appreciate your talents, you can take them elsewhere. If your husband has a problem with that, he doesn’t have your best interests at heart, and he’s not the one.”

Maree knew that her father was right.

In an incident that seemed like destiny, a few weeks after her trip, a corporate recruiter

sent Maree an email, asking her if she was possibly interested in making a switch to Formula One Management. She agreed to at least meet with the recruiter in person over lunch, and Maree couldn’t help but be impressed as the woman answered her questions. There was one overarching, remaining question on her mind after the recruiter finished her pitch.

“I thought it was kind of a bit of an old boys’ club there. I haven’t ever really followed motorsport, but that’s the impression I’d gotten from the news for the past few years.”

“Ah, yes. It was, under Bernie Ecclestone. His way of doing things was… a bit antiquated, but the environment has changed a lot since he sold the organization to a new parent company. Under Mr. Carey, it’s a much more, ah, equitable environment. Still majority male, I will admit, but things are starting to improve.”

She wanted to accept the recruiter’s offer of an introduction to the programme management team, but she figured that she should discuss things with her husband, as a career change would affect him, too. It would be a different work environment, which Maree needed. It would still be working in the world of professional sport, which Maree wanted. However, it would come with a small-but-significant pay cut.

Rowan’s reaction to the news of her entertaining the possibility of her leaving her job was just as she’d predicted.

“I don’t mean this to sound rude, but I don’t think you should throw away the years you have in the league just because your boss is a prat. By the sound of it, he’s not very good at his job anyway, so you’ll probably outlast him. Hell, maybe they’ll even promote you to replace him. Just grin and bear it until then. Plus, it sounds like they want you as some sort of diversity hire.”

The last bit of it annoyed Maree, and was even beyond what her father had warned her about. The recruiter hadn’t even brought up gender until Maree had asked, and in the position she was in at the Premier League probably made her seem like a quote-unquote diversity hire, so the difference would be minimal.

As she sat down with her laptop to send an email to the recruiter to say “thanks, but no thanks”, she remembered the interview with Susie Wolff that she’d watched at her parents house.

The things Susie said to the reporter about knowing when to move on, and how you could never experience growth if you weren’t willing to accept change and take risks resonated with her. “But at the same time,” she remembered Susie saying, “You can’t lie down and accept being walked all over in that kind of environment. It’s tough, but you really need to demand the treatment you deserve.”

She sent a reply to say “yes” instead.

A few months and more than one shouting match with Rowan later, she packed up her office in the Premier League headquarters in Brunel building in central London, never to return again. She called her father on the way home to tell him the good news.

Her getting a new job wasn’t ultimately what caused her and Rowan’s marriage to crumble, but it was likely the wound that led to its slow exsanguination.

All of this was on Maree’s mind as she was at work on the Monday of the first meeting. She was at her desk, reviewing things for the meeting last-minute, and glanced up from her computer monitor just in time to see Susie breeze past her office door en route to the conference room on the same floor, flanked by Stefano Domenicali and some other members of senior management. Her elegant wool coat was unbuttoned, flowing behind her a little like a cape as she walked. Her blonde hair seemed to glow under the fluorescent ceiling lights. Maree wasn’t sure why, but she felt her heart catch in her throat. She couldn’t help but stare as Stefano led the group into the conference room, until a notification pinging her watch snapped her out of it.

“Shit,” Maree whispered. She was due to attend the very meeting Susie had arrived for, which had managed to somehow slip her mind in the past thirty seconds. Truthfully, she had given herself a few minutes in her calendar notification, but it suddenly didn’t seem long enough for her to gather up her notes, calm herself down, or figure out why the idea of a meeting with some motorsport executive had her feeling so off-kilter. It wasn’t as if these types of meetings were new to her, not at this point in her career. She’d had plenty of meetings with team principals, executives from supplier companies, drivers, team executives and footballers during her Premier League days, this was nothing new.

Maree sat back down at her desk, and pulled a small makeup compact out of her purse. She was suddenly very aware of how the blonde of her own hair looked almost dull in comparison to Susie’s, how her long, wavy hair had so many flyaways than the silky bob Susie’s hair was always styled into. She tried to coax the rebellious strands down and flounced the ends a bit while she did a last check of her makeup, wondering if she shouldn’t have gone with something more than the minimal application she usually wore. Someone once told her that the way her cheeks were rounder and fuller made her look young, and as she approached her mid-thirties, she preferred to keep it that way.

The only thing she thought she’d done right that morning was selecting her favorite blue cardigan to wear over her gray blouse. She always liked the way it brought out the light blue of her eyes.

“Why am I so nervous about this? Maybe it’s just because she’s my new boss,” Maree thought as she stood up, grabbing her laptop and her notes for the meeting before trekking across the office to the conference room.

She took a deep breath before knocking on the conference room door and letting herself in.

“Ah, Maree, nice to see you again,” Stefano said, as Maree nodded to the group assembled loosely around the conference room. He rose from his seat to give Maree a handshake, gesturing for Susie to step over. “Maree, I’d like you to meet Susie Wolff, your managing director for this project. Susie, this is Maree McInnes, your new lead programme manager.”

Maree did her best to remain calm and collected as she shook hands with Susie. In the back of her mind, she made note of how soft and warm her hand was, even in their brief, businesslike clasp.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Susie said, giving Maree a pleasant smile. “Though, I believe we’ve met before, correct? I get the feeling we have.”

“Yes,” Maree said. She could feel herself blushing, pleasantly surprised that she’d made enough of an impression. “At the BRDC awards gala a few years back.”

Susie laughed, flashing a brilliant smile. “Oh, right, when Dan Ticktum’s father made a joke about us being cousins because we’re both from Scotland, or something.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re from Inverness, if I remember?”

They chatted for a moment as Maree eyed Susie up and down. She was dressed very smartly, in a well-tailored business suit, with a cream-colored boat neck sweater under her jacket, a chunky statement necklace that looked like a chain, with large links that looked like they were made of polished, pale wood, and a pair of diamond stud earrings. Maree couldn’t help but feel strangely slovenly in comparison, despite wearing the sort of thing she normally wore to work.

Eventually, Stefano called the meeting to order, and Maree and the other attendees each found an open seat. After a perfunctory round of introductions that reminded Maree of being in primary school again, they got down to the business of starting to form a new motorsport series. While Maree’s mother and father would likely think it was terribly interesting and exciting, despite not being fans of sport at all, they were both the sort of people that enjoyed the minutiae and details of things. Maree supposed she was the same way, otherwise she wouldn’t have gone into programme and project management.

As Maree was called on to present the proposed timeline and key dates of the project, thankfully, she felt as though the nerves and adrenaline she’d been feeling lessened their grip on her as she came into her element. This was her giving another presentation on another project she was leading, just as she’d done hundreds of times over the last decade and then some. She barely noticed the impressed expression on the face of her new boss as she talked through the separation of duties of each person assigned to the project. Who would be handling marketing, suppliers, sponsorships, driver recruitment, team relations, all of the little pieces and parts that needed to come together “...before we make it to pre-season testing in Barcelona in April.”

There was mild, scattered applause through the room as Maree clicked to the final slide on the presentation projecting from her laptop. “Any questions?” she asked, steeling herself for the usual barrage of critique. And questions.

It surprised Maree when Susie was the first to speak up.

“The first thing I have to say is that I am very thrilled to have you on this project, and I am impressed. I think Stefano and James chose the perfect person as far as our programme manager goes, and I’m quite excited to start working with you.”

Maree was only half-listening over the joyful ringing in her ears as Susie asked about some supplier dependencies, giving some answer that was maybe a bit more automatic than intended. All she could think about was Susie’s words, and how her Scottish accent had mostly reformed itself around Germanic phonemes after years of living abroad and being married to someone from Austria, much like her own accent had been pounded out of shape by her time in London, but much like Maree’s, Susie’s roots - their common roots - shone through when she said certain words, like the way she said the vowels person and perfect.

By the time she got back to her office, she could still feel her heart pounding. Almost 150 beats per minute, according to the sensor on her watch. But still, she had no idea why a first meeting with a new boss would make her feel this way when it never had before. She had also not felt such a desperation to impress her boss like this, probably since she started on with the Premier League. Susie praising her during the meeting felt like she was sinking into a warm bath, and she never wanted to get out.

And so, when an hour later, she received a calendar invite from Susie about a “planning lunch” for the next day. There was nobody else CC’d to the invitation. Not for the first time that day, Maree was grateful that she had her own private office, because that way, nobody could see the mixture of terror and joy spreading across her face.

#susie wolff x oc #f1 fic #my fanfic #my fanfic writing #formula 1 fanfic #f1 x oc #formula 1 x oc #formula 1 academy #series: thistle and weeds #yes the title comes from a m*mford and sons song... sorry... i like it though #and pardon my lack of scotland and london knowledge... i'm doing my best

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lukas-clost · 4 months ago

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BD&H chapter 1

Masterpost Wattpad Quotev Ao3 ch. 2

Summary: The monsters have been on the surface for a few years now, and even after being legally given citizenship, humans are still wary of them.

When monsters start disappearing, their dust is swept under the carpet even as the Ebott City Police Department try their best to get to the bottom of it. Then humans start disappearing and citizens revolt against what looks like retaliation. Kate, an independent, newly recruited detective, decides to take matters into her own hands when her superiors fail to make sufficient progress.

With the help of the other recruits and her new monster friends, she’ll have to find the culprit lest she lose both her job and the rights of monsterkind.

Also available on Wattpad, Quotev and Ao3! Undertale belongs to Toby Fox Underswap created by PopcornPr1nce

Warnings: off screen murders, angst, bad humour, prejudice against monsters

Tags: Papyrus x OC, mystery, friends to lovers

1. September Sun

First days, familiar and not-so-familiar faces, and tasty treats. Also, the sky is nice.

The September sun streaked through the half open curtains, the weak light bringing in a sparse warmth and indicating a good day ahead. I exited my wardrobe in triumph, previously missing bag in hand as my gaze wandered over the messy room before me. My bed was unmade, piles of folded clothes were placed randomly around the room and my laundry basket had tipped over, dirty clothes spilling out of its limited confinement. I grimaced at the sight and debated how mad future self would be if I left it for the night.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of one of my alarms going off, indicating I had about an hour left before I had to be at work.

I sighed as I placed the phone on my bedside table as I decided to clean up my room. I cleared away the table, dumping anything unnecessary into its drawer before starting to make the bed, tossing the blankets on the floor to dust and straighten out the sheets underneath.

Humming as I worked, I made the bed before putting the folded clothes back where they belonged then moving to the fallen laundry basket. As I tossed the clothes back in, I wondered when next I could do my laundry. Surveying the room, I nodded in satisfaction before moving into the kitchen with the recently retrieved bag in hand.

I carefully packed my bag for the day; container of sandwiches I had the common sense of making the night before, bottle of water and-

I grumbled as I went back to my room to get a change of clothes for the evening. I had to rummage through the wardrobe again and decided that I’d just clean it up when I got back. Clothes in hand, I stuffed them into the bag and checked the time on my phone. I grimaced at the time on the screen. If I didn’t hurry up, I would miss the bus, and then I would definitely be late.

Before I left the room, I did a quick check of myself in the mirror, smoothing down my cornrows and flyaway strands of hair. I should probably get them redone this weekend. I sighed and gave myself a reassuring smile as my eyes drifted down to the printed logo of the Ebott City Police Department on the white golf shirt. I had been ecstatic when I had received it in the mail; an indicator of my acceptance into their Academy Recruit Programme and the culmination of all my hard work at the Ebott City Police Academy. I smiled softly at the memory of the congratulatory texts I got from my brother and parents.

My eyes snapped back upwards and I quickly took a picture of myself to send to the family group chat later, sure that at least one of them would appreciate some kind of update on what I was getting up to. I scanned the room before rushing out of my apartment, trying to catch the bus before it left. I called an apology to the apartment owner as I rushed past them. Breathless, I only had a moment to catch it before the bus arrived, grateful that I had managed to reach it in time at all.

The bus driver greeted me warmly and I returned the greeting as I paid for the fare. I navigated past more commuters—monsters and humans alike—before finding taking an empty seat by the window. I gazed out at the looming skyscrapers and colourful buildings as they passed, significantly improved since monsterkind’s arrival.

When they had arrived a couple of years ago, nobody had expected the drastic changes the city would undergo because of them. At the time, I had been at the Academy and only felt a fraction of them with some of the food options getting insanely better. By the time the monsters had equal rights, the city was thriving in a way that sounded almost utopian. Granted, there were still the occasional protests as the mayor tries to pass a bill that will give them free roam over the entire globe, and a few blog posts and store fronts that vehemently deny the existence of monsters, but overall? Their reappearance had been beneficial to everyone, even if some people refused to see it.

I blinked at the looming sight of the Police Station as the bus stopped. Wiping my hands on my navy-blue slacks, I got off the bus, thanking the bus driver who tipped his hat at me in return. I watched it trundle down the road before disappearing round a corner and forcing myself to turn back to the building in front of me.

The Ebott City Central Police Station was truly a sight to behold; a two-storey block of blue and grey, with yellow details and tinted glass windows covering a majority of the second floor. An enormous copy of the logo on my shirt stood proudly at the top of the building for all to see and cast the majority of the nerve-wracking shadow over me. It wasn’t the first time I had been here, but it was the first after they had undergone renovations with the arrival of the monsters. A lot of them had clamoured to join the police force and with apparent subsidisation from the mayor, it was almost too easy to accommodate them with an improved building that would satisfy everyone.

With a calming breath in and out, I made my way to the entrance that I had pushed through on many occasions. Glad they kept that the same, at least. They had upgraded the interior and I marvelled at how clean the atrium was now. The hidden fluorescent lights made the room feel much bigger and brighter than it actually was, aided by the new layer of white paint and the white tiled floors. The blue plastic chairs lining the sides of the room were new, and added some colour alongside the green potted plants. Those, at least, I was familiar with, even recognising the spiky plant I had affectionately named Crocker when I was younger.

I smiled at the upgraded receptionist’s desk, slightly blocked by said receptionist and another person talking animatedly with them; the last time I had been here, it was a pitiful sight and spoke volumes of the funds, or lack thereof, that the station had.

I moved further into the room, wondering how late or early I was with how quiet the place was. My movements caught the attention of the two people at the front of the room. The person leaning across the desk looked up and broke into a wide grin once he saw me, my face doing the same once I realised who it was.

“Kit-Kate? ‘S’that really you?” He asked as he moved toward me with open arms.

Flynn Davees. My brother’s friend for as long as I could remember. His dark hair and lightly freckled face became a warm constant in our lives when things were much simpler. We didn’t keep in touch much when they started at the academy and even less so when my family moved to the city over, so I was glad to be seeing him again.

“The one and only!” I responded, hugging him tightly when I was close enough.

“I haven’t seen you in ages!” He said, releasing me but keeping me close. His dark blue eyes whizzed across my face, taking me in as I beamed.

Flynn had grown a beard since the last time I saw him, the dark hair making him look much older than he was, although that may also be due to the bags resting under his eyes. Aside from that, his jet-black hair remained messy and his eyes kind.

“You’re one to talk. Since when did you grow a beard?” He let go of my arms to stroke it thoughtfully.

“I think it suits me. What say you?”

I didn’t get to answer, our reunion interrupted with a polite cough behind him. I peeked behind Flynn to see his younger brother, Felix, smiling up at us. My face lit up again and I moved to hug him awkwardly over the desk; another, less frequent constant that I hadn’t realised I had missed.

“It’s good to see you too, Kate, but I’m sure you came here for work?” He adjusted his glasses as he spoke, pointedly looking at his brother who rolled his eyes.

“Alright. I guess we can catch up later.” He slung an arm around my shoulder and led me down the hall on the right, telling his brother to get back to work.

“You’re almost late. Most of the recruits are already waiting in the gym—congrats by the way.” He took a left turn that became stairs leading downwards.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m not actually late though, right?”

“Nah. When I left, they were all loitering around, waiting to meet the captain. How’ve you been?” He stopped walking at the arrival of a door, looking down at me, and I knew what he was getting at. By the time I had left the academy, and had started living on my own, monster protests had been crazy. My family had tried to convince me to move to the city over with them, but I was adamant in staying, saying that this was only more reason to stay and help provide justice for them.

They had been less than pleased.

I shrugged in answer. “Fine, I guess. The only problem now, is laundry.”

“Like that’s new,” he snorted. I shoved him lightly in defiance, urging him to grab me in a headlock and noogie me, effectively making my cornrows look worse than they already were.

“Hey! Don’t mess up my hair!”

“It was already messy!” He laughed as I tried to free myself from his grip. I was much stronger than the last time we met so he was pleasantly surprised when I managed to remove myself from his hold.

“You been training or something?” He teased, placing his arm back around my shoulders as he opened the door.

“Or something,” I mumbled, awed by the sight in front of me.

Human and monster recruits in similar golf shirts to mine were scattered around the room filled with gym equipment. Some were on benches lifting weights as they talked quietly with their comrades, others sat on yoga mats or yoga balls holding another conversation. A few officers in uniform were amongst them, their navy-blue suits with yellow and grey accents standing out against the white and black of our attire. There was a lull in conversation when we entered the room, but it quickly went back to normal when they had their fill of who came in.

“Well, this is where I leave you, kid.” He ruffled my hair again and I swiped at his hands, making him chuckle.

“I’ll see you later, and I’ll tell your brother you made it here safe.”

I waved goodbye as he left then whipped out my phone when the door shut. I quickly sent the mirror photo I had taken earlier to the family group chat before I could forget. Once that was done and there was no more stalling that I could do, I turned to face the room and started looking for any familiar faces. I found one on one of the yoga mats talking with two other recruits and I made a beeline towards him, hoping my relief at seeing him would overpower my nervousness at having to talk to new people.

On the way there, I bumped into another person.

“Watch where you’re—Katherine?” I grimaced at the use of my full name, knowing only one person who would call me that.

“Lucinda.” I faced the pale girl, her red hair tied into a tight ponytail as her brown eyes considered me. She was slightly taller than me and still held that haughty air about her that I noticed when we were kids. I could have sworn she had left for Switzerland or some place.

“Fancy seeing you here,” she finally said, arms crossing.

“I’d say the same. Didn’t you move to Switzerland? What are you doing back in Ebott?”

“The Netherlands, actually. And dad moved us back so I could work here. Didn’t your family move to the other city?”

Ah. Still the spoilt daddy’s girl, I see.

“They did. I just decided to stay.”

We considered each other for a moment more before our facades broke and we smiled softly at each other.

“It’s good to see you, Cinder,” I said, reaching out my hand.

“I’d say the same, Katie.” She took the proffered hand, her eyes soaking me in, before she surprised me and pulled me in for a hug.

“Too bad I won’t be seeing you after this,” she whispered, her voice a taunting hiss in my ear. I rolled my eyes, hugging her uncomfortably tight.

“You wish.”

She let go, sending me off with a glare before turning back to her group of friends. I shook my head at her, my frenemy since I was adopted, before continuing my path to another familiar face.

“Hey Daniel,” I said, finally reaching him.

The dread head in the group of boys looked up at me and gave me a soft smile, offering a seat beside him on the mat. I took the offer, placing my bag down some distance behind me as he introduced me to his friends.

“Glad you made it,” he said, leaning back on his forearms.

“Yeah. I’m glad you made it too.”

He smiled at me once more before returning to the conversation they were having before I arrived. Daniel had been my dorm mate since our first year at the Academy and we kinda just hung around each other since.

I looked around the room as they talked, noticing a few more familiar faces from the Academy and some others who must have been recruited from other cities. It wasn’t long before the door opened again and all the uniformed officers in the room stood to attention, urging us to do the same.

In walked a man who commanded our attention with great size, easily towering over the other officers he came in with. He had short brown hair, slicked back with gel and exposing the creases on his scowling face. Dressed in a grey dress shirt and navy slacks, his cool gaze surveyed the people before him.

Then came Flynn, a stark contrast to his superior in front of him with a quirked smile and messy locks. I couldn’t stop the exasperated smile that formed when he met my gaze across the room.

“Alright.” His deep voice grabbed my attention as he began addressing us.

“I am Captain Jeremy Sandler, and it’s good to see so many potential officers, but let me be the first to tell you.” He started walking around the room, looking a few of us in the eye. “That just because you graduated from whatever academy you hailed from, just because you were accepted into our recruit programme, just because you think you have what it takes to be an officer of the law in Ebott City, does not guarantee that you will become an officer at this police department.”

I swallowed thickly when he made eye contact with me.

“That being said, I wish you all the best on your journey and I hope you give us nothing but your best.” He levelled his gaze on each of us before turning to leave. “My subordinates will give you further instructions.” He turned around to leave, but hesitated at the door before turning back to us to speak again.

“Keep in mind that part of this programme will now require you to attend weekly monster lessons on Saturday.” He nodded after surveying the room again before finally leaving.

When the door closed, conversation erupted, and I barely made out the complaints of a few with the additional monster lessons. I was also surprised, but it made sense what with their residence in the city now.

One of the officers that came in with the captain moved to the front of their little group, and the arguments that seemed to want to start seeped away. Judging by the look of their head, it looked like a skeleton monster, significantly shorter than his colleagues. He was dressed in full uniform, sans cap, and was giddily rocking back and forth on his heels with a clipboard in hand. His excitement was infectious, evident by the more upbeat mood that overcame the room.

“Good morning, recruits! I am Victim Advocate, Sans, and I will be your tour guide today! But before that, we need to split you into groups with your field training officers. On behalf of the Captain, I apologise that we are slightly understaffed in that regard, but no matter! Groups can be just as, if not, more beneficial than one on one training!” He beamed at us from his spot once he was done rambling while his colleagues smiled at him.

He proceeded to group us, calling out the names of the field training officers and the recruits they would be mentoring. I watched as other recruits slowly made their way to their trainers and started acquainting each other.

“Officer Reginald, you will be mentoring Katherine Roy and Daniel Moyo.”

I spared a smile in Daniel’s direction as we made our way to a green scaled monster waving us forward. He was in full uniform, the pants adjusted to accommodate his sweeping tail while he held his hat under his arm. He gave us a big smile as we neared, showing crocodile teeth that contrasted his warm yellow eyes. Before we could properly introduce ourselves, Flynn grabbed the monster by the neck, dragging him elsewhere as he whispered into his ear.

“What was that all about?” Daniel asked from beside me. I glared at the direction they had gone in, not trusting Flynn’s intentions for one second.

“I’m not sure.”

Officer Sans called for our attention soon after, saying that we could start the tour now before going our separate ways. Everyone started leaving, with the excitable officer in the lead, explaining how the gym is used for both magical and normal training. I shrugged and followed the group out of the gym without our trainer, figuring that we could just find each other afterwards.

He took us around the entire compound, showing us first a firing range which was also below ground and heavily muffled. He showed us a few safety procedures and said that should our trainers think it necessary to come here, we would get into more detail with them. He did let us see his bullet pattern, however, and showed us a barrage of blue and orange bones. My mouth opened in awe, having never actually seen a monster use their magic in that way. The orange bones damaged the cotton dummy he used as an example, while the blue ones disappeared on impact. Once done, he left the room with a round of applause, the skeleton’s face beaming.

He then proceeded to show us some of the offices, telling us to keep quiet as people worked and explained how being an officer is more than just being on the line of duty, that there was a lot more paperwork involved than the movies liked to let on. A few people groaned at the sound of that and I couldn’t blame them. Despite being fully aware of the amount of writing that was expected to be done, thanks to my brother, I still wasn’t looking forward to it. He showed us a few boardrooms, chairs organised around large mahogany tables with cork boards, white boards or projectors at the front of the room. We passed by the bathrooms and the break rooms and he explained how they had been upgraded to accommodate most any monster. We passed by the temporary detainment centre—currently empty—on our way outside before he showed us some of the cruisers, a few of us begging to take one for a spin. He laughed at the request, a jovial sound that didn’t disappoint a single person, and instead told us that our trainers would let us ride in one if they thought it was necessary.

When we were back inside, standing in the atrium once again, he explained that most of the confidential and delicate files were upstairs with the captain’s office, so we would only be going there if our FTO’s were given access and deemed it necessary to go there. He gave us all a cheery wave and wished us the best on our journey to becoming officers before leaving us with our trainers and the reminder that we had monster lessons on Saturday. I watched him disappear behind a set of doors near the reception, a bounce in his step, before turning to look for my partner and trainer. We had separated along the way, him moving closer to one of the officers probably to ask lots of questions.

“Boo!”

I flinched at the exclamation by my ear, turning around to glare at Flynn who could only laugh in return. He sobered at the sight of my unimpressed face, letting out a few chuckles before asking where my partner was. I shrugged in answer, explaining that I was also looking for him. At my response, Daniel materialised beside me and I had to hold back another flinch.

“Perfect! Now we can get going.”

“What do you mean, ‘we’? Our field training officer is officer Reginald,” I said.

“Change of plans,” he explained as he pushed us out of the station by our shoulders. “Good ol’ Reggie and I decided to switch.”

I didn’t have the energy to argue with him and let him lead us out. I assumed Daniel’s silence was also a form of defeat, although I never got the hang of telling what was going through his mind back at the academy. I could be wrong. For all I know, he could be in a completely different place mentally right now.

Behind us, Flynn sucked in a sharp breath and tried pushing us along faster as the atrium started clearing out.

“Flynn!” It was his brother, Felix, and he was grinning at us mischievously. With a sigh, Flynn turned around to face him, Dan and I following in his suit.

“The usual, if you could be so kind.” Felix glared at his brother.

I wanted to ask what was going on, but before I could, he grunted in response before turning around and walking out the front door. We had no choice but to follow, barely saying bye to Felix before the glass doors closed behind us. He was waiting for us by his car, the same silver Audi he had from at least six years ago. I smiled at the memories of him, my brother, and I singing really badly as we drove through the night.

“I call shotgun,” Daniel said, breaking me from the happy memory. I sighed as I entered the back and Flynn drove us out of the compound.

We drove in silence for a moment as we drove closer to parts of the city I hadn’t been to in a long time. “What was Felix talking about?”

“Doughnuts. He always knows when I’m going to get them.”

“We’re going to get doughnuts?” Daniel agreed with my incredulous notion by giving Flynn a look and I started wishing that we hadn’t traded trainers so that we would be doing something productive. I loved Flynn, truly, but he never knew when to take things seriously.

I noticed his grin in the rearview mirror and sighed in defeat. We were actually going to get doughnuts.

“I promise they’re really good!” He said, noticing our disapproving silence. “Trust me,” he chuckled. “I’ll even treat you guys.”

“Since you insist,” I said. I was never one to turn down free food. The rest of the journey was spent listening to pop songs on the radio intermittent with Daniel trying to get answers from Flynn about how the training was supposed to go. He refused to answer and instead sung badly to some of his favourite songs.

We drove further north, the huge skyscrapers of the city getting smaller and shorter until we were in a more commercial area filled with mom and dad corner shops. I glued my face to the window, soaking in the familiar buildings and taking note of some of the new ones that I could try out later. A lot of them seemed to be monster run now, if the multitude of monsters freely walking around the place was anything to go by.

Flynn parked the car by the side of the road. “Hope you don’t mind a bit of walking,” he said as he climbed out the car. He led us a few stores down to a purple one where he gestured to it with a flourish.

“Welcome to Muffet’s!”

Said name was written in gold cursive on the glass door and shop window through which I could see a range of confectionaries on display. They looked so good they were almost unreal, and I decided that I would trust Flynn this one time. The phrase ‘for spiders, by spiders, of spiders’ decorated the bottom of the display in a similar cursive, making me notice the subtle spider decorations on the pastries and the edges of the window.

Daniel’s eyes lit up as he read the sign of the shop. “I’ve heard about this place! ‘Best desserts all of Ebott has to offer.’ It’s monster run, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer as he slowly wandered inside, forcing us to follow suit, but not before I glanced at the infamous mountain, much closer than what I was used to.

The tinkling of the bell announced our arrival as a wave of warm, sweet scents washed over us. I breathed in deeply, finding a surprising comfort in the small shop. There was a lull in conversation upon our arrival, patrons sitting at booths lining the walls turning their heads to see who had just walked in, but it wasn’t long before the soft sounds of casual conversation started up again. There was soft music playing in the background and I could barely make out the voice of Cleo Sol singing over the speaker as we made our way to the front of the shop.

‘Muffet’s’ was written in purple fluorescent cursive at the front of the shop, a large display cabinet holding sweets, mugs and more pastries just beneath it. A dark mahogany bar top was further down, laden with an almost full tip jar, a specials menu written on a chalkboard and lavender stools lining the side for more seating. Behind that stood an anthropomorphic spider monster in a violet suit, a pair of arms cleaning a mug while another pair dealt with the cash register. They barely paid attention to their current customer as we approached, their five eyes lingering on Flynn while their smile stretched into a smirk to reveal short, pointy fangs. Once their customer was dealt with, they gave the mug they were cleaning to what looked like a spider, who scurried off into a backroom, the white door swinging open then shut.

“Hello Flynn,” she said warmly. Her voice was welcoming and soft as she leaned a pair of arms on the counter top. Part of her short black hair was tied up in pigtails and they swayed forward as she moved, her black eyes expectantly looking at Flynn.

I could barely repress my awe at being in such a magical place. I could feel the magic in the air, buzzing against my exposed skin and my mouth fell open as I tried to take everything in. A glance at Daniel told me I wasn’t the only one, although he was much better at hiding it than I was.

The spider lady giggled at our awestruck faces. “Close your mouths, dearies. Wouldn’t want a spider falling in.”

My mouth immediately shut at that remark which made me notice the hundreds, if not thousands, of spiders crawling around the room. What I thought were just psychedelic spider patterns on the linoleum walls were actually moving spiders, much bigger than what your average black spider should look like. I froze in place, hoping that none would get the bright idea to come near me.

Yeah, I shouldn’t have trusted Flynn.

“Oh, don’t worry. They don’t bite,” she said, noticing my panicked expression. “Unless you don’t pay your tab,” she added as an afterthought, although this was directed to the only person seated at the bar. They were dressed in an orange hoodie, the hood covering their face so I couldn’t see much of them, but their shaking figure indicated they were laughing at the jab.

“Relax, Kate. Muffet’s spiders are as harmless as they get.” I glared at Flynn who only gave me a crooked smile. There was no such thing as a harmless spider.

“I’m assuming you want the usual?” She was quick to move on to business and Flynn started reciting an order. A small box of jam fills to go, a death doughnut with a medium chocolate coffee and whatever we wanted.

I blinked as Daniel nudged me forward, urging me to order first. I tried scanning the menu, a booklet depicting delicious sounding treats before getting overwhelmed and just ordering a regular spider doughnut and a cup of black coffee. Daniel underwent the same thing and ended up ordering the same thing as me.

Muffet repeated our order to us for confirmation before giddily stating the price, a number which I grimaced at, making a mental note to pay Flynn back. Having paid, he led us to an empty booth in the middle of the shop. I was stuck in between the boys, facing the rest of the shop as we waited for our order.

“Okay, so what are we doing here?” I finally asked when nobody said anything.

“Killing time,” Flynn said, relaxing into the velvety soft seats.

Daniel and I looked at him incredulously, not believing that this guy was supposed to train us for the next four months. His smile widened at our reaction and if we weren’t in public, I would have strangled him on the spot.

Before he could defend himself, Muffet came rolling in on roller skates, our orders in one hand. She distributed them in front of us before telling Flynn that the jam fills can be collected when we’re ready to leave. The spider doughnut in front of me was the simplest looking choice on the menu while still being unique to Muffet’s. The purple icing on top of the treat served as a background to a white spiderweb with a tiny spider in the middle. It was a cute design with an immense amount of detail put into it. I wanted to point it out to Daniel, who seemed to be a foodie, but he was already stuffing his face, noises of pleasant surprise coming out of him. Flynn was similarly already digging in which forced me to focus on my own food before I undoubtedly became the last one eating.

I smiled at the familiar tingle of magic as it entered my mouth, the food dissolving as it reached my stomach, breaking down into energy without being digested. I missed the experience of monster food, having it sparingly in my final years at the academy because of how expensive it was and how hard it was to even find. This time was no different, with the exception of the magic lulling me deeper into my seat as I was comforted by the surprising taste of vanilla and nuts.

“Okay,” Flynn started, pulling us away from whatever food comas we may have been slipping into. He proceeded to ask us questions about why we wanted to be officers of the law, what specific department we wanted to specialise in, what we expected from him as our field training officer. Basic questions to establish a professional relationship with him while also getting to know each other enough to see which direction to go in. We spent the rest of the morning in the little café, discussing plans, lessons and debunking some of our expectations.

When it was nearing lunch time, we left Muffet’s, lavender box in hand, and made our way back to the station for a quick lunch. We spent the afternoon wandering around the rooms of both of our chosen paths; Daniel in forensics and me in investigations, to get a feel for the type of work that would be expected of us. Not that I needed much of that, having pestered my brother a lot when he had started studying.

Flynn assured us that those weren’t the only departments that we would check out, as the police station as a whole needed to work together, that one department needed the other and none of them worked independently from another. He left us with the notion that we needed to have a deep understanding of the necessity of community on our journey, as it not only helped us make connections in the station that would make our lives easier, but it would also explain why some of the laws had been put in place. All of this was explained with a jam filled doughnut in his mouth, his brother having failed to keep them away from him.

“I think that’s a good place to stop,” he said, after swallowing the last piece of the doughnut. “What say you?”

Daniel and I nodded in agreement before he dismissed us, saying that we meet in the reception at the same time tomorrow. We went our separate ways once we stepped out of the building, the light of the sun reminding me of my morning premonition. It had indeed been a good day and I buzzed with the potential of the future before me.

Checking my phone, I cursed when my alarm rang, only having a little over an hour to get to work on time. As the wind tousled more flyaway hairs into my face, I set a reminder to make a hair appointment before going in search of a bus before I could be late again.

Masterpost Wattpad Quotev Ao3 ch. 2

#undertale #undertale fanfic #writing fanfic #undertale fanfiction #ut au #underswap #papyrus x oc #my writing #ao3 writer #sans is a cop #BD&H #BD&H-plot #lukaswrld #lukasclost

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e3khatena · 1 year ago

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so whats the deal with overkills the walking dead?

I'm glad you asked! (approx. 2,300 words)

So our story starts during Payday 2's first anniversary, the Fall of 2014. Players had to attain certain community goals to get new things to play with during their first annual Crimefest event, and the last two prizes were secret. They wound up being John Wick as a playable character, and the trailer for a new game Overkill was working on, based in the world of The Walking Dead comics. The premise was simple: it was set in the same part of the world as Payday 2, Washington DC, and would involve players trying to keep themselves and their camp alive during the zombie apocalypse made popular in Robert Kirkman's graphic novels and the AMC TV show. Given the fact that Payday 2 had proven to be a tremendous cultural hit around this time, getting the likes of Giancarlo Esposito and making cameos in the Wick movies at the height of their popularity, and given how at the moment it is very possible to argue that Payday 2 might have sold more copies than Super Mario Brothers 3, it would seem that OTWD was in good hands.

The problem, though, was their CEO. Bo Andersson used pressure he conjured up in Varvtre AB, a holdings company he was on the board of directors for, to become the CEO of Starbreeze when they acquired Overkill Software, the makers of Payday: The Heist and Payday 2. This also moved Bo from a role within the games industry alongside his brother to being his brother's superior and putting him in a firmly business role. This was good for Bo, because it would allow him to scrape capital from Overkill on their pursuit into superstardom to fund his own dream project: Storm.

Storm was a concept that Bo had been working on since 2008, the idea of bringing virtual reality back from being a curious novelty we played with in the 1990s into a mainstream competitive eSport. Players would wear tactical vests with computers built into them and a 5K resolution HMD that Acer would develop with the aid of Starbreeze in a massive bespoke arena, and using a combination of LIDAR scanning, realtime texture mapping, and the Valhalla game engine Starbreeze paid $8 million for, their physical arena would turn into a sci-fi deathmatch where players would cooperate to eliminate the enemy team and seek victory.

Bo Andersson was paying tens of millions of dollars to invent Laser Tag.

But how does this tie into The Walking Dead? Well, as a proof of concept, the work that Overkill had done in their in-house game engine, Diesel 2.0, would be ported into Valhalla to bring Overkill's The Walking Dead to life. Overkill's employees had long complained that Diesel could not compete visually, and even incorporating proper normal maps and bumping up the texture quality could not shake the appearance of a Source Engine or early Unreal 3 title. Despite releasing in 2013 and with the game now moving into 2016, onto the 8th generation of consoles, Payday 2 was not a looker and Overkill's The Walking Dead faced the same fate.

The problem, though, is that Bo Andersson bought the Valhalla Engine, which was being designed for VR first and foremost, much too early. The engine was literally incomplete, and the programmers had to write tools for the engine before they could write any code for the game itself. After nearly a year of work, they did bring Valhalla into a usable state, and used its VR prowess to power Payday 2's VR version. Bo also proposed a VR demo of Overkill's The Walking Dead to be hosted in Dubai, at VR Park (now titled PlayDXB), to demonstrate the game, the headset, and the VR technology to Middle Eastern investors who could free Bo from the shackles of Scandinavian game development and make him the worldwide name in VR. This delayed their actual non-VR Walking Dead game, which had serious funding from Skybound Entertainment and Robert Kirkman, past its intended 2016 street date. The game was nowhere near finished as Overkill staff were pulled back and forth to so many different projects within the studio. They received an extension to their deadline, Fall 2017, and work continued on the Valhalla Engine and the VR demo.

Fast forward another year. Starbreeze puts out Raid: World War II, a Diesel 2.0 title in which four players steal from the Nazis in almost exactly same manner as in Payday 2, starring John Cleese as the handler for the crew, and some trailers commissioned for their Walking Dead game using virtually zero actual in-game assets, and Skybound makes them an ultimatum: if the game is not out by November 2018, then they lose the rights to the license. They have wasted the rights holder's time and money for too long, and the project is dragging its heels with a CEO seeing it as a low priority to get their contractually-obligated co-op FPS for PCs and consoles out versus his ambitions of filling an entire space in Dubai with his name, his brand. Overkill developers, who had been clamoring for years to use an actual engine that makes sense for FPSes, finally get their wish, and Bo Andersson invests in commercial licenses for Unreal Engine 4. The problem now, though, is that the staff have a year to make the game in Unreal, with the caveat that they have zero experience in the engine. If they had made this move two years ago, they'd have the time to commit to learning the ins and outs, but they don't.

Overkill goes into crunch, with staff sleeping in the offices and working 100-hour weeks to learn Unreal and take what the documentation and tutorials offer them and implement it into their Walking Dead title, reverse-engineering the concepts they had implemented into the Diesel and Valhalla versions of the game and dropping them into Unreal. Bo Andersson, all the while, is going on vacations and not coming in on the regular, spending his time playing zombie games for inspiration and coming to the staff with his own ideas for the game based on them. Glory Kills, Special Infected, robust base maintenance mechanics and the ability to command teams of non-player survivors on missions all wound up in the game with little actual regard for how these pieces fit together. By the time that he realized he should be more actively hands-on, he only had a scant few months to spend with the staff at the final mad dash to make a playable product. The game was playable at E3, with two demo levels, and one of them playtested so poorly that the staff had to pull it from the rotation, but when Bo heard this feedback he would not tell his staff. He told them the game was testing great at E3, that people loved it.

Overkill's The Walking Dead released on the 7th of November, 2018, a week after Payday 2 ended support by letting players kill fallen angels and solve a giant puzzle wheel about the in-game lore in order to turn Bain, the player's main contact, into the US President via a body-swapping artifact used by the ancient kings of Kataru, who were gifted immortality at the same time common man was gifted the knowledge of good and evil at the Garden of Eden. While the clown-themed robbery game ended on a confusing note, Overkill's The Walking Dead was getting started to a whole heap of roughness. The game's combat was frustrating, with hordes of walkers that had to be put down one clumsy charged melee swing at a time and human enemies who fired off AKMs and MP5s with reckless abandon. Their noise would draw hordes, which would need to be contended with via your own noise, as dealing with a few dozen enemies with melee combat was awkward and difficult.

Being grappled by a zombie cost a health bar and a half in a game where your starting character had on average four healthbars to their name, and the underlying gameplay, despite being completely linear missions in level and objective design, were just Payday heists at the end of the day. Hell or High Water involved you raiding a camp owned by The Family, an antagonistic gang your camp is at war with, and stealing their supplies. In turn, they arrive at your camp and you kill five waves of them in Worse Than Walkers, in a move no different than Payday 2's Safe House Raid mission, with no zombies in sight. The camp-building mechanics, which were tied to player level and their ability to tend to the needs of their workers, were a confusing mess of UI elements that did not mesh together, and all weapons were earned in a gachapon-style case system and would degrade over time, requiring the player unjam them, fix them with the supplies they need to keep camp morale up, or watch them fall into disrepair. There was also no tutorial mission, with the game opening with The First Shot, the E3 demo mission that tested so poorly they stopped running it.

Overkill's The Walking Dead performed poorly, both critically and commercially, and Starbreeze went right into damage control. The game's high price tag to low gameplay ratio was combatted with a $30 version that required paying for the missions $60 players got for free. Season 2 went into production very quickly, with fixes to the base game, new weapons, and new survivors being promised within the coming months. Unfortunately, this was too little, too late, as Skybound issued a cease and desist to their business partner after just three months of sale, and by February 2019, Overkill's The Walking Dead was just as much a corpse as the undead shamblers present in the video games.

Perhaps what sealed the fate of the game wasn't its overall quality, as The Walking Dead is home to a large number of subpar games, but its tone and gameplay. Overkill's The Walking Dead is a very staunchly libertarian take on the franchise, pitting the player with the idea that they are to be a colonizing force, destroying an antagonistic camp and treating the other people just trying to survive as cannon fodder not unlike if they were just walkers with guns. This is no surprise given another face at Overkill, executive producer Almir Listo, having a robust fascination with libertarianism and the cult of personality that surrounded fringe Right-wing groups. Almir himself is not a conservative, but he has proven time and time again that he thinks the way Donald Trump talks is funny and has an interest in American conservative viewpoints and conspiracies as an outsider looking in, likely not helped by an unnamed comics writer taking over Payday 2 in its final year to turn the game about robbing banks into one with an ancient conspiracy and Nephilim to mow down with your MG42 or M16.

The Walking Dead is a story about its people and how they're shaped by the conflict, by the apocalypse that surrounds them, and while Kirkman expressed early interest in the sound-based horde gameplay encouraging quiet takedowns and swift, accurate gunplay, it is very possible that the idea of not just a bad Walking Dead game, but a bad Walking Dead game from a popular studio that fundamentally misunderstands the world of The Walking Dead and needs to fall back on generic bandits and raiders to fill its spaces a la Bethesda's open world titles was a bad look. We'll never know for certain, though, as the game has been pulled from sale for ages.

But this brings us to sometime last week. September 21st marked the launch of Starbreeze Studios' (formerly Overkill Software's) Payday 3. The game features a lot of the stuff they had worked on for The Walking Dead (weapon models, a rework to the Shield enemy, armor working exactly like health in OTWD) but also a ton of its own ideas, and in general the gameplay is very solid. The issue, though, is the progression and a number of bugs that hamper the experience, alongside requiring a Starbreeze Nebula account and online connection to play, with no offline mode to speak of, which caused problems when the servers for the game were down for its first three days after launch. Starbreeze promised a patch was coming shortly thereafter, but on October 21st, a month after the game released, someone with ties to Starbreeze, fed up with the Starbreeze Nebula account requirement and persistent Internet connection to play a game with obvious issues and no Patch 1 release date in sight, released the final build of Overkill's The Walking Dead. This featured a proper tutorial, made the original The First Shot into an optional random encounter a player could take on for additional resources, a slew of new weapons, a wandering trader who could sell you blueprints to the DLC's guns, and the rest of Season 2's missions. The leaked build is not playable online but is DRM-free, running just fine completely offline and preserving the game for future generations to point and laugh at, albeit without any help to ease the difficulty for a game that expected four human players at a time.

Perhaps the weirdest part of the leak is that it brought out a handful of fans from the woodwork who view Overkill's The Walking Dead as an underrated gem buried before it could truly shine, individuals who feel the game could be one of the studio's best with enough polish, and as a result Robert Kirkman has been once again inundated with people asking about the now five year-old game, hoping to give it another chance. I, personally, feel that the clumsy pacing, questionable storyline bearing little similarities to the graphic novels it's based on, and the over-reliance on generic bandits voiced by Payday regulars Josh Lenn and Joseph Balderrama prevent the game from being anything but a really weird footnote in a company's confusing, convoluted history.

#overkill #starbreeze #payday #the walking dead #gaming

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