#we know maybe three things about milo and YET

[ssseriema]

"then I'll just take care of you!" "that's not how this works if we're both sick"

[incorrectbatfam]

Okay, so I want a little angst fic where Robs twins and Milo get kidnapped, and the kidnapper is doing the whole cliche thing with ‘cHoOsE oNe, will your twins or Milo live??’ and, Rob thinks, it should be obvious, right? Pick ur twins! But, it’s a difficult decision, he can’t let any of them die, and he’s stressing Tf out. Like, Milo is fourteen! And the twins love him! (Kinds? He bullies them sometimes but it’s fineee)

At the end, the bats come and save them, but it’s still an eye opening experience.

The Gooners Christmas kidnapping fic that exactly one (1) person asked for

Word count: 3,375

———————

“What’s the password?”

Milo chuckled. “Jackie, you’re only supposed to do that when you get picked up from school.”

“Dad said to always ask before getting in the car with anyone,” the six-year-old replied. 

“But you know me.”

“What if you’re a shapeshifting alien trying to abduct us? Or an evil robot clone?” 

He sighed. “Unicorn ice cream. Now are we going Christmas shopping or not?”

“Sure,” she said, “when Gunner quits being a slowpoke.”

As if on cue, the other boy stumbled out of the three’s shared bedroom, tugging his blue snow boots on. Since he didn’t know how to tie the laces yet, Milo kneeled down and helped him.

“Now remember, the mall’s gonna be really busy, so what do we do if we get separated?”

“Meet at the food court,” they say in unison.

“And what do we not do?”

“Go to a security guard.”

“And why don’t we do that?”

“Because they don’t work for people like us.”

“Good job.” He patted the pom-poms topping their matching hats. 

Once Milo buckled the twins in and put his favorite rock album on, they set off. There was a light dusting of snow on top of the salt laid down earlier that morning, but the fifteen-year-old managed to weave through the holiday traffic and beat the lights in time to snag the last parking spot at Gotham City’s shopping hotspot. 

“Any idea what you’re gonna get your dad?” he asked as they walked into the bustling shopping mall. 

“How about a watch?” said Jackie. “I saw a really cool gold one last week.”

“Hm… maybe,” he said. “Gunner, what about you? Any thoughts?”

Gunner stifled a laugh. “Pants.”

Milo rolled his eyes playfully. The kid was in that phase where pants were the funniest thing in the world. But in the nine months since he started living with the Steelers, Milo hadn’t seen Rob get anything—buying or stealing—for himself. It was always for the kids or to sell on the internet. And, frankly, the man looked like he spent a year on a deserted island. 

“We’ll start with pants,” he said.

“What about you?” Jackie asked. “What are you gonna get him?”

“I’m not sure.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Probably something as a thanks for, you know, not leaving me to the wolves.”

“Like what?”

Gunner said, “How about a World’s Best Dad mug?”

“That might work for you, but he’s not my dad,” said Milo. He shrugged. “Eh, I’ll figure it out.” 

They perused a few clothing stores, the twins pointing out pieces of clothing their dad might like. Milo kept a mental inventory as he fiddled with the magnet in his coat pocket. He also made notes about where the cameras and security guards were placed. 

After about an hour, the kids were whining about being hungry (breakfast wasn’t exactly filling—they shared an egg and a slice of toast between them). Milo took them to the food court and used some cash he pickpocketed the other day to buy them both kids’ meals from the Batburger pop-up stall. 

Once they sat down, he said, “I’m gonna go get the gifts for your dad. Do you guys have your phone?”

Jackie and Gunner nodded and pulled out matching rose gold and black smartphones, respectively, that totally weren’t stolen and jailbroken. 

“Good. Stay here and don’t move. I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes. Call me if you need anything.”

Milo still had a thing or two to learn before he could begin swiping electronics and jewelry, but shoplifting clothing was easy. He grabbed a shopping bag from behind an unoccupied register and wove through the aisles for the list of things from earlier. He took them to the dressing room and removed the security tags with his trusty magnet before putting the clothes in the bag. Then, for good measure, he stuck them back onto random clothes throughout the store before walking out while using his phone like any other teenager. 

When he didn’t see the twins at the food court, there was a small spark of panic. He called Jackie and it rang three times before she answered. 

“We’re in the bathroom,” she said. 

He should’ve noticed the quiver in her voice. When he stepped into the all-gender restroom, he was met by the kids pressed against the wall with a haggard middle-aged man towering over them. 

Gunner cried out, “Milo!”

As the door fell shut, the stranger whirled around, pointing a sawed-off shotgun at Milo. “You with them?”

Stunned, Milo nodded numbly. He wasn’t sure if that was the right move or not. 

The man’s hands trembled. “Do as I say or I shoot.”

Milo reached for his batarang—the one he found on the street—inside his jacket, but before he could grab it, the man walked around him and prodded Milo in the back with the barrel. 

“I know you heard me. Now all three of you move it.” 

The bathroom was five steps from the exit, so there wasn’t any chance to make a getaway without putting Jackie and Gunner at risk. They were ushered roughly into a white van with the peeling logo of an electric company. A second person was in the driver’s seat so the guy with the gun got into the seatless back with them. He slammed the door shut. Milo motioned for the twins to get behind him. 

The driver turned the radio up as they made their way onto the road. 

Smart. Milo thought. Mask any calls for help. This obviously wasn’t the kidnappers’ first rodeo. 

But neither was it Milo’s. Being a runaway street kid, he had his fair share of close calls with bastard adults who tried to manipulate him because of his age. While he couldn’t call himself an expert, he had a general gist of how these situations went. 

Traveling at sixty miles per hour in a windowless van with no clue where they were headed, Milo didn’t have an upper hand. He needed information. Something was better than nothing. 

He studied the man with them, who had tucked the gun away. Even in the dark, he could see the man wasn’t doing well for himself. The worn-out clothes plus the crudeness of his weapon ruled out the mafia. What would Falcone or Maroni want with some random kids from Burnside, anyway? Milo could also rule out some of the major Rogues—Riddler, Two-Face, and Mr. Freeze all had standards. 

The man’s graying blonde hair and beard were both overgrown. His face was hollow and his breath smelled like spoiled leftovers. Clearly, he hadn’t taken care of himself in a long time. Mental break? But unless it was a case of folie a deux, there’s no way he could’ve gotten a second person to be his getaway driver. More likely than not, he was on his last legs and holding people for ransom was his Hail Mary. 

Milo also tried to analyze the man’s body language, but the low light and the moving van made it difficult. Kellin would’ve probably deduced everything with their assassin training by now. 

He glanced over his shoulder at Jackie and Gunner. Gunner always had more braggadocio, but underneath he got more scared easily, and Milo saw it in the way the kid clung to his sister’s arm with tears running down his cherubic face. Jackie appeared calmer, but her big brown eyes looked up at Milo, silently begging him to do something.

Milo took a deep breath and turned to their kidnapper. “You mind telling me what you want with us?”

“We don’t want anything from you,” the man replied. 

“Then what? You gonna sell us? Because we’re pretty unmarketable.” 

“No,” he said. “This isn’t about you. It’s about your father.”

“Axel Carr? Good luck with that. I’m as dead to him as he is to me.”

The man pointed to the twins. “I meant theirs.”

“How do you know their dad?” Milo asked slowly, careful not to let a name slip in case the man was bluffing. 

“I worked with Rob Steeler under Scarecrow. When he left, instead of getting promoted, they let our entire crew go since we lost our key player.”

The man was clearly getting started and Milo hoped he’d keep going until the boy could formulate a plan. 

“My whole life torpedoed after that. No gigs meant no income. No income plus a disabled kid meant I had to give up custody.”

While unfortunate, Milo was more focused on the clock and speedometer up front. Eight minutes had passed since they started driving and the speed had stayed consistent. The hum underneath the wheels told him they were still on the highway. 

“Without that money, I can’t get my kid back. So here’s what’s gonna happen.”

They came to a stop and there was the sound of a garage door opening and closing. Gun back in hand, the man prodded them out. 

“I’m gonna make Steeler pay,” he said. “He gives me cash for his little tikes. Otherwise, if I can’t have my family, then neither can he.” He turned to Milo and cocked the gun. “As for you, I’m afraid I can’t have any witnesses.”

“Wait!” Milo exclaimed before the man put his finger on the trigger. “Don’t you think killing me right away will cause a huge scene? You’ll end up with cops at the doorstep before you can even ask for the money.”

The driver muttered something to the gunman.

“True,” the gunman said.

The driver whispered something else. The gunman’s face lit up and he nodded. 

“Better idea,” he said. “I was going for around thirty grand. That’s ten grand for each of you. For each one he can bring me, I’ll let you go home.”

Jackie piped up. “What if he can’t?”

The man smiled. “For your sake, little girl, you better hope he does.” 

The gunman forced the three to surrender their phones while the driver bound them with rope to a water pipe against the wall. The windowless garage offered no clues to the outside, but the fishy smell in the air meant they were close to the harbor. It hadn’t been used in a long time because every step someone took left a footprint in the dust. Off to one side, underneath a mountain of scrap wood and netting, was a speedboat with a gaping hole in the hull. On the other side was a small, messy work table where the driver and gunman were making the ransom call. 

“Milo, what do we do?” Gunner whispered. 

“Just stay here and don’t move unless I tell you to,” he replied. “I’m gonna get us out of this.”

“What if you get hurt?” Jackie asked. 

He smiled. “Remember when I did a cartwheel with a twisted ankle? A little hurt doesn’t bother me.”

His arms were pinned to his side, but he managed to maneuver them enough to grab his magnet and batarang. Normally he would have had a trunk full of inventory to work with but this was going to have to do. 

While the kidnappers were on the call, he sliced himself out of the ropes with the batarang. He also loosened Jackie and Gunner’s restraints to prepare for a quick escape. 

The only exit was the garage door, controlled by a red button on the wall. If he was one of the bat-people, he could easily throw the batarang and hit the tiny target far away, but as just Milo, the risks far outweighed his chance of success. Normally he would have tried anyway, but he had the kids with him. 

He gestured to Gunner’s boots. “I need to borrow something real quick.”

The boy nodded. Milo undid the laces, resulting in two long strings in his hands. He tied them together to create a single, even longer cord, which he then put the batarang on one end of. 

The kidnappers turned toward them and the gunman shouted, “Hey!”

Milo muttered a prayer to Wonder Woman on the off chance that’s her thing. 

He twirled the string and released it. It wrapped around the driver’s knee, causing the man to stumble and fall. His joint cracking echoed through the garage and a red stain grew on his cargo pants. 

He reeled it in before throwing it at the gunman’s face. The tip grazed the man’s cheek, drawing a thin trickle of blood, before spinning back around into Milo’s hand. Milo threw a punch, but the man caught it. The gunman twisted before shoving Milo to the ground and pointing the shotgun at him. 

“Had fun playing Robin?” the man asked, finger nearing the trigger. 

Stall. That was all there was left to do. 

“Heroes are overrated. They always have to follow some stupid code,” Milo said, doing all he could to keep his voice steady. “You and I have more in common than you think.”

“Whatever deal you’re trying to cut won’t work,” the gunman replied. “Steeler’s already on his way and he accepted all my terms.” 

“What if I tell everyone what you did? Then what?”

The gunman laughed. “Tell who? The same cops you’re always running from? Don’t think I didn’t do my homework on your little posse.”

The driver was pretty much down for the count because he was still on the floor with the pool of blood slowly growing. Plus, he didn’t seem like the fighting type to begin with. Unless there were more kidnappers lurking, Milo just had to make sure the gunman stayed focused on him. 

“Your kid. How old are they?” Milo asked. 

“He’s ten, and unlike you, he’s actually suffering. He didn’t bring it on himself after a fight with daddy.” 

That plucked a nerve. For a disheveled ex-henchman, the man knew a lot. 

Milo clenched his jaw. “And what would he say if he knew about this? Even if you get the money, what makes you think he’d want anything to do with you?”

Smack. 

Milo fell back as the gun met his temple. His head throbbed and black speckles swam in front of his eyes. His fingers traced over the spot and came back red. Through the dull ringing in his right ear, he heard the twins cry out his name. 

He turned back to the gunman, still kneeling. “If you’d do this to us, what’s stopping you from doing it to him?”

This time, a kick to the stomach forced the wind out of him. He doubled over, gasping. He reached for the batarang but the gunman kicked it away. 

The man raised his gun for another strike but the garage door interrupted him. 

“Step away from the kids.”

The twins exclaimed, “Dad!”

Rob made brief but reassuring eye contact with them before turning to the kidnapper. 

“I got as much as I could, Frederickson. Now let go of my kids.” 

The kidnapper walked over and snatched the water-stained blue duffel bag out of Rob’s hand. He opened it and counted through the banded bills before turning back to Rob. 

“I said thirty grand. This is only twenty-five.”

“That's all I got, I’m telling you! Just take it and let my kids and I go home.” 

“We had a deal.”

While the two men went back and forth, Milo crawled over to the batarang. The open garage door meant the bright lights inside flooded the harbor with nothing blocking the way. The bright lightbulbs dangled from the ceiling. 

It was sheer luck the batarang flew over the adults’ heads and wrapped around the base of the brightest light bulb before dangling in front of it. It wasn’t very distinct, but his makeshift Bat-Signal would have to do. 

The man cocked the gun. “Now you gotta pick. It’s them…” He pointed it at the twins. “Or him.” He pointed at Milo.

What kind of choice is that? Milo thought. Of course pick them.

Rob stood there as if nailed to the spot, fists clenched. 

“Fredrickson, think about this,” he said, his normally firm voice edging on pleading. “Is five thousand dollars worth having this on your conscience?”

“You were always the soft one,” the man sneered. “You never let it on around the boss until our last sting.”

“There’s ransom and then there’s this,” Rob said. “Fredrickson. Darren. You’re not okay.” 

“Rob,” Milo said. 

The men’s heads both swiveled around. 

Milo swallowed. “Give him what he wants and he’ll be out of your hair. It’s obvious. Pick the twins.”

Rob sputtered, eyes wide. “I-I…” 

“You trust me on the field all the time,” he said. “So do it again.”

“I can’t.”

The gunman said, “So the little ones go.”

“No!” Rob yelled. “I just—I just need…”

“Take. Your. Pick.” 

His eyes darted between Milo and the twins. Milo knew his boss was an idiot at times and the proof was right here. The twins were younger. There were two of them as opposed to one of him. They were actually Rob’s. 

Before the gunman could repeat himself again, a brand new voice chimed in. 

“I’ve seen this trope before. Spoiler alert: the good guys win.”

With a swish of her purple cape, Spoiler released her grapple and knocked the shotgun away. She coiled the rope around the gunman before kneeing him in the ribs. Milo didn’t think much of heroes given how they beat up people like him and Rob, but he couldn’t help but marvel at each fluid strike. As easy as one, two, three, four, and five. 

The gunman hit the ground and she clasped a pair of handcuffs on him. Nearby, Orphan collected the driver. 

Spoiler crouched beside the twins and freed them. “Are you guys alright?”

They nodded. Gunner said, “Is the supervillain defeated?”

“I’d hardly call him super, but yes,” she said. “He’s not gonna bother you anymore.” 

As red and blue lights flooded the room, Milo’s head pulsed even harder like a kick drum at a rock show. Some of the blood from his temple dripped onto the floor. His stomach rolled. 

Rob answered some of Spoiler’s questions before she set them loose. Of course cops would be at the scene. Why didn’t Milo think of that?

The twins ran into their dad’s arms and he scooped them up. Milo had never seen his boss so relieved or so scared. He staggered to his feet, one hand in the brick wall for balance. His head spun and a sharp pain was finally sinking in. 

Rob put the kids down and turned toward Milo. 

“I’m sorry,” Milo said. “It’s my fault we got into this mess and—”

He was cut off by a pair of arms wrapping around him. 

“Rob, what—”

“Just shut up and take it.” 

The hug ended before Milo could fully register it. After one of the medics patched his wound, all they had left to do was go home and pretend this never happened. Business as usual. 

“The car’s still at the mall,” he said. 

“I borrowed one from Otto,” Rob replied. “I’ll get ours in the morning.”

Once they were back at the apartment, Rob tucked the twins into bed with an extra-long story. Meanwhile, Milo cleaned himself up in the cubicle-sized bathroom and changed into something more comfortable. 

He tried to sleep after that but wound up tossing and turning for hours, replaying the night’s events in his head. What if he hadn’t left the twins alone? What if he’d brought a better weapon? The Steelers were already hanging by a thread and he just cost them twenty-five grand. If one of the others was in his position, they could’ve figured a way out by themselves. Blaise would’ve siphoned the gas from the van and turned it into a flamethrower. Booker and Molly would’ve been better negotiators. Kellin would’ve fought their way through.

The door opened. The thin bar of light cut between his side of the room and the sleeping twins’ bunk bed. 

“It’s two o’clock,” Rob said. 

Milo propped himself up on his elbow. “And?”

“I could hear you down the hall. You’re gonna wake the twins up at this rate.”

“Not on the clock, not my boss.”

Rob quietly chuckled. “Get some sleep. I’ll be in the living room if you need me.”

[straykidsnerd255]

Hello ! I just saw that your requests were open and i got so excited !!!

If it's not too much to ask , Can you do a scenario with Milo , Camus , Kardia , Sisyphus , El Cid and Degel , when their S/O [ The Reader ] announced them that they're pregnant, but the boys are not ready yet ?

How would they sait it to their S/O ? And how the Reader would react ?

Thank You !!! ❤️❤️❤️ Love U 😆

Love you too anon! Hope you enjoy and thanks for requesting it! I tweaked it just a little bit and added a little twist where the boys say they are ready. I couldn’t bare it being angsty so I hope you are ok with that!!

Milo:

When you told Milo that you were pregnant, fear gripped your heart. You and Milo were not ready for this child but you didn’t have the heart to give the baby to adoption either. “Y/n, I know this is going to sound harsh but I am not ready for a child. I know we are married and everything but I don’t know….” You held your hand to stop him. “I know. I’m not ready either. However, I don’t want to give the baby up for adoption either.” You sat down on the couch and could feel tears welling up in your eyes. Milo sat down next to you and placed his hands on your hands. A smile appeared on his face. “Maybe the world thinks that we are ready for this child and maybe we are. We have a house, and we both are paid a lot.” Milo said, lifting one of his hands to your not yet showing stomach. “I think I’m ready.” He mumbled. 

Camus:

You and Camus have been married for two years now and the talk about having kids happened the first year of your marriage. You had been yearning to have children of your own with Camus and the ice user wasn’t so keen on having children at first. He had told you plenty of times that he wasn’t quite ready for it and even two years later, he still wasn’t sure if he was ready for the responsibility that children came with. He was currently sitting on the couch when you came running down the stairs. Tears pouring down your face. You held the pregnancy stick up towards his eyes and he was shocked to see the plus sign. You were panicking now. He wasn’t saying anything and it only made your mind run wild. “I know you said that you were not ready and that we should wait longer. I-” You stopped your sill of words when Camus gently kissed your lips. “I’m not mad. I know I have said I wasn’t ready and I have denied something that you have always wanted. But I think we can have a child.” Camus whispered softly.

Kardia:

He was pacing around the living room. He had woken up to you throwing up that morning and was nervous. You both had talked about having kids and how you wanted to have kids of your own but Kardia told you he wasn’t ready. Before he married you three years ago, he had been married to a beautiful woman. When he found out she was pregnant, he was so happy, however, that happiness didn’t last long. She had a miscarriage and the anguish and heartache had killed her. He didn’t want you to go through that same thing but the look you gave him nearly broke his heart. You both had gone to bed that night with heavy hearts but Kardia was bound and determined to give you a child. One afternoon, he was working in the backyard when he heard you shriek. He dropped what he was doing and raced into the house to find you covering your mouth and crying. He took what you were holding and stared directly at the two lines. “I-I know you are not ready for kids and what happened with you and your first wife made me feel bad for even asking…” Kardia placed the pregnancy stick down and pulled you into a hug. “It’s still too early to see how the baby is doing but once you start to show, let's go to the doctor and see how the baby is doing. I think I’m ready to become a father now.” He whispered. 

Sisyphus:

The minute “I’m pregnant” left your lips he was freaking out. His heart was racing and he was sweating. He knew that you would be a wonderful mother but he wasn’t so sure about himself. He was scared that he might do or say something that could hurt not only you but the children. He wanted to have kids with you but he wasn’t ready. You noticed the fear filling his eyes and you knelt down in front of him. You took his hands into yours and a smile appeared on your lips. “If you are not ready, we can give the child to adoption when the baby is born. I know plenty of mothers out there that would love and spoil this child beyond belief. I can see the fear in your eyes Sisyphus. I don’t want to burden you with this. I understand.” You whispered, laying your head on his hands and closing your eyes. Sisyphus sighed. He felt like a fool. He hurt you when he wasn’t meaning to. “No. We will keep the baby. I just need to get out of my head is all. I keep thinking I will be a horrible father but now, I don’t think that’s the case anymore.” A smile appeared on his lips before leaning down to kiss you. “I’m ready.” He whispered against your lips.

El Cid:

You and El Cid have been married for 4 years now and you have brought up wanting to have a baby with him before. He has told you that he wasn’t ready and that when he was, he would come to you. One day though, you began to avoid him. You refused to give him hugs or take the hugs he offered you. You moved your head so he would kiss your cheek before you ran to a different room and locked the door. You wore bagger clothing and refused to speak. El Cid grew tired of this and when he saw you sitting at the table, he sat down next to you and refused to let you leave. “Why are you avoiding me now? Have I done something wrong?” He asked. He noticed the tears that filled your eyes and he immediately wrapped his arms around your shoulder. “I’m sorry Y/n.” He whispered trying to stop the tears falling down your face. You sniffed before turning to face El Cid. “I’m pregnant. But you told me you were not ready to have children.” you said. El Cid pulled you into his chest and held you tightly. “Maybe I am ready to have a child.” He said, a small smile on his face. 

Degel:

He remembered telling you that he wasn’t ready to have children but he saw how you were with children and he couldn’t keep you from that joy in life but he was honestly scared. He wasn’t sure that he could even be a good father. He knew without a doubt that you would be a good mother. He was currently reading a book when you came running into the room. A bright smile on your lips as you waved something up in the air fast enough that Degel couldn’t exactly make out. Degel put his book down and a looked up at you. A soft smile appearing on his lips. You were glowing. You held the object out for Degel to see. His eyes widened as he took the pregnancy stick. “Y-You’re pregnant?” He asked. He wasn’t sure he was ready but he could see the smile on your lips and everything about that made him happy. “You know, I think I’m ready to have a baby. If its with you, then I know I am ready.” Degel said, standing up from where he was sitting and walked towards you. He pressed his forehead against yours before pressing a kiss to your lips.

[whump-me]

Whumptober Day 12: Insomnia

This is a standalone story in my original Mind Games universe, a modern-day sci-fi/fantasy thriller setting about ordinary humans with superhuman abilities and the people who want to use or destroy them. Full description in my Whumptober masterpost, which is linked in my pinned post.

This story contains: working to exhaustion, car accident, mentions of minor whump

Words: 3600

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Leman didn’t know how long he had been driving. The highway was always the same, as if all his frantic speed had gotten him exactly nowhere. Always the same hum of the engine under him. Always the same trees speeding by to either side. Always the same soothing growl of passing cars, the same hypnotic glow of headlights in the dark.

The vibrating hum slipped into his bones, tugging his eyelids down. His eyes drifted shut. Even behind his eyelids, he saw the road. It stretched out in front of him endlessly. The trees waved him on his way. The engine sang him a droning lullaby.

A horn blared. His eyes snapped open. He jerked the steering wheel to the left a second before he would have careened into the side of a minivan.

Their soft, rhythmic sleep-breathing turned to quiet murmurs of confusion and fear. “What’s wrong?” Daisy, the youngest, asked. Her voice was still blurry with sleep.

“We almost got in an accident,” Jefferson said. He was the oldest, and liked to know things the others didn’t.

“Did they find us?” Milo asked. He didn’t sound afraid, only resigned. Like he had been waiting to be recaptured ever since John had carried him out of the PERI facility and bundled him into the car. Hearing that kind of dull despair in the voice of a child who couldn’t be older than eight made Leman’s heart ache. It was an actual physical sensation, just under his ribcage. He hadn’t known heartache was a literal thing.

Or maybe it was just lack of sleep he was feeling.

The kids had all been abducted by the Psi Enhancement Research Initiative because they carried the genetic marker for Enhanced abilities. As far as Leman knew, none of them had an ability yet. But that didn’t matter to PERI—they had drugs that could activate the gene. After that, the kids could be trained as government operatives. Or, if the brainwashing didn’t take, they’d be sent down to PERI’s labs to be cut open and studied—or worse, sent to the breeding programs to create a stronger and more obedient generation of superpowered operatives.

But none of that was going to happen to any of these kids. Leman had been hired to get them out. Their contact was waiting at a motel two days away. Andreas was part of a whole team that did this kind of thing on a regular basis, or so Leman understood it. He and his team knew how to get the kids back to their families.

Leman didn’t work with Andreas and his team more than once or twice a year. Every time he did, he swore he wouldn’t do it again. Messing around with psychics made his skin crawl. Even the kids behind him made him nervous, although so far, none of them had moved anything with their minds or walked through any walls.

But these guys paid well. And besides, he got to feel like he was doing a good deed. He had saved three kids from a fate worse than death. Most of his jobs weren’t like that. Most of them were the kind where he didn’t like looking at himself in the mirror afterward.

The warm glow he got from working for these guys was almost enough to make up for the crawling fear that came with knowing just how out of his depth he was.

Or it always had been before now.

But PERI had never used this particular power against him before.

His contact was two days away. Two more days without sleep. He had already been awake for five.

Coffee. Energy drinks. Caffeine pills. His blood was probably half caffeine at this point.

His eyes burned. His hands trembled whenever he took them off the steering wheel. When the kids started making too much noise, he had to bite his lip shut to keep himself from snapping at them. It was hardly fair for him to take out his overcaffeinated and underslept temper on them. They’d gone through a life-changing trauma, and it wasn’t over yet. He was just pulling an extra-long all-nighter.

Two more days. He could do it.

He had to. If he didn’t, those kids were going right back to the facility he had rescued them from. He’d gotten a peek inside one of the labs, while he was trying to find his way around. There had been a small body lying on a stretcher. The tray of tools next to the stretcher had been bloody.

“They didn’t find us,” Jefferson said, and Leman realized he had never answered Milo. “Leman just almost swerved off the road because he hasn’t gotten any sleep.”

“I thought I told you to call me Mr. Manikowski,” Leman said, although being called Mr. anything felt strange, like he was a teacher standing in front of a classroom. He wasn’t anything near that respectable.

“Do you need a nap?” Daisy asked, sounding like she very much needed a nap herself.

And so did Leman. No, scratch that—he didn’t need a nap. He needed to crawl into bed and sleep for a week.

“Are we going to stop?” Milo asked hopefully. “I want to sleep in a real bed.”

“We’re not stopping,” said Leman. If he stopped, he would fall asleep, caffeine or no.

Or maybe he wouldn’t. As jacked up as he was, he might pace back and forth like an overwound toy all night, unable to stop moving, unable to stop his brain from whirring. That would be okay—they couldn’t find him in that way. Slowing down would give them a chance to catch up, but that didn’t matter unless they could find him.

But if he fell asleep, even for a second, they would find him.

The first night, they had stopped at a motel. One room for the four of them. The kids had shared the bed. He had slept on the floor, in front of the door. He had thought that would be enough.

But the threat hadn’t come through the door. It had come through his sleeping mind.

The alien presence had clawed itself into his thoughts, sticky fingers plucking out images from his memory—road signs they had passed, the flickering neon sign showing the name of the motel. The greasy sensation had been enough to jolt him wide awake.

He had thought it was a nightmare. Until the black vans had showed up outside the window.

Then he had figured out it quick.

One of their operatives could invade people’s dreams. They intended to track him through his.

That was the last time he had slept.

“We’re not stopping,” he said. “I don’t need a nap. I just need more coffee.” He guzzled the remainder of the coffee in the Styrofoam cup next to him. It had gone cold. He didn’t care. He couldn’t even taste it anymore.

“My mom says if you drink more than four cups of coffee in a day, you’ll give yourself a heart attack,” Jefferson said.

“Listen to your mother,” said Leman. “Better yet, don’t drink any coffee at all. You’re too young.”

“Is Mr. Manikowski going to die?” Milo asked. “Are we going to die?”

“Maybe,” said Jefferson. “The longest the human body can go without sleep is eleven days.”

“We’ll be there in two,” Leman promised.

He tried not to think about what would happen after that.

The dreamwalking operative had his scent now. And he couldn’t stay awake forever.

But all he had to do was get the kids where they were going, and then get far enough away before he fell asleep that the dreamwalker couldn’t trace him to them. He would figure out the rest from there. He always did.

And if he didn’t make it… well, at least his last mission would have been a good deed. It was a better end than he had always thought he’d get.

He laughed softly to himself. Either he was going soft, or the sleep deprivation was messing with his head. What he should have done was admit defeat days ago—check in to a motel, fall asleep, offer the people who were after the kids a deal. If the alternative was being chased by PERI for the rest of his life… Andreas’s team didn’t pay that well.

Why hadn’t he just given up?

His laughter had a sharp, staccato sound. He sounded like a malfunctioning robot. He sounded like he’d been awake for five days.

“Mr. Manikowski?” Daisy asked. “Are you okay?”

“He’s not,” said Jefferson. “He’s probably going to die. His heart is going to explode.”

“Go back to sleep,” said Leman. “All of you.”

The noises from the backseat subsided. The kids’ breathing grew soft and rhythmic again. Milo—or he thought it was Milo—let out a soft snore.

The trees waved him onward. The red lights of the car in front of him blinked at him slowly. The hum of the engine surrounded him, cradled him.

The trees reached down to hold him in their swaying branches. It’s all right, they whispered. It’s going to be all right.

The branches turned into claws. They sank into his skull with a soft popping sound. There was no pain. Just the oily sensation of unwashed hands rifling through his gray matter.

The fingers delicately plucked out the image of a highway sign—Middleburg, two miles.

He jolted awake.

He was diagonal on the road, drifting over the white line. He jerked himself back into the middle lane.

He tilted the Styrofoam mug to his lips. Nothing was left but a single cold drop.

A car pulled up next to him, flashing its hazard lights. The driver waved at him. He pointed toward the side of the road. Pull over, he mouthed.

That jolted Leman awake more thoroughly than a cup of coffee could have.

His hands trembled on the wheel. He could hold a sniper rifle perfectly steady, but he was shaking now. Then again, he’d never tried to use a sniper rifle on five days of no sleep.

It was too dark to make out the man’s features. But he doubted it mattered. He had never met the PERI operative personally, just felt their grubby fingers in his mind.

How had the dreamwalker caught up with him so quickly?

He stomped on the gas. He wove through four lanes of traffic, speeding past one car after another. Honks followed him. The speedometer crept up to 90, 100, 110…

The other car shouldn’t have been able to catch up with him. But it pulled up next to him again. Pull over, the driver mouthed, pointing insistently to the shoulder.

No. Leman hadn’t come this far to give in now. He hadn’t stayed awake for five days to let these kids go back where they had come from. He had one dropped a dozen enemies in a gunfight without taking a single hit. He wasn’t about to be defeated by one single set of grubby fingers in his brain.

The speedometer inched up. 120. 130. The oncoming headlights turned into a single white blur smeared across the night.

The trees thrust out their branches to stop him. Slow down, they whispered. Pull over.

“Like hell,” he muttered, but his lips were thick and clumsy, and he wasn’t sure he had spoken aloud at all.

He tried to punch the gas. But his body wouldn’t obey him. His legs were made of stone. His foot fell away from the gas, and wouldn’t move again. His fingers were numb against the steering wheel. Was he still holding the wheel? Was he still in the car at all? He couldn’t tell. Maybe he was up in the trees, being cradled by their branches. Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop…

Then he tumbled endlessly downward and hit the earth with a screeching crack.

His eyes snapped open.

He had hit the metal barrier. Smoke rose from his crumpled hood. The airbag had released—it drooped across the steering wheel like a deflated balloon after the party was over.

Behind him, the children were crying.

He looked over his shoulder to make sure they were all right. All three of them had their eyes open, and were aware enough to be afraid. None of their bones were bent at awkward angles. That was good enough for now.

The pain of turning his head hit him a second later. His neck hurt. Everything hurt. He looked down at himself. Nothing bleeding, nothing obviously broken. Only a tightness in his chest that might have meant a broken rib or two. Again, that was something he could deal with later.

His foot must have slipped off the gas when he had fallen asleep. Lucky for him. Lucky for all of them. If he had hit the barrier doing 130, none of them would have made it.

That was where his luck ended.

Because in the rearview mirror, a familiar car pulled up behind him.

He reached for his weapon. Undid his seatbelt. Fumbled for the car door.

He wasn’t giving up those kids without a fight.

Every movement felt like struggling through a pool of thick honey. And the figure in the other car, of course, had no such problems. By the time Leman stumbled out of the car on wobbly legs, the other man was already hurrying toward him.

He was an unassuming figure—short, balding, with thick glasses and a middle-management face. But Leman knew how little that meant. He had felt the strength of those fingers in his mind.

He brought his gun up. His hands were shaking.

The man raised his hands. “Whoa,” he said. “Careful there. I’m a friend.”

“You’re not getting those kids,” Leman’s voice was as shaky as his legs. He didn’t know whether his hands were trembling from the post-accident adrenaline crash or just plain caffeine. Either way, his aim would be shot. He’d be lucky if he could hit anything at point-blank range.

“The kids are safe,” the man said. His voice was low, soothing, placating.

“Not yet,” said Leman. “But they will be.” He just needed the man to take a couple of steps closer…

“You’re looking for your friend Ethel,” the man said.

Leman blinked slowly at him. “What did you say?”

“The code. You’re supposed to knock at the door, say you’re looking for your friend Ethel. I’m supposed to tell you she went down to Florida to work on her tan. It would make more sense if you were actually at the motel.”

Leman shook his head. His sluggish vision struggled to keep up, briefly turning the man into a blur. “You stole that code from someone’s head. I’m meeting Andreas. You’re not him.”

“Andreas is at the motel,” said the man. “Our remote viewer saw the state you were in after the first night, and knew you weren’t going to make it. They sent me to intercept you.” He shook his head, letting out a soft laugh. “I thought I’d be looking for a needle in a haystack. Track down one car on the highway? It turns out it’s easy to spot the driver who hasn’t slept in five days.”

Then his face turned serious. “You need to sleep now. For your sake, and the sake of those kids.” He nodded past Leman, toward the crumpled car. “You’re lucky you all survived. For a few minutes there, I thought I was too late.”

Leman opened his mouth to ask how he knew the kids had survived. But he looked over his shoulder—wincing at the pain in his neck—and there they were, spilling out of the car, sleepy and scared, with tears and snot running down their faces. Even Jefferson, who would no doubt be mortified about the tears later.

Leman didn’t lower the gun. “I still don’t know if I can trust you. And even if I can, I can’t sleep. They have someone after me… he can get into my dreams…”

“It’s okay,” the man said. “I can block him. It’s why I’m here. You’re safe now. You can rest.”

“Those kids are my responsibility.”

“And now they’re mine. What do I need to do to convince you? Do you want me to call Andreas?”

“I’m not giving up those kids.” The ground swayed under him. The blur of the passing lights made him dizzy. His gun hand trembled.

“I’m sorry about this,” the man said with a sigh. “Please don’t shoot me, all right?”

He waved a hand—

And Leman was falling—

When he woke, the car smelled wrong. Like one of those pine-scented air fresheners. He never used those things. The seat under him was leather, worn and patched. And the steering wheel was gone.

Oh—it was gone because he was in the passenger seat. That explained why the door was on the wrong side.

The man from last night was sitting in the driver’s seat. Behind him, in the backseat, all three kids were sleeping.

“How long was I asleep?” he muttered in blurry horror. The sun was high in the sky. That alone told him it had been too long. Much too long. They should all be dead already.

He craned his aching neck to see the rearview mirror. “They’ll know where we are by now. They’re coming for us. They’re coming…”

“It’s all right,” the man next to him said, sounding entirely unworried. “I don’t know how much of our conversation you remember, but I did tell you I could block their dreamwalker. I control sleep—when you fall asleep, when you wake up, how deeply you sleep, whether you dream… Anyway, one thing I can do is make sure you never end up in the dream state where the dreamwalker can get at you. I’ve dealt with him before. I know how to keep him out.”

He felt for his gun. It was gone. “I want to talk to Andreas.”

“I can do better than that,” the man said, and pulled off the exit ramp. “We’re almost to the motel.”

Leman shook his head, and winced again. “We were two days away.”

“I told you I can control your sleep,” the man said. “I made sure you got as much as you needed.”

They pulled up in front of a shabby motel. The man pulled out his phone and dialed a number. “We’re here,” he said. “Would you mind coming out so my friend can see that you don’t have a gun to your head?”

The door to the room in front of them opened. There was Andreas, looking a little older than the last time Leman had seen him, but with the same easy smile on his face. He waved.

Leman looked from Andreas to the man in the driver’s seat. “You were telling the truth.” His brain still felt sluggish. He couldn’t tell whether he had gotten too much sleep or not enough.

“It’ll take a few days for you to recover fully,” the man said. “I suggest taking a vacation. You’ve earned it.”

“The kids are safe,” Leman said slowly. He looked over his shoulder again at the sleeping children.

“You almost didn’t make it,” the man said. His soft face turned stern. “You should have known you couldn’t stay awake that long. You put those kids at risk twice over. First, when you didn’t call for help. Then, when you almost shot me instead of letting me help you.”

“You could have been one of them,” said Leman. “And they were my responsibility.”

“And you almost got them killed. Think about that next time around.”

“Next time there won’t be any kids depending on me,” Leman assured him.

Something about his tone made the other man’s gaze turn sharp and thoughtful. “Why did you push yourself so hard for them?”

He shrugged. That movement hurt, too. “You’re paying me well. It’s my job to make sure you get your money’s worth.”

The man let out a soft chuckle. “Don’t give me that. I know we’re paying you less than your going rate. A lot less.”

Leman looked away. “I saw that place they were in. I couldn’t let them go back.”

“Is that all?” the man asked. “Or is there something you’re trying to make up for?” He gave Leman a rueful smile. “Controlling sleep means I’ve seen a lot of people at their most vulnerable. It’s given me a bit of insight into human psychology.”

If he had been feeling a little less groggy, Leman might have bitten out a sharp retort. As it was, he sat back in silence and thought about the job before this one, and the job after. He wouldn’t be saving any innocents after this. If he was lucky, no innocents would die because of him. If he was lucky.

“We’ve got a permanent spot open on our team, you know,” the man said. “We couldn’t pay you as well as we do now, of course, but there are other rewards.” He paused. “So long as you don’t put anyone else in danger next time around.”

Leman opened his mouth to say no. The word caught in his throat.

“No need to decide now,” the man said. “For now, rest. He you need it.”

“The dreamwalker still has my scent,” said Leman. “As soon as I leave, they’ll be on me.”

The man shot him another smile. “Then I guess you’ll just have to stick around.”

---

Tagged: @cakeinthevoid @gala1981

Ask to be added or removed from my Whumptober 2023 taglist.

[covecornerarchive]

Modern AU Ideas!

Been seeing some people post about their modern au's and I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring. Also like 85% of the inspo for these came from @thedivisionbell1994 's own modern au so credit to them.

Janice and Melrose are adopted by Poppy, who is their god father in the au, when their actual dad wasn't found fit to care for them after their mother died. They don't change that much other than the fact Melrose while in an actually loving household genuinely becomes a better sister and the two are genuinely happy. Janice is chaos incarnate and the both of them cause crimes.

Percy and Poppy are roomates! Because the whole Red Mary thing didn't happen (in the way it did in canon) Percy is much more like his rowdy "fuck around and find out" Tarantula crew self than the one we know him as on the Laughingstock crew. He actually works in ceramics and sculpting and runs a small business on etsy. This part belongs to @thedivisionbell1994 but Poppy is the bouncer for a few night clubs in the area.

Milo....he's a fucking streamer is twitch. But like, he doesn't make shit so he's always mooching off of Poppy, Percy, and Sariah. Sariah is a dance instructor and while she and Milo are together in the au as well it's kind of a shit relationship so eventually she leaves him and ends up with Susen, who works at the local aquarium. I'm debating whether or not she's a marine biologist or a performer for one of those cool mermaid shows. Maybe she's both :0

Thade. Oh boy howdy do I think about Thade the most in this au. I think he's the professor at a mortuary school, teaching mortuary science (why? because if I don't have him as an extremely burnt out yet chill college prof I'm going to die). After a lot of drama and hardships involving his relative Mary, he's ended up as Auburn's legal caretaker and raises her with Lillian and Percy's help (Percy: If I had a nickle for everytime someone important in my life got custody of a kid and I ended up as their older brother figure, I'd have three nickles. Which isn't a lot but it's weird it's happened three times right?)

Also, I don't know if I want this as a concrete part of this modern au or keep it as a spin off of it, but I have this idea where after bringing in a certain set of skeleton remains for a lesson in his class Thade gets cursed to turn into a skeleton every now and then. Basically because I also want Skin-taker in here somewhere but I don't want him to be evil. I just like imagining Thade getting stuck in situations where he has to figure out how to get through life without people finding out he's secretly a fucking were-skeleton, and him slipping up a few times so there are just sightings in the small town where all of this takes place of some scary ass skeleton and people start calling him "The Skin-taker," and it becomes a moth man situation where the town starts monetizing it for the tourism business and then Thade is just over here trying to keep his job and raise a kid like "hhhhhhhhhh." Idk, I like it I might develop it later.

Im stealing all of this from @enkiiper but Horace? Horace is a fucking cryptid all on his own. No one knows where he came from, what he does for a living, none of that. He's just this really weird ecentric guy who doesn't do anything that makes sense ever and for some reason has a worryingly large amount of money. He and Thade are besties and in the were-skeleton au Horace is the first to find out. He's a crime grandpa. He commits crimes and is the local cryptid. End of discussion.

Stealing from @thedivisionbell1994 again but Lillian is a real estate agent who sells haunted houses and properties with extremely sketchy history and she fucking kills at it.

Red Mary is still a dangerous fellon with several arson and homicide charges. She and Thade have a fucked history (gotta put the trauma in there somewhere) and is the reason Auburn was orphaned in the first place. She's in prison still but Thade is always paranoid about her and worrying over her getting out and hurting the people in his life again.

Thade and Poppy are actually on rather good terms. They still have the occasional moments but it's nowhere near as bad as in canon. Thade is definitely Janice and Melrose's weird uncle and whenever Janice is over she gives him hell, which is often since she and Auburn are besties.

Calvary and Sea Dog (which is just his nickname since Sea Dog isn't actually a dog in this au just a scruffy little man) are family friends and Nathan is their adopted kid. He Janice Melrose and Auburn cause chaos together it's great. Sea Dog works as a deck officer and so did Calvary before an injury that caused him to retire. Nathan is Calvary's grandson and after Nathan lost his parent's Cal took him in.

I feel like the Rubber Fishes are a local gang but like...they're not really a threat. They're just these chaotic teens who spray paint private property and fuck around in abandoned buildings. Kurt has fucking cat ear headphones I bet. Horace is their unofficial dad. They're all fucked up kids but they're his fucked up kids. He gives them rides when they're running from the police.

I feel like the small town this all takes place in isn't Ironton, Ohio (where Janice and Mel are originally from) but probably a sea side town.

(April 24, 2022)

[plutothe-pup]

Maybe It's Time || Amy & Milo

TW: None, really. Summary: Milo gets an update at his Physical Therapy appointment that he doesn't quite agree with. Ft. Amy (@exsqueak-me)

MILO: 

It was a beautiful Monday afternoon.

Which meant that Milo was sat inside suffering at the doctor’s office (as he did three times a week) trying to look like he wasn't gritting his teeth against another sharp wave of pain as the physical therapist continued to stretch his shoulder back. Without work or school, PT had been the closest thing Milo had to a schedule since everything had happened. It wasn’t… the worst thing ever. Amy always came, and sometimes Pip too, whenever he wasn’t busy. Part of him had been hoping it might’ve even filled the void left from no longer being able to go to the gym or lift at the Market (it was like exercising right?), but instead Milo was always left with a new kind of frustration. The kind that only came when things he used to be so attuned to were now like completely foreign concepts. Squeezing small foam balls in his right hand felt more like he was trying to grip the final card in an elaborate card house. Lifting those small 2kg weights over his shoulder felt like lifting a car - and like now, having the therapist pull his arm back felt like torture. 

Further and further, little by little. Milo tried not to focus on it, and instead pushed a breath through his lips. He found Amy’s gaze, trying to focus on her, on keeping the rise and fall of his chest even, rather than the throbbing pain that radiated closer and closer. Keep going, a little—"—정지." Milo gasped, pulling away with a wince as his resolve finally broke. 

His hand went to his shoulder, rubbing absently at it as Dr. Moore stepped back, eyeing him lightly in a way that Milo pointedly tried to ignore. He knew he was supposed to be able to move further than that without issue by now. Especially given that despite how long it had felt, Milo knew his arm hadn’t even moved that far before he’d called uncle. Yet weeks had gone by, day after day of therapy, of exercise. Of doing these silly little motions over and over again, but still, that tension returned and made him feel like his muscle was going to snap if he pushed any further. Like something was tugging from the opposite direction and holding him back. 

“...Doesn’t really feel like we get very far with that one, do we?” Moore finally spoke as he pulled away from Milo completely to slip his file back into his hands, leafing through some of the documents. “Outside of PT, is that shoulder still bothering you?” The therapist asked, though it wasn’t even a full second until Milo's response of “Nope.” followed. So quick of a response that he was wincing at himself for not being more convincing as Dr. Moore’s gaze immediately shifted towards Amy with a small raise of his brow - disbelief evident. 

AMY:  Despite everything that ever happened in Swynlake, Amy was an optimist. She’d been born that way! And you know, she grew up coming to Swynlake, spending loads of time here because of her grandparents. So when the demon event happened, of course it was absolutely horrific stuff, just the pits really – but Amy bounced back as she knew she had to. She was Aunt Amy– and she needed to be strong for her kids. And so with a big smile and constant encouragement, she’d made sure Pip got back to school, and was there for every appointment for Milo, poor kid.  She was hopeful that soon they’d see some improvement. And hey, there was SOME improvement, but– well, she was no doctor. And she was impatient. She was starting to wonder about the proposed timeline that the hospital had given them at the start of Milo’s treatment. Everyone was different, ‘course, and it did depend a lot on how much work each individual put into their PT… but… Milo was a hard worker. He’d wanted to get back to work. It couldn’t be his fault. And so that led Amy to this appointment today, that worry bouncing around in the back of her head. The look on Dr. Moore’s face did not bode well either. Amy frowned and sighed. “It definitely bothers him,” said Amy, chiming in for Milo, not bothering to look his way. She was sure he didn’t want her saying that. But too bad, kid! “Whenever he uses it at all. I mean, I dunno what level of pain he should be in but, I dunno, when we first started, we were told things were gonna be looking up at this point…” 

MILO:

There was only a brief look passed to Amy when she failed to cover for him - but why would she? Milo knew she was right. His shoulder did bother him anytime he used it, and he knew Amy noticed. He knew Pip noticed. It was obvious whenever he went to grab something off a shelf, or tried to lift something with the wrong hand. Even if he shifted on the couch during movie night to pet Booboo. 

Lying to the doctor wouldn't get him anywhere, he knew as well. Part of him was just hoping if he could pretend it was fine hard enough it would be. 

"...By this point we were hoping his level of pain would be at minimum. Occasional stiffness, soreness with extended use. Not immediate pain with extension." Moore explained, placing the folder down and immediately returning to Milo's side. He urged Milo to move his left arm - up, down, in a full circle. The complete range of motion intact and without even a wince to his features. Easy. "...alright, now give that a go on this side. Just so we can get a full picture of where we're at." 

Milo blanched at the mere thought of it. A breath slipping through his lips as he tactically chose to start by moving his arm down. Then to the front. That was no sweat. It was just the rest of it that made him hesitate as he grit his teeth lightly. A moment passed before he raised his arm. There was an immediate tremor that started down through the tips of his fingers, curling them into his palm as he pushed up. He'd barely raised his arm above his shoulder far at all before a searing pain had him flinching it back to his chest as he bit down on the far less appropriate words threatening to slip. 

He’d barely heard Dr. Moore’s own sigh over the thumping in his ears. "...When Milo first came in, his injuries were extensive. Multiple people suffered incredibly extensive injuries... You both understand how small our staff can seem when these things happen. Especially when our own are a part of the hurt. So the emergency unit's main concern was triage and stabilizing patients. Milo, you had lost a lot of blood. They had been concerned about doing anything more invasive at all, given your state. Most of what they did do was to minimize blood loss, not to physically reconstruct or contain any sort of muscle or ligament damage." The doctor explained, his hands moving to gently expose the still raw scarring that covered Milo's shoulder. 

"...We went ahead with PT to see how far we could get. There was always a chance things could heal on their own, and we will always try the least invasive and most simple paths to recovery first. Unfortunately, there was also always the chance that physical therapy alone was not going to rehab the damages either. I believe that's where we currently stand."

AMY:  Amy flinched along with Milo. She couldn’t help it. She’d always been on the sensitive side, one of her greatest strengths and also her greatest weaknesses (according to Pip, who would always make his opinions known, and known loudly). But he wasn’t wrong. It was why she’d never abandon Maggie, even when Maggie lied to Amy or stood Amy up. It meant that she couldn’t help but feel the pain of Milo now, even if it was mostly in her head. She shuddered and swallowed roughly, like the exercises were happening to her. And she tried to brace herself for what she assumed the doctor would say next. Yup, no surprises there. Amy cast a sorry glance toward Milo, then reached out to him. She laid a gentle hand on his wrist. “Right,” she said to the doctor. “So Plan A’s out. There’s got to be a Plan B, right? A surgery or something?”  Amy assumed as much. She’d seen enough Grey’s Anatomy, plus her own dad had to get surgery for his hip after a bad fall and physical therapy hadn’t worked for him. Makes sense that they’d take a similar route for Milo. 

MILO:

Plan B. Surgery. Surgery!? 

Milo's gaze snapped up immediately, his wrist twitching slightly beneath Amy's hand as he nearly held his breath waiting for the response. 

"Yes." Oh no. "The Plan B option is surgical repair followed by the same physical therapy routine. That one should fare much better once the actual ligament is fixed. There's a few different approaches they could go with, given we seem to think his main issue is likely the torn rotator cuff.” Dr. Moore started to explain, easily going into the three different approaches they typically used and when. His fingers lightly tracing over Milo’s shoulder as he explained the process of each one, the difference in incision sizes and which he thought they’d likely use for Milo’s case - but Milo himself wasn’t listening. 

Instead his brows furrowed deeply as he stared down at the floor, his mind racing a mile a minute. He couldn’t do surgery! That wasn’t an option. He didn’t… want to do that again. Not when he could only imagine how much money all of this was already going to cost Amy. The financial burden he’d put on the Seville's by existing was likely already too much - much less from having his initial surgery. His hospital stay. All these weeks of rehab!! The medications! Not to mention he was still out of work, he couldn’t even begin to help pay any of this back if Mr. Moon wouldn’t let him even do minimal odd jobs. And now they wanted him to do another procedure? Another hospital stay? Another round of PT? 

Not to mention… he was downright terrified of going back. He didn’t want another surgery. He didn’t want to do it. It was fine without. It would stop hurting eventually, right? He just couldn’t do full rotations! Fine. He’d live without - he lived without much more for years, he could handle this! Plus then he’d go back to work sooner. Start earning money again sooner, be less of a worry and a burden sooner. 

His gaze slipped back up as Dr. Moore had stepped away, grabbing his clipboard and a pen, still mostly addressing Amy. “So - I can write up the referral and then they’ll call you to get that sch——” “—No.” Milo interrupted then, his own voice startling him as his cheeks blushed lightly once the doctor’s gaze snapped to him with obvious confusion. “...I’m sorry?” The older man had said, hesitating with his pen against the paper. 

“I--...  No. I-.. I don’t…I don’t want it. The.. the surgery. I’m… I’m not going to get it..” 

AMY:  Amy listened and nodded and at some points– stopped the doctor to repeat something so she could take notes. She didn’t consider herself a smart person, after all. In fact, if asked, Amy Seville would say she was pretty dumb. School hadn’t been for her. It was why she dropped out in the first place, why she had wanted to do something that made more sense. For her, food had always made sense and food was fun. But surgery? Medical procedures? Wayyyyy out of her wheelhouse. But as a guardian, she needed to do her best to show up for her kids, y’know? So she got out that phone and took some notes. She asked questions. She already knew she needed to call somewhere for a second opinion– you always had to get a second opinion on things, especially if you didn’t understand it yourself. Amy opened up her mouth to agree to the referral. But she didn’t get that far.  “No,” said Milo. Amy’s head swiveled, as she looked at him in surprise.  Instantly, she reached forward to grasp at Milo’s wrist. “Hey,” she said. “It’s okay. I know, this is all super overwhelming. For now, we can just ask questions, huh?” she said gently. “We’ll go to this referral and see what they say. We’ll get a second opinion. Don’t worry, we’re not rushing you into the hospital tomorrow, buddy.” 

MILO:

Amy’s hand was back on his wrist, her words soft and reassuring, but Milo was already spooked, his head shaking in disagreement almost immediately despite the logic in her comment. He didn’t want to ask questions. He didn’t want a second opinion (unless the opinion was that he would be fine without, thanks). Milo did not want to think about these alternatives at all, but he also was quickly pushing the repercussions away from his mind too. 

He’d work on it himself. He’d go back to the gym, he’d just… start over with his strength training. He’d continue practicing the stretches and the pulls - Milo was disciplined, he could do it just fine without medical intervention. Worse case scenario; he’d grin and bear it. He’d become great at that over the past few months anyways, right? 

“...they’re just going to say the same thing.” Milo argued quietly, his tone holding a slight pleading edge. “No surgery.” He forced himself to say again with a more certain firmness, as if it was a decision he was making logically and not one of anxiety and panic. It was Dr. Moore’s hand that slipped back onto his shoulder then, Milo’s gaze shifting to him as he felt himself stiffen. “...Milo, I understand you might be nervous, but as far as procedures go, it’s a fairly easy one with incredibly high success rates. Most people go on to regain their entire range of motion with no continuing pain afterwards. You have to understand without the proper fix, your shoulder may continue to heal incorrectly. You might lose some of that function permanently.” 

Most. Might. No guarantees either way, right? It was a shoddy way to look at it, but Milo could only cling onto that thought as it worked in his favor, shaking his head again. “...I said no.” Milo pressed, eying the doctor and not missing the way his jaw had shifted slightly. Dr. Moore stepped away entirely then though, finishing writing his initial paperwork before tearing it off and handing it towards Amy. 

“...Very well. I’m still going to give you the referral. For if-” He glanced at Milo. “-you change your mind. It’s valid for six months, if…you want to get different opinions or explore your options before speaking with them. After that, the outlook and recovery timeline would begin to change and we’ll have to re-evaluate.” The doctor finished, glancing between the pair of them before he turned back to Milo with a frown on his lips. “I highly recommend considering it, Milo. Medically. Personally. You’re young, you’re active. Don’t subject yourself to a lifetime of chronic pain over this...” 

AMY:  Yeah, no, Milo was getting the surgery. Amy was not a good mom– she was probably not even that good of an aunt. She’d never imagined herself as either of those things, honestly. Only after she had met Pip, that sweet little baby, had a part of her heart opened that she hadn’t even been aware had existed. Maybe if Pip hadn’t been so dang cute– so dang smiley all the time! If he’d been a miserable little thing that cried, maybe she wouldn’t have fallen in love with him. But he’d been adorable. She loved him from the start, loved to babysit him, loved to hold him, and when Maggie’s addiction got even worse, it had been a no brainer for Amy to take him. She couldn’t let that sweet kid go to the Kims. They’d raise him so strictly that he’d forget how to laugh. Right now, Amy felt the surgery was a no brainer too. She didn’t have to be the World’s Best Aunt to know that. Buuuuuuut…she was also a stubborn person who hated listening to her parents. So she wasn’t going to tell Milo he was going to get that surgery. She’d let him sit with it, and they could talk about it a little later. She’d tell Pip, and he could help support Milo. It was a shame Pip wasn’t here now. She was sure he would have known the right thing to say to Milo so they could get this thing on the books. For now, Amy just reached for the information. “Yes, please, we’ll take the referral anyway. Just in case.” She smiled. “Thanks again! We’ll be in touch.” She shook the doctor’s hand, then got up and walked with Milo out of the room. After checking out, they emerged back into Swynlake.  “You hungry? We can stop by at Hatter’s or some place on the way,” she said. 

MILO: 

Milo pulled away the second they were dismissed, righting his shirt and pulling his sling back over his shoulder so that he could tuck his arm back against his side. As much as he despised the thing,... it hurt a whole hell of a lot less when it was like that, especially after PT when he felt like all of his muscles were on fire as they walked back out onto the street. Perhaps if he wore it longer than recommended, it would help the recovery more. You know what else would help? The surgery, dumbass. 

His gaze shifted, looking down at Amy as he realized she’d addressed him, his brows furrowing as his mind fought to catch up to the words. Quite frankly, he was sure his appetite had all been zapped from him, but even if it hadn’t his answer would have been the same. They had food at home… How could he want to continue to spend more money? He wanted to ask Amy. How much had this entire thing cost her? How much would be coming in bills to their doorstep? How big was the number he was going to have to add to the already large number of his notebook. The one that seemed to grow every day with no means of lessening it. He’d tried to offer her rent. He’d tried desperately to pay back Amy and Pip - but they never wanted to accept it. Which meant they’d just keep giving for him and he’d never get to pay them back for it. 

It wasn’t right. 

Milo couldn’t help but wonder if Amy knew everything she did now - if she would have still brought Pluto home that day. 

“...oh -...no, I’m fine.. Thank you.” Milo waved off a few moments later, shaking his head softly as he watched a few birds hop around on the pavement across the way. Being a bird might’ve been nice… At least they could fly away, right? “...I uh--...I just want to go home.” He admitted softly, a sigh pressing past his lips before he glanced at Amy again. “....if that’s okay..”

[birseysoyleyebilirmiyim]

Kendime yeni bir “Bizimkiler” dizisi buldum

“What if we’re all in the painting… everywhere? And what if we’re in the painting before we’re born? What if we’re in it after we die? And these colors that we keep adding, they just keep getting added on top of one another, ’til eventually we’re not even different colors anymore. We’re just… one thing. One painting. My dad, he’s not with us anymore. He’s not alive… but he’s with us. He’s with me every day. It all just sort of fits somehow, even if you don’t understand how yet. People will die in our lives – – people that we love. In the future. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe years from now. I mean, it’s kind of beautiful, right, if you think about it, the fact that just because someone dies, just because you can’t see them or talk to them anymore, it doesn’t mean they’re not still in the painting. I think maybe that’s the point of the whole thing. There’s no dying. There’s no ‘You’ or ‘Me’ or ‘Them.’ It’s just ‘Us.’ And this sloppy, wild, colorful, magical thing that has no beginning, has no end, it’s right here. I think it’s us.”

Yazmak ve önermek için geç kalmış olabilirim; ancak etrafımda hâlâ bu diziden habersiz olanlar görüyorum, üzülüyorum. Oysa ülkemizin güzide kanallarından FOX TV bile Türkçe’ye ve Türkiye’ye adapte etti, izleyicilerle buluşturdu. Nasıl oldu bilemiyorum, tanıtımlarını gördüğümde epey burun kıvırdım ama önyargılı olmamak lazım. Sonuçta benim burun kıvırışım kitabını okuduğum bir hikayenin senaryolaşıp sinemaya uyarlanması için de verdiğim olağan bir tepki. Kıllık yapmak bedava olunca böyle oluyor.

Efenim söz konusu dizi; This is Us. 2016 yılında NBC’de başladığı yayın hayatına pıtı pıtı devam ediyor kendisi. Şu aralar 4. sezonu bitti bitecek. Başrollerde geçmişin küçük yılıdızlarından Mandy Moore, Gillmore Girls’te Rory’nin serseri aşkını canlandırıp hepimize bir iç çektiren (hepimize çektirmiştir herhalde, di’ mi?) Milo Ventimiglia, Sterling K. Brown, Chrissy Metz ve Justin Hartley var. Şahsen ben uzun zamandır böyle tatlı, böyle gerçek bir şey -şey diyorum çünkü film ya da dizi ayırt etmeksizin böyle- izlememiştim. Pek de anlatasım yok aslında; zira ben hikâyeyi hiç ama hiç okumadan diziyi izlemeye başlamıştım, haliyle karşıma çıkan, beni sanırım bu yüzden biraz daha fazla büyüledi. Ancak diyebilirim ki tam bir aile hikâyesi. Ve hepimizin öğreneceği o kadar çok şey var ki… Meselâ dizinin en sevilen karakterlerinden Jack’in bir yandan muhteşem hatta gerçek olamayacak kadar mükemmel bir insan olduğunu izlerken, aslında onun da zaafları, hataları olduğunu görebiliyoruz. Ya da aynı evde, aynı anne ve baba tarafından büyütülen üç kardeşin birbirinden ne kadar farklı olabildiğini, aralarındaki çekişmeleri, çocukluk travmalarını büyüdüklerinde hâlâ nasıl yanlarında taşıdıklarını… Bana hayat, yaşamak, aile olmak, dost olmak ile ilgili o kadar çok şey gösteriyor ki… Bu yüzden de anne-baba olan, daha doğrusu aile olan ve olmayı düşünen herkesin izlemesi gerek gibi geliyor. Her bölümde insan ayrı bir detay, ayrı bir incelik görüp alıp verdiği nefese daha çok kıymet veriyor, etrafına daha bir farklı bakıyor. İlk iki bölüm biraz yavaş gelebilir, ama biraz sabrederseniz Pearson Ailesi’ne konuk olup Big Three ile tanışabilirsiniz. Ve bence bundan kesinlikle pişman olmayacaksınız. Şuraya diziden birkaç tane tatlı laf koyalım da romantizme azıcık doyalım:

“I don’t need anniversaries to see you. I see you every day. You are my daily meteor shower.”

“You know when I was a little boy I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. Adults always ask little kids that. I never had a good answer. Not until I was 28. Until the day that I met you. That’s when I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be the man that made you happy.”

(23 Kasım 2019)

[ladyartemesia]

All I Want For Christmas is You

Pairing: Kim Taehyung x Female Reader

Summary: When Park Jimin is unable to escort his precious sister through the gauntlet of corporate holiday galas, he blackmails his best friend Taehyung into being her chaperone. After all, who better to safeguard his headstrong sibling than a man who would never want her for himself? (She and Tae have spent the better part of a decade mutually disliking each other, and that’s putting it mildly.) Yet, even the best laid plans may go awry at Christmas and Kim Taehyung is about to discover that the girl he never wanted has become a temptation he cannot resist...

Genre: Comedy • Fluff  • Smut

Tropes: Brother’s Best Friend (Reader is Jimin’s Sister) • Enemies-to-Lovers

Collab: This work is part of the Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tropes Collab featuring original holiday themed works by @ppersonna • @xjoonchildx  • @underthejoon • @yeojaa​ • @untaemedqueen • and @snackhobi

Word Count: 17K (I know—I am shocked too honestly)

Rating: Explicit (18+)

Warnings: suggestive photographs • mention of accidentally being hit with a baseball • hints of jealousy and possessiveness • light tit slapping • explicit sexual content • m/f oral sex • consensual unprotected sex (shield it before you yield it y’all) • Viola’s mirror kink makes yet another appearance •

Acknowledgements:

To @ppersonna​ (Lindy) @underthejoon​ (Fal) and @xjoonchildx​ (Ana) you guys are my heart. Your support, willingness to read (and re-read) and give honest feedback made this fic special. Your friendship is my daily dose of awesome. Truly, I love you.

To @untaemedqueen​ (D) all of the above applies to you, but I owe you a little something extra for the LITERAL HOURS you spent in the doc with me. This fic would not be here without you. You kept me moving. You inspired me. You were amazing. Thank you so very much. This story is lovingly dedicated to you. 

To @hobi-gif​ for being the most thorough and incredible beta reader and for having all the important girl chats with me. I think you learned more about my past than you wanted... Either way you made this story better and I am profoundly grateful for the hours of time you spent. I have removed all the Hope-No-No words in your honor. 

To @lemonjoonah​ as always, you knew EXACTLY what I needed to tweak to make this story work. (Gotta pass that Lemon Litmus Test or no dice lol.) My lovely soul twin. You’re a bloomin’ rockstar. 

Please Picture This Taehyung:

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Yes. Because you absolutely owe me.”

“Then send me a bill, not your unmanageable harpy of a sister.”

Jimin raised a single unimpressed brow. 

“Kim Taehyung. It was exactly five years ago today that I carried your drunken naked ass two miles in the rain after you set your clothes on fire and sprained your ankle at that Beta Phi party.” He paused dramatically. “Do you remember what you said to me that night? After I deleted several pictures off phones and paid off half the party to keep it out of the papers?”

The man in question shifted uncomfortably.

“That incident is a bit hazy in my memory. I’m not sure I recall—”

“Jiminie—you’re the best and I—I owe… you. I owe you the most, Jiminie. I do—I owe you a favor—one BIG favor—anything you ask… Even though... I actually like being naked. I don’t think we need clothes. We should all be naked. Everyone. Then there would be world peace.”

Taehyung’s jaw dropped. 

“You RECORDED IT?!”

Jimin grinned, sliding his phone back into his pocket.

“Naturally. And I had it all ready to go—just in case you needed extra convincing.” He crossed his arms and fixed his best friend of nearly fifteen years with a triumphant smirk. “I’m calling in that favor today, Taehyung. Now are you a man of your word or not?”

“He did WHAT?!”

Your mother winced. 

“Jimin was... uncomfortable leaving you alone for the holiday season. He normally accompanies you to the galas but this year—”

“This year I was going to go alone and finally build my reputation as an asset to this family!”

Park Soomin sighed as she watched her daughter pace fiercely around the living room of their luxury suite. 

“No one doubts that you’re an asset, but… in light of recent events...”

Rage and embarrassment flared up in your chest before you could stop them. 

“This is about Milo… isn’t it?”

The silence that greeted your statement was confirmation enough. 

“Are you ever going to trust me again?” you whispered. 

“Oh sweetheart... it isn’t you we don’t trust...”

Tears burned at the corner of your eyes, but you ruthlessly blinked them back. 

You would play along with their humiliating schemes. 

For now.

“So which one of Jimin’s Ivy League brat pack did he blackmail into babysitting me? 

For the first time in the entirety of the conversation, your mother looked truly nervous. 

“Kim Taehyung.”

You tripped over your own feet and face-planted into the sofa. 

“Jungkook, I need to look into faking my own death. Nothing too over the top. Just a tasteful disappearance—”

The man in question could barely restrain his grin. 

“You don’t pay me nearly enough to deal with your mother in the event of your tragic demise and miraculous resurrection.”

“I could pay you more.”

“Or,” Jungkook replied with a heavy dose of judgment coloring his tone, “you could put on this ridiculous tie and stop trying to weasel out of it.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I pay you at all,” Taehyung growled, yanking the tie from the younger man’s grasp. “Clearly I’m not the one in charge.”

“Your words, sir, not mine. Now shall we go over the details and itinerary?”

If Jeon Jungkook wasn’t the best executive aide in the city (and one of his closest friends) Tae would have drop-kicked him right then and there.

“Could you at least try to look like you’re not enjoying this?”

“I’m sorry, sir. It was insensitive of me to ignore your suffering in this delicate time. The trauma of escorting a beautiful woman to a series of glorified buffets weighs heavily upon you.”

Taehyung tightened the tie so aggressively, he almost strangled himself.

“Beautiful woman?!” he wheezed. “We’re talking about the girl who showed up to our formal graduation party looking like she just escaped from Azkaban.”

Jungkook bit the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. 

“Tae… how long has it been since you’ve actually seen Ms. Park?” 

“Seen? Maybe three—four years.”

The heir-apparent of Kim Holdings avoided the public end of corporate culture like the plague, preferring to leave the requisite schmoozing to his personable cousin, Kim Seokjin. 

However, he had crossed paths with his adolescent nemesis in... other ways. 

Taehyung was romancing a lovely young socialite who suddenly ghosted him after someone told her that he wanted at least eight naturally-birthed children. 

Soon after, your favorite charity received an anonymous 30,000 dollar donation requesting that you be featured in the dunk tank for an upcoming benefit carnival and then the same anonymous patron paid for at least fifteen little league teams to attend. 

In retaliation, someone petitioned the National Aviary Society (chaired by a very influential senator’s wife that no one ever refused if they wanted their permits to go through) to make Taehyung the MC at their annual awards ceremony—knowing full well he was allergic to birds (not dangerously allergic—just enough to be miserable).  

Taehyung had sniffled and sneezed through approximately one hundred parrots, parakeets, and other assorted fowl until he was ready to commit murder. 

The last several years had been littered with similar incidents of the two of you taking thinly veiled potshots at one another. 

“I can’t imagine she’s changed very much,” Taehyung bit off absently. His mind was abruptly consumed by how he could get revenge for those demonic birds. 

He didn’t notice the smile creeping over Jungkook’s face. 

“No, sir. I’m sure she hasn’t changed at all.”

Taehyung had only ever had the wind knocked out of him once before. 

He was Dionysia High School’s star pitcher for three seasons and during one particularly tense game against JY Prep, Lim Jaebeom whacked a line drive right into his solar plexus. 

That’s how it felt to look up and see you at the top of the stairs. 

In his head, you were still the mischievous imp from his childhood. Every prank he played was directed at the fierce little fiend with braids and braces who’d knocked him and his date into the university fountain while experimenting with her friend’s skateboard. 

But she was gone… and in her place was something far more dangerous. 

A woman. 

Silken fabric wrapped tightly over curves you definitely didn’t have four years ago. That wild hair had been tamed into shining waves and pinned elegantly at the nape of your neck. The wicked slit that traveled all the way up your thigh teased a smooth shapely leg that all but demanded the viewer fantasize about running their hand up the length of it. 

Suddenly it was very clear why Park Jimin wouldn’t let his sister venture into the corporate cesspool alone. 

Because the sight of you could make a man desperate. 

Betrayal—of all things—slowly crept over Taehyung as you descended toward him like some sort of angel floating down from the heavens. 

His mind went blank. Just watching the seductive shift of your hips as you swayed ever closer felt like a violation of his friendship with Jimin. He could feel the judgmental stares of an imaginary Bro-Code Council boring into him from on high. 

“I see you’ve recovered from your memorable tenure as the Aviary Society’s Master of Ceremonies.”

And just like that the brat was back. 

Taehyung breathed a hefty sigh of relief, secretly thrilled to be in familiar territory with you. 

“Naturally I was delighted to help Senator Mitchell’s wife. In fact, Mitchell’s office just fast tracked all my pending permit requests for the new year.” He tilted forward, coming into your space a bit. “I should really send you a thank you card.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you scowled, breezing past him like an indignant queen. 

Tae could practically see the steam pouring out of your ears. 

“Of course not,” he chuckled.

The first gala of the holiday season was an extravagant annual affair hosted by Min Corp., a Seoul based investment firm that commanded billions in assets. This year, the theme of the event was the Joseon Dynasty and the entire ballroom had been gloriously transformed into a stunning celebration of the Min family’s royal heritage. 

Attendees were gifted their own traditional fan, each uniquely crafted by artisans from Damyang. Taehyung’s was all black with bold silver calligraphy while yours was a beautiful bamboo and silk piece decorated with pomegranate trees. 

You had already whacked three people with it by the time dinner was served. 

“It really is a pity these fell out of fashion,” you lamented. “They’re quite useful.”

“You are deranged,” Taehyung mumbled, massaging his temples in exasperation. 

“Nonsense. I only fanned those who deserved it.”

“Harkins?”

“He was staring at my rack for a solid minute.”

Taehyung could hardly blame the man, it was a battle he himself was losing after all, but Harkins was twice your age and married—therefore his ogling was in especially poor taste. 

“Okay... What about Kang?” 

“He was verbally abusing one of the waitstaff.” 

“Alright, fair enough, but why on earth would you go after sweet old Mrs. O’Malley?”

“She was about to grab your ass.”

Taehyung’s mouth dropped open.

“She’s eighty-five!”

“And still kickin’ apparently.” You shook your head in disgust. “As if I’d whack an eighty-five year-old woman for anything less than non-consensual touching.”

“I- I- mean—surely you must be mistaken,” he coughed. 

“Oh, there’s no mistake. That nasty old crone is a serial offender. She likes to play it off as dementia, but she’s as sharp as a tack. Last year she got a whole handful of Jimin. Honestly, I’d call the police on her, but the commissioner is her grandson so I doubt I’d get very far.”

Taehyung turned to the woman in question just in time to see her totter lecherously toward Jung Hoseok, fingers already twitching in anticipation. 

“Is nothing sacred?” he mused hollowly. 

You shrugged. 

“Many people who accumulate as much as our families have start believing that they are entitled to whatever strikes their fancy.” Your eyes met his with a hint of bemusement. “Surely you should be used to this sort of thing by now?”

“Yes, but I was hardly expecting it from little old ladies!”

The remainder of dinner was a terse affair where you pretended he didn’t exist for the entire meal and he in turn pretended that the spunky young heiress seated to his right was the most darling creature to ever walk the earth. By dessert she was ready to get married and you were ready to vomit. 

Afterward, Taehyung found himself quickly converted to your views on fan usefulness as you began strolling through the crowd intent on strengthening your family’s corporate ties. 

“Kim Taehyung,” you ground out through clenched teeth, “how am I supposed to do business if you keep stabbing everyone I speak to!”

“I don’t know what you’re implying. I’m simply not used to carrying one of these. I may have accidentally grazed a few overzealous individuals—”

“My last three conversations have been rudely disrupted by the blunt end of that accused fan.”

Taehyung crossed his arms smugly. 

“And what of it? Jimin sent me along to keep an eye on you and the gentlemen in question were hardly behaving themselves. No one has to put their hand in my back or lean that close to me when they’re talking business.” 

“That’s because no one wants to get that close to you,” you replied sweetly. “You’re gross.” 

A devastating grin slid slowly over his features as he leaned forward to whisper in your ear. 

“I can think of several women who might disagree.”

He just barely caught the hitch in your breath before- 

“Like who? Miss Blushes-and-Giggles from dinner?”

“Jealous?” Taehyung drawled cockily. 

“Only in your dreams, Kim.” Then, with a deliberate flick of your fan, you turned your back to him. “I’m headed for the ladies room. Do yourself a favor and don’t follow me in.”

It was twenty minutes before Taehyung realized that you slipped out the back entrance of the restroom. 

It took another ten for him to locate you on the balcony flirting outrageously with Min Yoongi. 

The young heir of Min Corp. was just leaning closer to whisper sweet nothings in your ear when a black fan slid right in between the two of you. 

“Lovely weather we’re having,” Taehyung observed cheerfully. His eyes bounced between you and Yoongi with barely concealed fury and you let out a miserable groan. 

“Mr. Kim,” Yoongi cleared his throat significantly. “What an… unexpected surprise.”

Frustration clawed at your chest as your overbearing guardian nodded smugly in response. 

It was time to teach him—and Jimin—a lesson. 

“Yoongi,” you sighed, sliding your hand pointedly through the crook of his arm, “I’m not feeling at all well. Would you perhaps… escort me home?”

Taehyung suddenly looked as if he’d swallowed a live octopus. 

Yoongi grinned, clearly thrilled with the prospect of simultaneously spending more time with you and irritating Taehyung. 

“It would be my pleasure.”

“Jimin is gonna kill me,” Taehyung grumbled as he watched Min Yoongi help you into the passenger seat of his Aston Martin. 

An ugly green feeling he refused to identify twisted sharply in his gut when you smiled coyly at the other man. 

“This is ridiculous,” he snarled to no one in particular before yanking his phone out of his pocket. 

Jungkook picked up on the second ring. 

“Sir?”

“I need you to drive to Ms. Park’s apartment and tell me if she goes in alone or if Min Yoongi goes in with her.”

“You want me to what?!” 

“Just do it!” he snapped, downing an entire glass of champagne before signaling his own driver. 

Fifteen minutes later his phone vibrated from the car seat next to him. 

1 New Message from: Jungkook

Her building has four separate entrances. Which one do I watch? 

Taehyung could practically feel the vein pulsing in his forehead as he scrolled through his contacts. 

You picked up on the fourth ring. 

“Hello?”

“Where are you?”

“Oh it’s you… Wait—how did you get this number?”

“Jimin. Obviously. Now please answer the question.”

“Oh a ‘please.’ Who knew you had manners?”

“Answer the question, Park. I’m tired.”

The distinct sound of a zipper unzipping carried through the speaker. 

“I’m at home, of course. Where else would I be? I just got here like a minute ago.”

He had a sudden vision of Min Yoongi helping you out of your dress. His grip on the phone tightened. 

“Are you alone?”

You snorted. 

“I don’t see how that is any of your business.”

Taehyung saw red. 

“I’m coming over.”

There was a loud crash and several colorful words in at least three different languages. 

“Wha- No! I’m trying to go to bed!”

“With who?!”

“With myself, you idiot!”

“Prove it!”

“Fine! I will!”

The line disconnected and Taehyung swore loudly. He was just about to direct the driver to your building when his phone went off again. 

1 New Message from: Park Gremlin 

He almost choked on his tongue. 

You were clearly in the middle of undressing and—in your irritation—probably hadn’t looked too carefully at the picture you sent.  

At first glance it was simply a shot of your empty room (presumably “proof” that you were alone) but you neglected to consider the floor-length mirror hanging in the far corner…

A mirror that showed you angrily holding up your phone with your gown pooled deliciously around your waist and the soft round swells of your breasts strapped into lacy red lingerie. 

You were exquisite. 

A fierce, hot sensation gripped him ruthlessly, and this time there was no mistaking it. 

Desire. 

Your phone lit up on the bed where you tossed it after snapping a photo for your tightly-wound man nanny. 

1 New Message from: Kim Grinch 

I didn’t know you liked Van Gogh. 

Your head tilted in confusion. 

There was a Van Gogh print in your room, but he couldn’t have seen it because it was behind you when-

Oh NO.

You gasped, scrolling back up to confirm what deep down you already knew to be true. 

… You just sent Kim Taehyung a topless mirror selfie. 

Several miles away, smiling smugly in the backseat of his town car, Taehyung was sure he could almost hear you screaming. 

“Good morning, sir. Which would you like first; the bad news or the worse news?”

Taehyung groaned from underneath his covers. 

“Don’t you ever knock? I could have a woman up here.”

“You’ve never brought a woman up here.”

“Is that the bad news?” Taehyung yawned. 

“No,” Jungkook tossed a small stack of newspapers and printed digital articles into his lap, “this is the bad news.”

Pictures of you, Min Yoongi, and even himself were splashed over the front pages of all of them. 

PARK ANGEL TRADES ONE CORPORATE HEIR FOR ANOTHER AT MIN GALA

WHO WILL WIN THE PARK ANGEL’S HEART? KIM TAEHYUNG OR MIN YOONGI? LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS

NEW ROMANCE ALERT? PARK ANGEL LEAVES JOSEON BALL WITH MIN SCION 

“The Park Angel?” 

“That’s what the media calls her... The public is rather fascinated with her actually.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Taehyung mumbled. 

“Of course not, sir. It’s a great mystery.”

As usual, Taehyung chose to ignore his aide’s lethal snark and pressed on to the matter at hand. 

“This is a flaming disaster.”

“Oh I don’t know. I really appreciated the picture of you staring on forlornly while she and Yoongi climbed into the Aston Martin. Takes a real gift to capture all that drama in a single frame.”

“Which one was that?!” 

“It’s right under the MAN DOWN: PARK ANGEL LEAVES KIM TAEHYUNG HEARTBROKEN headline.”

Tae ran his hand down over his face in exasperation. 

“I��m surprised my mother hasn’t called.”

“She has. Twice.”

“I don’t suppose that’s the ‘worse news’ is it?”

“No.”

“Of course it isn’t. I’m never that lucky.” He collapsed backwards into his pillows with a beleaguered huff. “Go ahead then. Tell me.”

“Park Jimin is on the line for you right now.”

After a small eternity on the phone with Jimin (assuring him that NO Min Yoongi had not despoiled his precious sister and YES he would definitely do better next time), Taehyung was forced to attend an impromptu brunch with his mother. It took considerable effort, but he was eventually able to convince her that you were neither breaking his heart nor expecting his child. 

By the time he arrived to collect you for this evening’s event, Taehyung was already sick of hearing your name (he’d spoken it no less than three hundred times since Jungkook woke him this morning).

You were in much the same boat as Taehyung, having spent most of the afternoon pacifying Jimin and clearing up your own mother’s romantic delusions regarding the Min and Kim heirs respectively. 

Tonight’s gala was a Victorian Christmas Ball thrown by the National Literary Fund and the entire venue had been transformed into a Charles Dickens fever dream. 

Unlike the Min Gala (whose theme was guarded like a state secret every year) the Literary Fund’s tribute to A Christmas Carol was tradition and you were dressed accordingly in a custom corset gown with gorgeous detailing. 

Every second of effort it took to lace yourself into the monstrosity was worth the look on Taehyung’s face the moment you slipped off your cape. 

“Something wrong, Mr. Kim?”

Taehyung was desperately trying to look literally anywhere but your chest, where said corset was serving up your breasts like a debauched buffet. 

Jimin. Think of Jimin. Think of what Jimin will do to you. Think of how much trouble she’s caused-

He peeked again.

I would pay a million dollars to suck those tits. 

“Nothing at all,” his voice cracked. 

The itinerary for the evening included performances by a local children’s choir, a traditional waltz, and—of course—dinner.

You both managed to get along without snapping at each other during the choral performance, but as two of the largest donors to the Children’s Literacy Initiative, neither of you could escape being drawn into the waltz. 

The energetic socialite who Taehyung flirted with over dinner the previous night eventually lured him onto the floor while you graciously accepted an invitation from a lovely older gentleman who chaired the Fund’s event committee. 

For the first few movements, you were thoroughly enjoying yourself. Mr. Lee was charming, respectful, and still an excellent dancer despite his advanced age. It wasn’t until a familiar sound caught your attention that the lightness in your chest suddenly felt heavy...

Taehyung was laughing. 

You heard him do so many times over the years, and in each instance, the carefree magic of it never failed to make your heart flutter. 

But now he was smiling down at the pretty little heiress and laughing for her… and the flutter in your chest was accompanied by something else. 

Something that felt an awful lot like longing. 

“Does he know you look at him like that?” Mr. Lee asked quietly. 

Your eyes flew guiltily to his, but it was too late. The old man had caught a glimpse of the secret you buried deeply for more than a decade; so deeply, in fact, there were times you almost forgot it yourself...

Almost. 

“No,” you whispered, “he has no idea.” 

Disaster struck at dinner. 

Taehyung quite liked dancing with the lovely Miss Something-or-Other. She was sweet and funny and (unlike with you) he wasn’t constantly torn between agitation and raging inappropriate lust in her presence. 

The cold shoulder you offered him when he took his seat seemed even more frigid than usual and he spent half the meal wondering what he’d done to earn your amplified disdain when suddenly—

Your hand smacked down on his wrist, seizing it in a vise-like grip. 

Taehyung nearly choked on his steak and was about to give you a searing set-down over your spontaneous grabby-ness when he noticed your expression. 

“What’s wrong?” he whispered, leaning forward in concern. 

“I-I need—” 

It looked as if you were in some sort of physical pain and Taehyung was rapidly becoming worried. 

“I need your help,” you finally managed to whimper and the next thing he knew, you were dragging him away from the table and into one of the secluded alcoves near the main entrance hall. 

“Is there anyone around? Can anyone see us?” The look on your face bordered on unhinged. 

“No. There’s no one. Park, are you okay? What’s going on I—”

“I need you to unlace my dress,” you hissed frantically. 

At that moment, a bomb could have gone off and Taehyung wouldn’t have blinked. 

You, however, were completely preoccupied with your own distress and therefore oblivious to his. 

“My earring broke during dinner and fell down there and now it’s stabbing me—”

Your eyes were beginning to tear. Taehyung remained frozen, still trying to figure out whether or not this was a lucid dream. 

“—it’s definitely pierced the skin and there’s a possibility I’m gonna start bleeding through the fabric—”

The mention of blood snapped him out of his daze somewhat. 

“A-Alright. Just turn around—brace yourself on that wall.”

You quickly did as you were told and Taehyung began to tug fruitlessly at the ties cross-crossing your back.

“Why won’t this—”

His fingers fumbled over the knots, desperately trying to loosen them, but they simply wouldn’t budge. 

“I can’t—I can’t get it. Whoever helped you into this thing made sure you weren’t getting out of it.” 

You whined in frustration and the earring shifted a bit in response. 

There was only one other way to fix this (and you would almost rather be in pain). 

“Taehyung I—” you turned to face him again, forcing your eyes shut before reluctantly doing what had to be done “... I need you to reach down the front of my dress and get it.”

He blinked. Twice. 

“I’m sorry—What did you just—”

“Please, Tae,” you whispered desperately, letting your lip tremble in a way he had never been able to resist, “it hurts…”

He gulped. 

His eyes dropped to the matter at hand.

This is fine. Everything’s fine. She’s in pain, right? You’re basically a doctor right now. You’re just going slide your hand in between the most mouthwatering pair of breasts you’ve ever seen and then—

Taehyung’s manic inner monologue was interrupted by the sound of his own moan. He immediately faked a coughing fit to cover it and prayed you hadn’t noticed. 

(You hadn’t. You were actively being stabbed.) 

“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,” he muttered, curling his fingers over the scalloped edge of the bodice. 

You bit your lip, desperately trying to hold back any reaction, but when his knuckle brushed the pebbled tip of your nipple, you gasped. 

Oh.

His hand stuttered, lingering a moment too long over the tight little peak as his gaze suddenly shot up to meet yours. Both of you had been studiously avoiding eye contact, yet now it was as if neither of you could look away. 

Taehyung wet his lips reflexively. 

“It’s too tight,” he whispered, “I need more leverage.” 

Then his arm wrapped over the curve of your lower back and he drew you tightly against him, anchoring your hips just enough to fully slip his hand between your body and the corset. 

You were so warm.

So soft...

“I can feel it,” he grunted, “but I can’t get a good grip on it.” 

His mouth pressed into a tight line as he leaned forward, bringing your back up against the wall. You let out a little squeak and his eyes darted briefly down to your mouth before he spoke again. 

“Hold on to me.”  

You nodded and wordlessly slid your arms around his waist.

If you concentrated hard enough, you could almost pretend that this wasn’t one of the most erotic moments of your life. 

You could almost pretend that it meant nothing. 

Your mind was spinning wildly, wondering what he was thinking, wondering if he noticed how strangely you were breathing or how hard your heart was beating...

“I’ve got it,” he murmured. Shivers shot down your spine at the dark timbre of his voice. 

He was so close. You could feel every word he spoke brushing softly against your skin. 

“On ‘three’ I’m going to pull it out… Are you ready?”

You drew in a final steadying breath. 

“Do it.”

He nodded. 

“One… Two… Three—”

Taehyung yanked his hand back and several things happened at once. 

Your breasts bounced almost entirely out of the corset. 

The decorative clasps on the front of your gown tangled with the buttons on his shirt and when he pulled back, three of them went flying off like stray bullets. 

And finally, the corset didn’t relinquish Taehyung’s hand quite quickly enough and, as a result, you toppled forward and crashed down on top of him, smashing your newly bare breasts to his newly bare chest. 

It could have been ten seconds or ten hours that passed by while the two of you lay there, breathing heavily in a pile of confused arousal when—

“... Is… everything alright here?”

You both looked up to find a thoroughly scandalized member of the waitstaff standing over you. 

Taehyung saw his life flash before his eyes—ending (of course) with Jimin murdering him for this. 

He gulped again. 

“I can explain.” 

It was decided—for the sake of appearances—that you would both leave the venue (immediately) in separate vehicles. 

Taehyung dropped a cool three hundred in crisp bills on the unfortunate waiter in order to help him ‘forget’ whatever he may or may not have seen. 

Neither of you spoke another word to each other in the ten minutes it took to bribe all the appropriate parties, gather your coats, and call for two separate town cars. 

Something had happened when he touched you; a subtle shift in the precarious balance of your relationship that you both felt keenly, but could not possibly begin to define. 

Taehyung barely even remembered climbing into the back of a vehicle. His body was firing on auto-pilot after the sensory overload of the last half hour. It wasn’t until he was nearly home that he realized he was still holding onto your earring. 

His mind began to wander as he examined the troublesome bauble in his palm. It was a striking piece; deceptively complex and unexpectedly beautiful. 

Just like you.

He told himself that the heat pooling low in his belly was anger—that the strange anxiousness to be near you was simply a desire for retribution—that it was merely platonic curiosity that left his hands aching to explore the rest of your curves. 

Lies.

… and pitifully transparent ones at that. 

Still, he clung to them desperately out of self-preservation. 

The gentle hum of his phone suddenly disturbed Taehyung’s silent contemplation. 

1 New Message from: Park Gremlin 

I made it home safely. 

Taehyung’s fingers were typing a reply before he could properly consider the consequence of his actions. 

To: Park Gremlin

I require proof… like last time. 

He nearly threw the phone the moment he sent it, running his hands down over his face in disbelief. 

You’re playing with fire, Kim Taehyung. 

And he was burning up already. He had no business sending you texts like that. Maybe you wouldn’t catch it. Maybe he could just-

The phone went off again and it was embarrassing how quickly he scrambled to open your response. 

His heart stuttered in his chest. His breathing ceased entirely-

And he knew—he knew—there was no coming back from this.

At first glance the photo was nearly identical to the shot you sent him last night. Same room, same angle… 

same mirror.

Yet this time, the reflection was quite different. 

The temptress in the glass wore nothing but that sinfully delicious corset and a pair of silky lace thigh highs, each accented with a green satin bow. 

He wanted to rip them off with his teeth. 

 “Oh Taehyung,” he whispered, as a dark wave primitive longing tore through him, “you are in so much trouble.”

Across town (buried beneath a pile of blankets) you were still struggling to process the boldness of your own actions when his response lit up your screen. 

1 New Message from: Kim Grinch

Green is my favorite color. 

“WHERE IS HE—”

Taehyung awoke to a series of crashes and shouts echoing from the floor below him. 

Jungkook was already seated in the corner of the room reading a newspaper. 

“Good morning, sir,” he said without looking up. “Would you like the bad news or the worse news?”

Suddenly the french doors of his bedroom slammed open and one very irate Park Jimin stormed through. 

“I swear I should have seen this coming. The two of you have always been obsessed with each other, but I never imagined—”

Taehyung’s eyes widened guiltily. He quickly schooled his features into a confused glare. 

“Jimin, I’ve only been awake for fifteen seconds. What the hell are you talking about?!”

Another stack of newspapers hit his lap and this time the pictures were mostly of him with his shirt ripped halfway down his chest. 

KIM HEIR AND PARK ANGEL CAUSE AN OLD-FASHIONED SCANDAL AT VICTORIAN BALL

FORGET MISTLETOE: KIM TAEHYUNG DISCOVERED UNDER THE PARK ANGEL AT CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION

NAUGHTY NOEL? PARK ANGEL’S STEAMY AFFAIR WITH CORPORATE PRINCE 

PARK ANGEL TOPS KIM TAEHYUNG’S CHRISTMAS TREE

He winced a bit at that last one. 

“You have ten seconds to explain before I start throwing things.”

Taehyung opened his mouth to do just that, but he was interrupted when his mother marched into the room waving the same articles that Jimin had just thrown at him. 

“KIM TAEHYUNG I raised you better than this! How could you!? That poor girl!”

“Mother!” he squeaked, yanking his blanket up over his chest like a frightened debutante. 

Jungkook began surreptitiously filming the whole debacle from the corner. 

“Indeed,” Jimin added darkly, crossing his arms over his chest, “how could you?”

Taehyung sighed heavily. 

“Is anyone else going to come charging into my bedroom?”

“Just answer me once and for all, is she pregnant?” 

“WHAT?!” 

“NO! Mother! Oh my—”

“Why does your mom think my little sister is pregnant?!”

Taehyung waved his arms wildly in exasperation. 

“My mom thinks everyone is pregnant! You know this!”

Jungkook could no longer contain his hysterical cackling. He very nearly fell off the chair trying to hold it all in. 

“Mr. Jeon,” Taehyung ground out irritably, “if it’s not too much trouble, could you please escort everyone out of my bedroom so I can get dressed!” 

“So you see—I was basically like a doctor,” Taehyung finished emphatically. 

He spent the past twenty minutes explaining to the entire table (which now included both you and your mother) why it was necessary to shove his hand down the front of your dress. 

Park Soomin had shown up at his door looking for answers (and dragging you behind her like a sacrificial lamb) about three minutes after Jimin. 

You had taken one look at Jimin’s murderous expression and insisted that the situation be evaluated over breakfast at the cafe down the street (where there were lots of witnesses). 

Which was how you, Taehyung, Jimin, and both your mothers ended up discussing your cleavage over coffee in a public restaurant. 

Jimin was the first to break. It was a few snorts at first, but he was basically in tears by the end of it, wheezing about how he never doubted Taehyung for a second and holding on to his sides from laughing too hard. 

Taehyung’s gaze met yours for a brief, heated exchange. He conveniently forgot to mention your slightly-less-than-explainable ‘check-in’ texts, but their existence was palpable in the air between you. 

“I think I’ll take a walk,” you muttered, excusing yourself from the complicated atmosphere at the table. 

Taehyung’s eyes lingered on you a tad too long as you wandered away, a fact that wasn’t missed by either of your mothers.

“Just a few more events and you can go back to not seeing her at all,” Jimin chuckled, patting him on the back. 

“Yeah,” Taehyung answered with a tight smile. “That’s… great.”

The cafe had a lovely little balcony area decorated with all sorts of comforting Christmas foliage. It was far more inviting than the awkward conversation and confusing stares you and Taehyung had been trading all morning. 

For the first time in the nearly fifteen years of your relationship (such as it was) you didn’t know where you stood with him… and it bothered you more than you cared to admit. 

Taehyung had always been important to you, whether you wanted him to be or not. He mattered—effortlessly—from the first moment you met him and continued to do so without regard for your sanity. 

Whatever was building between you now would almost certainly bring change… though what kind of change was anyone’s guess. 

It was hard to imagine the years ahead without the strange excitement he always brought to your life, but some things were simply out of your control…

“I never thought I’d see you here.”

A profoundly unpleasant feeling (something similar to falling through the ice on a frozen pond) overtook you. 

“Milo.” Even saying his name felt gross. You sighed. “What is so strange about seeing me here?”

The man in question blushed in a way you once found irresistible. 

“I looked for you everywhere. All your usual places—”

“I avoided them.”

I avoided you. 

Milo nodded. 

“I—I figured.” 

He took a step closer and you instinctively moved back. The hurt in his eyes was unmistakable, but you had long since become immune. 

“What are you doing?” you hissed angrily. “I thought I made myself clear the last time we spoke.”

“Yes, but—” his hand reached out to curl over your forearm and you recoiled, “you didn’t give me a chance to explain—”

“Excuse me.” 

You both turned to see Kim Taehyung with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at Milo like he was a roach that crawled across his dinner plate. 

“Your mother sent me to come find you. She wants to leave.” 

You nodded and moved to pull away, but Milo’s grip tightened on your arm. 

“No—please if you just give me a minute—”

“That is enough,” Taehyung snarled, seizing the other man’s hand and forcibly removing it from your person. He angled his body between the two of you protectively. “I think it’s time for you to go.”

Milo’s eyes narrowed. 

“You’re Kim Taehyung. I read all about you in the papers this morning.” His lips twisted into an ugly sneer as he addressed you. “You really think you’re better off with him if that’s the way he treats you?”

Taehyung tensed menacingly beside you, but you laid a gentle hand on his arm to calm him. 

“None of that is any of your concern.” Your gaze rose to meet his defiantly. “Nothing about me is your concern anymore.”

Milo’s eyes fell to where your palm rested on the other man’s sleeve, noticing the way you both unconsciously leaned toward one another. 

“This isn’t over,” he muttered, storming off. 

After he was gone, you let out a breath you hadn’t known you were holding. 

“Thank you,” you whispered (though you couldn’t resist adding), “I could have handled it myself of course…”

Taehyung laughed. 

“Oh I know. I was at that party where you knocked out Tyler Jung for grabbing your ass.” 

You grinned. 

“I’d forgotten about that.”

“Well I’m sure Tyler hasn’t.” 

(He neglected to mention that he split Tyler’s lip behind the library the next day, just to make sure it was extra memorable for him.) 

“I wish I could forget about Milo.”

“... Are you still in love with him?” 

The words tasted like ash in his mouth. 

“No.” You smiled softly. “I’m not sure I was ever in love with him actually. It’s more—” you sighed, “—embarrassment… wounded pride.”

Taehyung tilted his head curiously and you found yourself continuing. 

“In the beginning, he was very playful and charming—and obviously handsome. He reminded me so much of—”

you. 

You cleared your throat. 

“Anyway… I was quite taken with him at first. I didn’t suspect any ulterior motives.” You shrugged, trying to hold back the unpleasant emotions that always threatened to overrun you in moments like this. “I just thought he liked me.”

Taehyung’s eyes filled with sympathy and understanding as you spoke. It felt oddly natural to open up to him this way. 

“Jimin is very protective of me—with good reason it turns out. He was suspicious of Milo and hired people to do some discreet digging.”

Your hands wrapped around your body for both warmth and comfort. 

“Milo’s family owns several companies, just like ours, but they’re all struggling. His father sent him to me hoping that he would eventually get compromising information… a sex tape or photographs—something of that nature. They intended to blackmail Jimin into doing business with them.”

Taehyung felt his jaw clench painfully. Fury, hot and profound, rolled through him. 

“I should kill him.”

You shook your head, amused in spite of yourself. 

“That’s exactly what Jimin said.”

“He has good instincts.”

“Scum like Milo aren’t worth it,” you chuckled. “He never got what he wanted… but I was still mortified. I felt like such a fool for believing him.”

“No,” Taehyung’s hands slid up to cup your shoulders, “it’s not foolish to believe that someone cared for you.”

It would be so easy to care for you. 

“Besides…” his eyes fell briefly to your lips as he searched for the right words, “I saw the way he looked at you and—even though he’s clearly a terrible person—I believe his feelings may have been genuine.”

You nodded. 

“That’s what he keeps trying to tell me—that he did have bad intentions, but ended up falling for me anyway.” You shook your head. “As If I could believe a word he says.”

The silence between you stretched comfortably. Taehyung sensed you had more to say, so he waited until you were ready to voice it. 

“I think that’s why I’m so sensitive about handling things on my own lately… and just now even. I want to prove to everyone—to myself—that I’m not a liability.”

“Hey,” he whispered, tipping your chin up till your gazes met, “no one thinks you’re a liability. And even if you are capable, no one should have to fight their own battles all the time—especially when they’re emotionally compromised…” His thumb gently brushed away the small tear that escaped down the curve of your cheek. “That’s the benefit of having people who care about you.”

“... Like you?” 

The words left you so softly, you could almost imagine they were still in your head where they likely should have stayed. 

Taehyung’s eyes widened in surprise. His gaze became even more intent and you ceased breathing altogether. After a moment his lips parted as if he was about to speak- 

“What’s going on, guys?”

You both jerked back at the sound of your brother’s voice. He was standing in the entrance to the balcony, gaze darting suspiciously between the two of you. 

Taehyung was a bit dazed, but you were always quicker on your feet. 

“I ran into Milo… Tae was calming me down.”

Jimin’s eyes hardened immediately. 

“Where is he?”

“Long gone,” you mumbled, ambling over to the familiar warmth of his arms. “I just want to go home.” 

The Black and White Ball was one of the most coveted invitations of the holiday season. 

The dress code was quite strict (all black or all white—no exceptions) and it was one of the few events where people actually arrived in limousines. 

Taehyung loathed limousines. He felt absurdly pretentious pulling up to your building in such a gauche ride, but traditions and appearances meant too much in his world to simply disregard them. 

His ensemble for the evening was a beautifully tailored black suit with hand-stitched baroque detailing. Oddly, he found himself wondering what you would think of it... 

“You look like a vampire.”

Taehyung turned at the sound of your voice and was struck, yet again, by how incredibly beautiful you were. 

You had chosen to wear white, donning an exquisite gown with delicate pearl beading and a daring sweetheart neckline that molded perfectly to your frame. 

If he looked like a vampire, you were surely an angel. 

Still…

Angel or not, he couldn’t let that comment pass. 

“I think I’m offended.”

“I can’t imagine why. After all, loads of women are attracted to Nosferatu.”

Taehyung’s eyes narrowed. 

“There are so many sexy vampires in popular culture, but you just had to lump me in with the creepy bald one...”

You shrugged playfully. 

“I wouldn’t want you to think I was going soft.”

A wicked grin danced over your lips as you strolled past him regally—just as you had many times before... 

This time, however, he let his eyes linger a little longer on the view. 

Lord have mercy. 

“Of course not,” he coughed. 

“You’re what?!”

You rolled your eyes.

Tonight had been going rather well. 

The two of you formed a mutual unspoken agreement to pretend that your last encounter on the balcony (and on the phone) had never happened and (despite the heated glances you occasionally traded) the bickering and playful banter characteristic of your relationship had all but returned to normal...

Until Taehyung learned of your participation in the evening’s main event. 

“I told you, I’m part of the date auction this year.”

“Does your brother know about this?!”

“I didn’t see any reason to bother him with it.” You were suddenly preoccupied with your nails. 

“Woman,” Taehyung sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “are you trying to make my life difficult?”

“No, I’m just naturally gifted in that respect.”

You turned and began making your way to the front, but Taehyung was hot on your heels and clearly not ready to let the matter rest. 

“I cannot believe you’re actually going through with this! It’s not 1810, you know. We shouldn’t just auction off women for dates—”

“You’re absolutely right, Tae Tae.” You brushed a condescending pat over his cheek. “Nowadays we auction off the men too.”

Then you sauntered off to join the rest of the participating women—and men—backstage, leaving Taehyung to stew about the entire situation from the crowd. 

“As you know, all proceeds from tonight’s auction go to fight childhood hunger right here in our city. For legal purposes, I must advise all bidders that you are only bidding on the company of the individual in question.”

Taehyung shook his head. “Jimin is probably going to kill me for this.”

“If you place the winning bid, then you and your date will receive two VIP tickets to the Governor's Winter Wonderland Gala which comes with a variety of amenities including; a luxury limousine service, one of the private and famously romantic Winter Wonderland dinner experiences—”

His eyes fluttered shut. “Jimin is definitely gonna kill me for this.” 

“—unlimited free drinks, ten complimentary tickets for each of the grand prize raffles, photos with the Governor and his family, along with many more surprises!”

Taehyung grabbed a champagne flute from a nearby waiter and downed it in one go. 

“And now for our first date of the evening! Mr. Jackson Wang!” 

Jackson went for a cool six grand because no one was brave enough to outbid his girlfriend. 

After him, the beautiful Manoban heiress and her handsome cousin Kim Namjoon went for twelve grand each.

Jung Hoseok started a frenzied bidding war between two young socialites and Mrs. O’Malley. He ended up going to the lovely Ms. Ana Fallon for a staggering twenty thousand dollars. 

Taehyung’s own cousin, Kim Seokjin, paid a jaw-dropping twenty-one thousand dollars for Lin Yuna, the young CEO of Lin Cosmetics. (Taehyung made a mental note to ask him about that later.) 

Then it was your turn. 

“The next lady on our list needs no introduction. The lovely Park Angel has graciously agreed to a date with one lucky bidder tonight! Who will it be? Do I hear ten thousand?”

“Ten thousand.”

Taehyung swung his head toward the first bidder and breathed a sigh of relief. 

Tam Martin, one of your best friends and very gay. 

“Eleven thousand.”

“Twelve thousand.”

“Fifteen.”

“Sixteen thousand dollars.”

“Seventeen thousand.”

“Eighteen.”

Taehyung was having trouble keeping up with all the bidders. His ears were starting to ring again and a strange unpleasant nausea was building in his stomach. 

“Twenty thousand.”

“Twenty-five thousand.”

“Thirty thousand!”

At the sound of the last bidder’s voice, you noticeably paled. Your eyes flew to Taehyung’s and immediately he knew exactly who it was. 

Milo.

Before he could even react to the new information, another voice joined the fray. 

“Forty thousand.”

Min Yoongi smiled smugly from the other side of the room and even had the audacity to throw you a wink. 

You smiled shyly at the young heir’s boldness and Taehyung felt something downright unholy rise up in his chest. 

No. 

Milo was still bidding. 

“Fifty thousand dollars.”

Not her. 

“Sixty,” Yoongi countered.

She’s mine. 

Suddenly Taehyung was on his feet. 

“One hundred thousand dollars!” 

The silence in the backseat of your limousine was deafening. 

Tension charged the air like an electric current as the significance of the last hour weighed heavily between you. 

The spacious luxury vehicle allowed you to sit facing one another. Taehyung’s eyes were focused on his hands, but you were looking at him—letting your mind run wild with speculation. 

And hope. 

Part of you was still there, on the stage, watching him stand up and bid a fortune for the pleasure of your company. 

His gaze was so fierce when he spoke, like an ancient emperor calling out his decree for the people to obey. 

You dreamed about him bidding on you when you signed up for the auction (even before Jimin bullied him into accompanying you). You let yourself imagine him speaking out again and again till the others stepped back—

Yet you never dared hope for it. 

However, the last several days marked an unexpected turning point in your relationship. 

For years, you and he were like magnets with a too-similar charge, but something had shifted irrevocably between you, and somehow your stubborn similarities became opposites that could not resist their attraction. 

Kim Taehyung was one of the wealthiest men in the city…

But he didn’t need to buy your heart. 

It had always been his, even if you didn’t want to admit it. 

He had claimed you tonight—and every single soul in that ballroom knew it. 

The next move was yours and you intended to make it. 

“Mmm,” you hissed a bit, bringing your hand to rest just below your breasts. 

Taehyung’s gaze flew up in concern. 

“Is everything alright?”

“Yes, it’s just that scratch from the earring,” your fingers rubbed gingerly at the spot, drawing his focus to it, “it still stings.”

“Oh… I—” he shook his head, “I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

“Do you want to see?” 

Taehyung’s eyes rose slowly to yours. 

You watched the subtle rise and fall of his chest as he considered your words. Anticipation vibrated through your blood like notes struck on a piano—

Then he nodded...

And you both were lost. 

Trembling fingers slid the zipper down the side of your gown. The dress itself was a marvel of physics designed to support you without the need for a bra. 

Taehyung drew in an impossibly deep breath as the fabric drifted to your waist, baring the perfect mounds of your breasts to him entirely. 

“Here,” you whispered, pointing to a small red mark just under the curve of your left one. 

He bit back a moan. 

“I—I see. That looks… painful.” His fingers dug into the seat beside him. “Is there anything I can do to help?” 

You nodded. 

“Kiss it better.”

Taehyung felt the air knock out of his lungs like a sucker punch. 

This must have been how Adam felt when Eve offered him the forbidden fruit all those millennia ago. 

He knew he shouldn’t—

but he could never deny you. 

“Of course.”

You watched as his tongue darted out to wet his lips. He looked like a man possessed and you reveled in the power of it. 

It was for you. 

He wanted you. 

Your back arched up the slightest bit, beckoning to him—offering him a taste of what he was so desperately craving. 

Touch me… please. 

Large palms landed on either side of your thighs, bracing him on the seat beneath you. The tip of his nose teased the delicate line of your collar bone and he swore violently under his breath. 

Then his lips were on your skin and your mind went blank. 

“Taehyung—“ you moaned. 

Hot open-mouthed kisses spread over the soft swell of your breast and you gasped— shuddering helplessly as a fierce wave of pleasure tore through you.

Sweet merciful heavens. 

Over the years you imagined a moment like this thousands of times in your head—only to discover now that you had pitifully underestimated both his passion and his skill. 

You had dreamed of a quiet fire—but he had unleashed an inferno. 

The lewd sounds of his mouth nipping and sucking at your tender flesh filled the small space around you as he poured himself into each obscene contact—stopping briefly to flick his tongue over the taunt peak of your nipple. You trembled breathlessly at the sharp snap of sensation, letting your head fall back against the seat as you buried your fingers in his soft curls. 

“T-Tae—”

Finally his mouth fastened over the tiny scratch, and the kiss deepened. You knew what he was doing, what the result of his efforts would be—

He was marking you. 

And you wanted it. 

Oh how you wanted it. 

Suddenly the car took a sharp turn, causing Taehyung to lose his grip on the seat. His arms wrapped around your torso for balance, dragging you fully against him.

“Does it feel better, Angel?” he growled. 

You nodded frantically and he nipped at the underside of your breast. 

“Speak up.”  

“Yes, Taehyung,” you whimpered, “it feels so much better.” 

“Mmmm,” he hummed, brushing his mouth along the sensitive column of your neck. “Who knew you could be such a good girl?”

Then his hand came up to grip your chin, turning it so your lips were almost against his—

“Madame. We’ve arrived.”

The driver’s voice cut over your senses like a shard of ice. 

Taehyung jerked backward and immediately buried his face in his hands. 

Your fingers hastily yanked your dress up and you stumbled out of the car in a daze, letting your feet carry you forward until you collapsed on top of your bed. 

Did we just...

You hadn’t even begun to collect your thoughts when your phone buzzed from inside your purse. 

1 New Message from: Taehyung 🙄🥴🙈

I need to know you made it safely to your room. 

You grinned. 

Greedy boy. 

Back in the limousine, the boy in question was nervously tapping the corner of his phone against his chin as he waited for your reply. 

1 New Message from: Angel 🤬🥵😅

Oh? But you saw me walk in… and I’m already in bed.

Taehyung growled in frustration. 

She would be a tease. 

To: Angel 🤬🥵😅

I tend to worry. Put my mind at ease. 

He shook his head. 

I have officially gone insane. 

The phone buzzed again. 

1 New Message from: Angel 🤬🥵😅

Well… We can’t have that can we… 

Taehyung literally felt the whine tear out of him as he opened the picture. 

Your gorgeous body (the body he’d had his hands and mouth on for one glorious minute) was nestled decadently atop a pile of fluffy blue blankets and wrapped in nothing but a tiny silk robe. 

The neck gaped open just enough to show off the pretty red marks he left on the delectable curve of your breast. 

He groaned, biting down hard on his bottom lip.

To: Angel 🤬🥵😅

That's all I get after I made the pain go away? Good girls send real proof, Angel

The screen lit up again almost immediately. 

1 New Message from: Angel 🤬🥵😅

Guess I’m not such a good girl after all...

Jimin came tearing through the Kim Manor front gate at precisely 7 AM—only to find Jungkook camped out at the entrance with several outdoor space heaters and a giant mug of hot chocolate.

“He told you not to let me in, didn’t he?”

Jungkook took a long satisfying sip of his cocoa. 

“I hope you don’t feel singled out, sir. I’m not allowed to let his mother in either.”

“I need to talk to him.”

“Of course, Mr. Park, let me just pull up his schedule—”

“I need to talk to him now.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Kim is booked solid for the morning.”

Jimin stomped his foot like a petulant child. 

“I know he’s up there.”

Jungkook grinned. 

“You’re welcome to climb the trellis and check. I promise not to stop you if you make it all the way up.”

“COME DOWN HERE AND FACE ME YOU COWARD!” Jimin shouted at the top of his lungs. 

Jungkook took another long pull of his drink. 

“Might I inquire as to the reason for your visit today, sir?”

“The reason for my visit,” Jimin yanked out his phone and angrily began typing into the search bar, “is that your boss paid ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS for my sister at a date auction last night and I want to know what the hell is going on between them!”

The article Jimin pulled up (DEVILISH KIM TAEHYUNG BUYS HIMSELF A $100,000 ANGEL) featured an image of the two of you entering the Black and White Ball. Your head was thrown back in laughter and Taehyung was grinning down at you as if you’d personally hung all the stars in the sky for him. 

A genuine smile crept over Jungkook’s face as he studied the photograph. 

“That’s quite a headline.” He handed Jimin’s phone back. “Have you asked your sister about it?”

“No, I swung by earlier, but she wasn’t home so—” His eyes widened. “Oh my—is she—”

Jimin suddenly took off running for the trellis, and Jungkook scrambled out of his chair to chase him. 

“KIM TAEHYUNG IF MY SISTER IS IN THAT ROOM—”

He was already three feet off the ground when Jungkook yanked him back. 

“I thought you said I could climb the trellis!”

“Yes,” Jungkook wheezed, “but I didn’t think you’d actually do it!” That trellis is a hundred years old! A few more feet and I’d be scraping you off the antique brickwork!”

Jimin scowled and crossed his arms. 

“Are you by any chance open to bribes?”

“Normally yes, but Tae promised to double my Christmas bonus if I didn’t accept them today.”

Jimin continued to eye the trellis speculatively, clearly willing to take his chances. Jungkook sighed and rubbed his forehead. 

“Mr. Park, I promise you… He came home alone last night. In fact, they both returned earlier than usual because your sister had a 7 AM finance meeting.” He paused significantly to glance at his watch. “Which is probably where she is right now.”

“Oh… Well.”

Jungkook bit his lip to hold back a snort and Jimin’s eyes narrowed. 

“He has to come down eventually.”

“One would think.”

The young Park heir glanced toward Taehyung’s window again just in time to see the man in question dart back behind the curtains. 

"I KNOW YOU'RE AWAKE, KIM TAEHYUNG, YOU PHILANDERING SLEAZE BAG!" 

Jimin made another jump for the trellis and this time Jungkook caught him in mid-air. 

“Sir, I’m sure it was just the maid!”

“It’s not the maid! I’d know that raggedy mop of his anywhere!”

Jungkook was out of breath at this point. Park Jimin might be small, but he was fierce. 

“Perhaps it’s best if you took a moment to collect yourself,” he grunted. “There’s a lovely new spa down the street and they sent Taehyung two free deluxe packages.”

Jimin stopped struggling. 

“Oh?”

Five minutes later, Jungkook sighed deeply and fished his phone out of his back pocket. 

“He’s gone, sir.”

“Excellent work, Jungkook. I never doubted you for a second.”

“However…”

“... However?”

“I had to give him your spa passes.”

“YOU DID WHAT?!”

“Are you headed for a gala or the guillotine?”

Taehyung rolled his eyes. 

“I don’t pay extra for commentary.”

“It’s complimentary, sir.”

The Kim heir tugged absently at the material of his absurdly expensive evening wear. 

Why do these events always have to be so uncomfortable? 

“Seriously, Tae… you seem,” the young aide searched for the right words, “unusually tense.”

Taehyung’s mind flashed back to three nights ago when he had his mouth wrapped around your breast. 

“Not at all,” he coughed, loosening the collar of his shirt. 

Jungkook bit his lip.

“Is this about Ms. Park, sir?”

The cufflinks Taehyung was attempting to fasten suddenly went flying across the room and hit a lamp. 

Both men winced. 

“I think that was your grandmother’s.”

Taehyung sighed. 

“I admit there have been… some developments.”

Jungkook nodded nonchalantly, trying to disguise the fact that he was internally frothing at the mouth for details. 

“... Such as?”

Taehyung gulped. 

“It started out rather innocently I suppose…” he cleared his throat, “but there may have been some suggestive photographs.”

“There may have been? Are you not sure?”

Taehyung colored guiltily. 

“Well—”

“Do you need me to check for you, sir? I have an art history degree.”

“Absolutely not.”

Jungkook grinned. 

“That’s what I thought.”

Taehyung yanked his tie out of the younger man’s hand. 

“Things have… escalated a bit.”

“Escalated how?”

I licked her tit in the back of a limo.

“Physically.”

It was everything Jungkook could do to maintain a straight face. 

“That’s… shocking.”

“Then why don’t you seem shocked?” Taehyung grumbled. 

A small smile played across Jungkook’s lips as he pointedly ignored the elder man’s observation.

“So what are you going to do, sir?”

Taehyung was silent for a long moment. 

“I honestly have no idea.”

Watching you walk toward him was an experience.  

Taehyung wondered absently if this was how it would be from now on; if for the rest of his life just the sight of you would be enough to scatter his mind and his pulse and even the way he breathed. 

Your dress tonight was deadly. 

It was a decadent red satin halter that clung to every curve. The truly wicked detail, however, was a daring slit that ran the entire length of your leg. 

Taehyung was certain he was going to trip over his own tongue at some point if he looked directly at you for too long. 

Oh help. 

Memories of your previous encounter flooded his senses. Every second you were getting closer and he didn’t know what to do—what to say. 

So he didn’t say anything at all. 

Not a word when you reached the bottom of the stairs. Nothing but silence as he opened the door of the limo for you. More silence and no eye contact as he settled into the seat across from yours—

And you tolerated that for about three minutes. 

“I never thought I’d see the day when Kim Taehyung didn’t have a comment about something. Perhaps I should mark this down on my calendar.”

The words were lightly spoken, but you were shaking on the inside. The last time the two of you were alone together he had your dress around your waist and you were moaning his name. Now he wasn’t talking and you were torn between panic and irritation. 

Taehyung, however, latched onto your passive barb like a lifeline. 

“Is that a hint of sarcasm I hear from the benevolent Park Angel?” He grinned. “Surely not.”

“Red is not a particularly angelic color. Perhaps I’m feeling feisty today.”

Taehyung leaned back in his seat and indulged himself in a thorough examination of your outfit. The urge to run his hands over the satin-covered lines of your body was nearly unbearable. He curled his fingers into fists to keep them from doing just that. 

She is definitely trying to kill me. 

“Should I be worried?”

Now it was your turn to grin. 

“I guess we’ll find out.”

The Governor’s Winter Wonderland Gala was by far the most extravagant event of the holiday season. Tickets cost a small fortune and sold out almost immediately. 

But it was well worth the price of admission.

Thousands of lights sparkled overhead as you made your way through the great hall of Governor Kim’s mansion. 

It was like stepping into a fairytale. 

Taehyung couldn’t take his eyes off you. The sheer wonder in your expression was breathtaking. 

You were breathtaking.  

“Governor Kim, it is such an honor to finally meet you.”

The Governor was a handsome man in his early fifties with a smile that was every bit as lethal as it had been twenty-five years ago. 

“The honor is all mine, Ms. Park. I trust my nephew is treating you well.”

Your eyes widened. 

“N-nephew?”

Taehyung shrugged. 

“I don’t really talk about it much.” 

The Governor chuckled and you cleared your throat to cover your nervousness. 

“Yes, he’s been a very capable escort.”

“Is that so?” Governor Kim smiled charmingly. “Well if it doesn’t work out, my son Seokjin is still single—”

“Thank you, Uncle. It was lovely to see you as always.”

You squeaked as Taehyung placed his hand firmly on the curve of your back and practically dragged you away. 

The Governor just shook his head and laughed. 

“Oh kid, you’ve got it bad.”

Everywhere you looked there was beauty. 

Whoever planned the gala this year had truly gone above and beyond. Surrounded on all sides by glittering trees and snowy vignettes, it was easy to be swept away in the festive magic of the evening. 

All in all (despite some initial awkwardness), you were having a fantastic time...

Until she showed up. 

“Kim Taehyung! Is that you?”

Every single hair on your body stood on end, but before you could determine the source of the shrill squealing, you found yourself being nudged aside by a blinding golden gown and some very high heels. 

“Aubrey,” Taehyung grunted as five-and-half feet of gorgeous wrapped herself around him like a clinging vine. “Long time no see.”

“Not since that vacation in Aspen,” she giggled. “We had quite a time, didn’t we Tae Tae!”

Suddenly you had the most unholy urge to slap the spray tan right off this woman. 

Instead, you plastered on a vibrant smile and placed your hand on Taehyung’s sleeve.

“Um. Excuse me, Tae Tae, perhaps you could introduce us?”

Taehyung looked as if he’d just been served raw fire ants for dinner. 

“Yes. Of course. This is—”

“Aubrey Alicia St. Valentine,” she interrupted with a smug little smirk. “Taehyung and I go way back.” Her expression grew just the slightest bit tighter. “And you are?”

“His date,” you deadpanned. 

“Aubrey,” Taehyung cleared his throat, “I’d like you to meet Ms. Park she’s—”

“Oh my goodness! You’re Jimin’s little sister aren't you!” Aubrey slapped her hand over his chest and he winced. “That is so precious of you to take her around like this!”

Your eyebrows raised right up into your hairline and Taehyung groaned. 

“Yes, he was kind enough to sign me out of the nursery for the evening.” You offered them both a painfully vacant nod. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I see one of my play-dates near the buffet.”

Then you turned on your heel and sauntered off without another word. 

Taehyung moved to follow you, but Aubrey curled her fingers into the crook of his arm and pulled him back. 

“Oh let her go, Tae. You and I have so much catching up to do.”

Taehyung pointedly removed her hand from his elbow. 

“Some other time perhaps.” 

Aubrey pouted prettily. 

“You’re not running off after her are you? She’s a big girl, she can take care of herself.”

Taehyung crossed his arms and fixed her with a knowing look. 

“Funny... that’s not what you were implying a moment ago.”

“A moment ago I didn’t have you all to myself. Now I do.” She had the decency to blush. “Perhaps I got a bit jealous.”

“You don’t say.” His eyes continued to search the crowd for any sign of you. 

“It seems I had good reason to be,” she murmured quietly. 

“Aubrey... Listen I—”

She cut him off with a finger to his lips.

“Don’t bother Tae Tae. I’m petty, but I’ve never been pathetic.”

He grinned. 

“Never.”

The lady sighed and gave him a heated once over.

“What a shame.”

Then she strolled off with a rueful smile. 

“You know what I don’t understand?”

You turn to find Min Yoongi leaning casually against a nearby column. He looked absurdly handsome as always, but his grin was just the slightest bit mischievous. 

“What don’t you understand, Mr. Min?”

The question was clearly a bait, but you were still fuming from your earlier encounter with Ms. St. Valentine and therefore desperately in need of a distraction. 

Yoongi pushed off the column and lazily made his way toward you.

“I don’t understand how a man pays a hundred thousand dollars for an evening with the most beautiful woman in the city, and then leaves her all by herself.” He leaned forward with a playful grin. “Perhaps you could enlighten me?”

Oh he’s good. 

You made a show of tapping your chin thoughtfully. 

“I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for that one.”

Yoongi sighed and shook his head. 

“Couldn’t be me.”

You laughed then. He really was a delightful man. In fact, if you still had your heart, you might have considered letting him take a shot at it. 

Alas. 

You tilted your head speculatively. 

Surely there was no need to brush away good company...

After all, no one else is interested in spending time with me. 

“Since my escort is otherwise occupied, perhaps you could join me for dinner?”

Yoongi held out his hand. 

“I’d be delighted.”

Taehyung wandered around the mansion for nearly forty-five minutes looking for his date.  

Panic was just starting to build in his chest when he finally spotted you

—at his private dining table with Min Yoongi. 

It was everything he could do not to storm over and yank the other man out of his seat by the lapels. 

Alright, Angel. If this is the game you want to play… then let’s play. 

Taehyung felt his anger rise with every step, but he ruthlessly suppressed any sign of it and instead adopted a charming smile. 

“Min, I didn’t expect to find you here. What a… delightful surprise.”

Yoongi’s expression was just a shade too satisfied. Taehyung could already feel his blood pressure beginning to skyrocket. 

“Yes, Ms. Park believed that you were otherwise occupied and invited me to share the meal with her.”

“I see,” Taehyung practically snarled. “However,” his gaze landed heavily on you, “since I paid for this table, I hope you won’t mind if I join you as well?”

You avoided looking at him up to this point, but now you were choking on your wine

“Easy there, Angel,” Taehyung murmured as he pulled up a seat extremely close to yours—so close that your thighs were nearly touching. 

Oh boy. 

Over the next several minutes Yoongi continued to flirt openly and you continued to smile prettily and pretend Taehyung wasn’t there (which naturally infuriated him). 

You should have known he wouldn’t let you get away with such behavior so easily. 

This was Kim Taehyung, after all, and if there was anything that could be counted on when it came to your shared history, it was that one (or both) of you was always ready to escalate. 

You had just offered the young Min heir yet another flowery compliment when you felt Taehyung make his move. 

Two warm fingers slid under the silken slit of your dress, coming to rest possessively over the soft flesh of your inner thigh. 

You squeaked and nearly spat up your drink. 

Taehyung leaned forward in fake concern, wrapping his arm around you as if to offer aid. 

“Are you alright?”

His hand continued to move significantly beneath your gown, but his face was the picture of innocence. 

You glared. 

“Just fine, thank you.”

A slow grin crept across his features as he began to trace soft intimate patterns over your skin.  

On the other side of the table, Yoongi tilted his head in genuine solicitude. “Are you sure?”

You nodded sharply. 

Satisfied, he resumed speaking about whatever it was he’d been saying—though you couldn’t understand a word of it at this point because the torturous strokes Taehyung was leisurely drawing over your thighs were moving closer to your center with each passing second. 

Yet you made no move to stop him. 

You should have. 

You should have slapped his touch away—rebuked him for his boldness—

But you didn’t. 

So he just kept nodding and smiling while Yoongi spoke, even as his fingers teased you with the maddening persistence of a man who knew very well what he was doing. 

You gasped aloud when he finally brushed the pad of his thumb over the thin cotton of your panties. 

“T-Taehyung—” 

“Hmm?” he turned to you, seemingly surprised by your attention (it was—after all—the first time you’d addressed him since the beginning of the meal).

“Could you pass me the salt,” you sputtered (hoping to cover the fact that you moaned his name involuntarily). Unfortunately, Taehyung seemed wholly aware of your ruse, offering you the salt shaker with a superior smirk.

You seriously considered stabbing him with a fork. 

However, before you could carry out any bloodthirsty plans, he pressed his fingers directly over your clit and your eyes rolled back in your head

“Oh my g—” you bit your lip stubbornly, “this lamb is just so good.” 

Sweet mother of macaroons, he is too skilled at this. 

You shoveled another bite into your mouth to cover your whine as Taehyung began to rub tight little circles over your sweet spot. 

Across the table, Yoongi nodded in blissful unawareness. 

“Yes, I agree, the lamb is excellent—very tender.”

Taehyung took advantage of the momentary distraction to slip beneath the fabric of your undergarment. 

Your fork clattered to your plate and your hand came up to cover your mouth as he began running his fingers up and down your soaked slit.

It was everything you could do to hold back your depraved whimpering. 

“I can’t wait to taste it,” Taehyung replied, flicking your clit in a way that guaranteed he wasn’t referring to the lamb. 

At this point Yoongi seemed to notice you were in some sort of distress. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and leaned forward. 

“Ms. Park, are you well?”

Taehyung chose that moment to sink his finger into the welcoming heat of your pussy. 

“Yes,” you almost sobbed, “I’m-I’m very well—thank you.”

“Excellent,” Yoongi smiled as he rose to his feet. “If you’re feeling up to it, perhaps you could favor me with a dance?”

Several attendees were already making their way to the center of the floor and the orchestra was beginning to play.

Your entire body, however, was vibrating like a plucked harp string and Taehyung was still brushing back and forth against your clit, driving you toward a release that promised to be explosive. 

There was no way—simply no way—that you would be capable of hiding it. 

“Yes! I would love to dance with you,” you squeaked, grabbing hold of Taehyung’s wrist frantically. The feel of him pulling out of your sopping core was nearly enough to have you coming right there. 

Thankfully, Yoongi remained utterly oblivious to the debauchery unfolding beneath the table. He took your hand and helped you to your feet with an eager smile (and it was a good thing too because your legs were still shaking). 

When the two of you reached the dance floor, you turned back for the briefest instant—

just long enough to meet Taehyung’s heated gaze as his lips closed over the finger he buried in your cunt. 

Emotions were a funny thing. 

They impacted your judgement, affected your body, altered your behavior… 

And occasionally eroded your common sense. 

Sitting alone in the corner of the Governor’s ballroom, Kim Taehyung found himself experiencing a full spectrum of emotional side-effects. 

His hands clenched as he watched Min Yoongi spin you around the floor. 

His heart pounded every time he caught a flash of your shapely leg peeking through the slit in your gown. 

His blood boiled when you threw your head back and laughed at something the other man said. 

It was difficult to pinpoint which emotion was to blame for each of these reactions. There were certainly a number of them boiling over in his subconscious. 

Frustration—

I didn’t even want to talk to Aubrey! How are you acting like anything she said was my fault?!

Rage—  

Why is challenging people to duels illegal? I would fight Min Yoongi at dawn. I would fight Min Yoongi now. 

Jealousy—

You asked her to dance while my fingers were in her pussy. We are not the same. 

But perhaps the most persistent—the most overwhelming— emotion twisting through him was longing. 

You and Taehyung spent nearly four years apart, and he was so desperate to be near you—even then—that he resorted to childish pranks in order to remain a part of your life. 

He hadn’t recognized his actions or desires for what they were. He hadn’t realized what you meant to him...

But now, after spending the last several days with your hand on his arm and your laughter in his ear, he could no longer imagine spending another moment without you. 

Everything seemed to crystallize as he watched you laughing and dancing in the arms of another man. 

Uncertainty became clear. Complications became simple. 

And when he saw Min Yoongi’s hand slide dangerously close to the perfect swell of your backside—

Emotion became action.

“Mind if I cut in?”

It wasn’t a question really. Taehyung was already shouldering his rival out of the way and pulling you into his arms. 

“Taehyung,” you hissed, shooting the bewildered Yoongi an apologetic look over his shoulder, “what are you doing? This is so rude—”

“You’re absolutely right,” he agreed, sweeping you through the couples on the floor with practiced ease. “It is unpardonably rude to steal someone else’s date. He’s lucky all I did was steal you back.”

Your mouth dropped open. 

“Oh? So you finally remembered that I was your date?”

Taehyung’s grip on the curve of your waist became a shade rougher as he pulled you through the next turn. 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means—” you stepped forward vigorously, nearly smashing your body into his, “—that you spent forty-five minutes with Aubrey Alicia St. Valentine when you were supposed to be having dinner with me!”

Taehyung growled and yanked you flush against him. 

“I spent forty-five minutes looking for you while you were giving away my table to Min Yoongi!”

The two of you sailed through the next several movements glaring at one another before you snapped again. 

“None of this would have happened if you had just told Aubrey St. Spray Tan that you were with me—”

“I did!”

“Instead, you let her call me a baby!”

“What let? Aubrey is a grown woman!”

“But—”

“And—you stormed off before I could say anything, so how would you know what I let?”

“You didn’t come after me!”

“Yes actually I did—but she grabbed my arm!”

“Really? Well what else did she grab?”

Taehyung abruptly realized how silent everything around you had become. 

People were staring—and not even discreetly— just full on staring with their mouths hanging open. 

Well that’s great. 

Taehyung’s hand closed around yours and you suddenly found yourself being marched across the dance floor at a breakneck pace.

“What are you doing?”

“Continuing this discussion in private.”

“We can’t just go somewhere private in the Governor’s mansion!” you sputtered, struggling to keep up with his larger strides. 

“You mean in my uncle’s house? Yes—actually we can—and we will.”

Taehyung proved to be a man of his word, dragging you past two security guards and into the roped off section of the manor with nothing more than a nod. 

The residential wing of the Governor’s home was beautifully decorated with traditional Korean artistic touches—all of which you were unable to appreciate while Taehyung was speed walking you through the halls. 

After a surprising amount of turns and archways, he yanked open an ornate wooden door with the words Reflection Suite written on a plaque above it in beautiful calligraphy. 

You almost giggled when you got a look inside. 

On the surface it was a tastefully furnished guest room with a simple cherry wood desk and a cozy double bed set in an elegant matching frame.

However—

The ceiling and one full wall were nothing but massive mirrors. 

Reflection suite indeed. 

The door slammed shut and Taehyung rounded on you with a stormy expression—though you weren’t waiting on him to fire the first volley.

“This is definitely going to get us in trouble.”

“I told you, I can go wherever I want in this house. It’s fine.”

“Then why did you take us here?”

“Because you were shouting—”

“I was shouting?! You were shouting I just—”

Suddenly your back was against the wall and Taehyung’s mouth was on yours. 

He hadn’t brought you here for this. When he grabbed your hand, he was only trying to get away from the crowds. He told himself that he needed privacy so you could talk—so he could clarify things. 

But the minute the door closed and you flared up again in all your magnificent rage, he was lost. 

He had to kiss you then. 

You were so lovely. So fierce. So wildly irresistible and he was too utterly smitten to fight the need to be near you—to be with you in every way that he could—for a single second more. 

The shock of Kim Taehyung pressing his lips to yours lasted about two full seconds—and then there was nothing but ravenous insatiable need. 

Finally. 

Everything was him. 

Everything was this—this sweet indescribable ignition of a desire that spanned years. You moaned eagerly against his mouth in wanton delight. After a decade of sparks, you were more than ready to burn. 

“Taehyung—”

His name poured out of you like a prayer. You needed him everywhere and miraculously he seemed to understand—

Not that he was prepared to be polite about it. 

“Where’s that smart mouth now, Angel?” he growled, tangling his hands in your hair to expose the tender column of your throat. “Nothing to say?”

Your only answer was a desperate whine as he spread hot-open mouthed kisses down the soft skin of your neck all the way to your collarbone.

Now was not the time for patience. He would be tender with you later. You absolutely deserved soft sweet caresses and slow leisurely love making and he was absolutely going to give them to you—every day if you’d let him. 

But not today. 

The minute his mouth encountered the barrier of your dress, he gripped onto the sides and yanked it down to your waist.

“You knew just what you were doing in the back of that limo, you little brat,” he hissed, taking one swollen nipple into his mouth and tormenting it with his tongue.

“Tae-ahhh!” Your back arched involuntarily in ruthless pleasure. 

“I spent hours—days even—wanting to get my hands on these perfect tits.” He licked the other nipple obscenely, squeezing the soft mound till it bulged through his fingers. “And you offered me the barest taste with that coy little grin, knowing it wouldn’t be enough—” 

He reared back and landed a firm slap on both breasts and you screamed.

It was so so good. 

“Look at them now,” he murmured, “so swollen and needy and mine.”

If any other man had said those words, you would have cut his heart out with a butter knife. 

But you had always belonged to this man body and soul, and to hear him acknowledge it so primitively felt like the sweetest vindication. 

“Yes!” you sobbed.

The affirmation only inflamed him further. He teased and fondled the tender flesh till you were shaking.

Your fingers curled into the soft waves of his hair as he indulged himself. He looked so ridiculously good sucking your nipple, moaning lewdly with his eyes pressed shut in cathartic bliss. 

“This is all your fault, Angel,” he groaned. “You just don’t know how to behave.”

His hands gripped the curve of your backside, lifting you right off the floor and into his arms. Your mouths fused together heatedly as he carried you to the bed, and you giggled against him when his words finally processed. 

“You’ve been saying that for years.” 

“It’s been true for years,” he muttered, pulling one of your legs up around him so he could grind against your cunt while you kissed. 

Your fingers tugged at the buttons of his shirt, tearing them off when they didn’t unhook fast enough. You waited too long to be with him like this to care about anything other than the feel of his skin against your own.

“Impatient, are we?” he chuckled, bringing his lips around to nip at your ear. 

“You’re one to talk,” you shot back, yanking the ruined garment right off his shoulder just so you could sink your teeth into it. 

Taehyung moaned loudly, snapping his hips against yours with an involuntary jerk.

“You really are such a brat,” he hissed, fisting his hands in the satin length of your skirt. “Let’s see how fierce you are with my tongue in your pussy—”

His words were so filthy and raw, yet they stoked a frenzied need in your belly like nothing you had ever encountered. 

“This dress is evil,” he snarled, fumbling with the zipper for a moment before switching to a more destructive tactic. “It has tormented me all night and now it’s in my way.”

The stitching proved no match for his resolve, and—after a few vigorous tugs—he ripped it apart from the slit on up, leaving you covered in nothing but the thin cotton underwear he had breached earlier that evening. 

After disposing of your shredded gown, Taehyung paused for a moment just to take in the sight of you. 

“What a perfect little angel,” he taunted playfully, snapping the band of your lingerie against your hips with a cocky grin. 

Then he brushed his nose right up against the sopping fabric and inhaled deeply. “You smell just like heaven,” he growled before licking you right through the cloth, “and you taste even better.”

The sensations twisting through your body were merciless. You needed more or you were going to shake apart. 

“Taehyung please,” you whined, pressing against him shamelessly.

“Oh a please?” he chuckled, throwing your own words from the first night back at you. “Who knew you had manners?”

You would have screamed in frustration, but he cut you off with an open mouthed kiss right over the wettest part of your panties.

“Perhaps I can make a good girl of you yet,” he chuckled, as you opened yourself wider to encourage him. 

You nodded frantically, letting out another moan when he yanked the flimsy little scrap of lace down your legs—smearing a line of arousal over your thighs.

“So messy,” he tsked, tapping his finger right above your knee where the naughty little streak ended. “What am I going to do with you?” 

Then he pressed his tongue over the shiny trail of slick and licked it right off. 

You gasped loudly and his lascivious smirk was almost beautiful enough to make up for all of the shameless teasing. 

Almost. 

"You want my mouth, pretty Angel?” he whispered, letting the words brush maddeningly against your folds. “You want me to feed on this sweet little cunt?”

Every cell in your body cried out for release. He already edged you under the table at dinner and now he was determined to unravel you entirely. You would say anything—do anything. 

"Please—" you whispered.

"Please who?" 

Normally you met his arrogance with a cutting riposte, but an entire evening of methodical torment had left you beyond desperate. 

"Please Taehyung,” you begged needily. 

He grinned. 

“That’s right, Angel. Kim Taehyung. Not Min Yoongi or any other pathetic trust fund prick that’s panting for a taste of this pussy.” His eyes fastened on yours significantly. “You belong to me.”

Then his tongue licked a flat stripe over your glistening slit and you sagged onto the bed in relief—only to be thrown back into oblivion when his lips closed over your clit. 

Your body arched involuntarily as a ruthless wave of pleasure tore through you. Your eyes and mouth flew open in a silent scream and it was in that moment you remembered exactly where you were. 

Underneath a giant mirror. 

The passionate woman staring down at you was nearly unrecognizable. Her body was littered with her lover’s marks. Her hands gripped feverishly into the sheets beneath her—-

And Kim Taehyung was kneeling between her thighs, suckling on her weeping cunt with obscene satisfaction. 

It was the sexiest thing you had ever seen in your life. 

Your hands reached down to tangle in his hair, using it for leverage as you ground against his face. 

Then suddenly his grip on your legs tightened and his tongue plunged roughly into your trembling core. 

“Tae—ahh oh my—I can’t—”

The sensation was so intense that your hips bucked violently. You could not keep still. You were charging towards an explosion and your body was shaking itself apart. 

The noises tearing from you were incoherent. Everything around you focused in on the juncture of your thighs where Taehyung was licking inside of you again and again until—

You shattered. 

And the force of it nearly bent your back in half. 

Delirious sobs poured from your lips as he worked you through it, letting the obscene flood of your cum soak his face. 

The sight of him slowly lapping at the release between your folds, was unspeakably erotic. He ran his hands in soothing circles over your skin while you twitched and fluttered back down from your high. 

Then he was kissing you again. 

It was softer this time, but you felt truly depraved—and instantly obsessed—with the taste of yourself in his mouth—on his skin.

You could barely understand this ravenous hunger. You’d just found relief, yet you were already reaching for more. 

Your hands snaked down and wrapped around his still covered cock and he hissed in ragged pleasure. 

“So eager,” he gasped, as you pushed him back against the headboard—but you didn’t have time to bother with his teasing.

You were gonna blow Kim Taehyung into space. 

He bit his lip when you yanked down his pants and boxers together, freeing his arousal with stunning efficiency. 

It was almost unfair to discover that his cock was every bit as beautiful as he was.

“Of course,” you muttered. 

The sultry smirk he shot you in return had your cunt flooding all over again.

“You think Min Yoongi has a cock like mine?”

“I don’t think about Min Yoongi’s cock,” you retorted, wrapping your hand around his length, “you’ve always been the biggest dick I’ve ever met.” 

“I knew you thought about my dick,” he groaned as you began to work up and down the swollen shaft. 

After a moment, his hand slid over your chin to grip your hair, drawing you forward till your lips were almost touching. 

“I wonder what this pretty mouth can do,” he whispered. 

You gasped against him and he smiled. 

“Do you know how often I pictured your lips around my cock, Angel?”

You mewled shamelessly and he growled, cupping your cheek as your hands continued to service him. 

“Do you know how often I imagined this perfect throat stuffed full of my cum?” 

His palm slid down to lightly grip the soft flesh of your neck and you shuddered against him with a needy whimper. 

“I know you could suck me so good, Angel. I’ve wanted it for so so long...”

Your mouth actually watered with anticipation. 

The desire to be good for him—to give him whatever he asked for—consumed you. 

Taehyung let his head fall back against the headboard with a groan at the first brush of your lips along his shaft. His hips rutted involuntarily as your tongue wrapped around the tip and you hummed with pleasure at his enthusiastic response. 

After a moment you slid him into the welcoming heat of your mouth, taking him in as far as you could in one stroke. His jaw dropped open and his entire body jerked forward. 

“Yes, that’s it, Angel—feels so good.”

His praise was addictive. 

You loved that you could bring him to this. You loved to see the haughty Kim Taehyung coming apart as you sucked him. 

It made you feel beautiful—powerful even—and you reveled in every second of it. 

Your eyes were starting to tear. His length began to throb and pulse against your tongue and you knew he was close—so close you could almost taste him—

Yet suddenly he was pulling you back and you whined pitifully at the loss. 

Taehyung chuckled, dragging you toward him till your dripping core slid across his cock.

“I’m not coming before I get inside that pretty little pussy,” he swore, working your hips over his sex till it was drenched in arousal. 

The crass words filled you with the fiercest, most incredible want and you clenched reflexively against him in response. 

“Is that what you want?” Taehyung whispered as he bore you back into the mattress, pinning both your wrists above your head. “You want me to fill your empty little cunt?”

You did. 

You wanted it so so bad. 

“Please.”

Taehyung gently lowered himself closer to you, resting his forehead intimately against yours as he lined up his cock at your entrance. 

“Are you sure, Angel? Because there’s no going back after this... If you give yourself to me, then you’re mine—and I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep you.”

“Taehyung, you idiot,”—a tender smile spread over your face as you wrapped your arms around his neck—“... I’ve always been yours.”

He swore violently—letting the slight tremble in his voice betray just how deeply your words affected him. 

Then his fingers tightened on the soft flesh of your hip and he filled you to the hilt with one delicious thrust. 

There was a moment—the smallest space in time—where your eyes locked together and everything seemed to suspend; a strange perfect calm before a monumental storm. 

Then your world caught fire. 

Taehyung drove himself into you with passionate fury, letting years of denial fuel the insatiable rhythm of his strokes. 

Every time he told himself no. Every time he held himself back—

Every bit of it burned away as you screamed his name. 

The feel of him was indescribable. 

You imagined it too many times to count, yet your dreams fell pitifully short of the visceral reality. 

He was bloomin’ magnificent. 

Your fingers clawed up and down his back, desperate to hold on to something while he pounded into your g-spot like an animal. 

“This tiny cunt is the tightest thing I’ve ever had around my cock,” he gasped and you whined needily at his praise. “Like it was made for me—” his hand came up to grip your breast, “like you were made for me.”

“Yes—”

Taehyung’s need seemed to amplify with every whimper and moan that fell from your lips. The feelings you sparked in him were fierce and unapologetically primitive.

He would go to war for you—build a fortress for you—fight a dragon if one dared come close. 

You were his. 

And he felt like a savage every time you cried out for more. 

Suddenly an unexpected movement in his periphery caught his attention.

He’d been so consumed with the extraordinary rush of claiming you that he’d forgotten—

This guest room was thirty-five percent mirrors. 

And now… he couldn’t look away. 

The sight of your bodies tangling together in headless bliss played out before him like a scene from his most debauched and forbidden fantasies. His reflection grinned back at him in fascinated ecstasy while his beloved nemesis lost herself in the pleasure of his cock.

Something dark and wild began to burn in his chest as he studied the lovers in the glass. 

“Look at you, Angel,” he whispered softly, “you really are perfect.”

Then he pulled out of your core and you whined bitterly in protest, chasing his body to rid yourself of the sudden unacceptable emptiness. 

“Still so needy,” he taunted, gripping your hips and flipping you on your stomach before you could even think to protest.

“I want you to watch that pretty angel in the mirror come on my cock,” he groaned, plunging back into you from behind. 

The new angle was somehow impossibly deeper and your body shook as another wave of pleasure overtook it. 

Your fingers clawed into the mattress for purchase as he pistoned into your trembling mound. 

Only Kim Taehyung could rail you like a whore while he worshiped you like a queen. 

He gave you a moment to adjust before drawing your body back against his chest. His arm wrapped over your stomach as he slowly eased your legs apart, unfolding the lewd tableau of your bodies joined together for the voyeuristic gaze of the glass.   

“Look at yourself, Angel,” he growled, mesmerized by the way your breasts bounced with every thrust. “Look at how well you're taking me.” 

Then his fingers slid down to rub your clit and you screamed. 

“Tae! Ah-ahh!”

The pleasure building within you now was violent. You were coiling too tightly, too fast—

“That’s right Angel. Take it all.”

Your eyes locked with his in the mirror for the briefest instant.

And then you flew apart. 

Taehyung threw his head back with a carnal moan as you clamped down around him. His body was hurtling toward its own release with reckless speed. 

“I’m close,” he panted, “where can I come?”

“Come inside me please,” you begged, and Taehyung’s eyes widened in frenzied lust. 

“That’s what you want? Huh?” his thrusts became rougher as he chased his relief, “You want me to fill this puffy little pussy with my cum?”

“Yes, I want it so bad—“ you sobbed. 

“Sweet Angel,” he groaned, gripping at your breasts as he pulled you tighter against him. 

Then he met your gaze in the mirror again. 

“I want everything with you; a home—a family—your body in my arms every morning when I wake up—” his voice trembled, “I want it all.” 

The raw vulnerability in his eyes nearly broke you.

“Tae,” you gasped softly, too overcome with joy to manage anything else. 

His mouth pressed hungrily against the curve of your shoulder. You could feel his cock throbbing in your core as he bent you forward, pounding into your sex with exquisite precision. 

"Stay with me, Angel,” he whispered. His thrusts became erratic as he neared his high. “I don’t want to live without you anymore.”

The glorious thrill of his words tore over your senses with euphoric brutality. Your walls tightened greedily around his cock and the taunt cord of pleasure finally snapped. 

He came with a broken groan, flooding the welcoming heat of your womb with his release. 

“KIM TAEHYUNG!”

The sound of his name being shouted by the absolute last person in the world whose voice he wanted to hear woke Taehyung from a dead sleep.  

His eyes widened in panic as he began yanking pillows and covers from all over the bed in a frenzied attempt to hide—

The doors to his bedroom flew open with a resounding crash. 

“Jimin,” he squeaked, trying to look as casual as possible next to a giant pile of bedding. “What uh—what brings you here at—” his eyes darted to the clock on the wall, “—7:30 in the morning?”

Then he frowned. 

“And how the hell did you get past Jungkook?”

Jimin’s murderous expression broke momentarily to allow for a smug grin. 

“Kendra.”

Kendra Jackson was Jimin’s executive aide. She was fierce, capable, intelligent—

And insanely gorgeous. 

Taehyung groaned. 

Poor Jungkookie never stood a chance. 

To the surprise of absolutely no one, yet another newspaper landed on Taehyung’s lap.

KIM HEIR BRINGS NAUGHTY ANGEL HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

Underneath the headline was a picture of you and Taehyung (dressed in clothes you stole from Jin’s childhood bedroom) kissing passionately against the side entrance of the Governor’s mansion. 

One of your legs was wrapped around his waist and he was clearly grabbing your ass. 

“Ah… well you see the camera distorts everything from this angle—and-and the lighting is bad so it’s not really what it looks like—”

“Is that so? Cause it looks like you’ve got your tongue down my baby sister’s throat!”

“Okay—okay,” Taehyung massaged his forehead nervously, “so maybe it’s sort of what it looks like but—”

“I’ll kill you.”

“No wait—” he held up his hands to delay an already advancing Jimin. 

“Why should I wait?!”

“Because—”

“—I trusted you with the most important person in the world to me—”

“The situation is just not that simple.” 

“—and you grabbed her ass in public!”

“Admittedly not my finest hour.”

“So you tell me right now—”

“But you don’t understand it’s—”

“—Why the hell would I wait?!”

“BECAUSE I’M IN LOVE WITH HER!”

For a moment there was absolute silence. 

Then your head popped out from the massive pile of bedding. 

“Really?”

Jimin’s mouth fell open. 

Taehyung groaned again. 

“As usual, your timing is impeccable.”

You rolled your eyes, ignoring his comment.

“Are you really in love with me?”

“Of course I’m in love with you! What part of I want you to have my children did you not understand?!” 

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Jimin choked. 

“That’s not the same thing!”

“It is for me!”

A radiant smile lit up your face. 

“I’m in love with you too.”

Taehyung’s expression softened. 

“Angel I—”

Then you were kissing and Jimin swung around with a horrified shout.

“Oh! No no no—Come on!”

He stumbled out of the room, hands firmly clamped over his eyes. 

“This is not over, Kim Taehyung!” the scandalized young Park heir howled in exasperation… but there was a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. 

Back in the bedroom, Taehyung shook his head at Jimin’s ridiculous caterwauling. 

“No, it’s not over,” he laughed, pulling you deeper into the comfort of his arms. “It’s only just begun.”

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story. 

This baby took FOR-EVER to write. I started it in November and literally worked on it a little every day. 

If you enjoyed it— even just a tiny bit—please consider taking a moment to leave me some feedback. It is so incredibly uplifting and rewarding to hear reader thoughts and reactions to my work.

I promise to treasure every word like gold. It took a lot to bring this story to life. Your kind words would mean the world to me.

[hotpinkhoshi]

kiss it better | six (preview)

Well, this wasn’t exactly what you’d been expecting when Mark had asked you to come camping.

Instead of a campground or maybe just a clearing in the middle of the woods, you’d pulled up in the passenger’s seat of Mark’s car to find an impressive, two story log cabin. Not exactly roughing it.

“I thought we were camping?” you asked, fingers frozen on your seatbelt.

Mark looked over at you, slipping his sunglasses up to the top of his head. “We are. I mean, I guess it isn’t traditional camping…”

That wasn’t to say you were disappointed that you wouldn’t be sleeping in a tent in the woods, considering you had a severe fear of bugs and bears and everything that scurried around at night, but something about it made you nervous.

“Is this okay?” Mark asked, as if he sensed your hesitation.

Cabins were romantic. Your mind was already daydreaming about cozying up under a blanket by the fireplace with Mark, and you hadn’t even seen the inside. This certainly wouldn’t make your life any easier.

“Yeah. Yes, sorry,” you told him, shaking the traitorous thoughts from your head.

After your near-kiss experience last week, you were once again desperately trying to remain friendly with Mark. Strictly friendly. Even though it had really, truly felt like he’d wanted to kiss you. Maybe you were a little more socially awkward than the average, but there was no way you were misreading his signals.

But it was driving you insane, waiting for him to finally cross that line whenever you were alone - if he ever did.

It wasn’t that he was avoiding you, because you were still spending most of your free time together. Whether that was a long walk with Milo or a several hours long Netflix binge, you were seeing more of Mark than ever.

But he kept his distance, and you were reaching your limit.

Behind you, two more cars followed, pulling up to take the spots on either side of Mark’s car. Jackson grinned at you from the driver’s seat of his sleek, shiny black Audi. It made you feel better that he was here; Mark had made it sound like only couples would be in attendance, but today he’d informed you that Jackson had decided to come along at the last minute. Maybe it would relieve some of the tension.

Yugyeom, his girlfriend Soyeon, Dahyun, and Chaeyoung were in the other car, easy to spot by the R&B bumping from the stereo. It wasn’t even noon yet, but this group was obviously hyped for the weekend ahead.

Mark looked over at you, raising his brows.

“Ready?”

With a deep breath, you nodded, somehow feeling like you were about to walk right into the lion’s den.

===

Once everybody rolled their luggage into the cabin, along with eight bags of groceries and three cases of beer, Dahyun suggested an afternoon swim to kick things off while the boys worked on building the campfire. Yugyeom and Mark followed her orders without question, but Jackson lagged behind.

“But I don’t know how to build a fire. Can’t I join you guys?” he asked, removing his sunglasses to wiggle his eyebrows. “I promise I’ll just be another one of the girls.”

“Aht! It is way too early in this trip for you to be creeping,” Chaeyoung told him, flicking his forehead as she passed by him. “Now go outside and maybe you can learn a thing or two from the real men.”

“That’s sexist,” Jackson replied, hand on his heart like he’d been mortally wounded. Chaeyoung had already waved him off, heading up to the second floor with her suitcase that was at least three times the size of yours.

You bit back a smile as you watched Jackson sulk, following Mark and Yugyeom out to the back yard. Why couldn’t you have feelings for him instead? It would make your life a hell of a lot less complicated. He wasn’t much younger than Mark, but he also wasn’t your brother’s former best friend. Or your roommate.

Jackson was the type of guy you would have gone crazy for in high school. You’d always been a sucker for those outgoing, charming, class clown types. Maybe it was because you’d been so quiet and reserved, you were drawn to somebody who could pull you out of your shell.

But now there was a sour taste in your mouth and you found it nearly impossible to trust the guys who could always say the right things and look at you like you were the prettiest thing they had ever seen. You’d fallen for it once, and vowed not to do it again.

You followed Dahyun and Soyeon upstairs with your duffel bag in tow, your eyes taking in the beautiful high ceilings and rustic interior of the cabin. God, this place was like something out of a Hallmark Christmas movie. Except it was the middle of August and there were no twinkling lights to be seen.

The other girls picked out their rooms easily while you lagged behind, biting your lip as you looked, in vain, for a room with two beds. You gulped when you realized there was only a room with one double bed, and another with a queen sized bed. Neither were ideal for your current situation.

“Oh damn, looks like you’ll have to share a bed. Question is, will it be with Jackson or Mark?”

You jumped at the voice behind you, turning to find Dahyun peeking over your shoulder. She was giving you a knowing smile, almost like she’d planned the entire situation - which was crazy and obviously not true. At the very least, she was clearly amused.

“Shut up,” you grumbled, heading through the doorway of the room with the queen bed.

Dahyun laughed, almost evilly, as she leaned against the doorjamb. “I’m kidding. I mean, I don’t think you’d get any complaints from either of them, but…”

Her words didn’t make you feel any better. You wanted Mark, but this back and forth was starting to wear you down. If he didn’t make some kind of move this weekend, you would have no choice but to give up. If you had to share a bed while he refused to come closer than two feet from you, you might just scream.

“I don’t know, Mark might be too much of a gentleman. He’ll probably insist on sleeping on the couch,” you confided, a twinge of disappointment in your voice that would be hard to miss.

You tossed your bag onto the bed before turning to sit on the mattress, the older girl looking down at you with a frown.

“He is a gentleman, but…”

The way Dahyun trailed off had you looking up, feeling hopeful despite yourself.

“But?”

“But,” she said, glancing behind herself to make sure there were no eavesdroppers nearby. “Between you and me, he absolutely wants to share this bed with you. This bed, the couch, any other flat surfaces you might happen upon…”

Immediately, your cheeks felt warm, simply from the hypothetical scenarios your mind was already running wild with. God, you sounded like a horny teenager, desperate for your crush to touch you.

“Are you sure? I feel like I have no idea what he’s thinking, ever. One second we’re sharing a pint of ice cream and playing Battleground and the next, he can’t get far enough away from me.” You couldn’t help but to sigh, your shoulders deflating. “It’s driving me up the wall, Dahyun.”

“First of all,” she said, “no one ever knows what Mark is thinking. He’s gone several eight hour shifts at the shop without saying a word to anyone besides his clients. Second of all, if you ask me, he likes you. That’s glaringly obvious. But he cares about you, and doesn’t want to hurt you. That’s kind of his thing, ya know? Doing the right thing.”

You curled your lip and crossed your arms over your chest. “I don’t care about doing the right thing.”

Dahyun laughed, but you were dead serious. You’d spent your entire life trying to do the right thing and tip toe around authority, never upsetting anyone. It hadn’t ever gotten you anything besides good grades and a social life drier than the Sahara desert.

“Alright, so you wanna shake him up a little?” Dahyun asked, raising an eyebrow diabolically.

You nodded. “More than anything.”

“Then throw on a skimpy bikini and come outside. I’ve got an idea, and you might hate me for it at first, but you just have to trust me.”

Narrowing your eyes, you spared a glance towards your suitcase. While you had packed the only bikini you owned, you weren’t sure it qualified as skimpy. But it would have to do.

“Do I want to know?” you asked. Dahyun knew Mark maybe even better than you did, so you trusted her, but the mischievous grin on her face had you a bit nervous.

“No,” she answered bluntly. “But it will be worth it. It’s go time, meet us downstairs in five!”

With that, Dahyun waved and exited the bedroom, shutting the door on her way out.

At this point, you were desperate enough to agree to whatever might get Mark to actually do something. If that meant prancing around with your tits on display, then you were willing to give it a try.

full chapter 6 coming soon!

[radama-zard]

Dungeons & Drabbles - 2022

Day 27 - Mold

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

FCG/Imahara Joe (Modern Human AU)

“Hi! I'm Fresh Cut Grass!”

The mechanic blinked slowly, raising his safety glasses to get a better look at the person before him. They looked to be in their twenties, with silvery dyed hair bound in soft looking locs, all tied up. Wide, round glasses framed bright blue eyes, and a smile as warm as their rich brown skin lit up their face. A bright yellow sweater was worn under bluish gray overalls that cut off as shorts, with mismatched gloves of yellow and blueish gray as well. Beneath was sunshine yellow tights and brown leather lace up boots. They sat in a wheelchair the same color as their sweater, although much of it was covered with bright and color stickers.

All in all, they weren't usually the kind of person Imahara Joe tended to get at his business. Didn't really fit the mold.

Not that he was complaining! It was nice to see a friendly face.

“Imahara Joe,” he responded with an easy smile, offering out his hand to… Fresh Cut Grass. Okay, that would take a little getting used to, but hey, who was he to judge? At least it was a more unique name than Joe.

“Nice to finally meet ya, Joe! Milo always says you're a real pleasure to work with!”

“Oh! You're one of Milo’s housemates then, aren't you? They said they'd be sending someone over today in their stead. Usually it's Ashton or Anni. Do you also go by Letters?”

“Yep! Letters, Grass, FCG, all are good by me! Did Milo talk about me?”

Joe laughed, the sound as good natured as could be.

“Yeah. All good things, don't worry! None of them have a bad word to say about you.”

“Well that's a relief to hear. It's nice to know I'm not a source of frustration or upset! But anyway… Milo’s order? If that's okay, Joe?”

“Oh, yeah, of course. Got it right here! The molds were especially hard to find, but I got them. Tell them they've gotta share what they've made when they're done, I'm dying to know! Milo always makes the most interesting projects…”

“I'm sure Mi would be delighted to share! They're real excited about this one, they’ve been talking about it near non-stop for three days straight! It's always endearing to see them so passionate about the stuff they love.”

Joe watched Fresh Cut Grass’ smile turn soft, and he couldn't help but feel a twinge of envy.

“Milo must feel pretty lucky to have you in their life. Ashton and Anni too. They complain every time they come here, but it's pretty obvious to see how much they love them. You too. If it's not prying, may I ask…?”

“I'm pretty lucky to have all of them in my life too! But sure, ask away!”

“Are you four… dating? Like, um, a poly kind of thing. Sorry if that's too invasive.”

Gods did Joe hate how his cheeks burned as he asked that. Like, come on! He was a full grown man, a 27 year old for fucks sake! Yet here he was, getting all flustered asking if some people were in some kind of unconventional relationship.

Ridiculous of him, huh? Maybe this was why he was still single.

“It's alright, I don't find that question to be too much! While yes, we are in a polyamorous relationship, it's not a romantic one, you see? It's queer platonic! We all love each other deeply, just not like that. I think Ashton is hooking up with Fearne… and Milo and Anni don't want to be with anyone but us at all!”

Huh. To be honest, Joe wasn't sure he'd ever heard of queer platonic before. Not that that made it any less valid, it just meant that was something he'd have to research tonight. Like he'd had to with non binary when he'd first met Milo. They'd opened up Joe’s world to a lot of new things, something he was proud of.

“And what about you? Are you hooking up with anyone?”

… Why had he asked that? Internally Joe groaned, wishing to disappear inside his garage and crawl into the nearest pile of auto parts and never return.

“I don't think I've dated anyone romantically ever. I've had a few people flirt with me but I've never really been interested. Anni thinks Marwa might have a thing for me but I'm not sure. I really should ask her… Why’d you ask?”

“O-Oh, you know, small talk and all… Business stuff.”

Yep. Death would be preferable to this whole conversation right now. Fuck, he hadn't been THIS much of a mess since high school.

“I'm not sure that's good for business, but okay! A word of warning though, people might mistake you for flirting with them and such if you ask them stuff like this.”

“Right- Yeah. You're right.”

“It would probably sting a lot more, considering you’re real attractive and all. People get very put out when they're shut down by attractive folks.”

“Yes, yes, you're ri-” Joe froze, pivoting around from the box he'd been fiddling with to stare Fresh Cut Grass right in the eye. “... Did you just call me attractive?”

“Mhm! I mean, it's an obvious truth. You have a rugged sort of handsomeness to ya. Yet real soft eyes and a warm smile. That's pretty attractive.”

How did they say it like that, as though it were a simple fact and not a massively flirtatious compliment? Was it even flirting? It was impossible to tell with Fresh Cut Grass, they weren't terribly easy to read.

“I- uh, thanks. That's nice of you to say. Can't say I've been told that before. You're pretty good looking yourself…”

Yeah, real smooth, Joe thought.

At least Fresh Cut Grass seemed delighted by it, if the way their eyes lit up was any indication.

“Thank you, that's real kind of you to say! Now, I don't mean to be rude, but the order? Sorry, I'm on a bit of a time crunch. Ashton will be here to pick me up any moment and I don't want to keep them waiting.”

“Right, right! I’ll be back in a minute!”

Joe jankily jogged into his garage, stopping only for a few seconds when he knew he was well and truly out of sight.

Infatuation. It’s been years since he'd last been this way with someone. Yet Joe couldn't deny the giddy joy that came with it, the bubbly delight of a slowly forming crush.

And sure, maybe it was a little foolish of him, and was pretty likely to go nowhere. But it was… nice, to have those kind of feelings reignited, to feel something so new and exciting growing.

Maybe it would even be okay to pursue it? Once he got to know them better, of course, and only if Fresh Cut Grass seemed comfortable with it.

Still, it was nice to be breaking free from his usual mold.

With his feelings a bit better sorted Joe grabbed the box, and with a deep breath to steady himself, went back out to reconvene with his newest little crush.

[brockadoodles]

morning flights to toronto - b. boeser

AN: I couldn’t give you too many Christmas fics without a splaaasshhhhhhhh of angst, that simply would not be true to my brand. Sorry fic Brock for how often I break you? But it’s okay because it’s just a character and not real hehe. Hope you enjoy this one, it’s a concept I really love.

Word Count: 2613

Warnings: Angst but a good ending I promise. 

A month and a half ago, if someone would have asked you what you were doing for Christmas, you would have smiled at them and told them you’d be in Minnesota, likely cuddled up by the fireplace with snow heavily falling outside, your boyfriend asleep next to you and your dogs at your feet. You would have told them how excited you were to go back to the place you had started to realize felt like your second home, a place where you pictured yourself raising a family, transitioning to a stage in life that you were starting to feel ready for. A month and a half ago, you would have been happily in love, instead of mending a freshly shattered heart during your favorite time of the year. 

You replayed the conversation in your head, circling over and over his words that echoed through your mind, wondering how you could have misinterpreted the signs for so long. You thought you and Brock were on the same page, you had moved in together, and had even adopted a second dog together, a husky mix named Milo. But it turns out, you weren’t on the same page at all you were two souls who had found yourself so consumed by the love story you thought you had that you ended up not realizing that Brock was still on book 1, while you had steadily moved to book 2. 

“I just don’t know that I see all of that right now,” he sighed. His head was resting in his hands and his eyes were blurry from his own tears that had started to fall as he spoke to you, a conversation that to him was the hardest thing he ever had to do. He loved you, that was never the problem. But sometimes, love isn’t enough to build a life with someone, sometimes you need something more than a connection that the two of you had. 

“Right now? Or ever?” You whispered, your own tears falling freely as you desperately wished for him to say anything but ever. You could give him space, you could give him time, but you couldn’t rationalize the idea that you had loved him in a way that he didn’t love you. You couldn’t accept that it had been one-sided, not when you were starting to build a life together. Brock ran a hand through his hair, his voice was scratchy from the dryness settling into his throat, the lump choking back his own tears as his voice pulled your heart out and tossed it on the ground. 

“I think we need to not be together right now.” 

That phrase struck you in a way that nothing else had before. It settled into your chest and pitched a tent there, a tenant that wasn’t paying rent who you couldn’t evict. You weren’t even sure it felt entirely real until you were sitting with him and having a serious conversation about moving out, and taking Milo with you.

You tried not to think about the reality of it all, losing a three year relationship seemingly in a matter of moments. It didn’t matter how long you and Brock spoke in circles that night, it didn’t matter what shape you tried to construct to fix everything and hang onto him, he was holding a box and you were holding broken pieces that didn’t fit. 

You were doing your best at what you hoped looked like starting over. You were trying to navigate finding yourself again after being so tied into one person, but it was nearing Christmas and as you sat in your friend’s sublet apartment with boxed of things around you that you and Brock had bought together and Milo at your feet, you wanted to be anywhere other than Vancouver for the holiday.  

It had taken you four days to call your parents. Four days of replaying everything in your mind and wondering if maybe he’d call and say it was all a mistake. Four days of cycling through the same routine of going from the bed to the couch on autopilot, tears springing to your eyes each time something reminded you of him. Four days of wondering if he even was hurting at all, a question that you weren’t sure you even wanted the answer to yet tortured yourself with anyways. But it only took five minutes for your mom to convince you to come home. 

That’s how you ended up back in Toronto, tucked away in your childhood bedroom that had been converted to be a guest room looking out at the blanket of snow that was dumping into the city. You settled into a new routine, waking up each morning and watching Milo out back playing in the fresh snow. You tried not to think about if he was missing Coolie as much as you were. You also tried not to notice each time Brock’s photo popped up as a viewer on your story, knowing that losing Milo was probably killing him. 

Brock spent the weeks following the breakup leading up to Christmas poorly attempting to convince himself that what he did was right. He agonized over it, constantly telling himself that you were two people who had been lost in each other for so long, that you needed to find yourselves again. He tried to convince himself that the codependency was the problem, that you weren’t growing together anymore, hell, he even tried to convince himself that he was the one holding you back from your dreams, feeling guilty for just how willing he knew you would have been to follow him if he were ever traded. But the thing about telling yourself something until it's true is that it doesn’t work, and that was a lesson that Brock was painstakingly learning the hard way. He couldn’t even pretend it was any easier when he was back home in Minnesota, because at each turn his dad asked him things about you and it broke his heart each time he had to remind him that you weren’t. 

Brock watched your story of Milo in the snow for what felt like at least the tenth time that morning. He heard your laugh in the background and you calling for Milo softly. He knew you were back home in Toronto, probably at your parents house running through the traditions your family had at Christmas. He remembers when he got to experience all of those with you, the year before. As he heard your laugh one last time from your story, he thought back to that Christmas, his own heart twisting when he thought about how he was always the one who could make you laugh, stealing wine drunken kisses in the kitchen in the dim light.

It took Brock one hour after you left to know that it was a mistake breaking up with you, but it took him three weeks and a Christmas Eve without you to come to the understanding that maybe, just maybe he could fix it. 

You groaned softly as you blindly reached for the source of the buzzing on your bedside table. You had half of a mind to turn over and curl up in your blanket and ignore it, the last month your phone had been filled with messages and calls, each person offering what felt like faux sympathy at your broken heart. It got to a point where you dreaded seeing a notification, just wishing that your friends would give you space to heal on your own. They could only express so much sympathy for a situation that they didn’t understand. But it was Christmas Eve, and as you adjusted your eyes to your phone screen, you thought about how whoever was calling this late must have been important. As soon as you picked up the screen and saw the photo on it, him with Coolie curled up against his chest, you felt your eyes water and your mind twist. You wondered if you were hallucinating, but your finger slid across the accept button anyway and you held your breath as you lifted the phone to your ear.

“Are you there?” His voice came through when you didn’t say anything. It was soft and strained, and you felt your heart clench at hearing it after trying to forget about how he sounded over the last month. You sniffled slightly, wiping your eyes and sitting up in bed as you nodded as if he could somehow see your movements through the phone. Milo shifted slightly at your movements, and your heart broke even more. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry it’s so late. Fuck, it’s like 2:30 there. I’m- god please don’t hang up.” He whispered. For a moment you felt like you could see him, probably pacing back and forth in his condo, hand running through his golden hair. You didn’t know why he was calling, and you didn’t know why you chose to answer, but you stayed on the line anyway, because what’s a broken heart at Christmas without the added pain of the one who shattered it waking you up at 2 am? 

“I’m here.” You said, your voice shaky. You leaned down to scratch Milo’s ear, your heart-tugging a big at knowing the breakup had not only affected you and Brock but the dogs as well. 

“Uhm, I..” Brock started, and you sighed softly into the phone.

“Brock, why are you calling?” There it was, the question he had expected. The question he had spent the last month preparing himself for, running through the lists and reasons in his mind constantly, and now that he was here, listening to you cry on the phone, he seemed to forget all of them. He felt like shit, not only for himself for ruining the best thing he ever had with you, but for calling you in the middle of the night on Christmas and making you cry all over again. 

“Come home. Or I’ll come there, I was wrong. I was so beyond wrong and to be honest, I’ve spent the entire last month knowing that. We were so happy, you know? I was thinking about rings and starting this whole life with you and I just lost myself, I started doubting us when it got serious because I was insecure, I was afraid you’d wake up one day and realize you don’t want me or this life. And I was wrong. I was wrong to hurt you, I was wrong to not talk to you about how I was feeling and I was wrong to break up with you when really all I want to do is marry you and have kids and, fuck, I just want all of that with you. So come home, let’s try again.” 

You curled into Milo, letting the tears fall down your cheeks as you took in the words he spoke. You knew Brock, and you knew he was telling the truth but was he worth risking everything for again. Could you realistically come back from this knowing that you could be sent packing up and back to Toronto at any time should he change his mind. It was a gamble, and you were never one to place bets when it came to your heart. 

“I’ll come to Toronto, I’ll book a flight right now, just to see you, just to try to show you that I want to make this up to you. I love you, let me show you that again.” Brock begged. 

“You’ll come to Toronto?” You squeaked, biting your lip in the darkness. 

“I already looked at flights, I can be there by 10.” He said. You let out a sob at his words, glancing at the clock and counting down how many hours that would be until you would face him. 

“I can’t lose you again. If we do this, I can’t.. Brock, I really can’t.” You whispered. 

You opened the door to him standing there, a bag on his shoulders, and his hands nervously tucked in his pockets. You passed over his hair that was covered in a dark beanie, his eyes tired and lacking the brightness you once always saw in him, his beard longer than he usually kept it. Brock looked like a reflection of you, a broken person who was wandering around trying to piece back together their own heart. You stepped out onto the porch, not caring that it was freezing cold and the snow was heavy. You didn’t care that you were just in leggings and an old sweatshirt of Brock’s you didn’t want to admit that you had taken from him. You reached out for him, burying yourself into his chest and letting the tears fall as you held each other for the first time in over a month. His hand ran through your hair as he pressed a light kiss to the top of your head. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He spoke, tilting your chin up so that his eyes could look into yours. 

“I missed you, and I love you, and please just-” Brock cut you off, pressing his lips against yours in a tender kiss. You felt yourself melt into him, the familiarity rushing back to you as he pulled you closer and deepened the kiss. You knew that the kiss couldn’t fix everything, that him coming to Toronto and back to you didn’t change what happened. But what you did know was that you had someone standing there who wanted you and had made a mistake, and maybe it was the holiday spirit talking, but you wanted to give him a second chance, and it was the only Christmas present that mattered.  

You held onto him tightly, tears stinging your cheeks from the cold. You didn’t even notice your mom had opened the front door behind you, instead you pulled apart from Brock when Milo came running up to your feet, jumping all over Brock and whining at him. 

“Milo, hi buddy, hi.” He cooed at the dog, squatting down and letting Milo jump all over him. It made you cry even more, realizing how hard the last few weeks without him had been. Brock looked up at you, a deep frown settling on his features because he knew all of your pain had been his fault. He stood up, letting Milo continue to jump on his legs as he grabbed your hands.

“There’s someone else who came with me.” He smiled softly. You furrowed your brow as he tangled his fingers with yours and led you down to where the car he must have rented was parked. You saw Coolie’s face in the window and you squeezed Brock’s hand tighter, your smile growing with each step closer to him you got. Brock opened the door, letting Coolie jump out and run all around you and him and Milo. His excitement coming out in loud whines. You watched as he and Milo started running around your yard together, standing close to Brock.

“It felt wrong without him.” You commented softly. Brock wrapped an arm around you and kissed your temple tenderly, a move that sent waves of calm through your body. You didn’t know what it would take to fix everything, but you had him here and he wanted to try. Maybe it would be rocky, maybe it would be hard, but losing each other even for just a few weeks only cemented in how sure you were about a life with him. So, even if it all crumpled later on, he still took an early morning flight to Toronto, and you weren’t going to send him away. 

[hockeyboysiguess]

a partridge in a pear tree -> a jersey under the tree | b. boeser

a/n: happy december 1st everyone and welcome to the first day of 12 days of christmas! as a reminder here is the whole list. these will be posted every other day through christmas eve. this one is where this whole thing started, a gift for my bestie bae, the apple to my peanut butter forever, @brockadoodles​​. i hope you like it most of all!

word count: 3,740

wine drink pairing recommendation: hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows

warnings: pregnancy. some seriously wholesome content.

You took a deep breath and pulled the sleeves of your sweater over your hands, then pushed them back up again when you started pulling at the threads at the edge. Your sweater didn’t deserve to take the brunt of your stress in that moment. You bounced your foot up and down nervously instead as you waited what had to have been the longest three, absolutely agonizing minutes of your life. When the timer on your phone went off, you lurched forward to grab it, turning it off, as your other hand reached for the small, plastic test. You took a deep, centering breath before glancing down at the word in the small window.

Pregnant. 

You were actually pregnant. You knew everything had felt wrong for a few weeks now, food didn't taste the same or sit right, you were absolutely exhausted all of the time, and you had snapped at Brock a time or two for well-meaning actions. You knew something was wrong, but your mom had been the one to have to tell you to take a test before going to the doctor’s. You had told her it wasn’t possible; you and Brock were doing the opposite of trying since you had only gotten married over the summer. You agreed to wait. That single word, which came with a lifetime behind it, wasn’t in the plan for another few years, but it was here now and it would be your reality in seven short months. 

How were you going to tell Brock? 

You knew he would be overwhelmed, his eyes glazing over as the timeline of his life abruptly shifted forward several years, yanking him right along with it. You knew Brock though; you wouldn’t have married him if you didn’t know him as well as you did. You knew that glazed over look would give way into a smile so broad it practically broke across his face. The waiting a few years, the shattered plan, was mostly you with a dash of Brock trying to make you happy. If you suddenly changed your mind and wanted to try for a baby tomorrow, unnecessary now, he would’ve dragged you to bed that instant. In full truth, your husband had baby fever as soon as he slid the wedding band onto your finger, probably before that really. Brock was going to be over the moon. You didn’t have any doubts about it, you really just needed to get yourself on board with this more than anything, this new timeline. 

You grabbed your phone, fingers hovering over Brock’s name in your contacts. You debated calling him then, letting the nervous words spill out of your mouth, letting him wash away your concerns with words of love and affirmation. But you knew Brock. You knew Brock wanted the cliché, cute surprise. His scavenger hunt of a proposal set the standard for how big news was delivered, a cliché bang of sorts. You were more of a whimper than a bang sort of person, but you could lean into the cliché of it all for him.

Instead of calling him, you dropped your phone into your purse and grabbed your keys, needing to make a last minute trip in order to make this happen before he got home later that day from his road trip for the Christmas break. Two stores and one confused holiday worker later, you had everything you needed for your last minute announcement, letting the excitement of the anticipation of seeing Brock’s happiness calm your nerves in place of him doing it in only the way he knew how. Slowly but surely, as you carefully wrapped everything up, you could feel yourself getting more excited, hands shaking a little as you wrapped. A family with Brock was always the real plan; everything else was secondary, including the timing of it all. 

You and Brock had found each other by chance, a complete accident four years prior to the day actually. A department store the day before Christmas was a terrible place to be, but it was the only place in your area that said they had the last gift you needed before you could head off to spend Christmas with your family. You spotted it in the store, the last one on the shelf, and made a beeline for it. As your hand reached for it, a large hand reached for the item as well, grabbed onto it the same time you did. You both recoiled, and turned to face each other. 

You would have been furious with him if it wasn’t for the everything about him when you saw him. Blond hair peeking out from a gray beanie on his head, blue eyes that reminded you of the sky the morning after a snowstorm, bright and beautiful, and a small baby in his arms who was already reaching out for your hair, even though he didn’t know you at all. 

“Whoa, Easty, don’t grab the pretty girl’s hair,” he laughed as he intercepted the baby’s hand on its way to fist into your hair. “Sorry about Easton. His parents are trying to teach him not to grab, but you can see it’s not going well.”

He readjusted the baby in his arms, hoisting him up a little higher, before continuing, “I’m Brock, by the way, and this is my nephew, Easton.” 

“Um, hi,” you mumbled out, tucking your hair behind your ear as a blush rose to your cheeks as you added your name at the end of your half statement. You had a warmer smile for Easton though. Brock, a terrible name for a cute boy who liked babies to boot, who on the other hand was trying to take your gift that you needed. He was on the naughty list for sure. “Hi there, Easton.”

“I see we like Easton best,” Brock laughed, picking up on the stark difference in the tones you used. “Look, you want that, right?” 

Brock pointed up toward the shelf where the gift you desperately needed sat, taunting you, daring you to reach out and grab it. You nodded in response to Brock, unsure where he could possibly be going with this. 

“How about I let you have that if you’ll grab a drink with me?” Brock asked you, completely stunning you in the middle of a department store in the middle of the holiday season, a lawless place where one should always expect the unexpected. 

“I’m sorry?” you laughed, a look of disbelief clear on your face. 

Brock let a lazy smile roll across his face, “I get a drink with a pretty girl for the price of a Christmas gift for one of my cousins who would probably break it the day after I give it to him? Yeah, I’m coming out on top here, if you say yes.” 

You had said yes and the rest was pretty much history, an accidental meeting led to all of this, so maybe the accidental baby you were carrying just in time for Christmas was just the right thing for the two of you, a nod to your past in the setting up of your future. Just as you finished tying the bow around the box, the front door jingled, the sound instantly followed by barking from Milo and Coolie, and then followed by cooing from your husband at the pups. 

“Hey bud, hey bud. Yeah, Dad missed ya too,” he managed to get out as he was being practically tackled by the pups, like they did whenever he came home. 

You slid the surprise gift under the tree, tucking it in the back, before Brock could notice you were adding one more gift after you said you were done a few days ago. You lifted yourself off the floor, tucking the wrapping paper under the couch to hide it from Brock, as he rounded the corner into the living room. Brock looked at you like he always did, like you were his entire world, like you were his first breath of fresh air he’d had in years, like you were the living embodiment of a Christmas miracle. He shuffled across the floor to wrap his arms around your waist, and you gasped as he lifted you up. He laughed, but you were just panicking that maybe your stomach wasn’t as flat as you thought it was and he was going to find out about the biggest surprise he was ever going to get a little earlier than you wanted. 

“Hey, baby,” he breathed out as he set you back down, tilting his head down in one another motion to capture your lips in a soft kiss. 

“Hey, handsome,” you smiled as you pulled away from his kiss, a hand threading into the long strands of hair at the back of his neck. 

Brock smiled down at you, and gave you another quick kiss before saying, “How were the last couple days? Were the pups good for you? Do I need to be bad cop with them?”

You laughed and shook your head softly, “Brock Boeser, we both know you’re not capable of being the bad cop with anyone, let alone Milo and Coolie.”

Brock was laughing as he kissed your forehead, “Sorry you’re going to have to be the bad guy all the time when we have kids. Whenever that is, no pressure.”

Your heart picked up in your chest and your breath caught in your throat. You tucked your face in his neck to try and hide the expression on your face, letting the ease with which Brock brought up kids calm you. He wanted this baby, even if he didn’t know they existed yet. Your nerves that maybe he wouldn’t want this baby were just misplaced anxiety coming from your own feelings about becoming a parent yourself; they weren’t about him. Brock was here, again, being your perfect partner, comforting you and assuring you, even though he had no idea he was actually doing anything at all. 

Sliding into bed next to him later that night, his heavy arm slung over your stomach made you as nervous as when he picked you up earlier, even though nothing had changed since that afternoon other than everything that had already changed since the morning. Brock kissed your shoulder and relaxed into his pillow, letting his eyes flutter closed. He was out less than a few minutes after closing his eyes, as per usual. Your husband was a creature of habit, and you were about to throw the most welcome wrench into his routines that you ever could. Your nerves had shifted into ones of excitement, of wanting a beautiful thing to happen on the morning of Brock’s favorite holiday. You wanted to see him open that gift. You wanted to see the moment he realized everything was changing, the moment he realized he was going to be a father, the one thing he’d wanted for so long, under the lights of the Christmas tree, and the dawn of a winter Vancouver morning in late December. 

All you had to do to get to that moment was sleep, but it was the one thing that eluded you most of the night. The combination of excitement, nerves, and the fact that this baby seemed to have the goal of making you incredibly nauseous all of the time, all working in tandem to rob you of sleep. You tossed and turned most of the night, and slept terribly when you did manage to sleep, but it was Christmas after all Brock didn’t feel any shame in waking you up when he normally got up. He woke you up with a soft kiss to your shoulder, and a comforting arm around your waist. 

“Merry Christmas, baby,” he mumbled softly against your shoulder when you stirred. 

“Merry Christmas, husband,” you breathed out and you felt Brock smile against your shoulder. He loved when you called him by his favorite title, his words not yours. “What time is this?” 

Brock laughed lightly against your skin, “Early,” which was what he said when it was before seven thirty in the morning whenever you asked, “but it’s Christmas early, so it’s appropriate today.” 

You groaned, making him laugh deeper in response, “Still not sure how I married an early bird?” 

“But you love meeeee,” he muttered against your skin, voice soft with an edge of youth that perfectly fit the holiday, his days old stubble scratching across your skin as he talked. “And I love you so much.” 

“I do love you,” you smiled as you spoke. “It’s the only reason I can tolerate you waking up this early on days that aren’t Christmas.” 

“Well, today is Christmas, so we’re putting our matching pajamas on. I’ve got Milo if you take Coolie, and we’re opening some presents, baby!” 

One torn set of dog antlers, one discarded set, two embarrassing adult pajama sets Brock loved so much, and two cups of coffee since neither of you could function without it, later, and you and Brock were sat by the Christmas tree together, legs crossed, each with your first present for each other in yours laps. You had an order in mind for Brock’s gifts, saving the last addition, the announcement of your new addition, for last. Brock usually just grabbed whatever was closest to him with your name on it and handed it to you. 

“Sorry I still can’t wrap things,” was how he handed you the first one, snagging the box with his name on it off your lap in one smooth motion.

“Wouldn’t be from you if it wasn’t wrapped like you ran over it with your car first,” you joked. 

“Ho, ho, ho,” he rolled his eyes. “So kind of you, wifey.”

“I’ve got to keep you honest.”

You smiled brightly at him, earning yourself a quick peck on your lips before he ripped into your impeccably wrapped present, sending bits of paper and ribbon everywhere. You eyed Milo carefully as he started ripping up some of the paper Brock had torn off the box, but he wasn’t creating more of a mess than Brock was making himself, so you let it slide under a watchful eye. Brock loved his first gift, and his second, and his third. You cried at the first, and laughed at your second, and your entire chest felt warm with your third thinking that Brock Boeser was made for Christmas. He was warm and unfailingly kind and hopeful in the face of absolute hopelessness. You didn’t really believe in the idea of the magic of Christmas, chocking it all up to people making the holidays feel special simply because they wished for them to be special, but you believed that sometimes people were greater than the sum of their parts, of even their experiences, of their very atoms. There was something else to Brock Boeser, something so indescribably wonderful, that had drawn you to him in the first place, and that reminded you of what people said was the magic of Christmas. It was pure and good and so astoundingly bright that you thought maybe Brock Boeser was made of stardust from better stars than anyone else you’d ever known and maybe Christmas was made for Brock Boeser instead. 

You were just hoping that your little surprise was going to make this Christmas his best one yet, rather than derail Brock’s favorite holiday and every repetition of this holiday after. 

“Okay, I know we said three gifts,” and Brock was already groaning as you reached for the small box you hid behind Coolie and Milo’s gifts at the back of the tree, “but I had to get this one. It’s technically not really for you actually, but it’s kind of for you.” 

Brock gave you a curious look, eyebrows furrowing down and lips pursing, but you waved him off and shoved the pristinely wrapped box into his hands. You grabbed your phone and opened up your camera, knowing if you didn’t film this moment and it was as good as you hoped it would be, you would regret it for the rest of your life. If it wasn’t as good as you hoped, well, you could always delete it. 

“Oh, we’re filming me open a present that’s only sort of for me?” Brock laughed as he asked the question and you just shrugged in response and waved him on. “Okay then, weirdo wifey.” 

You rolled your eyes as he opened up his last present. Your breath caught in your throat as he popped open the tape keeping the lid on the box down. Your eyes bounced back and forth between his left hand and his right as he slowly pulled at the tissue paper, going painstakingly slowly for the sake of the camera. You groaned at his actions and whined his name, which just made him laugh, but at least he finally picked up the pace. You watched with your breath held and your body tense as his soft blue eyes looked over the contents of the gift. His brows furrowed together in confusion as his shaking hands picked up a small Canucks jersey, an incredibly small Canucks jersey that wouldn’t fit anyone in your household with your shared last name on the back.

“Baby, what is this?” Brock asked you, his voice tense, his emotions screaming behind the wall  he’d haphazardly built to try and keep the hopefulness out of it, but it was seeping in through the cracks in streams. 

You took a deep breath, your first one since he’d started opening the present, and whispered, “I’m pregnant, Brock. We’re having a baby.” 

Brock’s bottom lip quivered as he looked at the small jersey in his shaking hands. His brows softened and his chest started to heave as his breathing picked up. 

“You’re serious, right?” he managed to get out. “You’re actually pregnant? We’re actually having a baby?” 

He lost his voice a bit at the end, pitch going so high that he thought you didn’t even understand him, but you were listening and watching every single facet of him right now to miss what he said. You nodded slowly, letting out an unsteady breath as you did. He wasn’t angry, not that Brock had ever been angry with you even once in all the time you knew him. He was far too patient and by the time his patience wore thin, he loved you too much to ever be angry with you. But you couldn’t place how he was feeling, the emotions flashing over his face in the faint light of the Christmas tree and the Vancouver sunrise too complicated and changing too quickly for you to understand. 

You understood when Brock dropped the jersey and reached for you. It wasn’t really a reach. It was a tackle, your back ending up flat on the rug with Brock hovering over you. 

“We’re having a baby!” 

Brock’s voice shot up several octaves and decibel levels when he shouted. A wide, gorgeous smile broke out across his face, one so true and joyful you’d only seen it a handful of times before; when you agreed to be his girlfriend, when you agreed to marry him, and when he saw you walk down the aisle. But here it was again, his “overwhelmed to the point of absolute elation” smile. And with the Christmas lights making a halo of light twinkle around his head from your position on the floor, Brock looked like every bit of the angel he was to you. 

“A baby, baby,” he breathed out as he slowly sat back on his heels, pulling you up with him, keeping your faces close. “We’re having a baby, baby.” 

You nodded as his hand reached out to cup your face, “We’re having a baby, Brock.” 

“Well, you’re having a baby,” he smiled at you softly as his thumb ran over your lips. “I’m here for physical, moral, and emotional support.”

“Thanks for acknowledging that I’m doing all of the heavy lifting here,” you laughed with a teasing roll of your eyes. 

“Are you happy?” His question was so soft, so hesitant, you always didn’t catch it. “I know you didn’t want this for another couple of years and I just, I’m thrilled, I’m over the moon and the stars and the whole freaking universe that we’re having a baby, but are you happy?”

Hearing Brock’s words, feeling the steadiness of his hand on your cheek, and the excitement absolutely radiating off him, you knew you were happy. The prospect of becoming a parent was terrifying, especially when you hadn’t been trying to become one, but knowing Brock Boeser, the man you loved more than anyone else you had ever met, the man that outshone all the lights on the tree and the stars in the sky, the man that was made of brighter stardust than anyone else, the man that Christmas could only hope to be as magical as, was your co-parent. And what was there to worry about after that? 

“I’m so happy,” you told him, your voice shaking as tears began to fill your eyes. “I’m so, so happy.” 

Brock nodded as his eyes matched yours, glassy and threatening to overflow with tears as he pressed a soft kiss to your forehead. He slowly pulled back and lowered himself down, bending over until his face was in front of your stomach. Brock let out a long, slow breath before reaching out a hand to place gently on your still flat stomach. 

“Hi, little one. It’s me, Daddy.” Brock’s voice cracked at the last word that left his lips and your first tears spilled over. “Your momma and I are so happy and so excited you’re on your way and we can’t wait to meet you. Thank you for showing yourself for Christmas. You’re the best gift I’ve ever received in my entire life. Can’t wait for next Christmas already, even though this one isn’t over, because you’ll be sharing it with us then. We love you so much, little one.”

The tears were flowing freely as Brock looked back up at you. There was so much to do, so much to plan, so much to figure out, but right now it was just you and Brock and your little Christmas surprise, the best gift you had ever received either. 

“Merry Christmas, Brock.” 

“Merry Christmas, baby, and Merry Christmas, baby.”

[jjmaybanksbaby]

Where It Leads (Rafe Cameron)

Summer I

Part 01: Pick Me Up, No Headlights

series masterlist | next part

summary: It’s your first summer in the Outer Banks.

a/n: I'm so so so excited to introduce my new obx series! This whole thing is based off the song Style by Taylor Swift (which I'm sure you've picked up on lol!) This series is going to be about Rafe during HS so Summer I = the summer before 9th grade and so on and so forth. Enjoy!!

word count: 2k

The Outer Banks was a little bit like a fantasy. The way your mom talked about growing up under the North Carolina heat with her fearless twin brother, Austin, the decades-long feud between the Kooks and the Pogues, the endless summers, it all felt like a movie. There was a specific smile that snuck onto her face when she talked about the place. Their parents had moved away from OBX to the mountains while she was still in college and she’d never been back. Last September, her father's health had taken a turn for the worse and he passed away rather unexpectedly. Your uncle had suggested to your grandmother that she should move back to the Outer Banks since she was also so happy there. To the shock of everyone and your Nonna bought a house on Figure Eight, just a street over from the home your mother been raised in, and moved back to NC.

You’d flown into the tiny Outer Banks airport two days after the Fourth of July and, so far the sky had stayed crystal blue the entire week you’ve been there. It had been great to have some time with your grandmother all to yourself. The house on Figure Eight was huge; you definitely understood why she’d asked your mother if she would spare one of her three daughters to keep her company for the summer. Having the echoing house all to herself sounded glum. Your older sister was spending the summer in Italy for a college-writing program and since you know how to weaponize your middle child charm, you talked your mom into sending you to OBX rather easily.  

“Nonna,” you called down, leaning over the balcony at the top of the stairs. “I can’t find my sandals and I don’t have any other shoes to wear to the Club for lunch.” 

Your grandmother walked into the foyer and looked up at you. “y/n you know I can’t understand you when you yell from upstairs.” She turned around and walked back into the kitchen. You sighed under your breath careful that she didn’t hear you since you’d gotten in trouble for doing that yesterday. 

Your mother use to complain about the way that her mom always felt the need to act - and have her children act - so posh during her childhood but those stories seemed so strange to you. Like a Nonna from a past life, not the one you knew. However, it seemed the Outer Banks had reignited her need to act sophisticated all the time. 

You double-check your appearance in the mirror and then resigned to searching the downstairs of the house for your shoes. 

☼☼☼

Nonna was busy making small talk with some of the other ladies at the Club after lunch but you were antsy to get back to the beach while the sun was still at its peak. You had had all the polite smiling and nodding you could take in an afternoon. 

“I’m gonna- ” you pointed in the direction of the Club bathrooms and your Nonna waved her hand dismissively. You turned on your heel and headed away from her and the others. 

You pushed open the door and was surprised at the quietness. You double-checked under all the stalls to make sure no one else was in there before sitting on the counter and resting the back of your head against the mirror. You knew you were probably smudging the glass but you needed a minute from all it. 

It wasn’t that you weren’t totally in love with the Outer Banks. It was just that your mom seemed to leave out the strenuously boring parts of her childhood - the small talk, the lunches, the emphasis on class. Plus, on top of that, it seems your grandfather’s death has rattled your Nonna deeper than she cared to admit and she’d become overly cautious about everything. She was keeping a much tighter leash on you than was really needed, or so you thought. 

The door swung open and you jumped off the counter hoping whoever had just entered didn’t see you sitting atop it. The young girl stopped rummaging in her cross-body bag and glanced look to meet your gaze. She had on a green and white polka-doted dress and her dirty blonde hair spilled over her shoulders. She looked young, maybe 13 or 14 you guessed. 

“Oh. Hi!” She said. 

“Hi,” you responded. She walked over to stand next to you facing the mirror. She pulled a pink lipgloss out of her purse and ran it over her top and bottom lips before recapping it. 

“Hiding out in here?” She asked. She took your moment of hesitation as an answer. “Yeah, me too. It’s by far the best hiding place. Plus my dad can’t come into the ladies' restroom so it buys me a little time.” She laughed, seemingly at the thought of her dad barging into a women’s bathroom. She looked over at you. “Not to pry but I don’t think I’ve seen at the Club before. Just visiting?” 

You nodded. “Yeah, I’m staying with my Nonna, my grandma, for the summer. I got in last week.” 

The girl smiled big. “The Outer Banks is ah-mazing. Sarah Cameron, by the way.” 

Her genuineness brought a smile to your own face. “I’m so happy to meet you, Sarah. I’m y/n. I haven’t gotten to meet a lot of other kids yet.” 

“I’m not really supposed to know this but my brother talks obnoxiously loud on the phone so it’s really not my fault for eavesdropping, but there’s a beach bonfire tonight down at the cove...it’s a Kook party spot.” She clarified after seeing the confusion on my face. “I’m sure he’d be cool with you tagging along.” Sarah reached into her bag and held out her phone. “Put your number in. I’ll pass it along to him.” 

“Thank you so much,” you said, your heart feeling warmed by this girl's kindness. 

“Yeah, of course,” she stepped forward and wrapped you in an unexpected hug before she exited, leaving the door swinging in her wake. 

☼☼☼

Your phone rang with an unknown number that afternoon around five, just after you’d gotten back from the beach. You answered the call and tucked the phone between your ear and shoulder as you finished rinsing off your sandy feet. 

Sarah’s voice filled the speaker. “Hey y/n, so I told Rafe about you and asked about the party. He said he’ll pick you at 10. Okay? Text me your address so I can give it to him.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay! Umm...one question Sarah. What do I wear to this bonfire?” You asked. 

A friendly laughed echoed through the phone. “Put your bikini under a sweatshirt and some short. You’ll be fine.” 

“Um also one more thing,” You said. 

“Sure!” Sarah replied.

“I think don’t think my Nonna would be too thrilled about me going to this party so could you ask Rafe to turn off the headlights when he get’s here. She sleeps on the first floor and I’m trying not to get caught sneaking out.” 

“Trust me, I know.” You wondered how much 13-year old could possibly know about sneaking out but Sarah was becoming your one friend on the island so you just went with it. 

“Thank you Sarah. I owe you.” 

“I think you’re gonna get along with Rafe great. Okay, talk to you later. Bye y/n!” The phone beeped as Sarah ended the call. You slipped it back into your beach bag and grabbed your towel off the ground, feeling grateful for your new friend. 

☼☼☼

Rafe had shown up at 10:03, a text from another unknown number appeared on your phone announcing his arrival. You'd climbed out of your second-story window and down the attached porch with a surprising amount of ease, only slipping once.

You'd opened the door to the black car and slipped into Rafe’s passenger seat, slight of breath.

Rafe chuckled light. "Hi," he said.

You glanced over, your eyes locking with yours and words escaped you. So Sarah has forgotten to mention her brother was hot. Like the kind of hot girls always giggled about when they passed him in the school hallway. The kind of hot he could probably get away with murder if he just flashed the cops a smile.

That same deadly smile was spreading across his face now. His tongue darted out of his mouth wetting his bottom lip.

"Hi," you squeaked out.

Rafe shifted the car into drive, still refusing to break the eye contact first.

"Should we go?" You asked, your nerves no less unsettled.

Rafe raised his eyebrow conspicuously before turning his head back to focus on the road.

The tension was already killing you and you'd spent less than five minutes together. That was the first moment you realized what Rafe was going to do to your life.

☼☼☼

Your phone pinged as you say around the little bone fire listening to the others talking about the Fourth. You were slowly starting to piece together the names and faces of the other Kooks Rafe had introduced you to.

There was Cole, Milo and Sawyer, who seemed to be Rafe's best friends. Cleo and Riley who welcomed you rather warmly. And Phoebe who had kept her eyes on you all-night in a threatening way that you had tried your best to brush off.

You pulled your phone out of your shorts pocket to see a text from Rafe on the screen.

'Wanna head out?'

You glanced at Rafe to find his eyes already trained at you. You read his text again before nodding your head yes at him.

You turned to Cleo sitting next to you. "It was nice to meet you. I think Rafe and I are gonna go."

"Oh, yeah okay!" She replied. "Wait," she pulled her own phone out of her pocket. "Put your number in. I'll add you to all our group chats. Rafe made it seem like you're gonna be around this summer so you're welcome to hang with us anytime!"

"Yeah, I'm here through August!" You said, smiling at Cleo's offer, taking the phone from her hand.

While you were typing your number into Cleo's phone, Rafe had materialized behind you.

"Thank you so much," you said handing Cleo back her phone.

"Of course!" Cleo replied, her eyes shifting away from your face to look up at Rafe. "Bye Rafe."

"See you later Cleo," he said. "Ready?" He asked looking down at you.

"Hmmhmm," you said before standing up, waving bye to the rest of the group and following Rafe back to his parked car.

"I didn't have anything to drink tonight," Rafe said as you settled into the passenger seat next to him.

"Okay," you replied, thinking back on the night but not remembering Rafe with a solo cup in his hand ever.

"Okay," he repeated back. "I just want to make sure you knew. I wouldn't ever do something that could hurt you."

"Okay," you said again, trying not to read to deep into his comment.

"What you'd think of everyone?" He asked.

"They're nice," you offered. "Different from friends back home."

"Oh, well I hope you'd keep hanging out with me...with us" he paused, quickly correcting himself.

You glanced at Rafe out of the corner of your eye, "Yeah, okay. That sounds good."

"Cool." Rafe said.

His hand on the gear shift twitched, moving the slightest inch closer toward you. You swore you could feel him wanting to grab your hand, to interlaced his fingers with yours but he didn't. His hand stayed in place, his eyes on the road watching as the headlights of the car on the opposite side of the two- lane road grew closer and closer.

Your eyes grew suddenly big with panic and Rafe looked at you with fear written all over his face as you both realized the car was plowing down the wrong side of the street. It was on your side of the road and it was going to hit you.

Rafe frantically spun the wheel trying to avoid the oncoming car but there wasn't enough time.

Your body flew forward on impact before the resistance of the seatbelt caused you to snap back. You felt Rafe’s hand hold onto yours as your eyelids closed and the world faded to black.

[blu-joons]

Lonely This Christmas ~ Mark Tuan

You sighed as the time passed seven, once again Mark had left you at home alone, despite his promise he failed to show up on time, leaving you in the dark of the apartment, the only thing lit up, the lights wrapped elegantly around your Christmas tree.

Before you knew it, a hot tear rolled down your cheek, quickly wiping it away, refusing to let him get to you. It wasn’t what you signed up when you agreed to spend Christmas with Mark, you wanted to be able to enjoy the holidays and spend time with each other, not spend it alone.

You couldn’t sit in the apartment alone for much longer, seeing all the smiling faces of people outside the window continued to eat up at you for leaving your family alone at Christmas, Mark might have made you feel miserable, but you weren’t prepared to let Christmas do the same to you.

Much of Seoul still remained a mystery to you, but one place that didn’t was the nearby park, you’d spent hours there together with Milo, or enjoying serene dates together, picnics, games, these were the times when you treasured Mark the most.

You sat yourself down on one of the benches, pulling your jacket tighter around yourself, the cold temperature was something you hadn’t quite prepared yourself for on your way out of the door.

An hour later, Mark finally appeared home, confused by no sign of light in the house. He called out your name once, twice, three times, but was met with an eerie silence. As he switched on the main light, he caught sight of your bag on the coffee table, looking on the back of the door however, your coat was not to be seen, your shoes not on the rack.

Instinctively, his hand pulled out his phone, dialling your number. You’d not mentioned to him about going out, but it was dark and cold, he was desperate to know where you were and if you were safe. A groan escaped him as he was greeted by your answerphone, hurriedly sending you several texts to pick up his call before dialling once again, only to met with the same response.

Meanwhile, tears fell down your cheeks as your phone vibrated in your hand, every part of you held back on accepting the call, trying to come to terms with how hard Christmas was becoming for you.

Beside him, Milo barked, causing Mark to look down at him. With yet another unanswered call, his options were limited, picking up his dog, wrapping him in the fleece you’d bought as part of his Christmas present last year, attaching his lead to him.

“Do you fancy a walk?” He questioned, knowing no response was going to come from his pooch.

He turned the light off, walking back down the stairs of the apartment block and into the cold. His free hand was quickly stuffed into his pocket as he tried to call you once again, checking to see if you’d read any of his texts, which of course, you hadn’t.

Your head became heavy as you sat in your own daydream, couples and families alike continued to walk past you, wearing smiles that you could only dream of wearing, sharing a happiness you wished you could have matched.

You hated being so disappointed in Mark, but let down after let down was tiring you out, he didn’t deserve your tears nor to see you upset, but your strength was very quickly slipping away. The two of you had been distant for quite some time living your separate lives, but Christmas was supposed to be the catalyst in bringing you back together again.

Footsteps trudged behind you as you sat, the bark of a dog brought the corners of your mouth up into a smile as you remembered how Milo used to bark at you.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

Your head remained staring forwards as a figure sat beside you on the bench, keeping a small distance between you both. Mark was torn between emotions, he hated that you’d left him so worried, yet he was just so relieved to have found you.

He bent down and picked Milo up, your eyes rolled having realised the bark must have come from him, as Mark placed him between you both.

“It’s cold Y/N, you shouldn’t be out in this weather,” he scolded, desperate to bring your eyes to turn and face him. “What are you even doing out here? Why weren’t you at home? Has something happened?”

You bit down hard on your lip to try and stop anymore tears from falling, “you bailed on me yet again Mark, something else came before me, I didn’t know what else to do.”

His arm reached out to hold yours, flinching at just how cold you were. Within a heartbeat he’d taken off his winter coat and draped it over your front, taking both your hands in his to try and warm them up, breathing into them.

“I’m sorry, I should have called and told you.”

“It’s not just today though Mark, is it? We’ve been like this for months, it’s Christmas in a couple of days and yet I feel like I’m celebrating all by myself, I could be at home around my family, but instead I’m sat in an empty apartment all by myself.”

His head nodded, kicking himself for being so thoughtless, he knew that the two of you had been having a hard time with being so busy, but he had failed to see just how badly it was bothering you.

Your head slowly turned to look at him, as a tear rolled down your cheek. His hand moved away from yours, using the pad of his thumb to wipe it away quickly. Your cheeks were red, tinged with a sting from the winter, breaking his heart.

“Please don’t cry because of me,” he whispered.

“I don’t know what else to do anymore Mark.”

His hand moved to the back of your neck, pulling your face forwards, pressing his forehead against yours. Your tears quickly began to freely fall, catching the ends of Milo’s tail as he curled in between you both.

“Do you have any idea for how long I’ve been looking forward to Christmas with you? To be able to make all these memories together,” you stuttered, “I’ve sat here tonight and dreamt of being able to have even half of the amount of fun all the people in the park are having.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, pressing his lips against the tip of your nose, “I don’t know what else to say except for I’m sorry. I’ve been an idiot for treating you this way, it’s Christmas, and you chose to be here with me, I should make it special for you.”

He still remembered the moment you told him your plans for Christmas, how quick he was to hug you with excitement, all the plans he’d come up with things the two of you could do, but none of those things ever came to fruition.

“Can we just go home and talk some more? You’ll catch a cold if you stay out here any longer. I’ll draw you a bath, make us a hot chocolate, and then we can talk about how we’re going to enjoy the rest of the build up to Christmas,” he suggested.

“But you still have work?”

He chuckled with a shake of his head. “If you think for a second I’m going back to work before Christmas then you’re crazy, there’s no way I’m spending any longer away from you, I’ve got a lot of time to make up for.”

His own cold hands wiped underneath your eyes, ruffling the fur on top of Milo’s fur where a few of your tears had fallen. He then stood up, offering his hand out for you to take, standing you up from the bench with Milo’s leash gripped tightly in your hand.

“How about we go to that Christmas market tomorrow?” You proposed, passing Mark his jacket back, only for him to place it back around your shoulders.

“Whatever you want to do, we’ll do, the rest of the week is all for you,” he smiled, beginning to walk back along the path to his apartment. “Maybe we could invest in some mistletoe, I think you deserve a few kisses from me after all this?”

“I would never say no to mistletoe and a kiss from you.”

---

Masterlist

[onlysarah235678]

A Little Bit Part 18

Pairing: Billie Dean Howard x female reader

A/N: Hi I’m back! Exam week kicked my ass and I feel like my brain cells are gone, but here’s another chapter! This gif makes me feel things.❤️

Warnings: annoying interview people. I think that’s it?

Billie is already gone for the first interview by the time you wake up. She told you the night before that she didn’t want to wake you this time and you hadn’t argued. After dinner your headache had come back and despite taking your medicine, it followed you into sleep. You had woken up briefly when Billie left, but your head was hurting too much to stay awake. You may have thanked her when she said that she would walk and feed Milo before leaving him in the living room.

Now you were up and about and feeling a lot better. After taking your medication and drinking an obscene amount of water, you are able to make your way downstairs to Milo. He’s waiting patiently for you which is a bit of a surprise, but you’re glad to see that he’s gotten the restlessness out of his system. You scratch him behind the ears and let him lick your hand before you head for the kitchen. It’s already 9 am and you know Billie will be on soon, but you also know that watching her interview right now would make your headache worse.

You plan on watching it later, once you’re feeling better, but for now you’re more concerned about breakfast. You open the fridge and grab a handful of ingredients before you get cooking. Your phone buzzes when you’re finishing up, and you turn around to where you set it on the counter with a sigh. You need to learn to silence your phone since it only seemed to go off when you had a headache.

Hi Doc, hope you’re feeling better!

You smile in surprise at the message from Erin. You hadn’t been expecting to hear from her again, but you’re glad to. You message her for a few minutes before she mentions your car. She says that nothing has happened, but that she and Lindsey were willing to bring it by your apartment or Billie’s if you wanted. They would be free later today since they only worked a half shift. You’re tempted to tell her not to worry about it because you really don’t need your car, but you’re paranoid and would like to have it nearby.

Eventually you tell Erin that you will be here all day and if she and Lindsey really want to, they can bring it. There is a spare key in your desk because within the first week of working there you had locked your keys in your car and that had been embarrassing to deal with. You told Erin some of this before thanking her and finally getting to your breakfast. You nearly trip over Milo when you turn to leave the kitchen. You hadn’t realized that he was now sitting right beside you, and you curse under your breath as you nearly fall on your face and drop all of your food.

“Shit! Milo. Watch out!”

Milo just stares at you waiting until you decide to move again, and you just sigh before shaking your head. You shoot him a look before rolling your eyes when he fails to respond.

“What are we going to do all day, Milo?”

As soon as Billie was off the set, she was lighting a cigarette. She was ticked off and she wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible. She definitely could have done without this interview, but unfortunately she had underestimated people’s interest in her love life. She sighs as she pushes open the door to the outside and hurries across the parking lot to her car. She didn’t get in it immediately, despite her rush because she didn’t want it smelling like smoke.

Billie leans against her car with another sigh that quickly becomes a groan. She wasn’t sure why people were so fixated on her relationship. Sure, it was new and exciting, but it wasn’t anyone’s business but her own. Billie hoped that you hadn’t been watching this one because she talked about her show for maybe a total of five minutes before things took a turn toward her personal life.

She hadn’t said anything more than last time, but this interviewer was definitely pushier about it. He had insinuated things that Billie didn’t appreciate and she had told him this in a way that was difficult to misunderstand.

Of course, he had, or at least pretended to, and she’d had to sit through another five minutes of him trying to not flat out ask if you were sleeping together yet.

Billie puts out her cigarette before getting in her car. She doesn’t know where she’s going because she needs to be at the other studio in a couple of hours, but she doesn’t want to head there yet. She starts the car and begins her drive to nowhere in particular.

She’s still a little peeved and muttering to herself when her phone rings. She pulls into a nearby lot because she knows better than to try and dig through her purse while driving. She grabs it right before it stops ringing and she frowns when she sees that it was you. She is about to call you back when her phone dings as your text comes in.

He was kind of an ass, wasn’t he?”

Billie laughs at this before putting her phone back in her purse. She decides that she’s going to make a detour on her way to her next interview.

You jump in surprise when the front door opens suddenly. You turn quickly to see Billie walking through the door with a tried sigh. You watch as Milo jumps up only to wag his tail when he sees who it is. You jump off the couch before hurrying over to Billie with your arms held out and what you hope is a sympathetic smile.

“Hi. Rough day?”

Billie just groans under her breath before nodding in agreement. She pulls you into a hug and you feel her relax immediately as you hold her tightly. You sigh before speaking into her shoulder because you’re not ready to pull away yet.

“I’m sorry he was such an idiot. You handled him well though. I definitely would not have.”

You laugh slightly before pulling away and leading Billie to the kitchen. You pull out a chair for her at the counter motioning for her to sit down. She does with a small smile before watching you head to the fridge. You aren’t sure what to grab because Billie technically has to leave, you glance at the clock before looking to Billie with a frown.

“Wait, aren’t you supposed to be at your next interview?”

Billie just laughs before taking the offered glass of water with a quiet thank you. You just smile as you lean on the counter and prop your head on your hands. Billie shoots you a look that you just smile at in amusement.

“Why? Are you trying to get rid of me?”

You nod immediately before deadpanning. “Definitely. I have someone coming over soon.”

You watch as Billie rolls her eyes before taking a long sip of her water. You don’t realize you’re staring until Billie speaks and you look up to see her smirking at you.

“Is that right?”

You just nod dumbly because you honestly can’t even remember what you just said to her. You are too busy admiring Billie’s appearance, she’s all made up for television again, to realize that she’s caught on to this, and she reaches out for you. You turn as Billie’s hand moves to your cheek and it takes you a moment to focus on what she’s saying long enough to respond.

“You’re waiting for someone?”

You nod again before saying the first thing that comes to mind. “Yeah. Erin.”

You don’t elaborate as you take a sip of your own water. You’re still forcing yourself to drink as much as possible because it has made your headache better. You take a long gulp before looking back to Billie. She’s frowning and you open your mouth to ask what’s wrong, but she speaks first.

“Erin’s coming over?”

Your eyes widen in realization before you nod and look to the clock again. She wouldn’t be over until later, maybe not until three, and you say this before mentioning what you’d talked about earlier.

“At some point this afternoon yes. She’s dropping off my car.”

Billie doesn’t say anything for a second. She’s thinking about how you shouldn’t be driving yet, but she holds back on saying this before simply asking the obvious question.

You tell Billie about how Erin had checked in on you earlier and then offered to bring your car over.  You make sure to mention that you don’t even want to drive yet, but that you are really a little paranoid about keeping it there. Billie smiles sympathetically at this because she can understand where you’re coming from. She just sighs before pulling out the chair next to her and moving to it before shooting you a questioning look. She pats the chair that she’d been sitting in and you smile slightly before moving to sit next to Billie. The medium wraps an arm around your shoulders with a smirk.

“You know if you wanted me to drive you somewhere, you only had to ask.”

Billie is mostly kidding because she believes that you didn’t really want to go anywhere. Still, she loves to tease you and you half groan, half whine under your breath as you turn to face your girlfriend.

“The only place I want to go Billie, other than the grocery store at some point, is to that restaurant we talked about. If you’re up to it later.”

You watch as Billie’s smile widens and she laughs before leaning in to kiss you. She pulls away before tilting her head slightly.

“You want to go to the grocery store?”

Billie leaves shortly after because she still has an interview to get to. Before leaving, however, she had promised that you two could go shopping once she’s back. You now were just sitting around with Milo waiting until Erin and Lindsey showed up. You had just walked him again and now he was sleeping at your feet as you play a game on your phone. You were tired but restless at the same time, and you didn’t know what to do about it. Finally, you decide that you should go upstairs to check on the kittens. You haven’t felt on any of them in a while, so you figure now was as good a time as any.

You find that Bit is on her way out so you just let her by before you hurry inside to see the kittens. You see them lying in their bed all on top of one another and you smile when you realize that Mickey is on top. He’s shifting in his sleep and you just sit down and watch him kick his siblings as he tries to get more comfortable.

After watching for another minute, you decide to grab him and spare the other kittens. You smile as he mewls in annoyance and you hold him up as you admire how much he’s grown. He’s definitely a little chunky, but you’re not going to tell Billie that, at least not until you’re back at work, but he’s also no longer at the bottom of the pile. Figuratively and literally.

You hold him for a little while longer before putting him back with the rest of the kittens. You don’t want to bother them so you decide to head downstairs and see what Milo is up to. You haven’t heard anything since leaving him which could be good or bad. You expect Bit to be as far away from your dog as possible. You walk down the stairs and nearly fall when you spot Milo in the living room. He is exactly where you left him, licking his paws and lying on the rug. You stop in your tracks though when you see that Bit is practically leaning against Milo as she grooms herself, not a care in the world.

You’re not sure if you’re more surprised by the fact that Bit is hanging out with Milo, or that Milo isn’t paying her any mind. You really wish you had your phone to take a picture to send it to Billie. However, it doesn’t matter for much longer because once you start walking again and reach the bottom of the stairs Milo spots you and he abandons his spot on the rug to come say hi. You smile as you reach out to scratch him.

“Hey, Milo. Making friends?”

He doesn’t respond. Instead, he turns to the front door when the doorbell rings. You are halfway to the kitchen to get your phone, but you turn around and hurry to the door instead. Erin is early.

You usher Milo out of the way, and he’s sitting behind you watching intently as you open the door. Erin and Lindsey are standing on the front porch, the former holding out your keys to you. You smile as you wave the two of them in. They’re in their work clothes so they must have come straight here, which made sense. You peek behind them and see your car parked on the street and you smile wider as you close the door behind them.

“Hi you two. Thank you so much for coming by. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble?”

Both of them shake their heads as they meet Milo who is quick to greet them. He of course recognizes them and it doesn’t take him long to end up on his back asking for scratches. They indulge him for a little while before you lead the pair to the kitchen with a smile.

“Do either of you want anything to drink? Did you just come from work?”

You’re heading to the fridge when Erin responds and you stop short at what she says.

“I’m good, thanks! We did, but it was only a half day so it wasn’t too bad.”

You smile at this before turning to Lindsey who’s nodding in agreement. You turn to see Milo who is sitting at their feet sniffing them. He certainly smells every appointment that each of them had seen today. You are about to call him off when Lindsey reaches out to pet him.

“Yeah, it was the usual, minus you of course. We hope you’re feeling better?”

You smile at this before nodding in confirmation. Your headache comes and goes and it’s worse if you’re doing certain things. It hasn’t been too bad today though. You mention a few other things about how you’ve just been sitting around and you were bored out of your mind before you change the subject. You are excited to get back to work, but you also don’t really want to be back in the public eye again. However, you decide that you need to ask since they just came from work.

“Are there reporters still camped out at work?”

You motion for the two who had just been standing to sit down at the counter. You watch as Erin scowls while Lindsey cringes slightly at your question. You can’t help but sigh in defeat at your wishful thinking. You should have known that it wouldn’t be that easy.

Erin sighs as she sits down and crosses her arms before nodding in confirmation.

“Unfortunately. It’s obvious that you’re not there, but I think they’re just waiting it out.”

Lindsey nods in agreement watching as you frown in annoyance. You just hope that they haven’t been bothering anyone.

“They’re not harassing anyone are they?”

This time Lindsey shakes her head and she mentions how they don’t leave their cars whenever they come by. They appeared at opening like clockwork and left after all the doctors were gone.

“Nope. They’re just waiting. I guess they didn’t see the interviews.”

This makes you stop and you smile slightly as Lindsey stiffens and Erin stops petting Milo when the blonde says this. So they saw Billie’s interviews. You couldn’t help but ask since you knew your opinion was biased as hell.

“You watched Billie’s interviews?”

Erin realizes that there really was no point in trying to lie. She was near obsessed with Billie and she didn’t hide it well. She looks to Lindsey while nodding and admitting what she’d thought about them.

“Yeah, we watched the first one. She’s very good a deflecting.”

You smile slightly at this before you look to the clock. You hope that Billie is doing alright and that she won’t be given too much grief at this next interview.

Billie tries not to fidget as she sits across from her next interviewer in front of a full house. She was about to start the next interview and she was eager to get going because she wants to be done. Specifically, she wants to see you. She hopes that this one goes better than the last because she wasn’t in the mood to deal with invasive questions.

Billie sits up as the host, Dave sighs and smiles at her before glancing to the audience.

“Glad you could join us today; I know we’re all excited to hear about the next season of your show.”

The audience cheers at this and Billie lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She can talk about her show no problem. She could talk anyone’s ear off about how much she loves what she does and how grateful she is to get the chance to help people.

She spends the first ten minutes answering questions about her experiences filming her show. She answers what the scariest part of the season would be, which ironically she’d had nightmares about for a while. Then she talked about her favorite moments. She was most excited for everyone to see the last episode, and she talks about that as much as she can without spoiling it.

They are about half way through the interview when the conversation starts to stray from her show. Billie just smiles and answers the easiest question she’s had all day.

“Yes, for about a month.”

Dave just smiles before he asks a few questions that Billie is sure he and most of the audience already know the answers to. Billie just nods before holding back the urge to sigh at the line of questioning. She manages a smile instead.

“Yes, she’s a vet.”

Dave’s expression changes slightly, and Billie doesn’t know why until he speaks up again. He’s shooting her a curious look, but Billie can tell that he’s holding back a smile, maybe even a smirk. She doesn’t have much time to consider it before he asks his deceptively innocent question.

“Y/N moved here recently, right? How is she adjusting to LA?”

Billie tells the truth. She says that you’ve been here a couple months and you are still getting acclimated to the city. You work a lot and you honestly don’t get out much. Billie says this with a smile and in the nicest way possible. She’s mostly teasing, but she knows you wouldn’t be able to deny it.

Billie smiles before she shrugs and says something about how she’s going to make sure you get out more.

“I’m going to have to show her around once she’s better.”

This prompts Dave to ask about how you’ve been doing since the accident. Billie still hates that word, but she just goes with and says what she told the other two interviewers. Both of them seemed more concerned, or rather sincere, when they asked compared to Dave. It seemed perfunctory and Billie just reminds herself that it wasn’t worth it. At least he was asking.

“She’s doing much better yes. Thank you. “

Dave nods in response before he jumps to the next question. Billie has to remind herself not to react too much at it, but she stiffens a little before she sits up straighter.

“Does Y/N have any family in the area?”

Billie simply shakes her head before saying ‘no’. She decides to keep it short and not give any extra information in hopes that this will tip Dave off. She realizes that her effort is in vain because he just nods before asking her to elaborate.

“She has sisters that live back East, but that’s it.”

Billie knows where this is heading as soon as Dave shoots her a dubious look, but she sincerely hopes she’s wrong.

You sigh as you sit with Milo on the couch just trying to get some rest. You are glad that Erin and Lindsey were able to bring your car over, but talking to them, even for only about twenty minutes did a number on you. Your head started hurting about ten minutes in, but you were trying to power through which of course only made it worse. Luckily it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could be, so you were just riding it out.

You were lying down hoping it would just go away, and after about half an hour you were feeling well enough to risk a couple of minutes on your phone. You knew that Billie was filming her second interview and you hope that it went well for her. You don’t want a repeat of this morning, but there was no way of knowing now. You had to wait until Billie called or came back.

You leave your messages and look at the calendar absentmindedly. You go back to work on Monday and that’s the 5th. You pause as you look at the following week and you sigh before quickly locking your phone. You set it down before sitting up and reaching out for Milo with a sigh. You scratch him for a little bit before motioning for him to follow you. You try not to think too much about the weekend coming up, as you and Milo head to the backyard.

You’ve come to like spending time back here. It’s quiet, private and a great place to nap. You had been tempted to just go back to bed earlier, but it was sunny and you didn’t want Milo’s fur getting on the bed. You put Milo’s leash on and lead him to the edge of the yard so he can pee before taking him back to the deck. You lie down in one of the chairs and motion for Milo to sit beside you. You sigh before leaning back and reaching out to pet him with a yawn.

You stare at the sky for a while before shaking your head. You close your eyes and try not to worry about anything right now. You focus on Billie and your date tonight and that brings a smile to your face. You hope that Billie will be up to going out, but if not you’re sure you will enjoy your time with her regardless. You are quickly realizing that you’re up for doing just about anything with Billie. She’s so easy to be around and you wonder how you’d gone without having someone who so easily calmed you for so long. You definitely had underestimated the importance of having such a presence in your life.

You fall asleep thinking about how you’ll need Billie to keep you grounded in the weeks to come. You don’t wake up to her text messages that come after her interview, and you’re still asleep by the time she gets back.

Billie tries to control her temper. She doesn’t get mad a lot because she doesn’t see the point. There are better things to do than allow someone else to rile you up and manipulate your emotions. For this reason, Billie only frowns before shaking her head in response to Dave’s next question. She is not going to answer what she knows he wants to ask.

He had mentioned your dad earlier and how he’s read that horrible article about how Billie was helping you get over his death. It had portrayed you in an unflattering way and Billie had hated how she’d been described as the saint who fixed all of your problems. She had a lot of issues with this, but she wasn’t going to get into them now. She wasn’t about to talk about your business with anyone but you when she knew how sensitive this subject was. She tried not to be rude as she speaks up calmly, but in a way that should brook no argument.

“That’s not what I came here to talk about.”

Dave doesn’t respond to this immediately instead he watches Billie closely as she holds her ground with a  frown.

“You don’t deny it? That you’ve seen Y/N’s father?”

Billie shakes her head as she shifts slightly in her seat before leaning back. She’s trying to shut this down, but she can’t help but feel the tension that has settled in the studio. It would be so much easier to answer him and get on with the interview. However, she knew she couldn’t do that for multiple reasons. It would be betraying your trust and Billie wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she did that to you. Let alone on ‘live’ television.

“I’m not answering that, Dave because it’s not anyone’s business but Y/N’s.”

Billie nearly sighs in relief as Dave just holds up his hands in surrender, smiling slightly despite how uncomfortable he’s made everything. At least he knows when to admit defeat. He quickly changes the subject and Billie counts down the minutes until she can get out of here.

When they’re off the air only ten minutes later, Dave is sighing as he removes his microphone while shooting Billie a look. She shoots one right back and is standing up to leave before she even finishes her sentence.

“Come on, Billie. You couldn’t have just answered the question?”

Billie scowls at him before rolling her eyes in annoyance. She has had it with him and she wants him to know it. She’s not looking forward to this interview airing, but at least she doesn’t have to worry about it until later. Her main concern was getting out of here before she says something that she would really regret.

“No because it’s none of your damn business Dave.”

Billie doesn’t wait for his response before she leaves the way she came in. She stops by her dressing room to grab her things before practically storming out of the building. She pulls out her phone and starts to text you before she just sighs and deletes it. She needs a few minutes to calm down before she checks in with you.

Billie got in her car and spent the drive home thinking about how she really needed to figure out what to do. She knew that she could keep saying the same thing in the future, refusing to comment, but that would get old fast. Maybe she could keep it up, or maybe it would become old news soon. Billie just hoped that you didn’t want to watch tonight’s interview.

When Billie makes it home, she can think of nothing she wants to do more than change clothes and lie down until dinner. She doesn’t see you, or Milo for that matter, in the living room, so she assumes that you are asleep upstairs. She goes and checks the guest bedroom, but you’re not there either. Maybe you’re walking Milo.

Billie decides to text you before she changes clothes and heads down the hall to check on the kittens. A few minutes later Billie is downstairs in the kitchen for a much-needed drink. She pours herself a glass and turns to the backyard only to stop short when she sees Milo lying on the deck beside one of the chairs. She puts down her glass before moving toward the back door, and she smiles when she sees you fast asleep. She noticed your car out front and realizes that Erin must have dropped by already. She moves to sit next to you in the other chair before telling Milo to be quiet.

He of course greets her with a whine and a couple of licks before doing as he’s told and lying down. Billie sits and just watches you sleep for a couple of minutes. She takes comfort in the sight of you sleeping peacefully and she hates to wake you.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Billie doesn’t have to make that decision because Milo whines loudly enough that you start to stir. Billie sighs in defeat before she just rolls her eyes when Milo tries to jump up next to her. She watches as you groan under your breath before opening your eyes with a frown.

You look around with a sigh and you jump in surprise when you see Billie. You smile as you sit up and turn towards her, but you have to wave Milo away when he tries to get under your feet. You stand up and move to sit next to Billie before you realize that something’s off. She’s smiling, but it doesn’t seem sincere and you frown as you reach out for her.

“Billie, what’s wrong?”

You feel silly the moment the question leaves your mouth because what could be bothering her other than her interview? You must have lost track of time and slept for far longer than you bargained for. You know that you couldn’t have watched it, but you would have liked to at least to be up when she got back.

Billie just squeezes your hand with a sigh before she shakes her head. She is about to lie to you, you know it, so you speak up before Billie can.

“You can tell me the truth. It’s okay. I can take it.”

Billie hesitates for a moment which really tells you all you need to know. You try not to sigh when she does before shaking her head again. She doesn’t want to talk about this with you because she’s afraid you won’t take it well. However, she doesn’t want to lie to you either, so she settles on telling you just the basics for now. The rest will come later. Once she’s had a little more time to process everything.

“My interview didn’t go very well.”

You frown at the expected news before looking to see that Billie was staring off into space. You wonder what they could have said because Billie seems more upset than you would expect.

“I’m sorry, Billie. Can I help in any way?”

Billie’s attention turns to you and she smiles before shaking her head. She looks around for a minute before deciding she wanted to go inside and talk about this.

“No sweetheart, just being back here with you helps.”

You smile at this and follow Billie inside when she stands up and holds out her hand to you. You motion for Milo to follow you, not that you really need to before you watch Billie head back to the kitchen. You see the abandoned glass of wine and realize that you clearly underestimated the time Billie had. You watch as she takes a sip before you move to grab a drink of your own from the fridge. Billie watches this and she berates herself for not asking you.

“Is there anything you want to do? To get your mind off of it?”

You hadn’t expected the answer that Billie gave you, but you were more than happy to do as she asked. You both were now sitting on the couch watching your favorite movie. It’s one you always go to when you need to feel better, and you’re surprised that Billie’s never seen it before. After hearing that you practically demanded you both watch it.

You shift a little to get more comfortable and you’re leaning on Billie before you realize you should probably ask. You don’t get a chance though before her arms wrap around you tighter and she pulls you so you’re practically on top of her. You smile as you turn your head so your face is buried in Billie’s stomach. You stay like that for a while before turning your attention to the screen. You love this movie, and you’re glad to be relaxing, but simply knowing that Billie’s still tense, feeling that she’s still tense, makes you frown.

You’re not even half way through the movie, but you can’t get into it being as preoccupied as you are. You turn slightly so you can see Billie, and she’s watching the movie with an amused look. She speaks before you can ask what’s on her mind, and you can’t help but smile a little.

“This was really your favorite movie as a kid?”

You smile to yourself at the thought of the first time you’d seen it before nodding in confirmation. You talk about how it was the one movie that never failed to make you feel better. You talk a little bit more about what you liked most before Billie just laughs in amusement. She runs her fingers through your hair with an adoring smile.

“I can see why you like it so much. I’m honored I get to watch it with you.”

You roll your eyes before you look back to the screen. You watch for a couple of minutes, and Billie continues to play with your hair before you remember that you were going to ask her what was bothering her. You turn away from the movie, despite it being at your favorite part, and look at Billie with a frown. Her hand is hovering above you now and she moves it away before shooting you a curious look.

“What is it, Y/N? I see you thinking.”

You sigh slightly before nodding in confirmation. You couldn’t pretend like you weren’t a little worried about what had happened at the interview. In all the time you’ve known Billie she rarely gets upset. You want to make sure she knows she can talk to you about anything that’s bothering her.

“I just wanted to make sure you didn’t want to talk about what happened.”

Billie smiles at you and your willingness to help before she tells you the truth. At least most of it. She decides that hiding something from you might be worth it if saves you some pain.

“It’s alright. He just asked very personal questions that I didn’t want to answer.”

You groan at this before rolling your eyes at the thought. You weren’t looking forward to watching this interview tonight or tomorrow, but you did want to support Billie in whatever way you could. Still, you nod before sitting up and scooting closer to the medium. You turn your attention back to the movie smiling slightly at the scene before you.

You don’t last until the end of the movie, but Billie doesn’t bother waking you. She wants you to get your rest before you go out tonight. Billie turns back to the movie that’s ending with a sigh. She knows that she’s going to regret lying to you, but for now she didn’t want to do or tell you anything that would upset you. Not when you already have so much on your mind.                  

You wake up at the sound of the front door closing, and you roll over with a tired groan. You sit up quickly and look around, only to find that Billie is gone. You don’t get a chance to frown before you see her and Milo walking toward you with a smile. They must have just gotten back from a walk. How long were you asleep? You didn’t get to wonder why you were sleeping so much before Milo was on you. He hadn’t even let Billie take off his leash before he jumped you, and you laugh before catching him. You scratch him all over for a little while before you reach over him to take off his leash. You smile appreciatively as Billie offers to take it from you.

“Thanks Billie, and thanks for walking him.”

Billie just smiles before returning to your side and planting a kiss on your forehead.

“Of course, sweetheart. How did you sleep?”

Apparently, it was almost dinner time and you sat up a little straighter at this. You hadn’t realized how late it was, but you had been looking forward to going out with Billie. You hurry to stand up and head upstairs to get ready, but Billie stops you. She actually catches you as you sway slightly from the sudden movement, and you shoot her another grateful look before shaking your head. You know what she’s going to say next, but you’re feeling better and you’re not going to let Billie talk you into staying in.

“Are you sure you’re up for it? We don’t have to go, Y/N.”

You smile widely before shaking your head again and standing up straight with a sigh. You look briefly to Milo before deciding that he looks good enough to go out.

“No, I’m good to go. Let me just get changed. I’ll be back!”

Billie smiles as she watches you run upstairs, not bothering to stop Milo as he follows you. She supposes she should check on the cats before you three leave. First, she needs a cigarette, so she heads to the kitchen. That movie helped relax her while she watched it, but now she was free to think and worry about tonight again. She sighs as she takes a drag before heading to the backyard. She just needs a few minutes to herself. Then she’ll be ready.

Part 19

Tag list: @madamevirgo @illuminated-blue

[monstersmutpeddler]

Books That I Tried Reading But Couldn’t Finish (January-April 2022)

Sometimes I’ll write reviews for the “Personally Couldn’t Finish” section of my rating, but I honestly prefer talking about things that I actually liked reading. Exceptions of course being for books that made me viscerally angry.

Three of these books in particular I have more things to say (I think), so I might make individual posts about them in the future. 

Maybe. 

These are a collection of books I tried reading but personally couldn’t for whatever reason. This could be because I got bored (the most likely answer), I wasn’t into it, or I got really uncomfortable or triggered. 

(I love Sci Fi Alien Romance Books, but hot damn, a lot of them really blur together.)

Some of these books could actually be really great books (I wouldn’t know, I didn’t finish them), and you might actually get more enjoyment out of them than I did. So feel free to try them out, my opinion is just that. An opinion.

More details about the books written below: 

Their Human Vessel: A Dark Sci-Fi Romance (Terramara Book 1)

By: Lizzy Bequin

I did not like this book at all. Had an interesting plot, but this has a lot of dubious consent. I was really uncomfortable. 

If you want something dark you might like this? 

Rescued by an Alien: Alien Mate Romance (Stolen by an Alien Book 2)

By: Amanda Milo

I read the first book in this series and had a fun time with it (the last third slammed a shit ton of characters at you, makes it feel like they are only there to promote sequels and thats it). This is the second book, and it’s about the girl who was raped by a bunch of other aliens. The love interest, Zadeon, is great but holy shit, the other human women on this planet are absolute garbage. They act like such bitches and are so mean to the girl WHO WAS FUCKING ASSAULTED. WHAT THE FUCK!?  

What made me put the book down was that this girl also ended up pregnant by her rapists. I just. That was too much for me. 

Overall take: Good book but super triggering. 

Orion: (a science fiction romance novel) (Star Guardians Book 1)

By: Ruby Lionsdrake 

This one is fine, I’ve just seen this kind of plot a lot and got bored. 

Fierce: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Rogue Alien Warriors Book 1)

By: Hattie Jacks

Got bored. Also lots of weird phrases, characters and world building are thrown at you at once.  

Corruption of the Rose

By: S.J. Sanders

Got bored. 

Hunted By The Alien Assassin

By: Ella Maven

It seems fine? I just got bored. The first chapter was cool. But then we get this human trafficking plot point where the dude thinks she’s doing that when she clearly is not? Like, good misdirection there but, no?  

Dragon's Baby : A SciFi Alien Romance

By: Miranda Martin

Touched her pussy while she was unconscious and they hadn’t even met me yet. Immediate nope for me. 

Trophy of the Dragon: An Earthbound Alien Romance (Cosmic Kissed)

By: Calista Skye

Got bored. 

Her Sweet Alpha 

By: Thayer King

Only read it for the sex, the rest is just meh and boring.  

What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone Series Book 1)

By: Harper L. Woods

Damnit Booktok. This has an interesting start and world building. The whole concept of the veil and how the fae have been mourning the repeated deaths of their fated mates over and over again is so interesting!? It made me actually interested in a fae book!

But the book just. Keeps going? If that makes sense? When we get to the part where I think: YES, she’s gonna be rescued by her love interest/fated mate! That doesn’t happen and I was starting to get antsy. Then I got bored.  

Mad respect for the promotional videos you see everywhere on tic toc and instagram though. Would never have tired out this book without it. 

Beth's Stable: A Reverse Harem

By: Amanda Milo

Got bored after Chapter 05, didn’t like the main lead and I was confused as to what/where I was. 

Alien's Stone Heart: A Sci Fi Alien Romance

By: Lynnea Lee 

If you’re looking for short fun little sci fi romances these are for you. I’m just not really into it. Didn’t have the hook I need.  

Fire In Her Eyes (Post Apocalyptic Dragon Romance)

By: Ruby Dixon

At first I was like: FINALLY, a book with a male lead and where the lady is the monster! Buuuutt I couldn’t get into it plot wise. The first intimate scene still kinda felt like dubious consent even though you knew for plot reasons it wasn’t. Still had that vibe to me. 

If you’re into women being dominated, you might like this book. 

Zircon (Awakened Sea Dragons Book 1)

By: Terry Bolryder

Got bored in the first chapter.

Onyx Dragon (Awakened Dragons Book 1)

By: Terry Bolryder

Tried but when the lady started doing dumb stuff 101 where you could easily get kidnapped or killed (never go outside with a strange man you don’t know ALONE. I don’t care if they’re hot or if they’re love interest). 

Lord of Winter (Frozen Dragons Book 1)

By: Terry Bolryder

Dumb lady should be running the moment that weird shit started happening in the first chapter, wtf is wrong with her. 

Dragon Released: Hybrid Dragons (Reclaimed Dragons Book 1)

By: Terry Bolryder

Got bored.

Cowboy Dragon (Texas Dragons Book 1)

By: Terry Bolryder

Got bored. I was really trying to find that umph that the first Big Bad Basilisks had, but nothing else in Terry Bolryder has it for me and I’m sad. 

The Librarian and the Orc: A Monster Fantasy Romance (Orc Sworn)

By: Finley Fenn

Lowkey racism is at front and center this time around and I was immediately on edge. But then when she (the leading lady) tried using her body/sex as a bribe for the Orc man WHO IS LITERALLY JUST THERE TO READ BOOKS IN PEACE AND QUITE. Good for him to call her out and turn her down RIGHT THEN AND THERE. 

Would’ve loved that scene if I knew these two were the couple for the book... Damnit. 

Tamed By The Beast  (Interstellar Brides Program Book 7)

By: Grace Goodwin

At first I was excited because I thought maybe, MAYBE we could get a doctor jekyll/mr. hyde thing for this guy. Not the case at all. Don’t tell me a guy hulks out but doesn’t have another personality. 

Also, what is it with these protagonists opening up about childhood trauma as their first lines of dialogue when asked ‘tell me about yourself?’ The fuck??? 

Claimed by the Barbarian Dragon (Crystals, Curves and Castles Book 1)

By: Terry Bolryder

He fucking kidnapped her and she  gave into him soooo easily. Nope. 

Doom (Xian Warriors Book 1)

By: Regine Abel

Fucking LOVE this authors book series: Prime Mating Agency and was desperate for more of her backlog. This series wasn’t for me. It had an interesting premise, but things were going by so fast! It was hard for me to care about the characters. 

Chosen by a Beast: An Alien Breeder Romance (Hearts of Stone Book 1) 

By: Miranda Bridges

Got bored.