#the way every little pain clicks into place. how it all suddenly makes SENSE.

[fatal-blow]

takes your hands gently. i know all the advice online says that stretching shouldnt hurt, that recovery shouldnt hurt, but for a lot people this simply is not true.

stretching should not be agonizing--you should not feel powerful, acute pain that lights up all your brains warning systems. but it does burn. it does ache. and when you do all your stretches properly, this often "wakes up" other aches and pains in the body.

the lower back post i made, for instance. those exercises hurt! they are uncomfortable! they make other parts of the body hurt!

but every day when i wake up, theres a little less tension, the exercises are a little easier. i get pain in the upper back but it pales in comparison to the other pains, and as i strengthen the lower back im given more "slack" in the upper body to stretch the sore muscles there. it still hurts but it feels better.

for a lot of people, especially people with neander foot whove had it gone untreated their entire lives, you have to take into account all the years youd spent twisting the body into the shape that it is now. how much it hurt getting to this point. untwisting it all isnt easy, it isnt painless, and will leave you feeling more exhausted than you ever have in your entire life.

but it feels better, and with neander foot specifically there is a clearly defined goal waiting at the end of the tunnel. it makes all the pain meaningful. it makes it all make sense. it makes it satisfying to have that glowing image in your mind and a way to claw yourself closer to it every day.

it hurts, and its hard work, but its deeply satisfying. and THAT i think is closer to what recovering feels like.

[missmarveledsblog]

A little something unexpected (Jake Seresin x Reader)

Summary: a routine shopping trip leads to something something unexpected for a certain blonde aviator .

warning: fluffy , goofy , jakes new to the simp life but hes not complaining . not proof read ( Soz )

( just realised i haven't done any hangman oneshots so here's one)

In the unknown of life it can throw curveballs , unexpected courses throughout life that  test whether you go through with it or not .  Like talking to a stranger in a bar , crossing the road at the wrong or right time , changing plans at the last minute, all things not expected but can cause a big or little outcome . Jake Seresin didn’t realize such an occasion was going to happen as he was grocery shopping one sunday morning. He didn’t know he was going to be changed in such a way it would alter his life in such a way .  He was going aisle to aisle getting and checking off his list , he may have shot  a few smiles and winks at the women he passed getting his various produce and products .  It was normal , part of his Sundays since he’s been stationed permanently in San Diego . turning corner as a women check him out shamelessly but it was his favorite  kind , then again he like whether they took charge or not once they left the next morning.  He was a hound dog , not yet ready to settle down just wasn’t in the cards for him and he was more than ok with that . he  wasn’t looking for love or so he thought  then he look up saw a scene before him  , she was beautiful , stunning and everything he didn’t know was real  only in some sort of movie or magazine . their was a familiar feeling to the woman he was looking at , maybe she was famous seen her in some movie at some point in life. But she was standing crossed arms looking completely unamused at the man before her , some sap trying to put the moves on ,jake thought or couples quarrel . 

“ come on stop playing hard to get “ the man almost whine same time as jake rolled his eyes , she did the same. 

“ i ain’t interested so why don’t you get on stop bugging me “ she huffed walking off or least trying to until the man grabbed her arm that when jake stood taller , chest out  ready to intervene help the pretty lady out . he  was hound dog in the sense he slept around but he never would pressure or alone put his hands on a woman .  Ready  to intervene and save the day  but before he could even step forward  she grab the man quickly having him now pressed up against the shelf hand twisted behind his back  before jake could even speak . 

“ let go of me you crazy bitch “ he squealed trying to get out of her grasp whole thing was amusing granted she was tiny compared to both him and the man she had in her hold .

“ don’t grab strangers or they grab back  now i’ll let you go and you’ll be on your way or i can hold you til the cops come sugar it’s all up to you “ she smiled sweetly .

“ first one “ the man pained out almost whisper as she did just that and watched him walking off  slightly impressed with the outcome til she realised she had an audience one a little old lady and another was a face she didn’t think she would see ever again . 

“ well done you show him “ the little old lady almost cheered before heading off . 

“ jake seresin ?” she called making him freeze . 

“ you know me ?” he asked confused she was familiar but not in the known familiarity sort of sense of things , cluing to scramble every inch of his brain to think of how he knew her , was she past flame but then again if he did go there he would remember her definitely. 

“ it’s y/n “ she laughed suddenly more closer and everything clicking into place , she was his best friend back homes little sister although she wasn’t little anymore. The former wildchild who wore baggy clothes getting trouble constantly of her escapades infairness jake barely saw her , she was either up in her room , sneaking out or out causing trouble.  She was always pretty but it was always an off limits sort of thing plus she was never interested in her brother or his friends jake was one of em . 

“ well trouble what hell you doing here” he smirked . 

“ was trying to shop you know it’s a grocery store”  . 

“ funny i mean san diego smart ass” he shook his head. 

“ well lets walk and talk  big guy  i ain’t causing a traffic jam “she walked. “ to answer you question i moved her last year for work , i am now a  nurse more specifically an ER nurse where all the action is , i’m guessing your stationed here ?” she asked . 

“ sure am ma’am ,  can’t believe your a nurse though?” he chuckled .

“ should seen my mama’s face when i told her i wanted to be one she thought i’d finally lost it but hell no one expected me pull it off except my big brother  mikey he always believes in me “ she smiled . 

“ hows big mike now haven’t talked to him since in a couple years, i know he married i missed the wedding because  i was deployed”. 

“ he’s got like five little one like she just kept going one after another “ she shook her head amusement filled her tone. “ but he loves dad life and he’s deputy on the force badge and all “ . 

It was so natural to fall into the conversation with her , more easier than anyone he’s met ,  reminiscing over the past and filling in the gaps  and present to the point he felt a little disappointed when they were heading out the store , swapping number did help stop the disappointment  , knowing the conversation could still continue. It was strange to say the least a normal routine moment leading to more as they parted ways  .  still there was something  there , something he couldn’t place his finger on  that was lingering after she left but he knew he had to see her again that was for certain .  heading home and yet she was all that he could think about , even stepping out and heading into his house, usually waving over a scantily clad housewife across housewife but he completely ignored her presence as he headed into his house  . 

It would be weeks before he would see her again  giving her busy schedule and his own the meet up was something very hard to maintain yet still keeping in contact he felt like teenager waiting for his crush to respond was that what this feeling was . Standing  at the dart board ready to take rooster money once more even he was starting to feel sorry but hey he asked for the rematch.  He wasn’t paying attention to the bell ringing above the door , it was when he started hearing the low whistles . 

“ christ on a bike “ was all he heard from the hawaiian shirt wearing man following  who suddenly wasn’t caring about the money he was losing , his gaze set completely else where only for jake to follow .  He stopped in his track , he himself was less caring of taking his fellow aviators money .  She stood out , of course her friend were pretty good looking women but shit she was breathtaking , she took his breath away that was for sure. The little black dress , boots and leather jacket all simple pieces of clothing and yet on her looked like  she was ready for a run way or glamorous photo shoot .  he watched the way her head fell back laughing at whatever her friends where talking about .It like she could sense his eyes ,  her connecting and smile bright on her face as she mouth a hi and  little wiggle of her fingers  in a wave .  his throat was dry but hell his mouth was watering . 

“ shit they have to be lost” was all rooster said as he made his way to the bar offering his services to the ladies if needed .  another new thing was the way his jaw clenched when roosters hand extended to her , the flirty grin and whatever he was saying had her laughing away.  Jealousy wasn’t a new feeling for jake, he was man enough to admit   it ( to himself and never out loud ) . But he was never jealous of a women attention  , usually he would just move on or get her attention his way . but now he watching his friend and a face from his past that he couldn’t shake like she permanently inserted herself into his brain .  then they were coming over , men watching the group of girl sauntering over to the familiar spot that was occupied by the famous dagger squad .  he watched as rooster introduced each of the girls to  his friend . 

“ i know hangman ,  we go way back “ her voice god it beat any melody of his  favorite songs . 

“ that we do darling “ he flashed flirty grin of  his own. 

“ we grew up  in the same town actually him and my big brother were best friends at one stage “ she explained to the perplexed face of her own friends and his  .

“ oh so was jake always well this or was he awkward secret nerd before .. please tell me he was a pip squeak  who couldn’t get lad “  nat perked up .

“ nah he and my brother were  ladies men , completely the star of everyone’s eyes including the women of our town  “she rolled her eyes as he had a beaming smile . 

“ i can see why he and you brother total heart throb material “ her friend mia purred and yet it was easy she was already showing the blonde the go but his eyes were solely fix on y/n .   the whole night he was following her every word it was like she was the only woman in the bar and in his eyes she was . even his friends were a little shocked at the  behavior of their friend . her friends gave up on pursuing the man well most of them did mia on the other hand seemed to be determined to get the blonde eye shedding  layers pulling her dress up a little more show off her legs or down to show cleavage and t was getting anyone but jake seresins .   she giggled louder and talked more lewdly  the dagger squad stood confused , while y/n friends looked slightly embarrassed  what they didn’t know was the seemly secret need to be better than y/n , mia goal to be the one who performed better , got everything that y/n wanted , she wasn’t a friend not really .  not that y/n cared it or took notice it was really one sided  , she was happy with her life , a job although stressful but worth it she enjoyed it most parts but came with hard times .  she  had boyfriends but never stayed around something never clicked not like it did with jake seresin which well was strange . not in sense she didn’t find he wasn’t attractive because even knew it  , it was more they were such different people back then  probably now too. Texting was fun , catching up was best. Someone from home here in san diego was something they both could enjoy. 

The night was going well other than the glares from her so called friend but other than that she and her other friends were having a great time she found them great bunch of people even being invited to other nights out if she was available . she hopped of the seat headed to the seat jake was at the bar getting more drinks while she was standing at juke box punching in the keys two heading to the group at same time as slow ride because booming throughout the speakers. Every single one of the dagger squad huffing and sighing.   

“ really bag man” nat groaned rubbing her temples . 

“ hey this good song but this time , it wasn’t me i was at the bar” he chuckled raising his drink in one hand and handing y/n a bottle of beer . 

“ actually this ones on me , it’s one of my favorite songs “ she winced . 

“ yeah totally good song” mia cheered. 

“ you told her turn it off earlier “ clara , one of y/n arched her brow. 

“ actually yeah you said you hated it” emma snorted . 

“  she only likes it because blondey , does even though blondey  isn’t haven’t having a bar of her” izzy scoffed starting to get annoyed a pick me mia . “ probably because y/n likes him is why she wants him “ she let slip . 

“ not true at all “  mia whined . 

“ yeah it is , why you come you don’t even like us or y/n “ izzy probed . 

“  i like you guys  , where is this coming from … not my fault y/n boyfriend came on to me that time “ she shook her head . 

“ wait what ??” y/n face fell . 

“  what it was just one time or two .. maybe it was three  relax it meant nothing  plus you dumped him so like chill , come on you get everything  let me have that and stop hogging his attention “ mia whined completely like she had done nothing wrong. 

“ she aint hogging my attention actually in fact i’m hogging hers  hope you girls don’t mind i’m gonna steal her to “ he looked to the others who couldn’t help have shit eating grin. 

“ enjoy “ izzy smirked  waving as jake pulled her hand waving to penny a silent he would pay his tab next day.  She on other hand was quiet  not the usual way she was before trying  to think back and it all clicking .  she heard the bell ring and a yell of mia screaming  “ come on “ as jake looked to see the woman pouting pulling her phone off the bar and round of cheers, an instant karma not to the point it really measures but hey it was a start .  

He brought her down the beach still some light of the bar illuminating in a sense but not too much it disturbed the beauty of the night . how the moonlight reflected on the ocean , the sound of waves crashing  such calm compared to the storm that was nearly brewing in the hard deck .  He realized the fact he was still holding her hand only this time her fingers where intertwined with his and he could stop thinking how perfect  they fit like two pieces of a puzzle .   they didn’t talk , like  the unspoken words spoke volumes enjoying the silence and each others company til she shivered once more then wordlessly he lead them off the beach towards his truck . unlocking  it opening the passenger side as she hoped in , all not a word spoken from their mouths but the eyes told each other everything.  All that was running through jakes mind was how perfect she fit in his life in different ways , like how perfect she was sat in his truck . taking the hoodie from the backseat handing it to her a whisper of “ thanks “ spilling from her lips . this was new this was something he hadn’t experience in a long time .  the drive was different somehow  but it was almost routine.  Driving pretty girl home but this wasn’t just any pretty girl it was y/n . She was different  , everything about his feelings were different to what he was used to. The fact he like seeing her in his clothes or at his side.  Pulling up to her house he didn’t want it to end not the night , not her company , it all . 

“ you wanna come in for a drink or coffee”  seemly she was feeling the same the long forgotten drama of a jealous friend  to the fact she was solely in trance from the blonde aviator that sat beside her. 

“ yeah i’d like that “  he smiled hoping out of the car jogging to her side and holding his hand out to help her out of the car .  once more fingers intertwined walking up toward the  house , something even in the exterior felt homely , flowers that sat perfectly  around the deck in a weird sense reminded him of home  in texas ,  she opened the door throwing her keys in the bowl her hand still in his only for jake to puller her spinning her into  his arms , a yelp and giggle spilling from her lips man he loved that sound , tipping her face up with his free hands leaning down so close he could hear her breathe hitch , he could feel how close it was  all he had to do was do it  , just move that little bit that would connect his lips to her plump pillow soft lips .  the nervous feeling in his was definitely new one , had him frozen almost looking into her eyes watching him closely only  to be the one  to  be the one to take that step , that one push that had her lips on his. Instantly the nervous feelings gone his hand gone straight to her hair pulling her closer if it was possible . never had he felt a kiss like it , one that  had him lost , one that had him addicted  just one touch  like  it was his sole source  of living . her lips perfect against his , her hand on his chest sliding up and around his head  , her own tilting for new angle to deepen the kiss . the way his tongue dance with her own , tasting each other  like it was only thing in the world even the need for air wasn’t a  thought when the two so lost in each other . until it was pulling back both breathlessly looking at the other , the smile appearing on their faces .  lifting her up he could feel the vibration of her laugh matching his own  giving directions  around the house in between pecks and sensual kisses , nothing was rushed .   nothing was pushed and exceeded  his own need , no jake wanted to take his time , he wanted to burn this moment into his memory  . the feeling of her in his arms still swallowed by his hoody or the feeling of her soft skin on her legs on  the palm of his hands .  her taste , the way she was looking at him it was all something that he didn’t want to stop not ever .  

That moment of confusion when  he began to stir , the scent of somewhere else  , the feel of somewhere else . eyes cracking open to see the morning sun settling in the room , turning to find the bed empty .  brows scrunched together  as rubbed the sleep out of his eyes til he could hear the muffled voice coming from behind the door . a smirk on his lips as he got out of bed grabbing his underwear , his shirt somewhere missing could find it later .  following the sound of the voice , taking in her home something that was missed the night previous the way it felt cozy , the way it felt like home laced in the wall . how he could picture himself coming home from a long day and just something simple as sitting with her wrapped in his arms eating take out . 

“ is that jake seresin “ a voice called as he walked into the kitchen , a familiar voice one he’s spent his whole childhood until he went to the naval academy . 

“ hey mikey “ he wince not realizing he just interrupted a family facetime  while in his underwear . 

“ it is hey y’all catch up while i finish this “ she smirked , amused at his reaction  or how heated his cheeks where. 

“  hey Mikey , how are you man “ he winced walking closer taking her phone in his hands so he wasn’t exposing much of  himself to his childhood friend while standing in said  friend little sisters kitchen .  

“ breakfast will be awhile sit “ she called not looking at him but he could tell she was fighting the urge to laugh . 

“ he’s the guy ?” mikey called. 

“ he’s the guy now catch up “ she called back . 

“ hurt her  and law be on your ass seresin . but other than that how you been man hows the navy “ her brother said easily even making her look at her phone with a look of “ what the fuck” written on her face. 

“ good man permanently stationed here , deployments aren't as long and get to teach the future aviators how its done “ he chuckled . 

Wasn’t long  til the bestfriend chatting up a storm  jake was barely paying attention though his missing shirt that almost swallowed her whole as she moved around kitchen making him breakfast shit this wasn’t helping his fantasies it was only feeding them , when she came over plates in her hand place them on table and heading back to get more jake said his goodbyes as she yelled her placing the drinks and condiments on the table only for jake to pull her on to his lap. Kissing her neck and her cheek til she turned her head and kissing his lips , the domestic feel to it all didn’t scare him , it should of but  it was y/n  , it felt right .  her perched on his lap while they ate breakfast  . She told him of her lack of plans  so she was probably going to chill home for day , so he invited her to the beach . a sort of weekly tradition of going the beach with the dagger squad  and friends on base , something she knew of from their text . what she didn’t know this was a first of many things. It was first of him staying over that was rare he usually went home once the deed was done , he was usually home along sitting at his kitchen island  , it was also a new thing of him bringing someone with him to the beach , never had he brought a fling but he hoped this wasn’t a fling it was too good to be a fling. Once breakfast was done and he cleaned up much to her telling him to stop falling on deaf ears . they showered  , ready  and headed to jakes so he could change his clothes knowing he was going to take another shower after beach . 

The faces of his friends where priceless except javy and nat the two sense something growing and it was an answer to jake sudden behavior change over the last few weeks. How he was glue to his phone  or barely paying attention to the women that batted their lashes at him in hard deck .  her hand in his as they got closer only to see her friends there too  well two izzy and emma. 

“ bob and rooster invited us “ izzy smirked . “ see jake had same idea” . 

“ well since there is girls here , lets set up over here and leave  the boys to their football “ nat cheered just as y/n  went to leave with the girls jake pulled spinning her as she fell into a fit of giggles as jake kissed every part of her face before getting her lips . 

“ ok ok come on suck face later”rooster groaned pretending to be repulsed but the smile on his face betrayed him . 

“ see ya later honey “ jake winked  patting her ass as she shot him a playful glare . 

Rushing to her friends to find out what happened when she left to here mia had to pay for a round of drinks  and left in an uber alone not long after  .  the turn in events izzy asked bob for his number  which the shy WSO almost thought she was joking , while shy emma gave rooster hers  but left the bar alone but all wanting to know what happened with her and jake . she told them it all  ( well not all ) . nat couldn’t believe it  , all her time knowing jake seresin and hearing this almost husband material man , one of the biggest man sluts of the hard deck being so soft   and  fluffy . then when she looked to the group of her fellow dagger squad members , the way jake seresin was looking at y/n . Such love and awe in  his green eyes it all made sense. 

Distracted was the best term to use as he and guys stood , his eyes automatically landed on her , ears picking up her laughter as she sat in the warm sand , talking animatedly about something . it made a bright smile emerge on his face . like it was just here on the beach , she wasn’t even talking to him , or could he hear what she was saying but she had his attention either way . 

“ i’ll be damned , never thought i would see the day unless this is some coma , drug induced dream “rooster let out low whistle finally bringing the texan back to the group. 

“ what are you  talkin bout now bradshaw” jake rolled his eyes. 

“ it’s seems a miracle has happened and bag man is in love “ rooster smirked .

He wanted to tell him no , he was wrong that jake seresin and love never even crossed paths and yet he couldn’t . It was all clicking in his head , how it all made sense and this was one of those instances where he could actually agree with rooster. Jake was in love and it wasn’t scaring him like he thought it would shit he was welcoming it ,  letting it fill his brain and his heart. 

“ i think rooster is on to something i think my boy is in love” javy shook jake shoulders side to side playfully.

“ i ain’t denying she something special but if you think ya beating me today bradshaw got another thing coming “ he winked .  “ LET'S PLAY SO I CAN BRING MY GIRL ON A DATE” he yelled catching her attention how her wide eyes soften and the coy playful smile on her lips appeared. 

“Since when am i your girl  seresin” she stood hands on hips . 

“ since the moment i saw you in that aisle kicking ass honey lets not deny the obvious here” he smirked walking toward her , not one of them complained the sudden shift of the game change . 

“ well kiss your girl and get back to your game cowboy “ she wrapped her arms around his waist as he held her face so softly kissing her soft lips like it was first time and definitely vowed to himself he would be doing it til the last day he had on earth. Ignoring their friends hoots and hollering in the background . nah his girl was his main thought. 

Things were unexpected , one little thing could alter and change course of someone's life and in this instance jake seresin was happy with the outcome  what was a routine shopping trip because it would lead him to this , to love and even more importantly it would lead him to her .

[taexual]

sleepwalking ● 21 | jjk

pairing: jungkook x fem!reader

summary: due to unfortunate circumstances, you ended up managing your ex-boyfriend’s band. you thought you’ve both made peace with it, but suddenly he’s very eager to prove to you that first love never dies.

genre: rockstar!jungkook / exes to lovers

warnings: explicit language, suggestive themes, FLUFF!!, angst, SLOW BURN

words: 16.4k

read from the beginning ○ masterlist

chapter 21 ► love me 'til my heart stops, hit me like a freight truck

You didn’t have the courage to knock on Jungkook’s door when you woke up the next morning. Your mind had sobered enough to recall stumbling into his room after accidentally trying to pick his lock, and you did not want to remember anything else. The rest of the night was blurry anyway, but you deduced easily enough that Jungkook was the reason you woke up smothered under the warm covers.

You wanted to stay in your room for as long as possible, but your headache was so severe that, if divided between people, it could have knocked out a small village for two days. You needed water. Most unfortunately, the hotel had no room service, so you had to find your way out of bed.

The world had finally stopped twirling around you, but that wasn’t a big improvement because other things bothered you now, like the carpet texture under your feet. Or the light that burned your eyes. Or your satin dress, which had felt comfortable last night but scratched you all over this morning.

Lacking the energy to change, you drew the curtains to block out the late morning sunlight and threw on a robe. Then you hesitated in the middle of the room, trying to place your belongings. You thought you remembered having a jacket on yesterday, but as you scanned your room, you couldn’t see it anywhere.

To make matters worse, when you left your room and the door shut behind you with a loud click, you were forced to pause and strain your muscles to stay upright. Every sound felt amplified like a megaphone had been taped directly to your brain.

You took a deep breath and turned the corner towards the stairwell. Your morning got a little brighter just then—you saw Luna cross the corridor, looking almost exactly how you felt. Taehyung was at her side, pushing a water bottle into her exhausted hand as he led her back to their room. He noticed you and immediately shook his head in disapproval, first at you and then at his girlfriend (not for the first time, judging from Luna’s defeated sigh).

Just as you were about to speak up in your defence, you smacked right into something solid and recoiled in surprise.

Jungkook nearly dropped his phone from the impact. He grabbed the railing of the stairs for support and turned around.

“Shit—hi,” he said. “Didn’t expect to see you out of bed so early.”

The feeling was, obviously, mutual as your reluctant mind needed a moment to understand what was happening.

“What are you—why are you just standing here?” you asked, rubbing your forehead with your fingers. You had hit the clasp of his necklace when you walked into him, and the sharp pain began to pirouette around your head again.

“I was on my way downstairs for breakfast,” he said, a hint of amusement threading his every word as he observed your attempts to make sense of your surroundings. “But I wanted to text you first, so I’d know what to bring you.”

“It—thank you,” you replied, softer. Your thoughts had knotted into a jumbled, incomprehensible mess as images of Taehyung and Luna flashed through your mind again. “But I can go down. I think.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. He remembered you saying that last night, right before he’d half-carried you to your room. “Walking isn’t your strong suit when you’re drunk.”

You took a sharp breath. The mention of alcohol seemed to cause an unpleasant swirl in your already upset stomach.

You wondered briefly how noticeable your sudden nausea was, because Jungkook put his phone away and reached for you. You realised right then that you hadn’t even glanced in the mirror before you left your room. You could only imagine the state of last night’s makeup on your face right now.

“It’s clearly not my strong suit now either,” you said. “Sorry I nearly pushed you down the stairs just now.”

“It’s okay,” he said, snickering. One of his hands hovered over your arm in case you were planning to topple over. “Are you sure you should have drunk that much last night, though?”

“Of course I shouldn’t have,” you said, shielding your eyes with a weary hand as curious rays of sunlight filtered through the small windows by the stairs. “But what’s done is done. I think I’ve already embarrassed myself enough by breaking into your room last night, so that’s my punishment. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jungkook said. He took a small step to the left to provide you with a shadow from the sunlight. “You didn’t do anything I haven’t seen before.”

You groaned. “That somehow makes it worse. But serves me right, I guess. I even lost my jacket.”

“You—” his laughter cut him off. You groaned again, only adding to his amusement. “Different shoes and no jacket. Sounds like quite the night.”

You wanted to shake your head but did not dare move it. Instead, you leaned against the wall, seeking additional steadiness that your stiff legs could not provide. Your ankles felt stretched out and twisted around, and the rigid hotel slippers did not help.

“Get something to eat,” Jungkook suggested, noticing your struggle to hold yourself up. “You’ll feel better.”

You closed your eyes. Your stomach was already churning precariously; you weren’t ready to eat yet.

“No, I just need water and I’ll be perfect,” you said. “I’m going—”

“I can bring it to you,” he offered promptly.

“I’ll walk,” you asserted. Then, realising that you were declining his kind intentions and he deserved an explanation, you cleared your throat and gestured around vaguely. “I brought this upon myself, you know? So…”

“So, you should punish yourself for having fun?” he questioned skeptically.

You shrugged. You did feel responsible for your splitting headache. But you also hoped that walking around would help ease your frozen muscles, which was, perhaps, a result of sleeping like a log all night. Although all that drinking and dancing probably added to the pain, too.

“Could you check on Maggie for me, though?” you asked, holding onto the railing nearby to keep your balance because the wall was not enough. The more you blinked, the more your body yearned to recline. “I’ve seen Luna, so I know she’s alive, but I haven’t heard from Mags.”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” he said, pivoting around you. He was evidently prepared to fulfil your request immediately.

You stopped him by placing an unsteady hand on his arm.

“I haven’t forgotten that we—we need to talk,” you said. “And our film.”

Jungkook turned around again. Despite the uncertainty that seemed to boil in his stomach at that thought, he liked hearing this – we need to talk. Our film. He thought he would have liked hearing about you peeling potatoes and parallel parking between two trucks together.

“Oh.” He looked at the small window in the stairwell; the stained glass was thick, but the sunlight behind it was too persistent. “Well—we don’t have to talk or watch anything today. You should—”

“No, no, we will,” you insisted. You said this with no additional pain on your face, and Jungkook took it as a positive sign. “Let me just grab some water, and—”

“I’d prefer it if you got some proper rest first, actually,” he said as you pushed yourself off the wall and paused to catch your breath after the exertion. “I can tell you’re not feeling well.”

You huffed again. Really, an average crow—one of those cawing in the trees outside the hotel—could have recognised that you weren’t feeling well. You wondered if you had enough energy to pretend otherwise.

“I’m—well, I’ll take something for my headache when I get back to my room,” you said. “And, if you wouldn’t mind, I could use a quick nap. And then we—”

“I’ll get us some snacks,” he decided, “so you can come straight to my room after you wake up.”

You managed a grateful smile. “Okay. That sounds perfect.”

He smiled back, and for a minute, the two of you lingered in the warm silence, watching each other as your silhouettes merged into one in the hazy sunlight. Once the realisation dawned that you were just standing here, staring at each other and grinning, the two of you erupted into bashful chuckles and looked away.

A new, unexpected feeling joined the heaviness in your stomach, replacing some of your nausea with a sensation oddly reminiscent of bliss.

“I’m off, then,” Jungkook said, waving his hand towards the corridor. “I’ll check if Maggie’s okay.”

“Thank you,” you said, “I’ll see you later.”

And it really was much later.

When you returned to your room with a water bottle, Jungkook texted you to confirm that Maggie was alive and well, albeit dying of thirst, which he helped her out with. Apparently, she also had your jacket.

Relieved that some of your concerns had already been put to rest, you finished your water, took some ibuprofen, and returned to bed.

And when you woke up, you were understandably startled to discover you had slept for over five hours.

You opened the curtains to get a better idea of the time, but the overcast sky made the hour seem even later than it really was. So you tried another approach and went to the bathroom to wash up, get rid of the pillow creases on your face, and fully wake yourself up.

By the time you knocked on Jungkook’s door, it was almost seven in the evening. You arrived armed with your laptop and dressed in appropriate film night attire: dark joggers and a hoodie. But so much time had passed since your encounter in the stairwell that you wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d found something better to do instead.

Actually, you realised while you waited for the door to open—or not to open—that two weeks ago, Jungkook would have probably gone out with Sid to avoid spending this time alone. But now he opened the door for you, smiling as if you had just made plans and he hadn’t been waiting for you for hours.

“Hey,” he greeted, stepping aside to let you in. “I was just about to check on you.”

“I think I went into a bit of a coma for a while there. Sorry,” you said, walking inside. “And, of course, I’ve got a headache again now because I’ve been asleep for so long. Should we go for something to eat, and maybe—”

You stopped abruptly when you noticed the snacks strewn across his bed—a mound of chocolate-coated dragées, an unnecessarily large fortress of chocolate-chip cookie boxes, and an entire trove of crisps and popcorn. It took you a minute to comprehend it all, and then another minute to come up with a possible explanation as to how he could have got all this; there were no grocery shops within five kilometres of the hotel.

Jungkook closed the door and followed your gaze to his bed.

“Oh,” he said, not responding to your unasked questions. “Maybe it’d be better if you had a proper meal—”

“Are you kidding?” You jumped on the bed with an energy you did not realise you had and reached for one of the brown bags of chocolates, nearly dropping your laptop in excitement. “We’re eating this, and absolutely nothing else.”

Jungkook knew you liked chocolate the most, but he did not want to brag about the three taxis he had to take to eight different shops to get it for you. To be fair, he had not expected your favourite brand to be so hard to find, but he was determined. He would have found the factory and made the chocolate himself if he had to.

“It’s probably not the best choice for breakfast, though,” he said, pulling his phone out of the pocket of his sweatpants. “Even if it’s, uh, seven in the evening.”

You waved away his concerns, your mouth already full of sweets. Smiling, Jungkook sat down on the other side of the bed and pulled out a box of gummy bears that you had overlooked while trying to take in the abundance of snacks.

“So, uh, how did last night go?” he asked as he meticulously picked out the red bears and accidentally scattered the yellow and green ones on the bed.

“You know how it went,” you said. “You probably know more than I do, actually. The last thing I remember is Maggie swiping someone’s feather boa off their neck.”

“Oh, so that—” He stopped picking the gummy bears from the sheets. “Y-you had a feather in your earring when you got back. I was—honestly, I was a little worried that the three of you had robbed a zoo and tried to bring back a peacock or something.”

You snorted. “We might have tried. Did you check my bag for any stray lizards?”

“You didn’t have a bag when you got back.”

You stopped chewing and turned to him. “I—I didn’t have my bag with me?”

Jungkook paused, too. He wasn’t in the right frame of mind to analyse what items you had with you when you showed up on his doorstep last night.

“You had your key,” he said slowly. “And—well, that was it. Are you sure you had your bag with you when you left?”

You tried to piece your fragmented memories together, but your mind struggled to reconstruct the precise sequence of events. You remembered having an umbrella because it had been raining. You also remembered sitting in your bathroom for what felt like half a minute but must have been longer because Luna and Maggie looked a little distraught when they found you there.

You set the candy aside.

“I might have—yeah, I might have left it at the hotel,” you said, realising. “After I talked to my mum.”

Jungkook finished chewing his handful of gummy bears in silence. Each calculated bite seemed to propel him toward a precipice from which there was no return. He hadn’t expected the two of you to get to this point so quickly, even if he was glad you did.

“And how—how’d that go?” he asked.

“Well, it—I mean, we talked,” you said, settling against the headboard of his bed. “She, um—I-I don’t know what I expected her to say, to be honest. I asked her to tell me about her relationship with my dad, and she—well, she certainly did.”

Jungkook took a moment to study the expression on your face, searching for something that he could point out to keep you talking.

“But, uh, you wish she’d said something different?” he ventured when you offered no further explanation.

A measured breath preceded your response. You wanted to explain but finding words proved almost as difficult as confronting your mum about this yesterday.

“I guess I wish it would have made more sense to me,” you finally started. “I had some time to think, and—well, I disagree with almost every single reason my mum had for getting back together with him. But I’ve realised that there’s probably nothing that either of my parents could say that would change my mind. I’m disappointed and angry, and I think I’ve felt this way for a while. I’ve tried not to feel that because it just seemed childish and immature—but I am angry. And that’s fine.”

You lapsed into a silence that Jungkook did not want to disturb. He could tell this was a pause, not a complete stop, and he was too nervous to speak anyway. He was afraid of the parallel between your parents and the two of you—especially in light of everything that Sid was currently sending to his phone.

“I-I mean,” you resumed and Jungkook made an effort to focus on the sound of your voice and not his thoughts, “the way my mum looked at her relationship—honestly, I do think she has a lot of courage. But she, um—she also has—her attitude just seemed a bit reckless. I don’t know. I guess I might never understand why she thought that getting back together with him once wouldn’t already be enough, but that’s—that was her choice. She explained it to me in a way that made sense to her, and I’m grateful she did. But sh-she seems to have blocked out everything that happened after each of their break-ups. She said she was now at peace because she had always listened to her heart. And I’m happy for her, really. But, well, I’m not at peace. This back-and-forth... it brought our whole family nothing but misery, and that does not seem fair to me, or to my brother.”

Jungkook did not think he would ever hear you realise the things he had realised long ago. You had always been so determined to help your mum heal that you’d closed your eyes on your own pain. But it was there. Feelings did not go away just because you wished them to; he knew this well.

And he felt relieved, he realised. No matter what else happened tonight, at least you finally accepted that you had a right to feel wronged.

“Is that why you feel angry?” he asked.

“It... well, mostly, yes,” you said. “Because on top of everything else, this significantly affected how I view my own relationships. I wanted my parents to be happy together. But they just weren’t. And I ended up convincing myself that their unhappiness was universal and inevitable. That anyone who tried to get back together again was bound to fail again. I wanted them to defy these odds, and when they didn’t, I thought no one ever would.”

He toyed with the gummy bear package, and only looked at you for no longer than two seconds.

“But that’s not true,” he said, his voice quiet, tentative.

“It’s not,” you agreed. “I get it now. I may not understand my mum’s choices, but that’s because I didn’t live her life. And that’s exactly it. That’s what helped me come to terms with it all. I got it. My parents’ relationship is not a rule. If anything, it’s an exception.”

Something was glistening on the very edges of his pupils when your eyes met. It struck you that he had been waiting for you to come to this realisation.

“Just because it didn’t work out for them,” you said, looking down, “doesn’t mean it won’t work out for us. That’s, um—that is the main thing, I think.”

Jungkook swallowed. It seemed to him that there were many things to say in response, and he could not find one that he needed. He sort of felt as if he were navigating a field of landmines only visible to himself—but instead of avoiding them, he deliberately tried to step on one. He needed the explosion. He needed you to say something more. But he didn’t know how to get you to say it.

“It’s—that’s good,” he eventually said, because it was all he could manage.

You weighed your next words as your headache doubled and receded in anxious, intensifying waves.

“I’m—I just want you to know that this is still the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” you said. “Which makes me incredibly fortunate on the one hand, because, well, this is nothing. Right? But also it—well, I’m just scared. I don’t think that’s going to go away. I don’t think things will suddenly be better because we decide so. I think it’s going to be something we’ll have to work through.”

“That’s fine, though,” he said right away, and a tired weight heaved itself off your chest and rolled down, relieving an immense pressure inside you. Just like that. “I just want to try again with you. But better this time.”

Your teeth dug into the corner of your lip. You wanted that, too, but you didn’t think labelling it like this was right.

“Trying again,” you said, “implies that, um, we’ve stopped doing something, and now we’re doing it again.”

He gave you a puzzled look. “Right.”

“I—I’m not sure if we ever stopped.”

He took a shaky breath, uncertain if he ever released it or if it would remain trapped somewhere deep inside his throat.

“My mum… uh, she also told me about the songs,” you said and Jungkook looked up as though his conversations with your mum surprised him, too. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

This was precisely why, Jungkook thought, turning away. Because you could not look at him when you talked about the songs he wrote about you, and he couldn’t look at you, either.

Rubbing the side of his nose, he said, “your mum, uh—she warned me that you might get physically violent.”

There was a sheepish grin tugging at his lips; he was joking.

Still, you shook your head. “But I mean when we were—when we started talking again. Not just at the bar in Oslo. Or at the hotel in Manchester.”

He coughed, feeling the sparkles in his lungs as they caught fire. You remembered, then—not just the two songs, but where you were, and what you were doing when he told you about them.

“Did you want me to tell you about the rest of them?” he asked, finally looking up. “You looked about ready to leap out of the nearest window when I brought it up.”

“I—okay, you’re probably right,” you conceded. “But, uh, my mum mentioned a new song you’re working on.”

Jungkook expected that to happen, but his stomach still churned anxiously as he smoothed the bedding with his palm. “Hmm.”

“Can I hear it?” you asked.

He brought his hand to the back of his neck. “Are you sure you want to?”

“Yes.”

He looked at you again, searching for a stronger confirmation in your eyes—and finding it there. He slowly rose from the bed and pulled out his phone from his pocket.

“It’s—I think it’s the most personal song I’ve ever written,” he said, and you held your breath. “Your mum warned me about it, which she’s never done before. Usually, she just gives me permission to release the song and sometimes offers a compliment.”

“She didn’t like it this time?” you asked while he unlocked his phone.

“No, she said she liked it a lot,” he replied, placing his phone on the bed. The screen displayed various voice notes: some with gibberish titles, others numbered. The newest one was labelled, PUDDLE_FINAL11. “But she also said that this is a song I should run by you first.”

You crossed your legs on the bed and hesitated awkwardly for a second—unsure if you could really listen to the song and sit still. Then, you leaned back against the headboard and closed your eyes.

“Let me hear it.”

Jungkook watched you get comfortable and bit his lip. He knew this was what you did when you were nervous or excited—crossing your legs on the couch when the film you two were watching got to the most interesting part; crossing them on the chair in the library when you were studying for final exams, crossing them on the passenger seat in his car when you were on road trips, playing Guess The Song (he always won, which he took great pride in).

“This is, um, the song that I told you I was writing in Oslo,” he said. Your heart was racing just like it had back then. “It’s what the band and I are working on right now. Yoongi, uh—he’s the one who’s working through the tone and the instruments, and—well, that stuff. I’m just kind of there to sing and look pretty.”

You opened your eyes again to give him a look. “You wrote the lyrics.”

“I—yeah, okay. And I wrote the lyrics.” He took a deep breath. “This is—it’s still a demo, though, so—you know. Keep an open mind.”

You froze as soon as he pressed “play” on the voice note. This appeared to be the eleventh version of the song, as indicated by the number at the end of the title.

The recording began with soft, but quick guitar chords. The song was not slow-paced and seemed much more postcore than the band’s usual music. Even though his guitar was the only instrument accompanying his hesitant but clear voice, you could easily imagine an overlay of drums and bass.

How I run when my phone lights up with a text /

My friends all know, “is that your ex?” /

They said I bet you want her, bet you love her, bet you can’t forget /

I don’t remember why I lied, why I agreed, why I made the bet

You turned to look at Jungkook, your eyes filled with graphic surprise, but he was staring at his phone, his lower lip trapped between his teeth. He was tugging on it so forcefully that his lip ring strained against his skin.

The music shifted into a rhythmic bridge—Jungkook had stopped strumming and began to tap the body of the guitar instead, mimicking the beat of Hoseok’s drums.

This feels like a disease I suffer /

Might break just thinking of her /

Can’t breathe, cannot recover /

I love her, I fucking love her

“The chorus is next, and—” Jungkook cut in over the music, “—it’s very simple, but it’s not done yet. It should still sound better with Yoongi’s guitar, and all the rest.”

Immediately, he returned to his own guitar in the recording, the chords rapid and eager as he sang—his voice louder, more forced, emanating from deep within his diaphragm as the song reached the chorus:

I can’t look you in the eyes /

When all I say are these stupid lies /

The memories of when you were mine /

Are playing in my tired mind /

Scared to fail, so I’d rather get high /

Yeah, but I have to stand up and try

The song slowed for the exit of the chorus and Jungkook sang it to complete silence:

And this is nothing fucking new, /

I’ve always been in love with you

You sucked in a breath and closed your eyes again. If your heart hadn’t been pounding so intensely, you might have been able to envision what the musical break that followed after the chorus would sound like once it was accompanied by Taehyung’s bass.

Before you could try to calm yourself, however, Jungkook began the second verse on the recording:

How I miss you and this feeling is all that inspires /

How this pain shifts, grows, how it turns into fires /

It will burn when I write, when I think, when I sing /

Flames will turn to ashes, turn to words, turn to ink

Right as the chorus started again—his voice growing more passionate as he lost himself in the song—Jungkook cleared his throat and commented over the recording, “I wrote that part in Oslo. While—after I asked you to come meet me at the bar.”

You nodded—or thought you nodded; all movement felt surreal right now—and listened in silence.

“The refrain,” Jungkook spoke again as the second chorus ended and the music began to speed up, “is my favourite part. It’s kind of pop-punk, largely inspired by blink-182, but it’s also just… it’s a way to get it all out.”

As soon as he finished talking, you heard the refrain on the recording—his words were rushed, the music barely catching up.

Biffy Clyro at a wedding, but we dance on separate floors /

Hotel bathrooms and champagne, we’re hiding there with open doors /

Years ago before I saw you, I was lost without a cause /

You changed my life from the first time that our paths had crossed /

I knew about you way before, I didn’t think this through /

I walked up to you after class, because our meeting’s overdue /

Years later we’re in Paris, I looked around and knew – /

It was always you, it was always you, it was always you

You focused on the screen of his phone as the song played and you did not dare to move—not even when the final chorus finished, and he reached over to stop the recording.

He asked, “what did you think?” and you realised that your mind was as silent as this room once the song ended.

You felt lost in the echoing recesses of your mind. There were so many things in your head and at the same time, there weren’t any at all. Because everything��from the first time he introduced himself to you after class, to Chloé and Kihyun’s wedding in Paris, to the bet he’d made with Sid and Jude—had just been said.

“I… think you are insane,” you said, glancing at him. “And also incredibly talented to manage to put all of that into a—into one song.”

“Yeah?” A satisfied grin was playing on his lips and you couldn’t take your eyes off it. “Did you like it?”

You shook your head, because this was too feeble—like. Sitting on his bed in this room, you doubted if you had ever simply liked anything when it came to Jungkook. Every emotion you felt for him had always been so much more intense and infinitely deeper.

“It’s—fuck, it’s a great song,” you said, tapping your palm against the bed. Jungkook recognised the beat and felt his heart soar. The whole room seemed to brighten, not at all threatened by the darkness outside the window. “It sounded good. The rhythm—it’s really good. I can see it becoming a crowd favourite.”

“Thanks,” he said but did not relent. In all the crowds in the world, he was going to search for you. “But what did you think?”

Watching him watch you, you said awkwardly, “I liked your voice.”

He laughed, finding the real compliment in your flustered expression and your struggle to answer his question directly.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll take it.”

“Was this the song you played for Yoongi and Namjoon that time?” you asked, so you could avoid giving feedback about the way he captured your whole life in his lyrics, and now your heartbeat matched the rhythm of the song. “W-when Yoongi came to talk to me, worried about you?”

Jungkook still nursed a bitterness about Yoongi’s initial reaction to the song and pursed his lips.

“Yeah, um—at the time, I only had the second verse,” he said. “That’s probably why he was concerned.”

“Well,” you dropped a pillow onto your lap, “it doesn’t sound like a heartbreak anthem.”

He snorted. “I hope not.”

You did not say anything else for a while.

You were not in control of anything that was happening inside of you right now, so this was the best you could offer. A big part of your brain was preoccupied with keeping you seated on your side of the bed instead of reaching—lunging­—for him, and an even bigger part was still processing the song he had just played. This left you with very little strength to be eloquent.

You liked the song. You liked his voice. You were worried the fire inside your chest would do irreparable damage to your heart. You wondered what went on in your mum’s head when she heard it.

“I can’t believe you sent that to my mum, though,” you voiced your latest thought. “The whole thing?”

“Yeah,” he said with a shrug because getting feedback from your mum had become a regular practice. He had continued to reach out to her even after you started to manage Rated Riot.

“With the curses and everything?” you asked, your nose scrunched.

He laughed again. You looked so beautiful like this, analysing his lyrics in your head. He didn’t know what to do with himself.

“She knows I curse,” he said. “She’s read most of my lyrics. Also, I am twenty-six.”

“Still,” you muttered. “There’s so much—you, um—you mention the bet in the song.”

His expression grew serious.

“Yeah. One of the first times I texted your mum, I…” he paused here, tracing his fingers lightly over his eyelids. “Well, actually, I was drunk, so I mostly remember this from the screenshots I took. I asked her if I could write a song that would bring you back to me. I was really—well, drunk and, you know. Sentimental. And she said—and I actually remember this part, because, somehow, no one else thought to say this to me—she said that I could, but I had to be honest in my lyrics.”

He fell silent, but it didn’t feel like an invitation for you to respond.

Looking up at you after a minute, Jungkook continued, “every song I wrote about you was honest. I meant every single word in every single verse. And I was hoping one of them would bring you back.”

It began as a faint buzzing in your chest and escalated into a gentle whisper, then erupted into a loud scream, filled with all the longing that’s been there all this time—mostly dormant, but restless. This longing wasn’t buried under mundane, daily tasks, it just existed right there in your chest, pushing sharply into your heart every time you thought you forgot, thought you moved on.

Every time you looked at him, every time you remembered him, every time you fell asleep, the longing was there, and it was growing, always growing—even more rapidly now that you and Jungkook began to spend more time together. By now, it had grown far larger than your chest could hold. And it was screaming.

“I’m—I don’t—I’m not sure I was ever really gone,” you confessed. “I think I... I actually called my mum with a decision already made. And I just needed her to say it was going to be okay. Because, you know. She’s my mum.”

There it was—the explosion he’d been waiting for. He could see the clouds in the distance but he hadn’t felt the impact yet.

“W-what’s your decision?” he asked.

“I want to try,” you said. “If you—if you’d—”

“I swear to God,” he interjected, his voice gaining volume as his heart rate gained speed. “If you're going to ask me if I want to be with you, I’m not sure I’ll make it.”

A smile flickered across your features, but you clutched the bedsheets underneath you tighter to control your expression.

“Let’s give this a chance,” Jungkook said, echoing everything that your heart demanded from you. “I know you’re scared of what this could mean for your job, and—”

“No,” you cut him off. “That—what happens with my job, happens. That feels—it feels like something we can figure out. But I want to try, and that’s what’s scary. Because this isn’t something we can solve, we either work out or we don’t. And I’m scared I won’t always be able to overcome my fear that we might not work. I’m scared I’ll still try to run away from everything.”

“I’ll find you,” he said, and your heart threatened to stop. “I’ll always find you.”

“You shouldn’t have to, though,” you protested weakly. “That’s not fair.”

“My love,” he said, sliding closer to you on the bed. You felt very light-headed. “Anything’s fair to me when it comes to you. Stay and let me make you happy.”

It was remarkable how his hotel bed managed to fit both of you and all that you’d carried inside you for all these years.

You shook your head.

“I’m happy,” you said. “This is right where I’ve always wanted to be. I’m not going anywhere.”

Jungkook looked at you, and he felt like he was nineteen again, watching you from across the campus quad. Thoughts of how to approach you—how to talk to you; how to look at you—were running rampant in his overstimulated mind. He had just left Sociology class where he’d doodled and daydreamed about you the whole time and now that he had a chance to talk to you, his legs had turned to stone.

He knew you liked Hayao Miyazaki, and he thought, alright, he would lead with that. And then in a frantic attempt to explain his determined stride towards you with a murderous expression on his face, he had ended up introducing himself as Neighbour Totoro.

Your smile in response should have been plastered on billboards; and was, on billboards, actually—all over the canyons of his mind. All he could do after that was just stammer about seeing you around campus, noticing that you shared a few classes together, finding it really cute when you dozed off during your professor’s philosophical rants, and wishing very much that the earth would open up and swallow him whole because what the fuck was he saying to you right now—and you’d smiled again. And the stones in his legs had melted.

You gave him your phone number and invited him to a party that someone on your floor was throwing that Friday. And you’d said, “I think it’d be really cool if you came,” but all that he could hear had been the violent pounding in his chest.

His heart pounded just as intensely now.

“Yeah?” he asked you, breathless and half-drunk as the rest of his hotel room drowned in your eyes.

He thought he could feel the earth move. He thought he could will it to stop, to pause for just a split second until you replied and he could—

“Yeah.”

He had arrived at that party back then, and you had found him right away. You’d spent the whole night talking until he finally mustered up the courage to ask you to hang out alone sometime. Maybe watch a film and have dinner? And you’d said yes.

You’d said yes seven years ago, and now you were here – saying yes, again.

Jungkook reached for you so quickly that you barely noticed the smile on his face, let alone the one on yours. His hands were soft on your cheek as he leaned in, pressing his lips to yours in a clumsy kiss—but your mouths needed less than a second to find a familiar rhythm.

His tongue met yours, and he tasted like the memory of every time you’d kissed him before and a promise of every time you’d kiss him in the future. He tasted like everything you’ve ever wanted and everything you thought you’d lost.

“Did you know,” he whispered, his words punctuated by heavy breaths and your lips smacking against each other, “that I dreamt about you—on the night before you showed up at the company—as our manager—?”

You pulled back slightly to be able to look at him, your lips parted in a surprised smile. “No. What did you dream about?”

“This, actually,” he said, kissing you once more and frowning when you pulled back again, waiting for him to explain. “Except neither one of us pulled away.” He paused here, looking at you very meaningfully. You pressed another kiss to his lips and he grinned, continuing finally, “I hadn’t dreamt of you in months, and I woke up from a text message in the middle of kissing you in that dream. I was obviously pissed. I looked at the text, and it was from Yoongi. He was saying, ‘we’re meeting our manager today, don’t be late’ or something like that. And I remembered debating just going back to sleep. But I forced myself out of bed, thinking that this manager better be worth it.”

Your smile was absurd. “Was she?”

He nodded, tracing his fingers down your neck to your collarbones, and bringing goosebumps to the surface of your skin.

“She was,” he said.

“You didn’t say one word to me throughout that whole meeting, though,” you pointed out.

Jungkook shrugged.

“I hadn’t seen you in two years,” he said. “I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, I would tell you how long I’d been waiting for you.”

You did not feel yourself respond with a defeated, breathless, “oh,” but Jungkook smiled when he heard it.

“Yeah,” he said, leaning in. “Hardly professional.”

“Mmhm—” your hum drowned in his kiss. “Hardly.”

There was something artificially sweet on his tongue when you kissed him back—likely from the gummy bears—and it made your hands instinctively reach for his shirt, pulling him closer. He wondered if you noticed the way his heart rate quickened at that; he found your need for him exhilarating.

You kissed him harder and remembered all your stolen kisses throughout this tour. This did not feel anything like it.

This kiss was not hurried—not until the five minutes you’ve allotted yourselves were up. It wasn’t secret—not until you had to leave your hotel room in Amsterdam. It wasn’t pretend—not until you had to admit to yourselves that you weren’t and could not be friends. And it wasn’t a dream, either—not until one of you had to wake up and realise that this had just been your subconsciousness, refusing to let go. To move on.

The kiss was slow. It was not rushed, and not hidden. It was true, and it was real.

Your heart finally returned home.

Then, Jungkook slowly pulled away, his pupils dilated and filled with something distracting that lingered on his mind.

“You didn’t say anything to me, either,” he said slowly. “When we started to work together, I mean.”

“I know,” you replied, letting go of him. It did not feel fair to touch him when he said that, but Jungkook felt lost for a moment after you pulled back your hands. “I wasn’t sure if I should.”

“Hmm.” He needed to find the string attached to the words he’d kept inside, and he needed to pull them out, but he could only do that by looking away. “I, uh—I get that now, but back then, I felt very, um—well, left-out, I guess. For lack of a better word. You talked to everyone else but me.”

You were struck by the immediacy and the clarity of these memories: how you’d made a deliberate effort not to talk to him unless it was necessary, because that was the only way you could stay professional. In hindsight, that should have probably been a hint. If you had to go to such lengths to avoid someone in order to remain professional, it likely meant you weren’t truly professional, just pretending to be.

“I know,” you said. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s—well, I could have said something, too,” Jungkook said. “But after a while, it seemed to me like we’d silently agreed to just ignore our relationship, so it didn’t feel right to bring it up again. I didn’t want to make things awkward.”

Your smile broke through the sombre atmosphere in the room. You couldn’t listen to this without pointing out his reactions to you in those first few days. Jungkook had been very loud about doubting your authority.

“You used to complain about me all the time in the beginning,” you reminded him. “You said you wouldn’t take orders from a kid.”

He grinned, remembering, too.

“Well, I had to say that,” he defended, a glint of mischief in his eye. Age had been his favourite argument against working with you. “How else could I hide that I still had feelings for you?

You looked away—he expected this, and his smile grew wider. You thought you had him there. But he knew that in all the years you’ve known each other, you could not find a moment where he didn’t love you. He couldn’t find one himself.

“Maggie told me you were the one who told her we had dated,” you said then.

Jungkook did not immediately remember. “I did?”

“Yeah,” you confirmed. “We were all drinking together, and you—”

“Oh, yeah,” he cut in, nodding. He recalled Maggie responding to him as though he’d told her he was an escaped convict. “In the parking lot. I don’t think she believed me at first, actually. I was very good at acting unbothered.”

You arched an eyebrow. “She said she came to check on you because Hoseok noticed that you seemed bothered.”

Jungkook clicked his tongue. “Well, Hoseok notices these things. It doesn’t count.”

You grinned, shaking your head.

Jungkook, meanwhile, remembered something else now that you’d mentioned Maggie. It was something he’d held close to his heart for years, and he was hesitant to bring it up now. He knew it was probably not real, but he held onto the ignorant hope that it might be.

“Did you… tell anyone on the staff?” he asked.

“Hm? About us?” you clarified.

He nodded.

“Just the band,” you said.

“Oh.” He held his breath as he considered how to explain this, and how to brace himself for your response. “Because, um—well, apparently, Maggie spoke to Jin after I talked to her. And then Jin talked to Jimin. And Jimin told me that he thought I just had a crush on you.”

“A year ago?” you clarified, a little uneasy about the timeline.

The girls had tried to reassure you last night that you and Jungkook were really not that obvious—but perhaps the truth was that you had wasted all these years just like you feared.

You put unnecessary strain on your heart because you’d convinced yourself that this was how things were meant to be. You’d convinced yourself that Jungkook really did not love you anymore. And when you realised that maybe he still did, you’d convinced yourself that second chances did not work, and it was better to suffer through the initial break-up for years rather than attempt to try again.

“Yeah.” Jungkook swallowed, getting to his point. “And, um—a while after that, Namjoon said he thought you might have a crush on me.”

You blinked, feeling your heart leap into a thrilled dance, each beat a self-assured I told you so.

“Namjoon said that?” you asked weakly.

“Yeah,” he said, keeping his eyes on you. “We were both drunk, trying to work on a song, and not doing so well. I was upset about something that day, so I thought he was just saying that to comfort me. Cheer me up. He said he noticed you staring at me during our meeting earlier that day. He said he thought it was meaningful. Said you didn’t seem to just be dozing off.”

I told you so—

I told you so—

I told you—

You remembered that meeting.

You remembered looking away from Jungkook and meeting Namjoon’s raised eyebrows. You hadn’t realised you’d been staring. But he had.

Right now, in the hotel room, you did not say anything, but Jungkook felt the bubble of hope swell in his chest, straining as it threatened to explode.

It was true, then.

You had been watching him during that meeting. So much so that it led Namjoon—a very smart, but arguably the most oblivious man in the country—to notice that something was going on.

You cleared your throat. “Did he—uh, did he know about—”

“He knew I was writing about you,” Jungkook replied. “The second he yelled at me and told me to stop writing about abstract feelings and start writing from my own chest, I pulled out three different songs for him. He always knew.”

“Hmm.”

A moment of silence followed, allowing the two of you to simmer in the sounds coming from your chests.

You thought you were trying very hard to ignore him and focus on your job, and you did, really. Especially when you first started to work together. But gradually, the less you talked about your relationship to each other, the more your suppressed feelings made themselves known: it was the way you always happened to stand next to each other at the label events. It was the way Jungkook was the only one who remembered where your office was in the labyrinth of corridors at the company building. It was the way you looked at him when you talked to him. It was the way he teased you at every chance he got.

“So, the roadies thought you were dating Namjoon,” Jungkook concluded, “while Jimin thought I liked you, and Namjoon thought you liked me.”

“Yeah. Apparently, we’re all twelve,” you said. “I love how that’s ongoing, too. We’re still a very hot topic.”

Jungkook chuckled, seemingly as entertained about this as Seokjin had been when he mentioned the bets the staff had going about the two of you.

“I know,” he said, trying to restrain his reaction for your sake. “But it—it’s just us. You know? We’re the only ones who really know about us. You and me. And about fifty people on this tour with us, but that’s—well, who cares?”

“Yeah,” you said with a shrug of your shoulders. “Not a big deal.”

He heard the sarcasm in your tone, but he still grinned. “Yeah.”

You looked down and brought your hands over your sweatpants, and his smile faded. He seemed to react to your next words before you even said them.

“I’ll have to, um—I’ll have to talk to the label about us,” you said. “I’ll have to tell them.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Another silence stole away any remaining words. Jungkook wondered if the two of you were really as powerful as he’d imagined. He wondered if you had the authority to decide what you’d do.

“What do you think they’ll say?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” you replied. There was a calmness in your voice that he wasn’t expecting. “We’ll see.”

“Should I—should I talk to them with you?” he suggested—and realised right away that this would not work.

“Probably not,” you replied gently. “It’ll feel a little like we’re talking to our parents. And not, you know, our employers.”

“Right.”

You glanced at him and realised that he appeared more worried than you felt. You thought that perhaps this was how it was between you two: one of you panicked while the other stayed level-headed to provide reassurance.

“It’ll be fine,” you said. “We got so far, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, chewing on his bottom lip. “But, I mean, what if they say this can’t happen?”

“Well, then we break up, of course.”

He gave you a long, questioning look. “I’m serious.”

“I am, too,” you replied, not serious at all.

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, now you want to joke about it. Okay.”

You laughed, and immediately made him smile, too. Leaning into him—almost reflexively—you placed a hand on his chest and gently pulled him down onto the bed until the two of you were lying face-to-face. Finally, he laughed, too.

The truth was, you felt nervous as well. But some innate balance required you to look on the bright side when he couldn’t. Surely, if you overcame yourselves, you could overcome external hurdles, too.

“I’m not joking,” you said. “It’ll be fine. We, um—we know our issues now. I think we can figure out what we should do no matter what happens. We’ve grown.”

Jungkook looked at you for a minute, then finally exhaled and reached out to touch your cheek.

“Alright,” he said, the tips of his fingers careful as they traced over the side of your jaw. “We have. We used to never talk to each other.”

“Yeah, that had always been the core problem with us,” you agreed, leaning into his touch and singlehandedly stopping his heart for a dangerous minute.

The two of you found it very easy to point out your flaws now—like teachers marking all the issues in a student’s essay: lack of communication, toxic friendships, parental trauma.

“None of that now?” Jungkook asked.

“None of that now,” you agreed, closing your eyes.

You felt him scoot closer to you on the bed as his palm replaced the tips of his fingers on your cheek.

“I’m not going to shut up about how much I love you, though,” he whispered.

You looked at him again, and your smile stretched from one corner of his hotel room to the other.

“I’ll take that over silence,” you said.

He responded with a shuddered breath and moved closer. His lips found yours blindly, but effortlessly. His kiss was soft, slow, and lingering because now you had all the time in the world and he was determined to savour every moment.

Pulling back slightly, he brought his nose to yours, and the air you exhaled as you chuckled softly made him close his eyes again. He kissed your cheek and the corner of your lips and the edge of your jaw, and somewhere along the way, he realised that he had wanted to say something else but now he forgot all about it. He kissed your lips once more instead. Then twice more—until you were smiling too much for the kiss to feel like anything other than a gentle peck.

He settled back on the bed next to you. He was so close that you could barely look at him without your eyes going out of focus. And he was beautiful like this—his hair falling in loose, messy curls around his face, his eyes alive with an energy so powerful that you could not look away from him once your gazes met. His lips were parted as he breathed steadily, running his tongue over his lower lip.

You watched each other just like you had earlier in the corridor, with the tips of your fingers locked onto each other’s skin as though transferring electricity from one heart to the other, and back again.

“I’m sorry I did not want to talk about our relationship,” you finally admitted, your voice a timid whisper. “I thought the safe choice would be to speak to you one-on-one as little as possible. And after a few months, it became easier to be in the same room with you without my hands shaking, and my heart—well, anyway. I didn’t want to ruin what little stability we had with each other. Even though for a long time—maybe even the whole time, I don’t know anymore—we were there, in the back of my mind.”

He exhaled. “We could have talked about us before.”

“We should have talked about us before,” you corrected.

“Right.” He rolled onto his back. “Instead, I drank three bars into bankruptcy in those first few months after you started working with us.”

He remembered Sid’s messages as soon as he said this, and for a brief, irrational moment, he waited for you to stand up and leave the room. Instead, he was startled when he saw you smile out of the corner of his eye.

“I know,” you said softly. “I was asked to pay off your debt at one of them.”

He turned to face you, his eyes wide. “No—w-were you really?”

“Yeah,” you said. “Sid called and gave me an ultimatum: either I came to pay for your bill or the bar owner was going to call the police on you.”

Jungkook had to really concentrate to remember anything, and he quickly felt embarrassed that he even tried. He could not remember his own name, that was how drunk he would get in those days. He couldn’t bring them back to his memory now, no matter how much he tried.

“Where was Sid, then?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” you replied. “Probably tripping on something in a random hotel. He never called me if he was still with you.”

Jungkook swallowed, his thoughts racing.

“Well, I mean—shit,” he said. “How much do I owe you?”

“You don’t,” you replied. “I came to the bar and told the owner your name was Isidore Mercer-Hastings, and that they should contact the police to settle the bill for whatever you drank that night.”

Jungkook raised his eyebrows. He thought he lacked Sid’s perpetual sneer to pass as someone from a conglomerate family.

“They believed it?” he asked.

“Well, they didn’t know who you were,” you said. “And it was resolved very quietly after that. I doubt the bar owner even managed to write a report after he mentioned the name at the station.”

“Someone in Sid’s family must have handled it,” Jungkook speculated. You thought so as well. “Sid never said anything.”

“I don’t think he expected me to fight back, actually,” you said. “In any case, I paid the price. After that, he started leaving you in all kinds of shitholes for me to find a lot more frequently.”

Jungkook realised that a ball had formed in his throat.

“I-I didn’t even notice it,” he admitted. “He—he had me by the throat, and I thought he just wanted to hang out with me.”

You didn’t want the topic to shift to Sid, but it felt inevitable. He was the additional burden on your relationship, he always had been.

“And he’s in London now,” you said, sighing.

Jungkook exhaled, too. “Yeah.”

“What are we going to do?”

He looked at you for only a moment, but his eyes were filled with an unexpected alarm.

“I’m—well, nothing?” he said. “I don’t know.”

“But—I mean, he has to be here for you, right?” you questioned.

Jungkook’s phone weighed heavily in his pocket.

“He probably is,” he said.

“So, he stalked you all the way to London,” you noted. “I think we should start considering the possibility of you getting a restraining order against him, or—”

Jungkook whipped his head to face you. “Isn’t that—uh, a bit dramatic?”

Frowning, you propped yourself up on your elbows and turned to him. “He is stalking you, Jungkook.”

He looked away and brought his finger over the bedsheets. If Sid had sent him only that one video, perhaps Jungkook could have handled it quietly. But Sid had kept them coming.

And Jungkook had already tried it before: this method of not telling you and hoping to find a way out of a predicament that he’d allowed Sid to put him in. It hadn’t been successful. He had no intention of trying it again.

“To be honest,” he said, sitting up, “that is not the only thing he is doing.”

Your stomach clenched with something it had come to know very well over the past few days – pure dread.

“What do you mean?” you asked.

“He, um—he’s sending me things.”

“Oh, God.” You turned away from him, groaning. “Don’t tell me he’s sending you the body parts of people he’s stalked before.”

“N-no, that—no,” Jungkook said and then paused to snicker at the thought. “He’s just—he’s sending me videos.”

You did not feel relieved. The way he said it made it sound like it was not just videos. It sounded like it might as well have been severed limbs.

“What videos?” you asked reluctantly.

He hesitated before answering, hoping—almost irrationally—that he would find a way to summarise the videos for you in a way that would diminish their significance. But he was worried he’d make it worse instead. He didn’t want to casually mention them or act like it was not a big deal, only to hear your negative response. You’d think he was still incapable of realising what he was doing, you’d think he hadn’t changed—and he had. He was sure he had. But his hands were shaking as he tugged on the bedsheets and refused to look at you.

“Of—of me,” he finally admitted. “Of us hanging out together before this tour.”

“Oh.”

He did not like the thickness of the silence around you. He didn’t want this to turn into yet another problem. And it wasn’t—it was a continuous problem that he’d willingly brought on this tour.

Jungkook couldn’t stop blaming himself for everything he did with Sid, and now he was convinced that his guilt wouldn’t even make a difference. He’d tell you about this, and the videos would be too much, and he would not be enough.

You’d warned him you were afraid; he didn’t want to add more doubts to what already seemed like a hesitant decision. Of course, he believed in your relationship too much to think that you were willing to try again just for his benefit. He believed you wanted this, too. But he was also rational enough to understand that you couldn’t just wish for your relationship to work out this time, and it simply would. You had to work on that. And he was sure that these videos would hinder the progress you’ve already made.

He decided he didn’t want to talk to you about this as though he needed your help solving this issue. He wanted to tell you about it with a solution already in his mind.

“T-they’re not good,” he added. “But I—”

“Why is he sending them to you?” you interrupted.

He paused, rearranging his thoughts. He wondered if you were intentionally avoiding asking him to show you the videos, or if you did not want to see them. He was not sure which option he preferred.

“He’s, um, threatening to show them to you,” he said.

“Unless you do what?”

“Unless—” He paused again. “I—I don’t know, actually. I don’t think he wants me to do anything. He’s just taunting me. I tried to block the number, but I assume he has multiple disposable SIM cards or something because I keep—well, different unknown numbers keep sending me videos from the same… situations.”

You looked away, absentmindedly patting the pillows on the bed.

You were certain that Sid had a goal in mind, he just hadn’t told Jungkook about it yet.

“Well, what’s in those videos?” you asked.

Jungkook shut his eyes. He was sure of it now—he would have preferred it if you hadn’t asked about the contents of the videos, after all.

“We’re—we’re drunk in all of them,” he said, his tongue catching on the dryness of his mouth. “Just doing dumb shit. Shit that I thought I left in the past. I know I left it in the past, I’m just—but with Sid pulling it all out now, it feels like—it feels like I’m still there.”

You frowned, puzzled.

“But you’re not still there,” you pointed out.

“I’m not,” Jungkook said, but his voice sounded distant. “But it—you were always the one who made sure that Sid and I didn’t damage the band’s reputation, or—well, anything else. I’m sorry about that, by the way. I-I don’t want you to think that all that you’ve done was in vain, and I don’t want you to think I’m still the same—I know I’m not—but it feels like—”

“Jungkook,” you said, cutting him off by placing your hand on his shoulder.

His distress reminded you of the night he told you that Sid was in Manchester with you. He was breathing heavily, barely able to choose his words. He thought, clearly, that you were going to blame him for this. He thought he’d let you down.

“Show me,” you asked.

And he showed you—because he knew he had to. He took a deep breath, sat down next to you, and played the videos for you, starting from the very first one.

But like he had yesterday, he cut the video off just as his hands reached out for his dance partner and he wrapped one of his legs around their ankles.

“Wait,” you raised your eyes to Jungkook’s restless gaze, “what happens next?”

“I, um—” he paused, attempted to inhale, and forgot all his words.

He thought he showed you enough. He thought showing you the rest of the video was going to be bad. He hadn’t considered how bad it would be if he had to recap it himself.

“I flip this person on their back,” he said, forcing himself to continue. He was going to tell you everything, even if he had to rip his heart out to do it. “We, uh—we make out. Or try to. It’s, uh—it’s definitely too much. But we’re drunk. Then a security guard comes to tell us we can’t do that here. I then declare that we’re getting married, so he can, respectfully, get fucked. And all of us get escorted out of the club.”

“Ah,” you said. “You must have been really wasted.”

Your voice sounded disconnected somehow—like you hadn’t fully grasped that he was the person in the video.

Or, he thought in a brief moment of lightness, maybe you had grasped it, but it made no difference because it’s been so long.

But Jungkook couldn’t hold onto this hopeful thought for too long. He felt he deserved stronger adjectives.

“Is this it?” you asked after a moment. His phone screen had gone dark after he hadn’t pressed on anything else. “Is that all he—”

“No,” he said. “That’s, um—that’s only the first one he sent.”

Then he played you the three newest videos—the ones he’d just received earlier today after he turned his phone back on.

All the videos were from days that he could scarcely remember. Sid had filmed him dancing, arguing, screaming, engaging in other activities that would earn a community label if the video got publicised, and drinking. Alcohol was featured heavily in all the videos.

You maintained a neutral expression through the first few clips but finally frowned when you watched the third one. In it, Jungkook was having a heated argument with someone outside what appeared to be a nightclub—the only indication was a bright neon sign behind the two figures on the screen.

Jungkook was visibly agitated in the video, hurling all curses known to mankind—and some only known to animalkind—at a red-faced man whom you did not recognise. The man remained silent, swaying slightly on his feet, frowning more and more with each passing second.

You attempted to remember this moment, trying to place the street where the video was taken—you thought Sid had asked you to pick up Jungkook from somewhere around here. But as you watched it, you could not remember Jungkook harassing a seemingly random person. And then you realised that this likely wasn’t a random person, and Jungkook wasn’t the one harassing him.

Turning your head to look at him, you were surprised to see the resolute defeat on Jungkook’s face. He appeared to be waiting to be sentenced.

“He cut the video,” you said, looking back at his phone, “to make you look intentionally aggressive. This guy—he approached you at the bar, didn’t he?”

Jungkook only hummed. It took him another minute to relax his muscles so he could speak—by that time, the video had already ended, and he snickered bitterly.

“Yeah. He used a few pretty slurs, so I told him we should take it outside,” he said. “Right after the video ended, he actually threw a vodka bottle at my head. It didn’t hit me, but we got into a—a fight, and I cut myself on a shard. No stitches, but, um, it bled like a bitch.”

“Fuck, that’s—I-I remember you bleeding,” you said, looking away. You’d wrapped your scarf on his hand when you found him behind that club, on the street from the video, sometime later. He’d refused a hospital and you had not slept the whole night after you dropped him off at his house. “What was Sid doing while that was happening?”

“Well, he watched,” Jungkook said, locking his phone. “He watched and filmed, and now he’s trying to make it seem like I picked that fight.”

You quieted. The videos had made it very clear that Sid was crafting a narrative about Jungkook—to make him look like an ungrateful, aggressive, alcoholic womaniser. Clearly, he was creating Jungkook’s fictional image after himself, and you would have pointed out the irony if you weren’t so annoyed.

“I know it’s my fault,” Jungkook added. “I shouldn’t have allowed him to get under my skin like that, but—”

“How long ago was this?” you interjected.

“I—it—a while,” he said, worried that this was the wrong answer. “I can’t remember.”

“Were you in Rated Riot?” you asked, hoping to determine a more specific timeline, because understanding when the videos were taken might help you figure out what Sid wanted. But you also just wanted to keep asking Jungkook for technical details to keep him out of his own head.

“I think so,” Jungkook said. “Because—I’m trying to figure out why Sid chose to send me these specific videos since I’m sure he has a lot of other great ones, you know what I mean? So, why these?”

“Why?”

“I think it’s because he called you to come pick me up at the end of these nights,” he said with an unsettling hollowness behind his eyes. “And you—well, I don’t remember, but according to what Sid told me later, you never asked what we were doing. You just pulled me out of these situations… and brought me home. A-and now he wants to show you that—he wants you to know what we were doing. What I was doing.”

“Okay,” you said. “But it—it’s been ages.”

He seemed taken aback by the ease in your voice, and his surprise was crushing. You realised he was expecting you not to talk to him again now that you’ve seen the videos.

To Jungkook, that would have made sense.

For years, his self-worth depended on how he was perceived and whether he lived up to expectations. And he balanced between wanting to live up to very different expectations from very different people: Sid, on the one hand. You and his grandmother, on the other.

That was why he didn’t tell his grandmother that he was friends with Sid. It was why he didn’t tell you about all his failed attempts at making your relationship special. It was why he refused to admit to Sid that he still loved you.

And, ultimately, it was why he did not want to reminisce about the nights in Sid’s videos. Nights when he knew he was making mistakes, but he needed to escape from his thoughts too much to care.

Jungkook realised all that. He understood. But there was nothing he could do with the voices, screaming at him in his head. They were telling him that his friends had all turned to reasons why you broke up that first time. He turned them into those reasons. And now those reasons were right here, on his phone.

“I know. But I just—it feels like this is something I can’t run away from,” he said. “It feels like Sid is telling me that this is who I really am. That I’ll always fuck up in the end, and that I’ll die trying—and failing—to be someone better.”

You were shaking your head, and Jungkook shook his, too, to counter your refusal to agree with him.

“No, look, I think that Sid means to use this to, well, to humiliate us,” he insisted. “Or—or just you. Like, ‘see what he was doing? And you still took care of him.’ So you would—you would realise what I’m—what kind of person—and you would change your mind about me—and about—about this. And then...”

He could not find the end of his sentence, but you knew what this was. Jungkook excelled in most things, but he had a throbbing Achilles’ heel – it was his fear of disappointing the people who mattered most to him.

The first time you learned this about him was at his twenty-first birthday party. Minjun, already very drunk, had decided to make a toast and told everyone a story about when he and Jungkook were fourteen. Among all of Jungkook’s friends, Minjun was the only one who’d actually been to his house, and on that day, they were riding bicycles around Jungkook’s front yard with Jungkook and his cousins. Jungkook wanted to perform a trick and he wanted Minjun to record it to brag to Sid later. But as soon as he lifted the front wheel off the ground, he ended up in his grandmother’s azaleas.

The story at the birthday party ended there, with everyone politely laughing and clapping, but Jungkook gave you the rest of it later.

Apparently, his grandmother had warned him about the flowers in advance; she told him not to bike there. And he had. He’d done what she told him not to do. Really, it was because he wanted to outdo Sid, so this could have been another thing that Sid had ruined—but Jungkook couldn’t even get to that part. He was already defeated by the sheer force of his guilt for letting his grandmother down. He was devastated.

He said she hadn’t even yelled at him after she saw how grief-stricken he was. But he still replanted the whole garden and watered the shrubs every day.

And as you listened to Minjun’s story at that birthday party, you realised that even then, almost a decade later, Jungkook flinched every time his friend mentioned azaleas. And he would keep flinching, as you would see in years to come, whenever his grandmother would bring up her garden.

Jungkook never forgot his mistakes, and they all weighed heavily on him. He could only escape them when he was surrounded by people, their voices drowning out his own.

He thought no one knew—he took a paradoxical solace in the belief that only he and the voices in his head knew about what went on inside him—but you’ve seen it over the years.

“No—but these things don’t make you a terrible person,” you said. It didn’t feel like enough, but the thoughts in your head were fast and frail—you could not find one to settle on.

Still, Jungkook looked stunned.

“I—they don’t?” he asked—with a genuine confusion that broke your heart.

“Jungkook,” you said, the edges of your voice desperate.

“No, I—I know,” he said, averting his gaze. “I know. But—really, this is my fault. I did that. I went out with him. It’s—”

“Your fault was staying with Sid for so long,” you interrupted. “That’s your only fault. But realising what was wrong with these people that you surrounded yourself with—that—that’s not wrong. That’s good. You’ve come a long way from the days in those videos.”

He heard you. But a sudden memory still resurfaced in his head: Taehyung had talked to him in the hotel corridor in Amsterdam. He had accused him of fooling around with you and reminded him that your relationship affected the whole band. Jungkook had told him he was serious. He wasn’t fooling around.

He’d meant it—but the bet had been ongoing. However much he wished it not to be, it was fucking ongoing.

And now Jungkook was all the more aware of the thin line between your decision to try this again with him, and the absolute recklessness of this choice. Had he come a long way? Was he different? Or was he really just running away from who he really was?

It would affect the whole band, Taehyung had said.

If he wasn’t good enough for you, he would ruin everything.

“But look how long it took me,” he said with a frustrated sigh. “I can’t—I can’t erase all the shit I did just because I suddenly decided to be a different person.”

“You can’t erase it,” you said, the conviction in your voice rivalling his anxiety, “but you can learn and move on from it.”

He shook his head again. “How can I do that when Sid won’t let me move on?”

“You can do it by accepting these videos as lessons,” you said. “But leaving everything in them in the past. You can do it by not letting Sid get to you anymore. I mean, you’re already doing it. You showed me the videos, which was what Sid threatened you with. You took away everything he was holding against you. You’re doing okay, Jungkook.”

He looked down and swallowed.

He wanted to believe he was okay so much. But there were so many weights on his chest and he could not shake them off. He could not escape them. He could not even pretend they were not there.

This was the reason, he knew, why he dreaded being alone and inevitably recalling every single time in his life when he could have been better, but wasn’t. When he could have been more, but chose not to. When he could have chosen you, but didn’t.

He longed for you in a way that he hadn’t longed for anything in his life before—so much that it hurt to think and his whole body felt grey and tense—but he’d already let you down. He’d let himself down.

“I hurt you,” he said after a minute, covering his face with his hands. “And, fuck, I don’t—I’m not saying this to guilt-trip you into forgiving and forgetting everything. I’m just fucking—I’m so fucked up. I love you more than anything in my life, but I-I can’t spend a single minute by myself without thinking about how fucking fucked up I am. And I’ve done so much stupid fucking shit. I don’t want it to hurt you any more than it already fucking has. And I know you’re the last person who should be comforting me about this. I’m just—I can’t get over those—”

You wrapped your arms around his shoulders and pressed your chest against his, forcing him to still in your embrace and finally stop speaking.

After a breathless minute, he finally inhaled and you felt him lower his hands from his face and tentatively slide them around your waist, his grip tightening as he buried his face in the crook of your neck.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered. It was still his fear talking, you could feel it pressing against your chest as you pulled him closer until you couldn’t breathe, either. “I don’t think I can ever be enough for—”

“You’re you, Jungkook,” you cut him off. “That’s enough for me.”

He let out a shaky breath and closed his eyes; you felt his lashes flutter against the side of your neck.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

You shook your head against his shoulder. “I love you.”

He held you and breathed you in for an amount of time that no clock could not keep up with, but it still felt insufficient. And when you pulled back slightly to look at him, he pressed his lips to yours in a kiss that expressed everything that words could not.

“Thank you,” he added. “For everything.”

You kissed him back—not to say you’re welcome, or no problem. You kissed him to tell him that you had finally made a choice. You were here. And you were staying.

He understood all of it as his lips pressed to yours, as your tongues touched and your breaths mixed together, as his hands settled around your waist as if they’d never been elsewhere. But you sensed his nervous heartbeat against your chest, even though he tried to fight against it.

“Promise me,” he whispered against your lips, “that you’ll tell me if I let you down again.”

Gently—but swiftly—you pulled away.

“I’ll tell you right now,” you said, the firmness in your tone contrasting with the tenderness of your touch as you held a hand to his chest and another one on the side of his face. “You let me down when you put yourself down. We make mistakes, we own up to them, we learn from them. We try too hard, we don’t always succeed, but we get through it together. That’s what we do. And we talk to each other about it all.”

The second you stopped speaking, he pulled you to himself with enough force to knock your breath out of your lungs. You rested your head against his, your heart pounding to the beat of his pulse.

“We’re very co-dependent,” he whispered and the tension in your chest finally eased at his light tone.

“Yes,” you stated. “It’s how we are.”

He snickered and lingered some more in your arms. You rested your hands on his back, rubbing gentle circles and steadily calming down his mind, his heart, and the entirety of his tired soul.

“Maggie, um—she took a picture of us in Amsterdam,” you said. “Did you know?”

He furrowed his eyebrows but allowed you to pull away as he thought about this.

“Wh—oh, in the bathtub?” he asked.

“Yeah. You’ve seen it?”

“Yeah, she sent it to me a while ago,” he said. And, overwhelmed by the honesty of the moment, he added, “it’s beautiful.”

That wasn’t a secret—he’d named his newest song after the moment you’d shared in that bathroom—but he still questioned if he should have said this right now. He could imagine your shock about the picture—that was why he chose not to show it to you when Maggie sent it to him.

But your expression remained gentle, almost pleased.

“Yeah, I liked it, too,” you said. “Well, after I got over the fact that we left the fucking door open.”

He chuckled softly, the sound straining against the cuts and bruises in his chest.

“But anyway, my point is, focus on things like that,” you continued. “That’s who you are. You’re not a video from fuck knows how long ago. Sid doesn’t own you, and he does not control you.”

Jungkook swallowed and lowered his gaze. He nodded his head a few times, but you still started to feel uneasy—was this enough? Or was Sid’s presence in his head still heavier than yours?

You looked around for a distraction, and quickly found one, partially hidden under a stack of cookies.

“We had a film to watch,” you said, pulling your laptop out and accidentally knocking down some of the candy towers he had built on the bed.

Jungkook glanced up and caught a bag of chocolates right before it hit him on the arm. “Oh—w-we had. But how’s your head?”

You had completely forgotten it existed at all, which certainly alleviated your headache. The pure adrenaline from being so close to him probably contributed, too.

“It’s good,” you said, opening your laptop and turning around to adjust the pillows on the bed for more comfort. “I’m great.”

“I still think you should get proper food,” he said, and it struck you that this pattern of worrying, comforting, and taking care of each other in turns was truly a regular occurrence between the two of you.

“I’m fine,” you said. “We’ve got chocolate and more cookies than we should be allowed to eat. I want to live out my nine-year-old fantasy and my dentist’s worst nightmare.”

He smiled at that, but still hesitated. “Okay, but—well, maybe you would rather sleep?”

“I—alright.” You pushed your laptop aside and crossed your arms over your chest. “Now it’s starting to sound like you don’t want to watch this with me.”

“I do,” he said, coming to sit across from you so he could push the laptop back towards you. “I’m just—”

“I’m fine,” you repeated. “I want to be here.”

Hearing that made him happy—the jump-off-buildings kind of happy, where he was glad to have you here or else he really would’ve had no way to keep it all inside himself—but he seemed to still wait for something. The air in the room was still thick with everything that you’d talked about tonight.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “We don’t have to do this—after everything.”

“I want to do this,” you said. And then, responding to the doubts he chose not to voice, you added, “I want to do everything with you.”

He watched as you leaned over your laptop to set up the film across the bed from him. He hadn’t realised he could feel so suffocated from the butterflies in his chest—his stomach could no longer contain them—and he was worried about opening his mouth in case they would try to escape. They’d fill this whole room with their fluttering wings, and the two of you would simply not fit.

“I love you,” he breathed out.

You raised your head and smiled at him—easily, effortlessly. Like you’ve done countless times before.

“I love you, too,” you said.

There wasn’t a building tall enough, he decided. Your voice resonated in his pulse and as long as his heart kept beating, he would always land on the ground perfectly safe.

“Alright,” you said, interrupting his very productive Staring and Smiling. “Let’s watch the film.”

“Alright.”

He returned to his side of the bed and managed to settle on the very edge of it. He watched the paused screen of your laptop and twiddled his thumbs. It took him half a minute to notice you were watching him.

“What?” he asked then.

“You’re comfortable?” you questioned. “Your grandma is going to be disappointed if you tell her that you watched the film but couldn’t even see the screen.”

He looked away. “To be fair, my grandma would be disappointed if she found out I had you in my room and I was across the bed from you.”

You tried everything to suppress your smile, but it crept onto your face in blatant defiance and chose to stay there.

“Well, what’s stopping you from coming closer?” you asked.

“My heart, I think. It might really stop this time.”

You laughed, and he was forced to acknowledge that he did not need to be right next to you for his heart to stop. All it took was this.

He wasn’t sure if he was ever going to recover from the fact that he could finally do this again—sit on the bed with you, watch films together, listen to you laugh, kiss you, tell you he loved you and hear that you loved him, too. And no one could text him and wake him up from this dream.

“Come here,” you said, raising your arm over the pillows to make space for him by your side.

He was beaming. Neither Sid, nor any voice inside his head could ever taint this moment or take it away from him.

Jungkook scooted closer to you, seemingly determined to make you regret your invitation. He immediately draped a hand over your waist and a leg over yours, his body warm, his touch inescapable. You started the film on your laptop, but doubted, suddenly, if you’d be able to watch anything with him so close.

One of your hands had come to rest on the back of his head, gently teasing the strands of his hair as he lied on his side next to you, almost half of his body thrown over yours. His fingers toyed with the edges of your hoodie, and he kept humming an unrecognisable tune under his breath. You weren’t sure if he even realised it, because every time you glanced at him, especially during your favourite parts of the film, he was diligently watching the screen. The only times he looked up at you was if you stopped playing with his hair.

Then, once the film ended about an hour and a half later, Jungkook pulled back a little to be able to see you in his dark room.

If not for the tapping of his leg against yours, he would have looked like an ancient sculpture with the contours of his face illuminated by the glow of your laptop screen. It felt exceptional, somehow, to be able to witness him like this, and you came to the same realisation as you had in Stockholm while walking down empty streets at night with him, and in Amsterdam, when he lied on the hotel bed next to you. You realised how effortlessly poetic he looked. How otherworldly.

And you realised you loved him far more than words could describe.

Suddenly, his phone buzzed.

His expression darkened, but he did not move to check who’d texted. He was determined to stay in the dream he was having.

Within seconds, before either of you could say half of a word about the film you’d just watched, his phone buzzed three more times.

Finally, he exhaled. He did not need to look at his phone; you both knew it was Sid.

“I told Minjun about this earlier today,” Jungkook said, reaching over to grab the device from the other side of the bed. “He thinks I should ignore him, but I’m not sure if that’ll work. I, um—I had hoped Sid would forget about the bet and just leave me in peace, but he saw how bothered I was, and that brought him joy. He never forgets anything that brings him joy. And this is something else that—”

“Reply to him,” you said.

“I—hmm?” He blinked. “What?”

You shrugged your shoulders. He appeared even more perplexed by your apparent nonchalance.

“He’s clearly anticipating it,” you explained. “Text him that I’ve already seen those videos. Add a heart.”

Jungkook was not sure what to make of this. Last night, you had tried to stop him from doing the very thing you were now suggesting.

But then he looked down at his phone in his hands—several new notifications about video attachments from unknown numbers were on his screen—and he thought he understood what had changed. He could see how your responses to Sid had been building up to this point. The bet was just one of many instances, a small drop in an endless ocean of shit that Sid came up with and encouraged. All of it had brought you and Jungkook to this moment: with the videos on his phone looming over him.

Sid may not have been the sole cause, but he had reinforced Jungkook’s already prominent reliance on external validation and his subsequent isolation anxiety. He even played a significant role in exacerbating these issues. Jungkook was aware of it, even if he couldn’t help it. And you were aware of it, too.

While he wasn’t sure how deep inside of his mind you could see, Jungkook looked at the determination in your eyes, and he understood. You were on his side, and after everything you’d talked about tonight, you were angry.

He considered your suggestion again.

“Won’t that antagonise him further?” he asked cautiously.

“Sure it will,” you replied simply. “But what else can he do?”

“I’m not sure I want to find out.”

“Well, he wants you to react,” you said. “He’ll continue to spam you with everything he has in his gallery unless you show him that he’s got nothing to win. You said he’s taunting you, he’s threatening to show me the videos. Well, I’ve seen them. He can’t do anything about that now.”

The more Jungkook thought about this, the more his heart rate increased.

“But then,” he said because he’s known Sid for most of his life, “he’ll find a different way to get under my skin.”

You shook your head. You were convinced that the only reason why Sid got so far, why he had such a tight grip on Jungkook’s thoughts, was because Jungkook allowed it.

“He won’t have that much power,” you said, “if you won’t give it to him.”

Jungkook was still hesitant—his habit of blindly following Sid’s lead was very hard to kill—but he unlocked his phone.

“Alright,” he said. “But—okay, I guess he might not believe me if I tell him you already saw the videos. So, what if I—”

“I’ll text him.”

His stomach sank in horror.

“You—no,” he disagreed, panicking as he got up on his knees on the bed. “No, no—w-we don’t even know these numbers he’s using.”

“I don’t need them,” you said, taking out your phone. “We know it’s Sid. We’ll strip him of all his courage by exposing the anonymity he believes he has.”

Jungkook watched you in helpless awe—as though you were doing something truly impressive rather than simply sending a text message. He leaned in closer to be able to get a better view of your phone screen as you selected Sid’s contact (saved as “ASS #1” on your phone—with Jude following as “ASS #2,” of course), and typed: “I already know about the videos, thank you for thinking of me 🖤”

Then, you put your phone away and turned to Jungkook. He was still biting his lip, evidently doubting and regretting at least half of his life.

“There’s a second part, you know,” you said.

“Hm?” He glanced at the black screen of your laptop. “Of the film?”

“Mhmm. He’s escaping from LA this time. Do you want to watch it?”

Jungkook felt a little dizzy. This was over, then. You sent the text, and that was it.

He was forced to accept that even though he had cut his ties with Sid, he could still feel the phantom grips of Sid’s collar around his neck. He wasn’t sure if he would have believed in himself enough to send one text and be done with it. He needed a deeper provocation—like Sid’s descriptions of you before he punched him—or someone actively supporting him all through it—like Minjun and Taehyung, when he gave his Katana up.

And you, he thought. He was thinking of you during all those times.

“I—well, yeah,” he said finally. “Let’s watch it.”

You nodded and returned to your laptop to prepare the second film. You had your back turned to him, so he could not see the slight tremor in your hands. You did not enjoy texting Sid, but he was using you to get back at Jungkook, and you were tired of sitting down and taking it.

“Do you think,” Jungkook said, leaning back against the pillows, “I should get an anaconda tattooed on my stomach?”

Your relief was so strong that you didn’t even realise you had started to laugh. Kurt Russell’s character had a very prominent shirtless scene in the film, and you had been waiting for Jungkook to mention it.

“That was a cobra,” you said. “And no.”

“I think it—wait, why not?” He leaned forward to look at you, offence prominent on his face. “It looked cool on Snake.”

“You’re not cool enough to pull it off,” you replied. He raised his eyebrows, and you shook your head to hide your smile and to emphasise your point. “It just wouldn’t work.”

He nodded slowly, his lips twisted ironically. “Oh, I see, okay. So, what would work for me, then?”

“Maybe a cute little rabbit.”

“A rabb—oh, sure.” Crossing his arms over his chest and pouting, he looked very much like the tattoo you were imagining. “Go ahead and mock me.”

You squinted your eyes. “A rabbit with a lip ring?”

“Mhmm.” He tilted his chin up. “I will get a cobra tattoo out of spite now.”

Snickering, you hit the spacebar on your keyboard and started the film.

“Let’s watch the second part before you decide rabbit or cobra,” you said.

“I’ve already deci—”

Your phone vibrated on the bed, cutting him off. A familiar anxious shiver ran down your spine.

You glanced at him, and just as before, the two of you quickly came to the same conclusion, and the radiant smiles on your faces suddenly clouded again.

Breathing a little heavier, you paused the film after less than a minute and picked up your phone.

There was a new text message from Sid. He had sent you a link to what appeared to be an Instagram post. His message underneath it read, “Okay :) and do you know about this? x”

You had a feeling what was coming even before you clicked the link; your subconsciousness had made the connection before it should have realistically been possible.

The link directed you to Sid’s profile and the picture he’d posted four minutes ago: it was the black-and-white bathtub shot that Maggie had shown you at the bar last night. Sid had captioned it, “so happy for you!”

Jungkook cursed softly on the bed behind you.

You were not sure if you were breathing.

“Fuck,” Jungkook said again. “He—he must have got it from my phone. Maggie—she sent me the picture, and Sid—”

“This piece of fucking shit,” you swore. Your hold on your phone remained firm, despite the device shaking in your frustrated hands. “He’s definitely not just taunting you, he’s targeting us both.”

The Rated Riot fans knew who Sid was, they saw the picture. Jungkook glanced at your screen once more as you clicked on the likes. They were pouring in too quickly, and the total number—which Sid had not made private, of course—could not refresh in time.

Neither you, nor Jungkook said anything. Neither of you drew any obvious conclusions. Simply watching as the image spread online was already enough.

People said a picture was worth a thousand words, and you wondered about the value of this particular one.

You hadn’t even talked to the label; you’d barely talked to each other about your relationship. How would this look for you? What would you do?

“This is what he wants, then?” you asked, staring at your phone. The usernames on the screen blurred together. “For us to break up? He’s that miserable?”

Jungkook felt a knot straining in his stomach, and he could not respond.

“And why do it like this?” you questioned further. “What the fuck is wrong with him, aside from the obvious? What does he gain from any of this?”

Jungkook thought he knew what it was. He could feel it that night when he handed Sid the keys to the Katana. But he hoped—he really fucking hoped—that Sid would get over it. He got his way, after all.

“He won the bet,” Jungkook said, “but I did not lose anything. He can’t stand the thought that I’m—h-he needs me to know that I’m not better than him.”

You groaned. “Fuck—fuck him. Fuck his immature shit, and his fucking ego. Whatever it is that he wants, he’s not going to get it. He’s already done enough.”

You got up from the bed, and Jungkook watched you move around his room with a quiet purpose that he could not decipher.

“What…” he cleared his throat, “do you mean?”

“I don’t know yet,” you said, and your pacing increased. “But we’ll figure it out. He’s not getting his fucking way.”

Jungkook felt a little foolish as he asked, “you’re not mad?”

You stopped in the middle of the room and looked at the uncertain arch of his brows, the slight pull of his lips. You wondered if you would have had it in you not to strangle Sid if he was in the room with you right now. Really, Jungkook wouldn’t even have to do anything. Maybe dig a hole later.

“At you?” you asked, returning to the bed. “Why would I be mad at you? I—I’m angry in general. But I think Sid would have found some kind of a picture of us and posted it anyway. At least we managed to get on his nerves a little first.”

You sat down beside him, and he ran his fingers through his hair, half-nodding, half-shaking his head.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” he decided. “We might have, uh, actually pushed him into doing this without thinking it through. He didn’t even tag us in the picture, right? And I mean, I know it’s us, but we’re completely in the dark, and—”

He stopped talking when you abruptly jumped up, scrambling to unlock your phone again.

“W-what is it?” he asked, alarmed once more.

You returned to Sid’s profile, clicked on the picture, and refreshed the post.

He hadn’t tagged you.

Jungkook was easily recognisable in the picture if you expected to see him there. However, it was likely that besides Maggie and Luna—who already knew it was you because Maggie had said so—no one else could identify the other person in the bathtub.

“Shit, you’re right,” you said, your heart speeding in your chest. “He didn’t tag us. If I hadn’t texted him, he might have posted the picture later, after thinking it through better, and—but he hadn’t. Fuck, this is—we can fix this. I—oh, we will fix this, and I’ll fucking make sure this is the last game he plays with us.”

Right away, just from the tone of your voice alone, Jungkook knew that Sid had lost. He’d lost and he didn’t even know it yet.

You hadn’t broken up. You were together—seemingly even more together now than you were hours ago, when you’d first entered his room.

Finally, Jungkook exhaled in staggering relief.

The two of you had already won.

chapter title credits: normandie, “blood in the water”

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[iknowyuu]

helloooo i was wondering if you could do a fanfic where the reader is clumsy please? like girl is so clumsy that even sieun gotta hold her mf hand so she doesnt fall like damnn... BUT YEA i hope this is a good idea 😕anyways i hope u have a good day, remember to not overwork yourself much okay? <33

kdrama! sieun x reader

// read req! around 1k words

note: shaki my fave. this ask is probably a year old LMFAOO, pero espero que disfrutas anyway !!!

daily click to help palestine and other important causes!

any outsider who happened to be looking into your life- whatever god that’s out there, whatever mysterious force that’s looking, controlling you like you were a sim had to be getting a laugh. in fact, they had to have been steadily laughing for at least a year now.

and for god’s sake, “ouch!” is not your favorite word!!

these thoughts ran through your head just as you bumped into the doorframe as you were attempting to enter your classroom. none of your classmates even looked up at the noise. they were all so used to your clumsiness that it became a daily routine. it was like a little warning that there was ten minutes left before class.

you make your way to your seat, pouting with your arms crossed. you don’t blink or move, even as the boy who sat beside you placed an ice pack on your desk. “thank you.” you mumble begrudgingly, placing it on your elbow.

sieun was like that, too— well, not the never-ending confusion in your balance as well as perception, causing you to constantly trip over invisible matter (air). it’s the consistency. every time you walked home from school together, you would trip over a pebble. every time the two of you were in the lunch line, you’d drop your money, trying to count exact change. i think you get the idea; he was like you in a sense that he expected it.

at lunch, you would constantly complain to sieun about it, telling him the amount of bruises or cuts you'd gotten that day. "sieunnnn," you'd draw out through your attractive pouty lips, sitting down at your usual table, waiting for suho and young-yi to arrive. "look at the paper cut i got. you'd think that my skin would've developed a thicker skin after the amount of times i've nearly died," you say dramatically. "it's so annoying.." you sigh, absentmindedly grabbing a hand of his, playing with his fingers. you sit next to him, placing an arm on the table, and laying your head on your arm, staring up at him.

he didn't say anything, only staring at the way you played with his fingers. he tried not to pay attention to the way you gave him butterflies, and from the way he only gets it from your touch. "it's so unfair. how come this never happens to you.." you ask dejectedly, bringing his fingers towards your lips. "or suho... or young-yi.." you mumble, kissing each of the pads of his fingers, before teasingly blowing at his pinky.

he snatched his hand from you embarrassedly, looking away with a deep blush on his face. "its your fault. you need to pay more attention where you're going."

you scoff. "my fault? are you serious? you know, i was never like this before i met you." you sat up. "it's your fault. maybe if you stopped looking at me with those eyes, stopped hanging around me, stopped looking so cute, and stopped living in my mind i'd be able to finally live my life pain-free." you say, heaving a heavy sigh just as you spotted your friends walking towards the table. the words that had just left your mouth instantly left your consciousness when you waved at them, giggling at the stupid face suho was making.

sieun, though, did not move. instead, he sat there, blushing and thinking.

yes, it's true. ever since the big-eyed introvert entered your life, you suddenly became less and less aware of your surroundings, yet more and more aware of the way sieun's hair would stick up in certain places after you ruffled it. or, even how the tip of his ears would light up red after you complimented him.

he didn't pay you (or anyone else) any mind at all when he was a school-obsessed nerd, but now that he has a social life for once, he was beginning to realize that you only treat him like this. you did not kiss the tips of suho's fingers, nor did you hold the waist of young-yi. it was only him.

these thoughts plagued his mind as the school day came and went, and as per usual, the two of you were walking home together. the sunset was just approaching, and the whole city was bathed in a golden hue, reflecting off of every surface to be found. the two of you walked side by side.

"sorry."

"what?" you turned to look at sieun with curiosity. "sorry for what?"

"for being the one who distracts you all the time. you always get hurt because of me." he says, looking down at the ground as the two of you continue walking.

"sieun.. i was just jo-" he interrupted you, "i should take responsibility for my actions." he said, boldly grabbing your hand and pulling you towards him, just narrowly saving you from bumping your shoulder into a pole.

"o-oh." you say. for once, you were the one who was embarrassed. it didn't last long though, as you giggled softly you interlaced your fingers with his. you miss the way he squeezes your hand, looking away with a faint smile on his face.

"it's about time." you whisper, looking down with a smile that was the opposite of his. noticeable and wide.

[icallhimjoey]

I'm the anon who asked to be stuck with joe in the elevator And this is exactly what I wanted and even better!!!! So sad that there's only one more chapter but so excited for them!! HE'S SO SWEET

felt right to use this ask for the last part ❤️ thanks for the initial request! and im glad you enjoyed! Wordcount: 4.9K

---

Between Floors and Feelings

part one - part two - part three - part four - part five

You were warm. Shielded. Safe.

Dreaming, and sort of... floaty, in a space where there were no worries, and everything was soft and cozy and heavenly peaceful.

There was one little zing, something bothering you, and it came from your lower back. It was far away enough to ignore. You could easily pretend it wasn’t there. Not real.

A lot of things weren’t real, but it wasn’t like you were bothered.

You weren’t awake but weren’t asleep, felt the pull of sleep combined with the sense of waking up. Felt fucking great. You got to stretch it too, make it last longer, and it was a little like you got to snooze without your phone’s alarm going off every 9 minutes.

It smelled nice where you were, and you kind of wanted you bury yourself inside all of it more. Inside of where you were. Inside of how you felt.

That little zing slowly came more into focus, and you noticed it didn’t just come from your lower back. It was your neck too, accompanied by the dull ache of your numb butt cheeks.

Someone softly groaned next to you, and the sound that was made could’ve easily escaped your own throat. Because ugh was exactly right.

You guessed you’d only been asleep for maybe 30 minutes. What with the way you still felt exhausted, sleep heavily pulling on your every limb, desperate to drag you back in.

The aches became too overpowering, urging you to move. You shifted, only slightly, but it was enough to make the restriction you felt all down your side tighten. You got squeezed a little more into this nook, and whilst incredibly warm and inviting, it hurt whatever was sore already.

So you also groaned, but it was softer than what had come from beside you seconds earlier. Just a small hum that notified you were awake.

Sort of awake.

Opening your eyes was more difficult that you’d anticipated, and you realised that you’d slumped back so far, you had sunken down way further in your sleep. Your asleep-self had been able to shield her eyes from the harsh fluorescent lights inside Joe’s jacket.

Joe’s jacket.

Joe.

Your head snapped upright and turned to look at him. The quick movement hurt the way any quick movement would after sitting or laying weird for a bit, but luckily it went just as quickly as it came.

Joe was waking up as well, slowly, eyes all squinty as he also seemed to adjust to waking up in a sore body.

You looked at each other a second with lazy grins before both of you seemed to suddenly realize that your close proximity was weird for two strangers who had met maybe two hours ago.

Tension shot into your body, and you straightened up in a bit of a jump. You felt your spine click from the sudden movement and winced.

“Oof,” Joe’d heard it too, and before you could even reach for it yourself, Joe placed a warm palm on where he thought the noise had come from. “That didn’t sound good,”

“Serves me right for sleeping sat up in a tube station lift,” you said, voice still thick with sleep but clearing up a little more with every word you spoke.

You bent a shoulder down, and then the other, twisting your back a little and it made you pinpoint exactly where the pain sat. You moved a hand to touch it, and instinctively, Joe’s hand moved down towards it to help out.

Like he hadn’t helped enough yet.

Not that you were complaining.

You’d just woken up in the arms of a man who let you nap on him for twenty minutes. A stranger. One that shouldn’t be considered a stranger after the wild ride the night had taken you on, but still.

He pushed a thumb in a little and it made you sit up straighter, arching your back as you stretched it out.

“Hmh,” that felt nice.

“Careful with your neck, you, um… hung into it quite heavily,”

You brought up a hand to rub the side of it as you rolled your neck slowly to stretch all sides. Joe’s hand stayed put on your lower back until you turned your head to look at him. With a shy smile, Joe broke contact, and for a moment, you just looked at each other.

“Good nap?”

“Too short,”

“We've slept for two hours,”

What?!

Jesus.

You checked your phone and found out he was right. You also still didn’t have service and your battery was dangerously low.

“My God, that felt much shorter,”

Joe opened his mouth go say something, but you got interrupted by the intercom suddenly springing to life. Unprompted, the lift filled itself with the static that made the both of you flinch and duck into your shoulders because, what the fuck?!

You both looked at the intercom before turning to look at each other again.

It was more confusing than it was scary, but it still shot a healthy dose of adrenaline into your system.

You saw how Joe's eyes darted around before he looked up towards the ceiling, and he carefully questioned, “William?”

William?

You detected a sneaky smile.

“We don't have any bread!”

Oh. The ghost. He barely made it through his joke without laughing. You would've laughed if you weren't hyperfocused on the soft crackling, the intermittent pops and bursts. It made Joe get up to listen closer. He pressed the emergency button again, for good measure.

You waited.

Joe's mention of bread made you think of the banana bread you had at home. Fuck, you could really go for some right now.

It seemed ages before anything happened. It was just a lot of white noise, but then, all of a sudden, a voice.

“Attention, this is an emergency message for those currently stuck in the lift. We want to assure you that your situation has been noticed, and help is on the way.”

You and Joe looked at each other with big eyes, and you scrambled to get up and get your ear closer too. Not that it made much difference, but you weren't going to fucking miss any of this.

“Please remain calm and know that our trained professionals are already working diligently to ensure you will be rescued shortly. Your safety is our top priority, and we are doing everything possible to resolve this situation swiftly.”

Stood opposite each other, bent over slightly to make sure your ears were as close to the intercom as you could get them, you copied Joe's stance and folded your arms too.

You rolled your eyes when they asked you to remain calm - remain calm. Joe scoffed for the same reason. You had been in there for hours, had had a whole panic attack, nearly pissed yourself, even fucking slept for a few hours... these people pretended you'd only just gotten stuck.

This lift felt like home now. It had its own bedroom - the side on which you'd slept. Its own toilet - where that stupid bottle was stood. There even was an office, with an intercom where you called people. All designated areas for different things, and it made the lift feel a lot bigger than it did when you'd just gotten on.

You remembered how you'd felt like the small space was suffocatingly tiny. Kind of felt stupidly massive now, for a lift anyway.

“Our rescue team has been alerted, and they are mobilizing to reach your location as quickly as possible.”

Joe snorted, and you were close enough to feel the puff of air on your face. You silently giggled at Joe's frown, finding small moments to communicate with looks as you listened. Clearly Joe thought their 'as quickly as possible' seemed terribly slow. You'd been asleep for two hours and Joe hadn't pressed the emergency button once throughout. What had suddenly made someone spring into action?

“In the meantime, we kindly request that you avoid any unnecessary movement within the elevator and refrain from attempting to force the doors open. It is important to conserve your energy and remain patient until help arrives.”

“Pfft, patient,” Joe repeated and inhaled sharply. You'd been plenty patient.

“We apologize for the inconvenience and assure you that every effort is being made to resolve this situation promptly.”

A short silence fell, and you waited for more information. The pause took too long, you thought, and you expected the static to stop, like it had done countless times after the button had been pushed. It was clear that whoever was on the other side of the intercom was reading a standard message specifically written for a passengers-stuck-in-lift-situation from whatever worksheet they had been handed.

But then, in a much more informal tone, they said, “Sorry it took ages, Frank said it was ghosts messing with the system until we checked the CCTV footage and saw two people go in and never come out,”

It made you and Joe give each other funny faces.

“Ooh, Frank's in trouble,” Joe said softly, making you huff a laugh.

“Once again, please remain calm and trust that you are in capable hands. We will get you out of the lift as soon as possible. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.”

The message ended on a professional note, and soon after, the white noise of the intercom died and silence took over once more.

It was just past 4 a.m. and in just over an hour you knew the station would open its gates anyway. You'd practically been in there all night. Not quite, but it kind of counted like all night. Joe would agree, you were sure.

“Promise me one thing,” you broke the silence.

“Hmh?” Joe perked up.

“If anyone asks, that bottle was in here already,” you looked at the bottle that held your urine, still in its own little corner, still taunting you the way it had from the moment you'd placed it there.

It made Joe chuckle silently.

“What bottle?” Joe joked, immediately going with it, pretending it wasn't even there. He also didn't look at it, which you appreciated. You knew because when you turned to look at him, you found him looking back at you.

“Thanks,”

“What happens in the lift, stays in the lift.”

Oh, you liked that. What happened in there could stay in there forever.

“Well, if that's the case,” you started, stepping back towards where you'd sat before, back against the doors. “I've got some confessions to make.”

This piqued Joe's interest, eyebrows shooting up, “Oh?”

Joe sat down below the intercom, back against the side, diagonally opposite you. If you both crossed your legs, your right knee would fight his left knee for space.

“Nothing too crazy, but, since being in here, twice I've wondered about how much money it would cost me to have someone murdered.”

You weren't joking.

“Wha- me?! Oh my God, I'm not going to tell anyone that you peed into a bottle!” Joe sputtered, all in shock and all defensive. You were reminded of Joe's profession and thought, yea, that makes sense, he's theatrical enough.

“Jesus fucking Chr- no, not you, you idiot,” before you were even done speaking, Joe's facial expression had broken into a grin, letting you know that he knew who you were talking about.

“Shut up,” you tried to hide a smile. Couldn't.

“I wasn't saying anything. Any other confessions? Now's the time, apparently,” Joe joked, and without any real warning, the news of rescue being on the way had turned the mood fun and playful.

Things were suddenly looking up, even though you felt gross and tired and your back still didn't feel great. Neither did your feet. You were starting to get real hungry now too.

You thought a second of what else to confess. What else to get out of your system to then stick to the wall-panels of the lift, to leave in there forever. Something embarrassing, but not more embarrassing than fainting and pissing into a bottle in front of a stranger.

“See this tooth?” you tapped a canine. “Fake. Knocked it out when I tried to jump rope with my arms like King Louie does in The Junglebook.”

Joe let his cheeks puff out in a bad attempt to keep a belly laugh inside. It got out straight away.

“Had to tell a room full of doctors what happened, which I could barely do, because my whole mouth was bleeding and I was, you know, missing a tooth,”

Joe was fucking losing it, mouth open in wild laughter, head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, and you kind of loved it. Your mind raced and found more embarrassing shit to share.

“And last week, I was late to work because I lost my phone, and I live in a studio so there's not many places for me to lose it, but I spent a good fifteen minutes turning the place upside down until I thought, you know what, I could just call myself, and so I did... with my phone, that I had been holding, the whole fucking time.”

Joe was bent over, shaking into his shoulders, doing his best to stifle the giggles and compose himself. Felt good, making him laugh like that.

“Yea, no, um...”

“I'm not finished. It wasn't until I was twenty-one that I realised that Cruella De Vil is literally cruel devil. Her name's cruel devil, I was shocked when I found out and my parents made fun of me for it.”

Joe seemed shocked too, or pretended to be anyway, said, “Oh my God, try twenty-nine!” and made explosion noises as he shook his palms near his head. Mind blown.

You both laughed until it died out. And then, Joe raised a careful eyebrow to coax one more confession from you.

All right. You could do one more.

You squinted your eyes in thought for a second, hesitating if you really should say what you were about to say, but then Joe bit into his lower lip as he grinned, and you couldn't not share.

“My best friend has a one-year-old I think is ugly- there! I said it!”

Just like he had before, laughter burst out of Joe and the way that filled you up with joy was wild. It felt similar to how sunbeams affected you when you felt them warm your skin. You saw Joe's face contort as he tried to think of how to react to any of the information you'd just shared, but you didn't leave him enough time.

There were two people in this lift.

“Okay, your turn,”

And that caught him slightly off guard, but only for a second. Oh, Joe could play. He sat up, crossed his legs and rubbed his hands together before folding them and pressing them too his mouth.

He narrowed his eyes in thought and you could feel the giggles already forming in your chest. Joe hadn't even said anything yet, but just from his facial expressions, you knew this was going to be good.

“I, um...” Joe started, and you could practically taste the hesitation. But he was smiling, so you waved a hand in circles which meant, go on then.

Before Joe spoke, he shuffled closer.

“I think you're very funny,”

Oh.

“I think that for a theme party dressing up as a bride is a great costume,”

Oh, shit. As your smile faltered, Joe reached and picked up a hand from your lap to hold between his own.

“I think you smell very nice,”

You frowned slightly. Lies. You were carrying a whole evening's worth of tears, snot, panic sweat as well as just regular sweat, urine, tube grime, and lift filth. There was no way you smelled nice still.

But Joe kept going.

“I think that what happened to you tonight- last night, isn't what you deserve at all, and isn't a reflection of who you are as a person,”

Joe squeezed your hand and you were growing more uncomfortable by the second.

“I think it's not so bad being stuck in a lift with you,”

Obviously, it was. You had really put Joe to work in that metal box you were stuck in. He was clearly just being nice.

“I think it's cute how this is clearly unbearable to you,”

“Yea, please stop,” you were surprised by how your voice trembled and were quick to clear your throat.

“One more,” Joe said and he leant forward, like he was going to share a secret. You instinctively copied him, leaning in a little more yourself too.

“You're pretty,” Joe forewent the I think and stated it like it was a fact, and it made you want to pull your hand back from his grip. Joe didn't let you though, and made it worse by also reaching for the other. He held on and when he felt you try to pull both back, he only tightened his clasp on them. Your grimace made him chuckle.

“Gorgeous, charming, stunning–”

“Stop, you said one more,”

“Beautiful.”

You fought your hands free and Joe laughed as your whole body recoiled. You overdid it a tad, but you really did feel all awkward at his nice words. It's not like you knew each other, so half the shit he was saying didn't feel like it could be true, no matter how sincerely he had sounded.

“Jesus, you're acting like a girl has never peed in front of you before,” you joked, insinuating that the peeing was what had enthralled him. It made Joe laugh again.

“See? Funny!”

That made you snort.

“And charming,” Joe said, and that, in turn, made you scowl, so then he continued, “All right, all right, I'll stop.” and to replace your hands, Joe's palms found both your knees, pinpointing them with ease one more despite all of the skirt covering them.

So, maybe you were a bit delusional, but... there was something heartfelt, something real genuine about the way Joe looked at you.

You studied it for a second, to make sure you'd really seen it right.

Joe was already sat very close to you, had leant in and had somehow gotten even closer as he had gone through his confessions.

Without much thought, moving on autopilot, you placed your hands over Joe's and you saw him glance down at them as his grin grew wider.

Uh oh.

Joe had nice lips.

Shit.

No, but, he really did. You'd lie if you said you hadn't noticed them earlier, but, not like this you hadn't.

You also decided that the length of his facial hair was perfect. Just a little scruff, nothing too intense, but, you know... just looked nice. From where you were sat you could see individual lighter and darker hairs and the spots were hair didn't grow.

Your eyes traveled up.

Freckles.

They were so tiny, from a normal distance, you'd have never seen them. Now, focusing on them, you saw there were so many, all constellated over his cheek bones. His nose. In between his brows, disappearing under his curls.

When your eyes finally found his eyes, you were taken aback by how they were looking at you, boring into your soul like they could see all of the secrets you kept inside.

“Hi,” Joe whispered, smiling, and it felt so incredibly intimate, you wanted to never look into his eyes again whilst simultaneously never wanting to look away ever again.

“Beautiful,” Joe barely even said it at all, you were able to understand him from his mouth movement alone.

You opened your mouth to say something back, but words left you entirely. Joe called you beautiful and you wanted to say, should see me on a good day. Should've seen you at the beginning of the night. Or two weeks ago, when you got your hair and make-up done professionally.

But alas. Joe called you beautiful now, and he really fucking meant it.

What do you say to someone when all you want to do is kiss them?

Turns out, nothing.

Instead, you just stare at their mouth until they get the hint.

And Joe got it all right.

One of Joe's hands left your knee to find a new place to touch around your neck, fingers around your jaw, pulling you closer a little. His large hand felt incredibly soft and you pinched your eyebrows together.

Joe moved closer and let his nose touch yours, let it nuzzle, and Jesus, fuck, this was one of those moments you wanted to live in forever. Mouths close, not kissing, but sharing breath, heads tilted and noses circling.

Your breath shuddered as you placed a hand onto Joe's chest, and you heard little noises escape Joe's throat before he sighed contently.

Who was going to be the one to give in first?

Who was going to tip their head and press their lips onto the other's?

You kind of wanted it to be you, but, you enjoyed this moment of almost too much. Right here, things weren't complicated. Right here you could claim nothing really happened, and there was a false sense of safety there.

Until suddenly, it just wasn't enough, and when seconds passed and your noses circled with lips so very nearly brushing without Joe really doing something, you decided you were going to be the one to break the barrier.

Except, you decided too late.

Because, the very moment your mind told you, fuck it, let's go, the whole lift jolted. Like someone pulled on the cables a little and let the whole thing drop again, and the loud creaking of metal echoed in the lift shaft. You were lucky you were sitting down, or you would've definitely lost balance and would've fallen over.

It scared the living daylights out of you, and any tension that had hung thick in the air before was replaced by fear and sheer confusion. Because, what the fuck just happened?!

You only had a few seconds to look around, look up, mostly, because that's where the loud noises were coming from. Then before you really understood what was going on, the lift started moving in small shocks.

Up.

Up to where the exit was and where you'd be able to get out through the doors you were sat against.

The higher up you got, the further away your little moment seemed to you, and now, both on your feet, really itching to finally get out of this death trap, you started hearing voices.

“Everything all right in there?”

“Yea, we're all right,” you answered.

“Please step away from the doors as much as you can,”

“Mate, there's doors on either side,” Joe looked behind him, then back to the doors where the voice had come from.

The lift stopped, and you knew you were right at the top.

“These ones, step back from these ones,”

And after some prying, some technical difficulties, and eventually, four gloved hands pushing the doors open, you were freed.

“Oh my God,” one of the paramedics that was waiting to check each of you over said when he saw the both of you.

Rude.

“That's one hell of a wedding night,”

Oh. Yea, you supposed you kind of looked like a fucked up bride and groom if you didn't have any context.

“Oh, no, that's not what, we're–” Joe started, but you cut him off, scoffing and going, “Ugh, yea, t'was the worst!”

You snuck a look at Joe and saw him grin. Blush a little too. He didn't correct you as you were being lead into the back of the ambulance that was waiting outside.

Tube staff took both yours and Joe's details, and after having both your vitals checked, a staff member came up to you holding the bottle that held your urine, and at the same time, you and Joe both said,

“That was in there already.”

Paramedics declared you were fine. Shaken up and in need of fluids and sleep, but ultimately fine.

Just before you were sent on your merry way, you saw how the lift that kind of felt like it was your lift now, was being taped shut with black and yellow caution lines.

Out of service.

You kind of hoped it would be for a while.

Suddenly being out on the street, everything felt larger than it ever had before. You were free to go wherever now, and it was stupid how that now felt scary and uncertain. There were other people here and nothing was predictable now. It took you a second to think it over before you told yourself you were being silly and it was time to part ways with Joe.

You turned to face him, to say goodbye, but then Joe gestured towards Bow Street and said, “You're this way, right?” before using a hand on your lower back to push you along. You fell into step together and sighed a small breath of relief.

Joe was walking you home.

It wasn't far, but it was enough time to at least have your goodbye be a little more than a simple, well, that's it, see ya.

It was starting to get light out, and for a few steps, you were both silent.

Then, Joe spoke up.

“Did you know Covent Garden's haunted?”

You smirked, looking down at your feet as you walked. “Oh? Is it?”

“Hmh, yea. You see, there's this... tallish actor,”

You looked to your side to see Joe also had his eyes down, looking at where he was placing is feet as he walked down the pavement with you. Your corner came closer at an alarming speed and you wished you lived further away.

“And he sort of, roams the streets in the early mornings, looking for bread,”

“Ah,” you joined the bit. “I think I've heard of him, did he die in 1890-something and is his name William?”

“No, different guy,” Joe shook his head, but couldn't hide the smile. “This one's alive still,” Joe glanced at you, and added, “Or so I've heard.”

You caught on.

“Does um... does this tallish actor roaming the streets of Covent Garden happen to like banana bread, do you think?”

You tried your best to sound sincere and curious, but your face was absolutely giving you away.

“Hmh... I don't know, he might,”

“It's home-made,”

“Then definitely yes,”

You felt Joe's hand touch yours, and before you knew it, your fingers intertwined together and for the last few steps to your front door, you walked down the street in a green vintage suit and a ridiculously dirty wedding dress as you held hands.

“Good,” you said, squeezing.

“Good,” Joe said, squeezing back.

And you knew that technically, if you asked the clocks of London, you'd only really met a couple of hours ago.

But if you asked one of the Covent Garden tube station lifts, you'd practically lived half a life together already.

Suddenly you thanked the stars, which were fading fast as the sun started taking over, that you'd walked in on your boss and ex-boyfriend when you had. It shouldn't have happened sooner, and it shouldn't have happened later.

Stopping in front of your door, you reached up a hand to the electronic keypad to punch in the right combination to unlock the door, but before you could, Joe swiped in and took hold of it with his. With both your hands in his, he manouvered you until you had your back against the door and he closed in.

Back to where he was before.

Back to where the both of you were before.

Nose to nose, eyes too close to properly focus on one another and you swallowed thickly.

Fuck.

Was Joe going to swirl the tip of his nose around yours for too long again? Were you going to have to count the seconds until you could no longer stand it aga–

No.

You didn't. Joe didn't.

Joe leant in and kissed you. Pressed his lips onto yours, slotting them into place perfctly, and he breathed in deeply as one of his hands loosened in your grip and came up to cup your cheek.

Lips brushed, and Joe pulled back slightly, only to dive straight back in with more frevour. More hunger. No tongue. Just soft lips, swirling noses, heads tipping and fingers brushing. You kissed like that until it left you breathless and Joe pressed his forehead against yours, eyes still closed, savouring this moment because he too wanted to live in it forever.

After all of the events that lead up to this moment, this was it.

This was it, you thought.

This was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to you.

If you asked the disappearing stars, they'd tell you were right.

Joe pulled back and smiled at you, giving you room to turn and punch the numbers into the system to let you inside. You bit your lip as you looked over your shoulder, leading Joe inside by a held hand, and the streets saw you vanish as Joe shut the door behind you.

If you asked the paramedics, you were too tired and fragile for your heart to be beating so fast.

And if you asked that one tube staff member, that was definitely piss in that bottle.

If you asked your tired body, you were in desperate need of some horizontal time on a soft surface.

But if you asked the sun, the day was only just beginning.

the end

---

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[invaderzia1]

kas!eddie, MDNI, tw: blood sucking things

it’s been two weeks since Eddie “died”. two weeks of pain and isolation for his best friend, who couldn’t save him. that is until you get a call from Steve that you need to make your way to his house as it’s an emergancy. so you rush over only to find most of the eclectic group had also come as well. you barely made it out of your car before a seemingly alive Eddie came barreling out the front door towards you, followed by a tired Steve and the rest of the crew.

it was unbelievable, his wounds had healed almost completely and he somehow made it out of the upside down. nobody could give a solid answer on how and while Hooper worked on a way to somehow prove Eddie’s innocence, the rest of the group of older teens were tasked with babysitting Eddie. making sure he didn’t expose himself to the town and providing shelter for him. which would be much easier if he wasn’t stuck on being with you 25/8.

the first few days were odd, going from the deep depression of your best friend dying to suddenly having him back, any weird things he did were choked up to the whole being dead thing. you were able to safely dismiss any weird things under the pretense of being happy he was alive, up until you were ordering food and he almost seemed revolted of the idea of eating his favorite dish. the dish he has never once said no to in the 6 years you’ve known him. at this point you start to notice the oddities of this new Eddie.

it was still the same Eddie Munson you had spent the majority of high school with, deep down you knew that. but something in him had changed, little quirks he now had picked up postmortem. he was almost always hungry, no matter how much he ate. his tastes had changed too, finding certain foods unbearable now. and he was almost stupidly strong, having accidentally broken the front door at Steve’s house when slamming it open to see you.

none of it made sense, until you sliced your finger while making food. without saying anything, Eddie knew, even from across the room. his eyes which had been trained on the tv were now on you as he seemed almost fixated on your finger. his knuckles were white as he firmly gripped his knees, his nails digging into the denim of his jeans. his eyes were wide, like some crazed animal. he knew he was dangerous in that moment and took every bit of strength to hold himself back from doing anything irrational, but as you washed the blood off and started to bandage the appendage, it was like torture to him. the deep hunger within him felt 1000 times worse than before. every inch of his body was screaming to move towards you, as if it was all he needed.

looking up at him, it all clicked into place. you could tell he was holding himself back, seemingly fighting back his own mind. all the pieces finally came together, his wounds healing all by themselves, why he was always hungry, his newfound strength, his clinginess towards you. all of it made sense.

holy fuck, your best friend is a fucking vampire now.

and in a moment of clarity, or insane stupidity, you moved closer to him, his self restraint only being tested even more as he could smell your blood getting closer. you got nearly arms length away from him before he spoke, begging you to leave before he couldn’t hold himself back, begging to not let him hurt you.

“please, Eddie, let me help you,” you said quietly, “i trust you.”

he stared at you, his eyes still as frenzied as they were before, searching your face for any sign of uncertainty. he didn’t want to do anything to you, he couldn’t hurt his best friend like this, he couldn’t lose you like this. he didn’t want to become the monster everyone thought he was, like all the rumors around town had said he was. staring deep into your eyes he could see only love and trust.

slowly, you took a step forward, waiting to see if Eddie would stop you. when he didnt, you let yourself get close enough to straddle his lap, moving his hands from his knees onto your waist. the intimate position allowed for Eddie to bring his face to your neck, almost hypnotized by the way the blood pumped through your veins, as if they called his name. the closer you were, the more delirious he felt as the hunger took over. his head darted up as his hands gripped your hips, steadying himself as he fought his mind for control once again.

“fuck, sweetheart, if you don’t stop me now, then I’ll…”

placing your hands on his shoulders, you leaned down and pressed a soft kiss onto his lips. then resting your forehead against his, before softly telling him you trust him.

that was all he needed to hear before leaning his head back down, experimentally pressing a kiss to your neck. he felt the way you shivered as his lips pressed against your neck, a sight he has always wanted to see of you. experimentally, he let his tongue swipe across your neck, the taste of your skin being like ambrosia from the gods to him. his hands shook against your hips as the self control he had been displaying slowly slipped from his hands. his new vampire instincts took over as his sharp canines broke through the flesh of your neck.

a broken cry left your lips as you felt him suckle at your neck. your hips ground against his as you clawed at his shoulder blades. your body tensed at the first wave of pain, unused to the feeling of him drinking, but was soon replaced by an odd feeling of pleasure. as your body relaxed into him, his hands moved from your hips to your back, helping support you. his grip was still tight, as if letting you go would result in your disappearing all together.

after a few more seconds, Eddie pulled himself away, fighting back these vampire instincts before he lost full control. for the first time in days, he seemed full. his eyes were full of life again and there was almost color back in his cheeks. his hands still held you close, but not as bone crushing as they had been. Eddie had the red of your blood stained on his lips, smeared downward from having pulled away. your hand shakily reached up to cup his cheek, Eddie was more than happy to nuzzle into it. his eyes were staring right into yours watching the way you caught your breath.

recovering from the blood loss, you rest your forehead back against his, a smile exploding on your face as it dawned on you how this would effect your relationship going forward. your body wobbled slightly as it became weak, Eddie held you up to stop you from falling away from him.

slowly you were leaned towards your right, slowly let onto the unoccupied side of the couch. Eddie then crawled over you, caging your body underneath his. his eyes looked over you for any sign of distress, his gaze loving compared to the lust he felt not long ago, before letting himself lean forward and nuzzle into the untouched side of your neck, his breath tickling the skin.

“I hope you know you’re mine now.”

[apatheticcrossovers]

I Just Care About You

Fandoms: Cookie Run, Happy Tree Friends

Ships: Yandere!Roguefort Cookie (Cookie run)/Lifty (Happy Tree Friends)

Characters: Roguefort Cookie (Cookie Run), Lifty (Happy Tree Friends), Other characters are briefly mentioned.

Tw: Kidnapping, Emotional Manipulation, Minor Violence

Summery: Lifty doesn't know how long Roguefort has been keeping him captive, but after god knows how long, he finally has a chance to escape and get back home. Roguefort doesn't understand why Lifty wants to go back to that town though, clearly, Lifty doesn't know what's good for himself, thank god Roguefort's there to snap some sense into him.

Link to AO3 fic

Lifty sprinted through the woods, his legs hurting as he tried to find a way out of this hellish maze, his captor following close behind, not slowing down. “Lifty, Please, come back!” They called out, Lifty covering his ears as he tried to ignore the sweet saccharine voice of his captor.

Lifty could feel the world spinning around him as he tried to keep going, leaning against trees as he held his stomach. Suddenly, almost as if to give him a second wind, his ears turned to listen behind him, hearing Rogueforts faint footsteps quickly approaching his location.

Lifty picked up his pace as he weaved through the trees, trying his best not to trip over any roots, or let the sticks stabbing into his feet distract him too much. He wanted to yell out for help, hoping somebody, anybody, would hear him, and come to his rescue.

Unfortunately, Roguefort was just that much faster than him, tackling Lifty to the ground as Lifty let out a yelp, struggling to get away. “Please, I just want you to be safe, why are you making it so difficult!” Roguefort said as they tried to catch their breath, hands tightly wrapped around Lifty’s neck. Lifty swung his claws at Rogueforts face, just nearly grazing them, Roguefort, in response, Punch Lifty as hard as they could, a look of seething anger on their face.

“Why can’t you just understand, I want the best for you!” The words stung at Lifty as he continued to claw at the hands around his neck. It’s not like it was terrible being with Roguefort, he was well-fed and taken care of, and had a place to sleep every night. He would’ve happily lived with Roguefort, but he wasn’t even allowed to leave the house, let alone see his friends or brother, Roguefort claiming that ‘he didn’t need them anymore, all they needed was eachother’. Lifty almost felt like he was in love, if it wasn’t for the fact he had been isolated from everything he knew by a stranger he didn’t know until then.

“R-roguefort, please, I just-” Lifty was quickly shut up by Roguefort as they punched him again, dazing him slightly as he coughed, trying to catch his breath, tears running down his face, he had been through worse pain, but it still hurt, to be punch by someone, and still somehow think maybe he’s the wrong one for trying to leave. With another punch he was out like a light, Roguefort finally standing up, letting out a few heavy breaths before picking him up, and carrying him back to his cottage deep in the woods.

Lifty woke up a few hours later, once again locked in the room he’s been in for weeks, wooden boards once again blocking off the window he had climbed out of. He sat up and immediately curled into a ball, his tail wrapping around himself, as his eyes went flat against his head. God damn it, he was so close, if only he could’ve run just a little faster.

He jumped as the door to his bedroom opened, Roguefort peering in with a soft smile. “Good, you’re awake, I was worried I might’ve hit you too hard,” they said, closing the door behind them with a click, walking over and sitting on the edge of Lifty’s bed, causing lifty to curl into himself more. 

“Please, I-” Lifty wasn’t sure what to say, he wanted to yell at Roguefort, spit in their face, treat them like the piece of shit they were, but, Lifty couldn't bring himself to do it, he could only let tears fall down his face as he hid in his knees, sobbing softly, his ears laying back against his head.

Roguefort placed a hand on top of Lifty’s head in an attempt to comfort him, leaning closer to Lifty. “Lifty, sweetie, you know I don’t like seeing you cry,” they tried to comfort, Lifty only looking up at them through blurry tears.

“Then why ?” Lifty’s voice cracked as tears stained his fur, looking up at Roguefort. Just for a moment, Lifty caught a glint in Rogueforts eyes, one that held nothing but love and care for him, one that made him feel as if he should just love the person who’s holding him hostage.

“Because I care about you, dear.” Roguefort's voice was soft and soothing, almost convincing. “Lifty, I’ve seen what your town is like, I couldn’t just let you keep living like that, dying in horrible accidents nearly every day…” Lifty perked up slightly, he had almost forgotten what the town was actually like, what would happen there on the daily, and the curse that was keeping him alive through it all. At this point, Lifty couldn’t remember the last time he had died, t was almost as if it was all just a terrible nightmare, one that Roguefort had saved him from.

“You… Are you really doing this, for me?” Lifty asked, his voice still shaking as he felt his body relaxing only slightly, Roguefort placed his hand on Lifty’s cheek, wiping a tear away as they gave their captive a soft, reassuring smile. Roguefort didn’t answer, they simply planted a soft kiss on Lifty’s forehead, holding his cheeks in his hands.

“Just be good and stay with me, and you’ll never have anything to worry about anything, ever again, alright?” Lifty could help but smile at his captor, nodding his head slightly, as more tears ran down his face.

“Alright, I promise…”

[wowzerwyrm]

I think the part that helped it click for me was recognizing that there is no set line where every single person in the world is given the opportunity to learn and create a defense for gambling and/or other social things like cults.

If someone built a spike trap out in the woods specifically to catch and kill human beings, and a child fell into it and died a slow, painful death, would you blame the child for not being aware of the oiled sides and the dangerous nature of the trap?

How about if there were large signs up saying “Win lots of money!” And “Cool adventure trail down this way!” sponsored by the city and placed around the edges of the trap?

If you wouldn’t blame the child for falling in, in this case, at what age do you or don’t you start assigning them blame? Is a two year old responsible for their own suffering here? Five? Ten? How about fifteen? Are they innocent all the way up until the night of their 18th birthday, and then they suddenly are partly responsible for falling into the trap? Why so? There’s no guarantee that anyone has told them the danger up until this point. In fact, most of the world around them is set on telling them that there is no danger and that it’s a fun activity to go walking in the woods alone in the dark.

Some people indeed learn of the danger, and teach it to their friends and create studies about it. And they have a much easier time avoiding the trap because they know the signs and how little reward there is for risking it.

But not everyone is given that chance, and it doesn’t make sense to blame the people who fell directly into a trap designed to hurt them for their ignorance of its design.

unironically believe that if you draw fanart for genshin or overwatch or whatever you should have to include a big red banner underneath saying THIS GAME WILL TRY TO INDUCE COMPULSIVE GAMBLING IN YOU in a huge font. kind of like how cigarette packaging has to say that it kills you

[studywgabi]

The Reasons Why I am Starting College Having Never Been on a Date:

The painful fucking shyness, I mean, borderline agoraphobia. I won't settle for less than clicking "add to cart" on Mr. Right and having him delivered to my home, with free shipping.

a. Really, though, I've missed a lot of school. And work (and that's only once a week). I can barely make it to my real responsibilities (much less dates). I struggle with just getting out of bed sometimes, let alone leaving my house, and when I do, I'm usually too anxious to go without a parent, which severely decreases my chances of being approached. And if I never go anywhere, how can I expect to meet anyone?

b. It's just that I know I won't meet anyone, though. It's that when I manage to try, when I put my blood, sweat, and tears into making myself look somewhat presentable, when I go someplace people under 70 are, when I do everything Google said makes you approachable: bangs, wearing red, exposing the wrists, red nail polish, smiling, not being on your phone, being alone, and open body language, when I get my hopes up, it never works out. And that makes it even harder the next time. Excuses, excuses.

2. Self-fulfilling prophecy. I see myself as undateable and others just take that cue. Though, chicken and egg. A little girl doesn't suddenly decide she's horrifically ugly and no one will ever love her. It's proven to her, time and time again. Or rather, being seen as beautiful or even average and capable of being loved is not proven to her, and she draws the only logical conclusion. (This little girl is quite the pessimist.)

3. I've had somewhat of an unconventional high school experience. My freshman year was 2020-2021, and we were online until May. Sophomore year we were back in person, but socially distanced, and I left about a month before the end of the school year and took my finals remotely. Junior and Senior year, I've been going to Hometown Community College (HCC). I take some in-person classes and some online, so I'm only on campus for maybe 4 hours a week. Some of my classmates are adults with families and careers, but a lot of them are around my age.

4. It isn't love, it's only Hometown. Maybe I would be worshiped as a goddess in some other part of the world. Who knows? My city isn't that walkable and I'm a virgin who can't drive, so it is a bit difficult to meet people. There are a lot of Latinos here, and mixed girls like me, and it's a real let-your-freak-flag-fly-so-everyone-will-know-how-different-and-cool-you-are-unlike-the-sheep kind of place where everyone wears beanies, listens to Pearl Jam deep cuts, and, in their desperate attempt to be different, is exactly the same, so it's not like I stand out in any way. It certainly has its faults, but one thing I will say about Hometown is that you can walk down the street and see face tattoos, blue hair, and women with beards.

5. The other thing is of course the bloodhound sixth sense. Men can smell the eau de desperation and low self-esteem radiating off of me from a mile away. Half-off at Bath and Bodyworks. God, even when I like another girl as a friend, I smother her. When I like someone in any type of way, I ask a million questions, I want to know everything about them, spend every second with them. I expect an intimacy that would take years to build up to just happen over night.

6. I think it would be naive to say that looks weren't a part of it, a significant part, though certainly not all of it. I know everyone says personality is more important than appearance in the end, when you really love someone, and I agree, but it's so hard to even get to that place. It's difficult to make that initial connection if you're not really anyone's type. No guy has ever just walked up to me and "shot his shot" as they say. No one has tried to strike up a conversation or dared to ask for my number. Yes, I know it's nerve-wracking for men to just walk up to a stranger, especially an attractive one, and try to talk to her, and this doesn't happen to every woman, but it happens to some, and I wish I was one of them. Some men think some women are worth getting over the fear for, and I wish someone saw me that way. And no, I don't approach guys either, I'm nothing if not a hypocrite. I am paralyzed with fear about this because I'm worried about not being rejected. I'm worried the guy won't know I'm trying to flirt with him because I have no idea how, or that I won't know he's letting me down easy because it'll go over my head, or that he'll feel too sorry for me to reject me.

a. I'm high-maintenance while looking low-maintenance. I take hours to get ready in the morning and no matter how much I do and how much money I waste and what lengths I go to it never helps. Worse still than my grotesqueness, which a man could look past, is my insecurity. My constant, constant need for reassurance. He could swear over and over that he loves me as I am but I'll never believe it. To illustrate, you've just read several paragraphs of complaints about my appearance. If you were my man (Lord help you), I'd never shut up.

b. To summarize: annoying, inexperienced, and no oil painting. I think I could've said as much in one sentence.

c. This is how I register in men's heads: Maybe this is totally incorrect, but we women think of you as rather like robots, capable of an incredible compartmentalization that must make life so much simpler. I'm so messy. Men can just decide to not get attached, to not care, to focus on what's really important rather than distractions, and their hearts actually listen to them. And if not, you could've fooled me.

d. I think men sort of scan me. When they first see me, my statistics and vital signs pop up on their cybernetically enhanced vision. They make a crucial decision right then and there, write me off as uninteresting. Again, all speculation. You can't fault me for being a logic-oriented person. If this isn't how it happens, I want some hard proof (lawyer voice). You can't fault me for being a fanciful, gullible, self-absorbed and ridiculous little girl.

e. I'm a little overweight, but not playboy bunny curvaceous and feminine, nor supermodel thin. I'm wide and bulky and flat in the back and the front. I'm average height, not cute and short or old Hollywood statuesque. I have scars and stretch marks and acne and strawberry legs. Pale skin and chestnut hair with a few strands of red that couldn't decide if it wanted to be straight or curly so settled for a halfhearted wave. My haircut is what it is, a mistake that I'm growing out (excruciatingly slowly). Eyes so dark you can't distinguish the iris from the pupil. I wear contacts. Huge, blackheady nose and ultrathin pale, cracked lips. I care deeply about my appearance and I do the best I can to take care of myself. After school and work and work and school, eating healthy feels so impossible, but I try to be somewhat balanced at least. I don't exercise besides the erstwhile jog, but I walk around a lot on campus and I have a physical type of job. Everyone's always told me I look older (mid-twenties) than I am (newly 18). For most of the year, I wear pretty much the same thing everyday- The Gabi Uniform (TM). A knee-length skirt and a sweater. Inoffensive, not particularly alluring. f. The worst, though, is the severe hirsutism, my main PCOS symptom. How am I supposed to be confident when my body is a punchline in every movie you've ever seen? I just don't think confidence is meant for me. I'm not one of those take-off-her-glasses-and-she's-beautiful types. I've gotten better, certainly, I'm not waterboarding myself with sweat anymore by forcing myself to wear turtlenecks in the summer. I do my best to be an adult, to pick myself up and get on with it, put on a brave if ugly face and show myself as I am. But the truth is, being able to wear tanktops hasn't made me hate myself any less. I still can't say the "h" word out loud (or type it). I still can't shake the feeling of being dirty and sick, like I have bugs crawling all over my skin. And I could never, ever, show this body to anyone. One day, I'm going to fall head over heels in love, I know that already. Love isn't the issue. I will love someone so much he can't stand it, but I'll never be able to trust him enough.

6. I don't know. I really don't know. I've turned it over and over in my head for years, driven myself crazy trying to figure it out, connected all my features with push pins and red string to unveil the grand conspiracy. But every reason I can come up with isn't something unique to me, it's something that literally millions of other people experience, have, do, or are, and that hasn't been a barrier, or hasn't always been a barrier, for at least some of them to be in a relationship. I'm just stuck thinking, why wasn't what I did good enough? Why am I the exception? I followed the rules, I consulted the opinions of others around me, I did everything just like everyone else did. I don't know if other people see me this way, but I think of myself as a deeply average person- my personality, my looks, how I grew up. To be perfectly honest, it does surprise me a bit that my love life has been so atypical when every other part of my life has been so decidedly ordinary. There's nothing special about me. I'm not a good person, but I don't intentionally hurt others. I'll never be beautiful, pretty, or even average, but there's nothing shocking about the way I look, I'm just plain.

a. Lots of people are shy, especially teenagers. We're all self (conscious and absorbed), debilitating insecurity and a simultaneous God complex. Plenty of teenagers date, go to dances, go parking, share a milkshake with two straws...

b. Everyone has low self-esteem. Sure, some more so than others, but the vast majority of people struggle with confidence, even those other people think shouldn't. We're all oracles writing self-fulfilling prophecies all the time. If you had to be confident to get a date, the human race would have died out by now.

c. For fuck's sake, people got married during the pandemic. People fell in and out of and back in love, people lost their virginities, people cheated, people flirted, people joined dating apps and met on zoom, people took off their masks and kissed, people were irresponsible and reckless and human and attractive and attracted. We all lost the school year, but plenty of my classmates didn't lose the experiences.

e. Isn't everyone desperate for something? And hasn't that desperation made me work 10 times harder? It's ambition, it's led me to try nearly everything, and even if it's obvious, isn't a little desperation attractive? I don't know if it is to boys, but it is to me. I want someone to need me, to think about me all the time, to be crazy about me. Maybe I take that too far, but it's not as if I'm proposing on the first date or collecting your used tissues for my shrine. Yeah, I want it bad and I when I fall, I fall hard, but the last thing I want is to make someone uncomfortable. If he told me to slow down, I would.

f. But if all it took was a little makeup and some time at the gym, wouldn't I lose love as soon as I washed my face or gained a few pounds? My appearance is going to change drastically throughout my life, and I don't want love to end when it does. I want to believe that everyone is beautiful. It's important to me to believe that, and that means I have to begrudgingly accept that I'm beautiful, too. I'm worried it would become a slippery slope if I made an exception for myself. I guess I just figured everyone was someone's type. I might not be conventionally attractive, but I thought eventually I'd blindly stumble upon someone who was okay with the way I look. You know what they say about assuming. It makes a (flat) ass of you and me. Yeah, maybe there's a lid for every pot. But my lid will either be blind, an alcoholic with permanent beer goggles, or have some kind of rare fetish.

I am precisely the opposite of what men want. Clingy, needy, and desperate- and not attractive enough to justify my horrible personality. I'm not cool or fun or down-to-earth. I'm not drama-free or go-with-the-flow. I say I'm fine when I'm not because I expect you to read my mind. I'm ugly, uncommunicative, and crazy. I'm a pervert who's far too shy to ever take her clothes off. I'm immature and stubborn and stupid and as hard as I try not be, a hopeless romantic.

[shsl-box-worshipper]

The XANA of Baker Street (Detective Conan X Code Lyoko)

So, uhhhh, DCMK fans, remember how the main conflict of Movie 6(The Phantom of Baker Street) was that Noah's Ark hijacked the Cocoon game so that if all the contestants got killed in the game, they would all die IRL?

Well...imagine, if you will, the evil artificial intelligence of Code Lyoko happened to hijack the game instead. This is a little snippet into that idea (and the fulfillment of Crack Crossover Writing Prompt #3)

(Reposting this cuz Tumblr hates me)

-----

Time: December 10th, 2003. 23:00 JST Place: Beika, Tokyo, Japan. Beika City Hall, Kashimura's Office

When Schindler delved that dagger into Kashimura's heart, all the man could feel was pain. Pain like no other pain felt before, inflicted on his chest as it and the feeling of being betrayed mixed together to form a pain so profound, it would make the gods themselves cry.

He could feel the murderous intent in that man, that descendant of a monster, pushing away any form of common sense as he dove the knife into his chest.

That face...that horrible face.

Of a man turned monster. In the back of his mind, Kashimura knew this was going to happen. Kashimura knew from the moment Hiroki committed suicide that the man would not let go of his past willingly.

But he thought he had changed. Become more than a shadow of his DNA. Of his legacy.

Turns out he was wrong, and he was paying for it in crimson.

The world was fading as he felt warm liquid pour out of the wound in his chest, his eyes struggling to remain open as he saw Schindler pull out a CD.

He could barely glance at his monitor as Schindler inserted and uploaded the CD, but he knew from the sound his computer was making that the CD wasn't just a CD.

His non-existent heart dropped as his suspicions were sadly confirmed, witnessing now as a vicious malware took over his windows. It was consuming every piece of data Kashimura had on that computer, leaving nothing but factory files and nothing more.

And with it, all of Hiroki's hard work, all of the evidence, everything...

It was all gone. Kashimura felt the urge to scream as he felt Schindler suddenly thrust the knife out of his chest, leaving behind even more blood and excruciating pain. He could barely keep his eyes open, and he could feel his world fading.

But he needed to stay still. He needed to make sure that Schindler didn't notice that he was alive.

He barely saw the flutter of the white napkins that were used to wipe off the blood. But he heard the sound. The hopeless...desolate sound of a door clicking shut.

His world was fading rapidly. He could barely feel his legs as his blood soaked his suit and covered his entire body. Dammit...

All of the evidence...everything that could've been used against him...

Deleted.

But at the same time, he wasn't dead yet. He needed an angle. A way to put that monster to justice.

And then he spotted his keyboard. His precious workhorse, fueling his creative passions for his entire career.

And now, it will be his dying message.

Kashimura mustered up every bit of strength that still existed in his dying body and raised his arm up to the keyboard. He couldn't hear anything. His vision was starting to swarm with lights and voices were in his head.

It took everything to lift up his fingers. The urge to close his eyes was becoming overwhelming. However, he needed to do this.

He barely noticed the blood on his hands as he typed three letters. He hoped that the secrets he put in the Cocoon game would lead whoever was to solve his murder down the right track.

J_

T_

R_

He finally let go of his strength as he typed in the last key. He prayed that Schindler would be brought to justice as his eyes felt weak. His life was flashing before his eyes. Everything that led up to this point...all for nothing if his murder was left unsolved.

Hiroki...

However, the last thing Tadaaki Kashimura saw before finally giving into the sweet release of death wasn't the face of his son, or his wife, now both deceased. It wasn't even the light at the end of the tunnel that he heard so many talk about.

It was an eye symbol. Appearing on what he could only guess was his monitor. Red like his blood, with three lines jutting out the bottom and one sticking out the top.

"W-wha..."

He closed his eyes, and Tadaaki Kashimura became deceased.

However, maybe death was the only way to escape what would come next.

Because, even though the corpse that controlled this computer mainframe was now dead, XANA was very much alive.

And death by a human was a much more merciful fate, when compared to the coldhearted cruelty of an AI hellbent on destroying humanity.

---

Time: December 10th, 2003. 23:16 JST

"KASHIMURA!"

Yusaku, alongside Agasa, had arrived at the crime scene just as the body of his friend was taken away by the forensics team. He watched as the bagged up, lifeless body of someone he knew from so long ago was so casually taken out of the crime scene, like it was just another day in the office for those people.

He felt a spike of rage inside himself as he saw it, but that settled itself out rather quickly. He had experienced that feeling before a hundred times now. The feeling of seeing someone you knew or someone you loved, dead with no explanation or rhyme or reason.

Yet...

"I heard Kashimura-san was an old friend of yours."

Yusaku suppressed the now-familiar feeling of guilt and grief as he turned to Inspector Megure. Despite them knowing each other now on a familiar basis, to the point where he considered him a second father to his son, Shinichi, Yusaku knew the man was purely in work mode, interrogating him like Megure did all of his suspects with no bias towards who Yusaku was or his relationship with the large man. Whether friend or stranger, enemy or family, Yusaku Kudo didn't like being the suspect of a case. Especially one in regards to someone he knew.

"Do you know anyone who might've wanted him dead?"

Yusaku pressed his fingers to his chin as the thought toiled in his head. No one easily came to mind.

Kashimura wasn't the most likable person around, but he never made enemies either. And if he did, he didn't show it to Yusaku. Either someone had a one-sided personal vendetta against the man or the murder was done as a cover-up for something greater.

Yusaku couldn't decide which.

He then noticed that Conan was not in the room with them, the little boy in glasses that had become of his teenage son mysteriously not there despite the murder beneath their noses.

Partly out of concern and partly because he knew that his boy had found a lead, Yusaku turned to Kogoro Mouri, Conan's caretaker, and asked, "I thought you were with him, that boy in glasses?"

Kogoro's eyes lit up as the question processed through his slowly sobering brain.

"Oh, you mean Conan? He was here a while ago, but after seeing the dying message on the k-"

Kogoro suddenly stopped mid-sentence as he turned to look at the computer, his breath hitched as a bead of sweat dripped down his paling face.

Yusaku felt a deep-rooted fear and concern suddenly spring up from inside of himself as he saw Kogoro practically freeze in place. While Kogoro could be a moron and a fool, he was not a coward. In fact, Yusaku felt he was too brave for his own good. For something other than heights to cause him such fear...

Meanwhile, Megure had noticed Kogoro's reaction, but was taking a much more bashful reaction to it.

"Oi, what's gotten in you, Mouri-kun? Even a man who sleeps as much as you can't be-"

When Megure, and finally Yusaku, followed Kogoro's line of sight, they saw something that shook them down to their core.

On the dead Kashimura's monitor, amidst a field of static and flowing 1s and 0s, was a crimson eye. Staring unyielding at them, like a prowling monster behind a veil of code and binary. Despite doing nothing but existing, Yusaku could feel it looking at him like sadistic killers did at their prey.

With rage, madness, and hunger.

At first, Yusaku rationalized that this was probably just another program Kashimura had. Another component of the Cocoons, maybe. Maybe a piece of the killer's arsenal, if he wanted to stretch it.

He threw away that explanation when he remembered Kashimura's hard drive was dead due to the actions of the murderer and thus, it couldn't be the work of anyone involved in the crime.

No, it was something else entirely.

"W-What is that?" Yusaku heard Agasa comment as Shiratori, a detective in the room, began backing away toward the door.

And just as the man's hand connected with the doorknob, the room transformed.

Suddenly, the lights of the computer mainframes lit up, bathing the room in their iridescent glow. Then, all at once, it turned blood red before pulsating like a beating heart.

Yusaku heard Kogoro scream and Shiratori curse as he desperately turned the door knob.

"W-What's going on!?!?" Megure exclaimed, desperate for answers.

However, instead of answers, the cables from the walls started ripping themselves off from their sockets. Then, like a maddening chorus, electricity began bouncing all over the place.

"AAAAAAHHHHH!!!" Kogoro screamed as he and Agasa huddled together in front of bouncing cords of doom.

The poor fish in the aquarium were already dead by the time Yusaku saw the cables start heading towards them.

"THERE! EVERYONE, OUT!"

Compared to the hell that had become of the room, Shiratori's demanding and panicking voice felt like a breath of fresh air.

Not even caring about paying attention to where he was going, Yusaku attempted to make a mad dash for the door, the other adults in the room immediately following behind.

All the while, the electricity grew more and more violent. Every electronic in the office was whirring, like a cacophony of horrific laughter at their miserable fate.

*SHATTER!*

Suddenly, as Yusaku crossed one foot over the doorframe, the light bulbs began exploding. Shattered glass quickly covered the five men as Kogoro and Agasa screamed like victims in a horror movie. Yusaku felt his pulse quicken as he began feeling the air from the outside rush in only to get electrified.

So close, yet so far. Yusaku closed his eyes and braced for one of two outcomes: His death or his freedom.

Then…

BANG!

The door was quickly shut behind them, the chaos and horrors of that…thing…now contained in the crime scene. Yusaku looked around to assess the status of the survivors.

Kogoro had his body up against the door, his hair and suit disheveled as he used himself as a meatshield to contain the madness. Meanwhile, Agasa was gripping his knees in an attempt to steady himself, Megure was desperately holding onto his iconic hat in some semblance of mental recoperation, and Shiratori was holding his heart as he panted rapidly.

They all stood there, panting for a few seconds, before anyone spoke.

The first one to break the silence was Kogoro.

"What…was that!?!"

Despite similarly wanting answers, Yusaku knew that question was impossible to answer with the minimal evidence that they had. And that thought alone terrified him.

"I-I don't know," Shiratori stuttered out, his calm demeanor shattered by the horrible experience, "T-There wasn't any software saved on the dead hardrive that could've caused anything like this…"

Megure readjusted his lopsided hat and desperately tried to regain his composure.

"W-We need to alert the staff running the game that this has happened immediately!"

Yusaku nodded. While he knew deep down that by the time they got up there, they would've noticed, Yusaku knew this could be disastrous for the game. Or, specifically, the participants.

If that...program could attack them like that, manipulate electricity and technology in such a way that it could easily attempt to kill five grown men...

God, imagine what it could do in a virtual world full of children. Who had no idea what was coming...

Shinichi...

Understanding the gravity of the situation, Yusaku sprinted toward the control, the footsteps of the other four men following close behind.

As such, their surroundings became a blur, any individuals they came across ignored in favor of reaching the control room. It was like everything was in slow motion, every step like the ticking seconds on a doomsday clock.

Secretly, Yusaku prayed. Prayed that the game hadn't started. Prayed that whatever took over his dead friend's computer hadn't moved it's sights to the children inside the Cocoons.

His own son...a victim of that...thing...

He couldn't fathom it.

"O-Oi, are you alr-"

"SHUT DOWN THE GAME, NOW!"

Yusaku hadn't even registered that he and the others had reached the control room until he felt the words scream themselves out of his mouth. He probably looked like a feral animal right now, covered in light cuts from the shattered glass and singes from the electricity.

But he didn't care.

"W-What is the meaning of this?!" Yusaku heard the president, Schindler, shout demandingly.

"Something happened in the crime scene!" Shiratori tried to explain as Agasa immediately ran over to pull someone off one of the consoles so he could use it.

"Oi, Oi, what are you do-"

"THIS IS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH!" Agasa shouted as he pushed the young man he grabbed onto the floor. He then began vigorously typing away at the console in front of him, much to the shock of everyone in the room except Yusaku, Megure, Shiratori, and Kogoro.

"What on earth is going on!? And what do you mean 'crime scene'?!" Schindler demanded as he grasped Yusaku's shoulder.

Yusaku didn't even attempt to sugarcoat the words. His rage, his desparation, and his worry outweighed nearly all of his logic.

"Kashimura Tadaaki-san was found dead in his office, Shacho[President in Japanese]! And the children will be next if we don't hurry!"

He saw Schindler twitch with an emotion, an understandable reaction.

But it wasn't shock, grief, or even horror.

It was confusion. As if he didn't expect those words to come out of Yusaku's mouth. As if he expected something to be completely different about the current situation.

Yusaku shelved that for later as he heard Agasa aggressively type on the keyboard. However, before he could do anything else...

*KZRRT!*

Kogoro and Megure then screamed bloody murder.

The symbol appeared. Right there, where Agasa's windows and tabs used to be.

But it wasn't just there.

Suddenly, echoes of confusion began filling the entire room. People were either baffled or screaming at their computers with no in between. The lights began flickering and the sound of unauthorized data being processed filled the room like maddening sirens.

Yusaku darted his eyes around to figure out what was going on, only to see the same, haunting eye plastered on every screen.

"AHHHHH!!! W-What's going on!?"

Suddenly, Kogoro screamed again and fell on his behind before scooting several meters back. He then pointed toward the main screen of the game as voices of confusion from the main floor began filling the air.

Yusaku turned...to see the eye.

And underneath it, an ultimatum, written in crimson red technical font.

However, it wasn't in Japanese.

It was in French.

However, Yusaku could read it. He was bilingual in the language, similarly to English. So, he read it out.

And...what it roughly translated to was:

"I am XANA. As of the 10th of December, 2003, 23:24:34, your children are mine to command."

No...

"T-That can't be!" Agasa shouted desperately before trying to regain control of the system. However, despite his best efforts...the sound of the system denying him access filled the air with tension.

Then, on the screens, there was a sudden showcase of everyone participating in the game. All of the children, unaware of the entity that had them in their clutches.

"RANNNNNNN!!!!!" Kogoro hollered before running towards the glass of the control room, the image of a defenseless and sleeping Ran Mouri briefly plastered on the screen for a second before moving onto the next child.

So many faces...so many poor souls...

And finally, when it ended at Conan Edogawa, his son, his successor, his little Holmes...

Yusaku collapsed.

"Oh god no..." He whispered...but it felt as loud as thunder.

He heard Megure run up to restrain the now grieving Kogoro, his tears now like raindrops. Pounding and pounding and pounding against their souls.

"MOURI-KUN, HOLD YOURSELF TOGETHER!"

Despite how shrill Megure's voice was, his face told a different story. Pain and sorrow.

Yusaku looked at the screen again. His son...Shinichi...

Was he going to ever see him again?

Yusaku, despite being the genius that he was, knew it was unlikely.

This XANA had their children in their clutches. It would take a miracle to save them.

As the sound of their parents screaming and crying for their children filled the outside, and Kogoro's cries for Ran and the fast keystrokes of Agasa's typing filled the inside...

Yusaku collided his fist with the floor.

If only they had a miracle...

[scaramouche-bully]

can i req fem!sub / if you want gender neutral is ok, about being brat on the bed? and (seperate) kaeya, diluc ,xiao &childe respond on it?

— ☆ Bratty Sub headcanons 

Includes: Kaeya, Diluc, Xiao, and Childe

[ Sub ] Gender-neutral reader

Contains: Bratty sub, riding, dacryphilia, humiliation, rough sex, switching, coming untouched, dirty talk, degradation, choking, slut shaming, stomach bulge, masocism, minor blood, drooling + dumfication. 

— ☆ Wrecking headcanons - Childe 🐏 [ Female ]

[ masterlist ]

Apologies for the long delay. It’s been busy. 

I’ve updated my rules to limit requests to two or fewer characters as to not overwhelm myself. But since this request was before the change, I will write all four. For future requesters, please stick to two characters. 

— ☆ Kaeya

As soon as you talk back to him, he gives you most amused but pitiful look you’ve ever seen. He takes a moment to chuckle under his breath before he’s hoisting you up onto his lap, leaning his cheek on his hand, and gestures for you to continue. 

You must think you’re so cute right now. Suddenly thinking that you’re in charge? Alright, if you want to be on top then go. He won’t do anything. Let’s see how long it’ll take for you to start whining. 

He loves the flustered look you get when he suddenly gives into your demands. The brave face you try and put on as you slowly ease onto his thick cock and the frustrated whimpers you try and hide. 

It’s only when you start apologizing that he disapprovingly sighs as he grips your hips, so hard that bruises will appear the next day, and slams you down on his cock. 

“Talking back to me when you can’t even fuck yourself on my cock properly. What am I going to do with you?” he grunts out as your walls tighten around him and you scrabble to hold onto him, “You’re going to take every drop of my cum until your hole is stuffed got it? Aren’t I kind? Go on, thank me.” 

“T-Thank..mm! Yo-You -ahh! More, ah! ” you stammer out as you claw at Kaeya’s back as he forcefully lifts you and drops you on his cock. The heavy drag of his dick against your sensitive spots is maddening that muddle your head. Every time Kaeya thrusts in you feel the breath get punched out of your lungs, the skin of your abdomen stretch and burn as you try and make room for his cock. You don’t realize that you’re crying out to him as you sob into his shoulder. 

“Look at you, does that hurt? Too bad. Maybe if you didn’t act like such  a brat I would be a lot nicer,” he laughs as he viciously grabs your hair and lifts your tear stained face up “Maybe I should take a picture so I can show everyone in Mondstadt what a slut you are?”

He drops your face harshly as he grips your wrists and pulls your hands behind you before he flips you both over so he’s on top of you. Your arms are at an awkward angle that strain them but when he suddenly starts pounding into you with the new leverage, whatever complaints you have are quickly replaced with moans. You mewl at the idea, your friends and family seeing how much of a wreck Kaeya can make you. It makes you burn in humiliation at the idea and you know that Kaeya would do it in a heartbeat. It’s that thought that has you cumming as Kaeya curses and buries himself as deep as he can go, painting your insides with his cum. While you’re catching your breath, Kaeya swipes at the cum that leaked out of your hole as he brings his cum stained fingers to your mouth.

“Open up,” he says, his voice sweet even as he pry’s your mouth open for you. You, naturally, bite his fingers but also lick him clean. It makes his star pupils dilate as he takes in the image before shoving his fingers into the back of your throat so you choke, “You’re so cute. It seems I have a lot to teach you about manners brat.”

— ☆ Diluc

Diluc has to deal with too many problematic issues given to him by incompetent people. It’s weeks like these when his patience runs extremely thin, even when he tries to suppress his temper. 

Naturally, these are your favourite weeks to irk the man. To see just how much you can get away with and how far you can push his limits. From walking around with barely any clothes to flirting with the Knights that attend Angel Share.

Diluc is used to your...mannerisms. That is until Kaeya appears and he’s already glaring at you before you can make a move. Don’t you dare even try it unless you don’t want to walk the next day. 

It takes one touch on your waist from Kaeya for Diluc to snap. He’s closing the bar early and even the drunkards can tell Diluc is pissed. Kaeya blows you a kiss and a wave over the shoulder to Diluc as he locks the door behind him. 

Diluc manhandles you to the bar counter until you’re bent over with your wrists pinned behind your back. You can feel the anger radiate off Diluc as you peer over your shoulder at him. While he has a calm face, his eyes are feral as he adjusts his glove. That’s the only warning you get before he slips his hand to the front of your neck and squeezes with a vice grip. 

“D-Dil-” you cough out before you’re cut with a yelp by Diluc forcefully shoving your pants down as he shoves his fingers in, gloves still on, and stretch's your hole out. 

“Pathetic, you’re already this wet and I haven’t even done anything. Are you going to make a mess over my floors? You know what’ll happen if you do,” Diluc sneers as he arches your back and brings your face next to his, “Do you like being choked? Is that it? You filthy whore getting off on being used like this.”

“Hah..haha...Ka-Kaeya is nn-- oh is rough-er!” you manage to wheeze out as you stick your tongue out at Diluc. He still wears that same neutral expression but you can see something dark swirl in his eyes. He mumbles out, is that so? Before he slams you back down onto the counter top. You’re a bit dazed from the impact that you don’t hear the rustle of clothes, a belt unbuckling, before you’re being rammed into by Diluc’s cock. Your hands are scrabbling onto the countertop for some type of purchase as Diluc wastes no time and abuses your sensitive walls. 

“You’re. Mine.” Each word is punctuated by a deep thrust into you, “No one can fuck you like I can. Not those useless knights. Not Kaeya. Not anyone. Got it?”

You’re dumb on the pleasure of his cock rearranging your insides that you don’t respond that Diluc clicks his tongue, bends down, and sinks his teeth into your neck. An area he knows you can’t hide with your clothes and it’s too hot to be wearing a scarf without making it obvious to what’s happening now. The burst of pain is enough to send you over the edge and orgasm on his cock. Diluc curses under his breath at your walls tightening around him as he cum inside you as he catches his breath. 

“Answer me when I ask you a question.”

“Y-Yes sir...you’re the only one. Only you. Always you...” 

Your words manage to sooth him a little bit but it irks him that you’re drooling all over his countertop that he just cleaned. It’s fine, he thinks, he can make you lick it up later. 

— ☆ Xiao

He's a puppy that wants to impress you, but everyone has a breaking point. The constant taunting of how, despite being a powerful adepti, he can’t even pleasure a mortal in bed sends something feral inside him ablaze. 

He doesn’t want to hurt you so he focuses his efforts into fucking you so good that you end up babbling praises instead. It makes him feel so warm inside when he sees your normally smug face turn dumb as you tell him he’s doing so well. 

It’s the only time you can ask Xiao to be more rough with you without him worrying about breaking you. It’s so cute to you that he tries so hard that you can’t help but tease him a bit. 

“Good boy Xiao. You’re doing so well,” you whisper against Xiao’s lips as you softy kiss him. You’re finally seated on his cock with his fingers are digging into your sides, strong enough to leave marks. It took a bit of coaxing from you to get Xiao to release the death grip he had on the sheets and to move his hands to your waist. If you didn’t see hand prints or bruises the next day, you were going to make this man cry. You slowly rock back and forth as you softly moan at the feeling of his cock inside you as you make small bounces. 

“Don’t you feel good?” you ask as you take one of his hands off your waist and lead his fingers to your hole where you’re both connected. Lacing your fingers together as you force him to jerk off the small length of his cock that appears every bonce you make, “Come on. Go faster. Show me what an adeptus can do.”

“A-Are you sure?” Xiao stammers out as he looks up at you worried. His grip on your body slackens considerably as you sigh before cupping his cheeks. 

“Xiao. Are you saying you can’t? Is it too much for someone of the adepti? What a let down you are, if you can’t do it then I’ll go find someone that cAN-!” you choke on your words as Xiao suddenly slams you on your back and drives his cock to the hilt. This time he’s taking your hand in his as he places your linked hands onto your stomach so you can feel his cock wrecking your insides through your stomach. 

“W-Wait! Xiao! Ah-!”

He pulls out harshly only to slam back in desperately as he rutts against you. His cock is practically gushing pre-come as he slowly loses his sense of rhythm. A deep feral part inside him relishes in the fact that it’s his cock that makes you like this. Pupils blown wide, head thrown back, tongue lolling out. As much as it makes your entire body tremble at the onslaught of pleasure, you can’t help but let a small delirious smile appear on your face. You reach out and cling onto him, digging your nails in so deep that he bleeds, and tell him to fuck you stupid. That he’s doing such a good job and to not stop. 

“I love you, I love you, I love you” he chants as he grinds his cock into you as he cums inside and fills you with his cum. The rush of warmth has you orgasming with him. Your linked hands still on your stomach where his cum paints your walls. 

— ☆ Childe

He really likes switching half way during your fucking. As soon as you’ve had your fill being on top, he’s switching the roles. He might have been crying and begging you to let him cum a few seconds ago but now it’s his time to payback. 

Due to the abrupt switch, you’re still high on your ride and refuse to let his child take control. He loves how feral you both get in your attempts to dominate the other. 

When he finally manages to pin you down, the blood of the scratches and bite marks are still stinging but the pain get’s him rock hard. It’s like any other fight and the feeling of victory gives him a rush. 

He wastes no time in pounding into you, watching you scream as you curse him out as him laughing, leaning over to kiss you as he proceeds to rail you.  

He knows as soon as he kisses you, you’re biting his lips raw. The taste of blood makes him smirk against your own mouth and he feels your exasperated sigh at his kinks. It’s a small moment of respite as you both make out without trying to claw each other’s eyes out. When you finally separate for air, there’s a red line of saliva linking your mouths together that breaks when Childe sits up and wipes his mouth. 

“A bit eager are we?” he taunts as his fingers run over your skin, covered in his hand prints as marks, before settling on your hip. He doesn’t need to look to know his body isn’t any different. He better hope that he doesn’t need to change his shirt in front of the anyone or else they’ll suspect he went and fought a bear again. A cruel laugh escapes you as you reach up and drag him back down to your level as you whisper in his ear.

“It’s a pity fuck Tartaglia.” 

There’s a pause as Childe registers what you said before a switch flips off in his head. He lets out a low growl as he flips you onto your stomach and rams his cock into you. He relishes in the wail you let out as he grips your neck to pin your head onto the bed as he rails you into the mattress. You’re so tight around him that he has to forcefully drag his cock out just to thrust back in. He doesn’t understand how you can stay so tight even after all the rounds you both had previously. 

“You, ngh--ah! b...hah...bastard!” you gasp out and you claw at the sheets as his cock fucks you so well. He slams in so deep that has you spasming with each and every thrust. 

“Behave now,” he hisses out as he bites down on the back of neck as he muffles his moans as he cums inside you. Feeling him spill inside you sends a shudder of pleasure through your body that has your withering on his cock as you cum alongside him. When you’ve both caught your breath is when you elbow him in the stomach and knock him backwards so you’re back on top. He can tell you’re pissed and he’s never felt more excited. 

[manybcdthings]

What the hell was happening right now? This cramped, strange apartment felt like a world Felix had accidentally stumbled into, something far removed from the familiar chaos of The Wards. The usual hum of the streets, the distant sounds of arguments and traffic, all seemed muted here, like the place had swallowed everyone whole. Even the air felt different, thicker, slower but somehow brighter the second she walked in. Suddenly, it wasn't just any apartment. This was Astra's. And now, standing in her space, everything clicked. The disarray, the way the room seemed both lived-in and untouched. It all made sense the moment his eyes landed on her.

Her face was somehow caught between dream and reality. Her skin was this warm, dusky tone, flawless yet freckled with these tiny constellations that flickered under the dim light, making her look…fucking ethereal. What the fuck was in that spice? Her full lips were on the verge of a smile, light, almost playful but Felix saw how it was loaded with something heavier, like she knew a secret the world hadn't yet caught up to. Was that spice fucking spiked? Blink, Felix. But her eyes hooked him in. Big, dark, fringed with long lashes, they were the kind of eyes that seemed to see more than just the person standing in front of her. And then there was her hair, a wild tumble of dark curls that framed her face like a crown, each twist and spiral refusing to be tamed. She was chaos, and somehow, perfectly at peace with it.

The fabric she wore clung to her frame yet somehow drifted, as if caught in a breeze Felix couldn't feel. What the fuck is happening? He couldn't tear his gaze away. And when she beckoned without a word, it felt like the most natural thing in the world to follow. Almost like he wasn't in control anymore, not of his feet, not of his thoughts. And it wasn't even about the pills anymore. That gnawing craving had dulled, almost forgotten. Almost.

She led him through the kitchen, gliding between counters like they weren't even there. Felix trailed behind her, careful not to bump into anything, his eyes never leaving her. When she told him to close his eyes, he let out a dry, disbelieving chuckle. "Okay…" it was ridiculous, but he did it. Shut his eyes and felt his other senses sharpen, tuned to every tiny sound she made. The soft clink of her bracelets, the faint rustle of her necklaces. The way she laughed at nothing while opening a cupboard. Felix could almost see it, despite his eyes being closed, her delicate fingers moving with that same ethereal ease as before.

"I do want pain meds, yeah." he nodded, the words coming out softer than he'd expected. Why was he talking like that? How did she know what he wanted? And how long had he been standing here, eyes shut like a complete idiot? Time didn't feel real in this apartment. It bent, stretched, slowed. Maybe it was the haze of spice that had lulled him into this weird calm, or maybe it was Astra herself. He could even feel when she moved closer, the air shifting around her like she was made of something lighter than the rest of them.

He stayed quiet until she finally told him to open his eyes. A small bag was pressed into his palm, but Felix didn't even look at it at first. His thumb ran absently over the fabric, brushing the ribbon, while his eyes stayed on her. She watched him, and for a moment, it was like nothing else existed in that space. Then, finally, he looked down at the little purple bag and back up to her again. Suddenly, his brain caught up, and reality hit. Everything she said sank in, and disappointment flickered across his face. He had been too distracted by the tone of her voice, how soft yet confident it was. How sweet she sounded. "No, I, um-" he shook his head, the frustration creeping back in, that hunger that had momentarily been erased. "Not my thing." Hallucinogens? Fuck no. Felix was pretty sure he'd end up in a nightmare he couldn't wake up from if he touched that stuff.

"I just want..." he huffed, glancing at the door, then back to Astra. "I appreciate the offer, but…" he tossed the bag lightly upwards, catching it by the ribbon before handing it back to her. "Do you know anyone who's got pain meds? At this point, I'd even take a muscle relaxer." his grin was faint but evident, and a moment of silence followed as his eyes scanned between hers. Finally, it felt like himself was returning after however long of being...outside of himself? Felix's grin widened, a chuckle leaving him. "You're not drunk, you're high. How could you trip sit me if you're fucked up?" he pointed lightly to her face, the way he had finally now noticed her deep, endless eyes were even darker from dilated pupils. But, he schooled his expression and cleared his throat, even if the grin lingered over his lips. "Just anything that's sort of...down, you know? I have a feeling you're more...up."

Astra slips into her apartment, her laughter bubbling up as she exchanges playful comments with Indie and Nyla. She barely registers the people sprawled across her apartment or the low hum of conversation around her. It's always like this. People come and go, drifting in and out of her space like ghosts. Most of them barely stick around long enough to know, just faces in the haze of spice and time. Astra knows the rhythm, and without needing to look, she feels it, an energy that's different. But, not disruptive. Someone new. Someone.

As she moves deeper into the room, he catches at the edge of her awareness. A weight. But she doesn't bother turning her head, she's felt this sort of tension before. Desperation, sadness rolling off someone in waves, needing to use her apartment like an escape. They stay a while, melt into the cushions, and disappear. She assumes it's the same with him, the presence she feels off to the side, another transient energy passing through, searching for a moment of nothing.

But then someone breaks the flow. This guy wants some pills, Astra.

That makes her pause. Her eyes flick toward the newcomer, catching him fully for the first time. A subtle shift ripples through her as the universe taps her on the shoulder, stars whispering something only she can hear. You're meant to know him. Her breath stills for a second, the room's lazy atmosphere folding inward around the two of them. Suddenly, he's not just another shadow passing through her space. His presence is so much sharper now, more real.

Her gaze holds his for just a moment longer than usual, a small amusement at the way he's suddenly on his feet. But there'ss a sadness she recognizes, and it settles in her like a familiar melody, something she's heard before. She doesn't know what it is yet, but she understands. That knowing look dances across her face, a small, almost imperceptible smile lifting at the edges of her lips.

Without saying a word, she beckons him with a soft tilt of her head, her finger curling to make him follow, mischief in her eyes. And with that she's gone, knowing he'll not be far behind. The kitchen is a tight, cluttered mess, barely enough room to move without bumping into something. Shelves crammed with jars, plants, incense holders. The air smells of sandalwood, thick with the warmth of burning herbs. Astra moves through the space like it’s second nature, her fingers brushing past a row of tiny vials and glass bottles. "Close your eyes." she murmurs, the words floating out of her mouth as if they've been waiting for him all along. It's not a command, more like a suggestion, soft and sure, as though they've known each other for years.

She pulls aside an old tapestry that covers the back wall, revealing a hidden cupboard. The fabric rustles softly as she shifts some boxes out of the way, her bracelets chiming together with a light, musical sound. Astra giggles when she fumbles with the key dangling from one of her many necklaces, trying once or twice to fit it into the lock. "Ha, he-wait, I'm a little drunk." she admits with a soft laugh, before the cupboard finally creaks open.

Inside, bottles and vials are arranged in a chaotic fashion, like an alchemist's hoard. Lola's doing, probably. She rummages through them, her fingers brushing over various boxes, until she pulls out a small, delicate one. She turns to him, her eyes searching his face for a second longer. "You want pain pills, I'm guessing." she says quietly, as if she's reading his mind but she seems to know that he's searching for numbness. "Well, I don't do that. But this is better." Astra presses a small, lace bag into his palm, tied with a ribbon the color of amethyst.

His eyes are still closed, just as she told him. Her smile widens, a little amusement coloring her voice as she whispers. "Oh, you're a good listener but you can open your eyes now." she chuckles. "Lumen." she then says, dark eyes darting to the bag and back to his face. "Or, starstep. It's very strong, you won't feel a thing except...well..." she snickers. "Everything." it's a powerful hallucinogen that sends users into vivid, surreal mental landscapes. Astra knows it's the kind of experience that cracks you open, pulls you deeper into yourself. The kind of escape he might not know he needs. "Very safe. Very lovely, warm. Like a big hug. You look like you need one." her eyes are still on his face before another chuckle slips free. "Half a pill first, to be safe. You can take it here, we'll look after you."

[dabisbratz]

another collab with @slutouya !! but this time it’s kiribaku! all characters and participants are 18+ and have adult bodies.

words: 1.7k

WARNING: nsfw, bondage, sensory deprivation (soft), dp in one hole, ftm reader, uses the term “cunt,” squirting, dirty talk, name calling/degradation. if you are uncomfortable with any of that please turn away!

Beneath the dimmed light, you sit with your vision obstructed by a warm cloth. It smells familiar, the scent of smoke and cinnamon violating your nostrils until it’s overwhelming. This way your senses are heightened, you can feel the rustle of bedsheets and cotton rubbing against your knees, the sound of barely audible breaths, the taste of anticipation on your tongue. You’re not entirely sure what’s going on, but you feel safe nonetheless. Your thighs are spread in a strained position, but you only truly realize once the clothes covering them are ripped away. You shiver, a sharp trickle of cool air running up your spine. A warning would’ve been nice, but you can’t complain for long.

“First of all, why the fuck am I tied up and two, why am I fucking naked. What the hell are you doing? If this is a joke it’s not funny-” Your voice was silenced by a pair of hands pulling you forward on the bed until your front hit someone’s chest. The skin on your arm started to burn slightly from the rope keeping them behind your back. Your mind suddenly started to click together- realizing Ashido must’ve spilled the beans about your fantasies and daydreams about the two of them. The other one snuck up behind you and they both started to lick and bite at any skin they could reach.

Your protests are cut short when particularly sharp teeth reach your neck, just below your jaw and above its base. With your other senses heightened like this it’s almost impossible not to moan. It feels more like pure pleasure than pain, a sensation that wracks your entire body and has your fists clenching against vibrant rope. You can feel large palms push your shoulders down, forcing you to relax against whoever’s biting at you. While one bites, the other gropes, squeezing in just the right places with just the right amount of pressure. God, it’s so good. Unreasonably so, and your skin is almost too sensitive against those warm palms. It makes you want to rip off that blindfold and cry. Guide their hands further down, further up, everywhere and anywhere.

“A little bird told us about your dirty fuckin’ dreams,” You’d recognize that voice anywhere- you were now able to conclude that Katsuki was kneeling behind you and you were sitting on Eijiro’s lap. You could feel his cock against your thigh, so close and yet so, so far from where you needed him to be. You can feel the redhead smile against your skin as you tried to grind your hips against him, only- what you assume to be Katsuki’s hands- stopped you. “Such a dirty fuckin’ boy. Thinkin’ about me n’ shitty hair fucking this stupid (cunt/hole) open.” You wished you could cover your face in hopes of hiding your embarrassment through the ropes made damn sure your arms weren’t moving any time soon. “Can’t wait to tear this stupid body apart.”

“Aw, Bakugo! Don’t be too harsh on him,” The redhead speaks into your ear, biting at your lobe with shark-like teeth. His voice is sweet and thick like honey. You may not be able to chase release through him, but he could very easily use you how he pleased. Whether that was thrusting forward to grind his cock against you or getting Katsuki to bounce you on his lap, he had you wrapped around his finger. They both did. You’re sandwiched between the two of them, and you can feel their cocks throb with every second that passes. Though the humiliation makes your face go aflame, the thought of Kirishima and Bakugou yearning to put you in your place makes your mouth water. You could be a good boy, their good boy, you could sit there and take it. But you just needed a little more. “After all, I got a few things I wanna say, too. I think his greedy little cunt just wants something inside it. You wanna milk our cocks, sweetheart? I know you’ll take it all, sweet thing.”

Did they want a response? You didn’t know. Though, as you assumed they did want one, the minute you began formulating a response, Eijiro was quite quick in running his tip through your folds before enveloping your waist almost completely in his hands to pull you against his lap and fully sink down on his cock. Your jaw automatically fell slack, all sound seemingly caught in the back of your throat. Bakugo’s hands left your body and you whined in response. Something cold dripped around your other hole and you gathered what was happening, “Wait wait! Do- fuck me, yes-” It was difficult to formulate any response with the way Eijiro’s tip rocked against your cervix. “Both in- please-” The angry blonde was smart, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what you were attempting to beg for.

“Aw, the little slut wants us both in his tiny cunt.” He spoke in a sing-song voice while Kiri cooed in your ear. You didn’t need to nod at them for them to realize that that was indeed what you were trying to beg for. The anticipation that came with not being able to see was killing you. Were they silently talking to each other? Were they actually gonna even do it? What was taking them so long? Every thought that was racing about in your head was put down the minute you felt Eijiro slip out and only leave the tip and Katsuki’s followed suit. They both rested there for a minute in hopes of giving you a minute to prepare for the both of them.

Holy shit— oh God — you were so full. It was nearly impossible to move. They’re so thick, stretching you out further than you didn’t even know was possible. It felt like you were on fire, with heat prickling at your skin and building in your stomach. Their moans are just as heavy as the feeling of their cocks buried deep inside your cunt, and the second one of them starts moving you can feel your brain turn to mush. Your vision goes blurry as you blink away tears, and you can feel soft hands cupping your cheek. You have no choice but to sink further down, to take it all and let your mind go dumb. There’s nowhere else you’d rather be, stuck between two handsome men who will happily pound away whatever you have coursing through your mind and- oh, fuck, when Katsuki moves you swear you see stars.

“You take it so well. Fuckin’ made to do it. Love watching you get all wet and sloppy, you goin’ dumb on me now?” You have a feeling Katsuki loves to listen to himself talk, but you don’t complain- not that you can. Your back arches naturally against both men, and your head falls back onto broad shoulders. It’s so much, too much, and it has you wailing. The blond pats your cheek to get your attention. “Asked you a- fucking!- fuckin’ question. You want me to hit that sweet spot of yours? Pound some fuckin’ sense into you? C’mon, slut, I know you can take it.”

“Please, please- yes! yes!- fuck!” What were you begging for? You had no idea. But after you’d finished your incessant begging, it seemed to spur one- both of them on even further than before. Katsuki grabbed one of the lines of rope that kept your arms together to easily pull your body into their well-timed thrusts. The stretch burned so well throughout your entire body. You’d never felt anything like it before, they knew that. The sheer force of their thrusts almost made it seem like they were trying to carve the shape of their cocks into you. Though you didn’t actually know it, that’s exactly what they were doing. Neither of them had any plans of letting off to someone else- not after this. Oh how you wish you could see because maybe if you could see you would’ve seen the rough smack to your ass from the blonde coming. Except you felt a slight unfamiliar heat to his slaps. Slap! The string of moans that clawed out of your throat were uncontrollable, not that you could have ever even tried to contain them with the way the curve of their cocks perfectly angled them to slam against your cervix every single time.

“You’re so messy, really working for these cocks, aren't you? So greedy..” Eijirou groans when he feels you flutter around him, hugging his cock tightly. He lets his eyes flutter shut as he grasps whatever he can, holding his bottom lip between his teeth. You felt so good, perfect even, and each time their thrusts synced up perfectly, he could see Bakugou’s eyes roll to the back of his head. His grip on you is hard enough to bruise, and you look forward to seeing any traces of the two on your skin later. You hope to have more than that, load after load of their cum stuffed deep inside you until you can't hold any more. The sound of their skin colliding with yours fills the air along with grunts and moans, and if his cock brushes against Bakugou’s while you clamp down on him one more time he isn’t sure if he’ll last any longer.

Though neither are you- and it’s clear with the way you desperately try to say something while trying to cling onto something, anything. “C- it’s- f-mmph! It’s- please!” Bakugo’s menacing laugh rang through your ears like church bells,

“S’the little cockwhore gonna cum? Yeah? ‘Wanna see you cum on our big cocks and only ours- because you're ours now, yeah?” Katsuki babbled on too lost in the feeling of trying to chase that high you three needed.

“Or maybe he wants us to cum inside?” Even if you couldn’t see, you could practically feel Eijiro smiling through his teeth like he always does. Their hips stuttered when you clenched around them tighter even at the mere idea of it. “Yeah that’s what he wants isn’t it?” Your jaw clenched, with another slap to your ass your cum was spilling out on their cocks and their lower stomachs and thighs.

“How cute- little boy squirted from some cock.” Kiri was the one to continue speaking. With a few shallow and quick thrust from the both of them, neither of them pulled out like you asked and you could feel your stomach bulge slightly from their cum.

“Happy birthday extra.”

“Happy birthday sweetheart.”

[moonlit-reveriee]

Baby Blue

technoblade x fem!reader

concept: techno is scared of ‘corrupting’ the reader, but the reader’s kinda into it...

content warning // NSFW, virgin!reader, very minor angst?, small argument that gets resolved

listen to this while you read: BBBlue (Single) by Olivver the Kid

(this fic was heavily inspired by the lyrics of this song, so i highly recommended giving it a listen!)

───※ ·❆· ※───

When Techno found out you were a virgin, he was terrified. Not necessarily of the thought itself, but of the implications.

He’d never forget the look on your face when you told him. You tried to be casual about it, but he knew you well enough to spot the dusting of pink across your cheeks. You nuzzled yourself closer into his side. Whether out of embarrassment or something else entirely, he couldn’t tell. All he could feel was his heart dropping as the voices chanted at him to “ruin her”

Of course you, his pure sweet angel, would be a virgin. He once again crumbled under the idea that you had chosen him. How on earth could a person like you even think of being with a beast like him. Yet alone, giving up your virginity to him.

He hated how horribly turned on he was by the thought of taking it.

The voices had been relentless about it ever since. They were hyper focused on your every move, twisting every thought of his into something promiscuous. When you rolled out of bed in the morning and stretched, a small sigh escaping your lips, it was endless cries of “make her do that again” “you should fuck those moans out of her” “make her scream”

While making breakfast together in the morning, they wouldn’t stop telling him to “bend her over the counter” “take it right here”

Even at times where he was alone, the voices preoccupied him with endless thoughts of you. He was fairly certain they had forced him to imagine every possible way in which he could have you. “imagine fucking her against the wall” “you can be gentle for the first time y’know” “she’d feel so good writhing underneath us” “press her face into the mattress instead” “make her get on her knees and suck you off” “she’ll be such a pretty little slut for us”

He tried to take care of himself as often as he could, but it was becoming impossible to keep up with. There were only so many times a day he could jerk himself off alone behind locked doors. He was desperate, and sexually frustrated to say the least.

He felt disgusting for it.

After a week of this torment, he could barely even look at you yet alone touch you without the voices and his own guilt pounding against his skull. You couldn’t even think about broaching the subject again, because he was avoiding physical contact like the plague. He wouldn’t come to bed until he knew you were asleep, and would leave long before you woke.

As much as he tried to hide it, you could tell he was tired. Something was wrong, but you knew that he’d never just tell you about his problems unprompted. Techno was insufferably stubborn in that way. After several days of avoiding your gaze and leaning away from your touch, you chose to confront him.

“Techno”, you called for his attention quietly, trying to sound stern while remaining gentle with him. He didn’t turn to fully face you, but he glanced at the spot on the wall just above your head.

You struggled to find the words you wanted to say, so you settled on telling him, “Techno, you look tired.”

He turned his attention away from you. “Just a lot of work around the house this week. I’ll be fine after I rest.”

“Then come to bed with me.” You saw the way his body tensed and tilted away from you at that simple suggestion.

“I just need to write a couple letters first. You can go ahead of me.”

“Techno...”, you whined, daring to take a step closer to him. He gave you an almost panicked look, “why does it feel like you’ve been avoiding me?”

“I haven’t been avoiding you”, he responded quickly, trying to look through you instead of at you.

“Yes you have”, you responded firmly. A flash of guilt washed over his face at your tone. “You haven’t kissed or touched me for nearly a week now. I don’t even know for sure if you sleep in the same bed as me anymore. Fuck, you barely even talk to me.”

Angry tears threatened to spill down your cheeks, but you wanted to hold them in. Techno felt his chest tighten at the sight of it. He instinctively turned and reached out to comfort you, but forced himself to freeze.

“There”, you said, gesturing towards him, “just like that. You’re stopping yourself. Why are you doing that?”

He repeatedly opened and closed his fists at his side, wanting to have any conversation other than this one.

“[y/n], there’s just a lot going on in my mind right now”, he said. It wasn’t a complete lie. “I just need to work though it.”

“Then let me help you.”

“No”, he responded a little too quickly, “I- I mean, I just don’t want to talk about it with you yet...”

“Why not?”, you retorted, trying to squeeze any information you could out of him.

“I just don’t, okay? It’s uncomfortable, I don’t want to talk about it yet.”

“... is this about me being a virgin?”

“I never said that”, he replied, but the tension in his shoulders was enough to tip you off.

“Ah geez Technoblade, if it was that much of a problem for ya, you should have just told me”, you said sarcastically, “instead of avoiding all physical contact for a like week straight!”

“It’s not a problem, [y/n].”

“Certainly doesn’t feel that way.”

Techno huffed in frustration, grabbing a fistful of his hair at the root. He wasn’t sure if he was more upset with himself, or the fact that a few of the voices were still begging him to “please fuck her already”

“Love, I wasn’t avoiding you because I didn’t want it. They”, he tapped a finger against the side of his skull, “they want it so badly. It’s driving me insane.”

He breathed in and out shakily, trying to gauge your expression in the brief moments before he continued.

“I’m a monster. I’ve spilt more blood than anyone every should in a single lifetime. My appearance is more beast than man.”

He looked up briefly to find you staring right at him, a tight-lipped frown upon your face.

“What does that have to do with any of this?”

“I- ... I don’t want to corrupt your innocence”, he admitted.

“What on earth do you mean by that?”

“[y/n], you’re so perfect”, he answered almost breathlessly, “you’re so kind and so pure. Just living with me does enough to taint your reputation, I don’t wanna-“

He cut himself off to swallow thickly. He almost seemed scared of the words he was going to say next.

“I don’t want to ruin this part of you either...”

A heavy silence filled the tiny sitting room of techno’s cottage. In those few seconds, your eyes widened ever so slightly as his words suddenly clicked in your mind. This hulking boar of a man, an undisputed war criminal, was scared. He was scared of damaging you, your reputation, or your recently revealed ‘innocence’. Compared to himself, he saw you as a pure being who could be tainted by unwholesome thoughts.

If what he said about the voices was true, then his actions of the past few days would’ve made sense for him.

“Oh techno...”, you muttered softly, tentatively placing a hand on his jaw. His posture was curled inward, making him look small despite his size. He was stiff at first, but allowed you to lift his gaze to meet yours. He searched your eyes desperately for an indication of your reaction. You gave him a reassuring smile.

“Do you remember when we first met?”

A small wave of confusion washed over his face, but he nodded anyways. “It was at the festival...”

“That’s right”, you said, moving the hand on his face down to rest over his shoulder, “and do you remember what I did that day?”

“You threw an axe into Schlatt’s shoulder”, he answered, watching as the scene played out in his memory.

You lived with Niki in her bakery at the time, and witnessed firsthand the injustice she faced during Schlatt’s presidency. As the chaos after Tubbo’s execution occurred, you took the opportunity to hurl your axe where Schlatt stood upon his podium. The blow wasn’t fatal, but that wasn’t necessarily your goal. You just wanted to see the man in pain.

“It was a lucky shot really”, you admitted, “I wasn’t even aiming properly.” That managed to draw a small smile onto Techno’s lips.

“And do you remember”, you continued, “when I tried to confront the Butcher Army by myself?”

He grimaced at the thought. You had told him you just needed to make a quick trip to L’manburg for some supplies, leaving him at home alone to recover from the previous day’s events. You returned that evening with a sprained wrist and a couple large bruises forming on your body. None of them were trying to kill you, but you took a pretty good beating from Quackity just for trying to confront them.

“Why are you bringing all of this up now?”, he asked.

“Because”, you said, “this is the evidence that will support my next point.”

He looked bewildered by that statement, but continued to listen.

“I’m not a perfect person”, you resumed, “I have blood on my hands just like you do. I know it’s hard to compare to you, but I’m not devoid of my own sins. I can be mean, I’ve hurt people. I’m not a pure, angelic being who would quiver at a single inappropriate thought. I think you forget that sometimes.”

He let your words swirl around in his head; he couldn’t deny the logic in them. The evidence prevented him from denying the truth of your statement. He could almost be mad that you’d talked him into a corner, but he was more overjoyed at the fact that you knew him well enough to do so.

“And you know...”, you spoke quietly, letting your hand fall down to rest on his chest, “if you did somehow ‘corrupt my innocence’ as you say... I really wouldn’t mind that.”

Techno’s breath hitched in his throat. There were a brief few moments, maybe minutes, where he just stared at you. Then his lips were on yours; sudden and clumsy, but passionate. You gripped the fabric of his shirt as he grabbed at your waist, desperate to have you in his arms again.

“I’m sorry, I had to”, he muttered, his lips left hovering a hair’s breadth away from yours.

“You’re so silly sometimes”, you sighed affectionately, rubbing small circles into his collarbone. He gave you a gentle smirk before pressing another kiss into your lips.

“I’m sorry darling, I really am”, he said as he drew you into a tight hug. He took in your scent and the feel of your skin for the first time in days. It felt like he could survive off the feeling of your arms wrapped around his body alone. He wondered why he ever let himself be depraved of this.

“You know I trust you, right?”, you spoke with your face pressed into his chest.

“I’m not sure why, but yes.”

You decided not to reprimand him for saying that. You could help him unpack all that later. Instead, you brought your head up to whisper in his ear.

“You have my full and unconditional consent to take my virginity whenever you’re ready.”

Techno inhaled and held his breath, though for what, he wasn’t sure. It took a while for the full weight of those words to sink in. He leaned back to stare at your face, bringing one of his large and shaky hands up to cup your cheek.

“Are you sure?”, his eyes were wide with trepidation, practically pleading with you to tell him the truth. You leaned into his palm, indulging in the feeling of his skin on yours.

“I want you, techno. I’ll wait as long as you need me to.”

Techno was lost in your words. The sudden absence of guilt left his heart light and airy in his chest. For the first time in days, the voices were only a gentle murmur.

“she’s so beautiful” “she wants you” “make her feel good” “show her how special she is” “make her smile” “she’ll be so pretty” “she’s always pretty” “be gentle, no need to rush”

“make love to her”

“... I think I’m ready now.”

───※ ·❆· ※───

ayyyy guess who finally finished writing something!!!

parts of this feel a little rushed but ehhhhhh i was just excited to finally post it. i looove writing techno as an extremely self-conscious character who’s too caught up in their own head to see how ridiculous they’re being. so, this was a treat for me to write

i hope you enjoyed :D

-moonlight

[genshin-no-simp]

Diluc x Reader - Birthday Boy (Smut)

Pairing: Diluc x You/Reader (Female)

Sexual conent below the cut

Warnings: semi-public sex, tummy bulge? fluff ending.

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

It took a weeks worth of preparation on your part to get everything in place, all for this one day. This one special day. But it was worth it.

After all, Diluc did deserve rest on his birthday.

You made sure there was nothing that needed doing, nothing that warranted Diluc to leave the comfort of the Manor. You were exhausted but you knew this was only a fraction of the work that Diluc did. It was your motivation to make sure everything was in order, of course with the help of Elzer and Adelinde.

And when the night before his birthday approached, you reassured him that he could take this chance to sleep in for once. Diluc wasn't against the idea but he wasn't sure if his body clock would allow him to sleep in. But little did he know, he was exhausted and only once he hit this pillows did he realize this.

When Diluc had finally woken, he groaned softly bringing his hand up as he ran his fingers through his unruly morning hair, that's when he noticed you weren't beside him. In an instant he shot out of bed, looking around. You never got out of bed before him. About to leave the bed himself his door opened and your figure came into view. You were still in your night dress. Diluc sighed in relief, then raised his eyebrow at the tray.

"What's this?" His voice low and husky since he had just woken up.

You weren't going to lie, his voice was enough to set a fire burning inside you. But today was about him. You smiled with a giggle.

"What does it look like? Breakfast of course. So sit back in bed." You came to his side of the bed.

From this close up Diluc could see properly just how little your night dress left to the imagination. Then he realized, you went to the kitchen like that, and he frowned, anyone could have seen you, which seemed to pissed him off.

"Don't worry I had the kitchen to myself, only Adelinde, Moco and Hillie are here at the moment." You knew what was running through his head. Diluc had a tendency to get overly possessive sometimes. But it's one of his faults that you fell in love with regardless.

Diluc looked away, half embarrassed and half ashamed that you knew without a doubt that he didn't want other people, especially men to see you like this. You gave another soft giggle setting the bed table down.

Diluc cleared his throat and looked at you, "what's the occasion?" He then lowered his gaze to the food and didn't know where to start, everything looked so enticing. He smiled at the eggs that you put a little extra effort in to make look like hearts.

You sat on the opposite side of him careful not to knock the glasses of grape juice over on the tray. You gave a little hum.

"Well what day is it?" You asked him instead. Diluc tilted his head, pulling the fork from his mouth. Once he was finished chewing he spoke.

"Friday." He stated matter of factly.

"Yes, but what date is it?" You cocked your head to the side, watching him. He totally forgot about his birthday didn't he? You thought to yourself.

"Um..." Diluc didn't know why but he felt pressured, as if you would give out to him, if he got this wrong.

Was it your birthday? No that's not till a few months.

Was it your anniversary? No that just passed.

At this point you were struggling to keep your laughter in.

"Luc, come on. It's your birthday." You rolled your eyes laughing.

Then it clicked, it suddenly made sense, from why you told him to sleep in, to breakfast in bed.

"That's it?" He asked, indifferently.

"What do you mean 'that's it's? You only get one birthday, and I'm going to make sure you get the most out of it." Diluc could hardly deny you, not with how passionate you were about it. But it's just another day, birthday or not.

"I appreciate the sentiment, but there's still work-"

"I do believe there is nothing for you to do today. Everything is already taken care of. It's you day." This time you were much more calmer as you smiled sweetly at him.

Now he definitely couldn't say no. He had a feeling you did a lot to get him this day of peace. Besides it's been so long since he's actually celebrated his birthday. Not that he cared to remember it considering what happened all those years ago...but maybe now is the time to move on from that, it's getting real tiring anyway.

Diluc smiled at you, yes from now on he will celebrate his birthday with you.

Diluc had to admit, it was nice, having all this free  time AND getting to spend it with you. The two of you spent most your time outside, walking through the vineyard and occasionally eating a grape or two, at one point you started playing hide and seek. Instead of finding it childish, Diluc found it oddly refreshing. Just being able to let loose for once.

Currently he was hiding, making sure to keep his eye out for you and staying on the move, it was cheating of course but it added to the fun, but you were an expert at hide and seek and knew all the tricks in the book. Just as he turned around, you seemingly popped out of nowhere.

"Found yooou~" you giggled tackling him into a hug.

Caught of by both your sudden appearance and the hug he fell backwards onto the ground.

"Thought you could escape me huh?" You nuzzled into his neck.

Diluc chuckled holding you close to his body.

"I thought I would've had a better chance than that." He admitted.

You sat up on his chest, while he propped himself up his elbows. The light from the sun creeped through the cracks of the vineyards many grape pergolas. It wasn't the most private of places but nobody would notice the two of you unless they looked.

Cupping Diluc's cheek, you leaned down to kiss him, which without hesitation he accepted. It was a delicate kiss, both of you could feel the love and affection that you held for each other. It was truly something.

When you went to pull away from the kiss, Diluc pulled you back for more, shifting his weight onto his left arm, his right arm snaked around your waist his hand pressing agaisnt the middle of your back, giving you no chance to move. Diluc wasn't done with you just yet.

Gripping his shoulders you pushed him back down onto his back, Diluc gave a mental sigh finally able to take the pressure off his left arm. Now he had both his around wrapped around you securely. He made you feel so safe, you never wanted to leave his arms but lucky for you, he wasn't going to let go anytime soon.

It wasn't long before his hands started to wander, touching and caressing your body. Soft gasps and pants escaped from you, Diluc used every opportunity to dive into your mouth. The intensity of the kiss was making you lightheaded, but in a good way. Your body burned and your heart was racing. You could tell Diluc was the same, you could feel his heart pounding against his chest right under your hand, not only that but at how brazenly he lifted your pale mint dress up to touch your bare skin. It made you shudder, Diluc had opted to be gloveless today, it was certainly a change in pace compared to his usual leather. Being able to feel his skin on yours right away was making you feel impatient.

Finally allowed to pull away from the kiss, a string of saliva followed. Diluc gazed at you with hooded eyes, his normally bright ruby eyes, dark and heavy with lust. You licked your lips, sitting up on him once again. One of the straps on your dress slipped down your shoulder. Diluc held back his growl and his urge to flip you over. You weren't even trying to seduce him and he was already under your spell.

Gripping your thighs he pushed you lower down until your clothed womanhood rubbed against the bulge in his pants. You failed to catch the moan before it fell from your lips. Diluc smirked, knowing you were just as excited as he was right now.

Diluc was planning on teasing you some more before you had decided to take back some control. Abruptly you grinded yourself against him, biting your lip. It was Diluc's turn to let out a surprised moan as his hips bucked up into yours.

"Ah~ Diluc." You fumbled for his belt buckle. If Diluc wasn't as impatient he would've chuckled and teased you. Maybe it was the sun, maybe it was the free time or maybe it was just you. But he wasn't complaining. Diluc hissed in relief, feeling his member finally free of its painful confinement.

You were going to lower yourself further but he grabbed your arm pulling you into a kiss.

"No time for that." He breathed heavily between kisses. Of course there was time he just wasn't interested in that right now, he just wanted you, in which case he used his Vision to burn the sides of your underwear and discard the rest.

Now with your underwear out the way, Diluc could feel how wet you really were. It was cute how excited you had gotten without any foreplay, perhaps the fact that you were technically out in the open played a part but regardless, he was happy that it was him who made you feel like this.

You moaned against the kiss feeling the tip of his member push against your awaiting hole. Breaking away from the kiss you pushed down against him, taking him all in at once.

"Fuck!" It was so strange hearing Diluc swear but it filled you with a strange sense of pride knowing you were able to break his nobility.

The stretch of taking him all at once burned but it felt good. It was certainly much greater compared to when he would prepare you first. But you weren't complaining at all. Tilting your head back with a moan you began to bounce up and down, your slick made it easy to slide up and down. You gripped the front of Diluc's shirt for support as he snapped his hips up into yours. A series of wanton moans escaped your lips, the harder and faster Diluc went.

Your head fell forward your eyes glossy and your pupils blown wide with pleasure. Now both your dress straps had slid down your shoulders, making Diluc lose his mind. He gripped your hips so tight, there wasn't a doubt that there would be fingerprints even through the dress. You choked on your moans as you swore you could feel Diluc in your stomach. He was reaching places you never thought possible, or your were so drunk on pleasure it just felt that way, but it didn't matter what was the truth, it was fantastic.

"Ngh, haA~ mm close..." you struggled to get the words out.

Diluc grunted thrusting upwards even faster, you had struggled to keep up before but now it was just impossible. It wasn't long before you came all over him. Diluc wasn't too far behind, feeling your release edged him into his, you felt his hot seed fill you up more than your already were, you threw your head back with a shameless moan of his name. You were certain everyone around and in the Manor had heard you. But Diluc didn't care, let them know who was and had made you feel good.

You panted heavily as your body shook from the after math of your orgasm. Diluc too was desperately gasping for air as he came down from his high. Letting a soft puff of air, you looked down at Diluc and grinned leaning in to kiss him. He chuckled kissing you back.

Getting off Diluc he fixed his pants as you picked up what was left of your underwear.

"Luc." You pouted, "you ruined my panties." You huffed and rubbed your legs together, you could feel some of his cum dripped down your thigh.

"My love, they were ruined before I even touched them." He winked with a cocky smirk.

Your face flushed a deep crimson as you looked away from him, Diluc smiled wrapping his arm around your waist tenderly.

"Come on, let's go take a bath." He smiled gently, ushering you back towards the Manor. You snuggled into his side contently.

During the short trip back inside, not one of the employees dared to look in your direction. Instead of it making you feel better you felt embarrassed. You weren't surprised that they heard you but they didn't have to make it so obvious.

"Luc, nobody would look at me." You sounded more mortified than you intended as you pulled your dress off, which only added to Diluc's amusement.

"Good, they shouldn't be looking at you in the first place." He stated stripping himself of his own clothes.

Upon returning to Diluc's private quarters, you were both pleasantly surprised by the already drawn bath, with scattered rose petals and scented candles. It seems Adelinde knew exactly what the two of you needed. You were the first to settle into the bath despite Diluc's confusion, usually he got in first so you could rest against him, it felt weird that he was resting against you.

"Are you sure I'm not too heavy against you?" It was the fourth time he asked now.

"Oh for Celestia's sake Luc, I'm not made out of glass, I'm fine. But you won't be if you keep asking." At least you gave him a warning which he took to heart, despite not having a Vision yourself, you were very capable of looking after yourself.

"Alright, alright." Diluc sunk a little lower into the tub, his head now resting between your boobs.

"Oh." He said softly, he hadn't expected this to be so comfortable. You giggled softly.

"Someone looks content." There was a lot of fondness in your voice that made Diluc's chest flutter. He let out a soft hum and closed his eyes when he felt your fingers massage some herbal shampoo into his scalp.

Diluc couldn't help but think about how lucky he was to have someone like you. Someone so caring and aware of his needs. He didn't expect to meet someone like you, or anyone in general for that matter. He thought he was going to be alone, forever, and he was okay with that. Until he had met you, he didn't at the time realize just how important you would be to him, but he knows now and he's incredibly grateful towards you and towards himself, for letting him step out of his comfort zone and let someone in again.

Before he knew it, Diluc had fallen asleep, between the soothing heat of the water, your massaging and the sweet sound of your voice, they had all lulled him into sleep.

"Luc? You listening?" You asked softly, "Luuuc~" you cooed. Perplexed with his quietness, you tilted your head to the side to peer into his face, where you noticed he had fallen asleep. You grinned with a giggle.

You were so preoccupied with talking, you didn't notice the change in his breathing, as it steadied out. But now you didn't know what to do. You knew you couldn't stay in the bath but you didn't want to wake him either. But you also knew the water wouldn't go cold anytime soon thanks to Diluc, placing a kiss to his damp hair, you decided to let him sleep for a little while longer. After all he deserved it.

[bontenten]

Gently 

Pairing: Kageyama Tobio x Onee-san Reader 

Tags/Warnings: smut, incest(little bro Tobio), dubcon, feet, watersports, mention of alcohol and one line of blood

Kageyama winces when you press a wet cloth on his wound. Your face is just inches from his as you treat him with utmost attention and care. Kageyama grumbles and shoves your hand away. 

"It's not that bad, just a scratch. That bastard has nothing on me."

You grip his chin and make him turn to look at you. "Just a scratch? Really, come on now, stop whining like a baby. You'll get an infection if it's not dressed. Sit tight." You blow gently on the wound. "It'll only hurt for a moment."

Kageyama pushes your hand away again and circles your wrist instead, holding it in place while giving you an unamused stare.

"Tobio," you begin in the stern voice that Kageyama hates.

"You need to stop treating me like a little boy,” he says bluntly. “I'm not a boy anymore." 

You resist the urge to laugh in front of his serious face. "So you're a man now?" 

"Well, yea." 

"Legally speaking, sure. But you'll always be my little brother though," you say light-hearted, reaching with the other hand to give his hair a ruffle. Your hands barely run through his hair when Kageyama grabs that wrist too, cuffing both of them in his hold. “What can you do.”

"Today, I protected you." 

"That you did, Tobio. And I'm still sorry that you got hurt." Your try to roll the conversation along and get back to the point. "So let's get you fixed up.”

"For all your smarts, onee-san, you're so stupid," Kageyama mumbles before tugging on your wrists to pull you forward and capture your lips with his. So stupid, he thinks, that you didn’t even realize that guy was trying to make dangerous moves on you.

You eyes widen at the presence on your lips belonging to the boy who used to rub his snot and cry when he scrapes his knee. It's not right. You twist your head to the side and leave the profile of your hair in Kageyama's face, the residual metallic taste of his blood burning on your tongue. "What are you doing?!" you hiss. "Are you crazy?"

"Yea, I am. I'm so fucking crazy about you. You have no idea, onee-san.”

You stare at him in disbelief, letting his words soak in. Your eyes dart between his fixated gaze and lips that are smudged with your lipstick. He senses your eyes are drifting, cups your face, and dips close again. Your breath comes out in soft, shaky puffs. Kageyama can still taste the lingering burn of alcohol on his tongue, but feels your body relax against his and accept his touches. His large hands gripping your wrist loosens and rests on your waist.

You feel his tongue lick a stripe up your neck and suckle on the flesh as he trails down towards your collarbone. The tiny noises from you don’t escape Kageyama’s ears as his movements becoming messy and rough. He scoops from under, hoisting you up so your legs are around his hips. You yelp, feeling a sharp pain shoot through your foot and knee. The loud sound of impact against ceramic and your “Ow!” sounding in the bathroom.

You wrap your arms around Kageyama’s neck tightly as he stumbles to your bed. He throws you down onto the mattress then pulls his shirt over his head in a swift motion. You take a few deep breaths and inhale the smell of your freshly laundered sheets. A few belt clicks later, you find Kageyama kneeling at the end of the bed, about to stalk over.

“Hmph,” you frown, poking a throbbing toe at his forehead. “Tobio. You have to be gentler when you’re with a woman. See?” You wiggle your toe slightly to make a point. “Because you’re so rough.”

A look of revelation overcomes Kageyama’s face, the same way he suddenly realizes the secret to an incredible volleyball technique. He cradles your foot, a hand supporting the arch and the other brushing over your toes. 

You look confused at his movements and try to pull your foot away. "What are you-ngh—"

Kageyama brushes his lips across the pads, dragging them over the small ridges of each toe before kissing the spot where the pain is pulsating. His tongue darts out to lick the skin, increasingly confident and assertive, sucking and swirling around each of the toes.

"Tobio, it's dirty, Tobio!" you cry out in embarassment, arms crossed over your face to hide your burning cheeks. None of your squirms can stop his fixation. 

"Not hurting anymore right?" he suggests, a hand beginning to knead the another sore spot right next to the kneecap. "I'm sorry, I wasn't careful enough.” He kisses the spot. “I'll be gentle, onee-san. I didn't know you were this fragile."

Kageyama reminds himself, with every little movement he makes, to be gentle, gentle, and even gentler. Light touches, careful touches. He doesn’t want you to think that he can’t do a good job, that this is just a sloppy, juvenile joke. But it’s so damn difficult!

The ripples of the bedsheets under you are like a watery sea where you are a siren. The soft moans that come out of your lips when your legs stretch out on the bunching fabric, the way your head turns on the pillow and you look at him through your blown pupils...Upon the first glance at your body, breasts bare under his eyes, nipples pebbled, Kageyama thinks he’s about to lose it. He almost can’t let his eyes wander further down beyond your navel out of fear he’ll spurt immediately.

It’s your hands that tug on his, quiet chuckles vibrating, and you ask him, “Ah, Tobio-kun, are you shy now?”

Kageyama’s face grows dark at the challenge. “Tch. I will make you regret saying that.” His large hands pushes your thighs open and he laughs at the sight of your drenched pussy. “Onee-san, you’re so lewd,” he comments before pressing his fingers onto your clit, stroking the bud while holding your squirming hips down firmly. “I think I’m done being gentle now. See, you’re more than ready for my cock.”

“Wait, Tobio, I—” You gasp, feeling Kageyama’s cock press into the entrance of your pussy, sinking deeper and deeper into your muscles. You feel the stretch of your body wrapping around him. “Go slowly!”

“Shit,” Kageyama mutters, clamping his fingers down on your flesh and bottoms himself into you completely. He groans, focusing his senses on how tight and real you feel around him. Not the makeshift grip of calloused fingers, not any random cunts. The thought makes his knees weak.

Kageyama shoves your legs up until your knees are pressed near your chin, calves resting over his broad shoulders. His fingers dig into your soft flesh as he begins to rock into you. Each time, he bottoms out with a wet squelch, balls slapping against your ass in soft thuds.

Kageyama fucks you mercilessly, all semblance of his thoughts to be gentle completly swept out by his feral desires.

 “No more, no more..ah—I can’t!” you cry out.

It only encourages Kageyama further as he further tunnels into chasing his pleasure with every crying moan when you are pushed into the sheets, pounded into the mattress by his weight and strength. You can feel fast building warmth in your belly growing intensely, nearing eruption.

“No, no, no stop! Tobio!” you warn him, nails digging into his scalp and back. “I’ll make a mess...the sheets, I just—”

Kageyama doesn’t stop. His rough hands find your clit again, furiously tapping and rubbing the sensitive bud. You tremble and jerk around under the onslaught of sensations that shock your body.

"I'll do the chores...wash the sheets again. J-Just. Come.” 

As though on command, the moment the syllables fall from Kageyama’s lips, you completely unfurl in a sob, orgasm crashing through your body as you spray all over him and soak the entire bedding with your piss.

Your heavy breaths press your breasts against Kageyama’s chest while his cock is still resting in you. The sheets are drenched. You can feel the wetness against your ass as more mixed fluids leak out from your pussy.

“T-Tobio,” you pant out, completely exhausted.

Kageyama is extremely pleased with how you look. He leans into your hand smoothing out the dark hair that is matted aginst his forehead in sweat. After basking against you a while, cuddling between the smell of sweat, sex, and piss, Kageyama rolls off and gets up from the bed.

Your eyes follow his perfectly chiseled body, landing on the angry red marks from your scratches. Kageyama turns back to you and flashes a wolfish grin. “Onee-san, you’re the wild one. Take responsibility.”

Your tender look immediately morphs into a disgusted frown.

Kageyama chuckles and picks you up from the dirty sheets, gently carrying you over to the bathroom. He’s careful around turns and doorways, paying attention so your feet or shoulders don’t knock into anything. So, he does learn, you think to yourself, relaxing against his chest.