#which having it acknowledged that everything outside of my job description i do is just because im nice and not because i need to is 🤌

[terrorbirb]

Guess who doesn't have to report variance and efficiency numbers for manufacturing!!!🎉🎉🎉

[nogoodthing-official]

No Good Thing: Shorts

S-1: A New Beginning

Synopsis:

This is the canon story of how Brock and Maxim first meet. Since it’s not going to be gone over in the main story, I decided to make it its own short story (“short” is used very lightly here). This was incredibly self-indulgent and the writing is a little… cringy weird since I tried to make the conversations flow naturally in this, and the descriptions are a bit clunky, but I hope you’ll enjoy it regardless! If there’s anything I need to fix with my writing, don’t hesitate to let me know. And this is actually the first time I’ve done cover art for this!

This will be set in the past, so Brock is 19 and Maxim is 21 in this short.

(This is your daily reminder that they do not live on Earth)

Read:

10 years ago, Brock was a very different person. He doesn’t like to talk about his younger years, but out of everything that’s happened when he was a teenager, there was one part of it that he remembers and cherishes deeply.

When Brock was 19, he was very aloof and antisocial. Rarely looked up from the ground, rarely made eye contact, rarely laughed, rarely smiled. You could argue that he doesn’t smile much now, but you just don’t know how bad it got at one point. His eyes had dark rings under them from a lack of sleep and an overall poor sense of taking care of himself. Most of his wardrobe was bought for the sole purpose of blending in, since he hated attracting attention to himself. The entire whirlwind of stuff he had to deal with in his teenage years made his mental health worse. He didn't like talking to other people, so he didn't have any friends, aside from his previous teachers, but he felt that it was their job to like him. He was seeing a therapist, but he didn't feel like he was getting better. If anything it was calling more attention to the fact that he was not mentally stable. Not normal. His social skills were taking a toll from all of the combined mental issues, which only made his chance at making friends more and more difficult.

One day, he was sitting at the park, as per his mother urging him to take more time to be outside. He didn’t really have any plans for anything to do once he got there, so he brought his sketchbook and just spent a majority of his time drawing in the park. It was virtually the same thing that he was doing while inside, but at least it was outside this time, so it was better for him. While sitting on a picnic bench, minding his own business, drawing or doodling anything that came to his mind, he saw a shadow loom from over the right side of the table, until it fell onto his sketchbook. He didn’t acknowledge it at first, until the shadow spoke.

“Hello!”

Brock jumped a little too hard at the sudden voice. It was louder than the ambient sounds of the park. The person’s voice was very baritone, so baritone that he thought it was one of the few adults that he knew. But when he looked up at who greeted him, he had full sight of the person’s appearance, one that he could only describe as antithetical to his voice. He had a light blue sweater with denim jeans, and the shirt appeared to have colorful stickers on it, but upon closer examination were actually ironed-on patches. On his left arm, he had so many beaded bracelets of different colors and sizes that it was hard to believe that they weren’t weighing his arm down. The most eye-catching thing, however, was the hat that he was wearing. It was neon green and had long mittens that went down the side of his head, each mitten having a paw print on the palm and felt claws at the end. The top of the hat had a cat face with a pink Mohawk along with cat ears. The hat actually looked familiar. He remembered seeing it in a store, but only vaguely. Under the hat was a messy head of fluffy, dusty brown hair, complimenting his fair skin tone. The person himself was a few inches taller than Brock, but he had a much bigger frame. He was far more muscular than Brock was, but still slightly less muscular than most people he had seen before. His round, blue eyes were staring at him, waiting for a response. Brock was still taking in his overwhelming appearance. The person suddenly looked apologetically at him, after noticing how long he was silently staring at him.

“Oh, sorry, did I startle you? I forget how loud I am at times.”

Brock glanced at his sketchbook, still staring at the person.

“I just came over to see what you were doing. Uh, which, now that i’m closer, looks like drawing. Can I see?”

Brock considered his options carefully. On one hand, he had no idea who this person was or why he was talking to him, let alone why he would care about something he was doing. He might not have the best intentions. On the other hand, he willingly came up to him to talk. Out of everyone else in the park. Who knows when that would happen again?

“…sure.”

The person smiled before walking to the other side of him, sitting beside him before scooting a bit away, to give him some space. The person looked over each finished piece, as well as the occasional idle doodle or unfinished sketches in awe.

“Woww, these are really good! What did you use for these?”

Brock, not used to the praise, found it difficult to find a response. “Oh u-uh… just colored pencil, fine-tipped pen, marker, it’s not really that great, it's just what I do when i’m bored…”

“Well, it’s better than what I could do, that's for sure.”

The person looked over the sketches again and again, clearly not getting enough of it. “Man, I wish I had the patience to make something with this much detail,” he handed the sketchbook back to Brock. “The best I could do was make all of these Kandi bracelets.”

“Kandi” bracelets? So that’s what they were called… “You… made all of those?”

“Yeah!” The person beamed with pride. “I make them as a hobby. Some of my friends think it’s kinda childish, but I enjoy making them.”

Brock looked over the bracelets more carefully this time. Some bracelets had beads with letters, some had intricate patterns, some even had charms with the same character he was wearing on his hat. They personally weren’t his style, and he admittedly had to agree with his aforementioned friends, but he also had to admit, by looking at them he could tell that he obviously had lots of experience. They look like he put a lot of effort into it. It was obviously a source of pride for him. Brock decided to take that into account. “I think they look nice.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, those look like they took a long time to make. I’m glad that you can channel your creativity into a medium that you can enjoy.” Brock internally chastised himself the projection on that compliment.

“Aww gee, that's really nice of you to say. Yeah, they do take a while, and I’ve actually made a lot more than these.” He lifts and studies over his bedazzled arm with a look you’d expect from an archaeologist looking over a newly discovered fossil. “I’d have to say that these are four out of… 50 bracelets I’ve made? It’s been a while since I’ve done an actual count, but-”

“50?”

“Hahah, yeah! I actually have a few pictures of the ones I made! I started making them 3 years ago…”

Brock and the stranger talked for about 15 minutes about their art, their stories from school, their families. It was starting to get dark and the stranger had to go. As the stranger started to make his way out of the park, Brock suddenly started feeling… something. He started feeling sick. He started feeling lonelier with each step he was taking away from him. No. He didn't want to feel like this now. He was desperate for interaction, any interaction at this point. He didn’t care that he was a complete stranger. He actually engaged with him, was actually interested in what he was talking about, he treated him like a person. He wasn’t just a random stranger, he was a stranger who made him feel like what he said actually mattered to people, something he hasn’t felt in years, and now he was walking away. Who knows if he might see him again. Who knows if anyone else will even talk with him again. He was mentally screaming at himself to break out of his stupor and do something. He’s almost at the gate. Do something. NOW.

“WAIT!” Brock practically shouts at the stranger, causing him to whirl his head around towards his direction, stopping only a few feet away from the park’s exit. Brock rushed over to him from the other side of the park where he was sitting, stopping before him and doubling over to catch his breath, his heart pounding in his ears so hard that he almost couldn’t hear anything else. After a few seconds of heavy panting, his heartbeat slowing, and Maxim politely waiting, he asks him, “W-what’s your name?”

The person looked like he forgot something important. “Oh! My apologies, I guess I never really told you, huh? My name is Maxim.”

Brock took a few more seconds to catch his breath. “Maxim. Okay. My name is… Brock.”

“Nice to meet you, Brock!”

Brock nods in response, finally getting ahold of his breathing. He pored over how to ask this question without sounding desperate. “Do you… want to meet up here again? Maybe tomorrow? I mean, if you are busy or aren't feeling up for-”

Maxim chimes in immediately, obviously having the same thought. “That sounds like a great idea! It was pretty fun talking with you.” His face then brightens up with and idea in mind. “…Actually, I have another great idea!” He immediately takes out his phone and unlocks it, excitedly swiping to somewhere only he knows. “Oh wait, uh, can I borrow your phone, if you have one?” Brock takes out his phone and hands it to him. Maxim takes it and fiddles with it for a few seconds, occasionally glancing at his own phone, before handing it back to Brock. “There. Now we won’t have to come out here every time we want to talk to each other! Plus it’s just easier.” He puts away his phone and opens up the gate before starting on his way back home, pausing to say goodbye to Brock through the chain-link fence. “Hopefully we can pick our conversation up where we left off tomorrow!”

Brock just nodded in response. Maxim smiled sweetly at him before saying goodbye and making his way back home. He looks at his phone to see what he could've possibly done with it, and saw that it was opened up to his phone app…

…with Maxim’s phone number. And upon further examination, he made a contact in his text messages. He had to test this. He typed in a simple “hello” and sent it to the contact. Seconds later, he saw a response.

“;P”

It was Maxim. Holy shit.

He had a friend.

———————————————————————————————————————

It had been a few months since Brock befriended Maxim. To be honest, he didn't even know what happened to that even attract that guy to himself. He seemed like the exact opposite in personality and appearance, even in interests. But he had to admit, it was nice. He learned more about him over the rest of the year, like his other hobbies, other than bracelet making. He learned that his full name is Maxim Torres. He learned that Maxim also apparently collects these small stuffed animals, even ones that have been discontinued, and enjoys studying about scout badges. Brock has a few stuffed animals of his own, as well as ones from when he was still a baby, so as soon as he heard the phrase “stuffed animal”, he was instantly hooked. Aside from the park, they also regularly went to places that they both had interest in, like the library or the mall, and other times just played around in the more wooded areas of their neighborhood. Brock also started to notice himself acting less guarded around him, too. He would be more relaxed and act less emotionally distant than if he wasn’t around him. He felt more motivated to take care of himself and looked forward to going outside. He even started to smile more, too. He really started to look up to him and aspire to be more like him. More easygoing.

But recently, Brock also noticed weird happenings with himself. He started to find his that body acts weird when he was around him. It would get harder to find words or enunciate his thoughts around him, and would start being more quiet. Whenever he accidentally brushed against his arm or hand, his hand would react by shaking violently. Hugs usually had the same effect, but then he would just start melting into him, and almost become drowsy. There have been times where he almost dozed off when Maxim hugged him. Whenever Maxim would compliment his art or, let’s be honest, make eye contact or smile at him, his heart would start racing, usually attempting to return the smile with very little success, and hearing his voice would make the room feel hotter than it actually was. Not only that, he kept finding something that he didn’t notice about his eyes before every time he looked at them. Something that made them… nice to look at. Something that makes him feel calm when he sees them. He even started having… “dreams.” What was happening? Brock wasn't sure why this was happening to him, at first he started to think that he was starting to relapse in his behavior. But after a few days of questioning and a few weekly therapy sessions, he finally got an answer. He liked Maxim. In fact, he loved Maxim. Romantically.

He hid his feelings for a while. He didn’t want to ruin his friendship with Maxim in the very likely event that he didn't like him romantically. He started to distance himself from Maxim, seeing any interaction with him as a way to deepen his affection for him and make things worse, and therefore harder to ignore. He wouldn’t talk to him unless he urged him to, avoided any physical contact, and just spent the day stewing in his own feelings and thoughts. One day, while in his bed, after a long night of staring at his ceiling, he hears the chime on his phone go off, snapping him away from his trance. He checks to see who it is and tries to ignore the sickening butterflies in his stomach as he read who texted him.

Maxim.

He read the text. “Hey dude, are you okay?” Over time, he noticed that Maxim texted closer to correct grammar when he was worried about something. Brock mulled over what he should do. He started typing.

“yes”

A reply came in a few seconds later. “Meet me at the park, I wanna tell you something”

Ignoring how it was currently the middle of the night, he took a few minutes to wake up, stepped out his window, and made his way to the park. When he got there, he saw Maxim waiting at the picnic table.

“Hey, you made it! Hopefully I didn't disturb your sleep.”

Not like he could sleep. Brock found sleeping difficult after his recent discovery, so he was actually thankful for that text. He couldn't tell him every detail though. “No, you didn't.”

“I wanted to tell you about this idea that I got! I really think you'll like it!”

Brock had nothing better to do. “What?”

“A New Year's Eve party!”

Brock took a moment for his ears to catch up with his words. “…a what?”

“A New Year's Eve party!” He begins rattling off his research. “I’ve read about it online and apparently, on Earth, the year ends after it makes a full revolution around their sun, so their year is 365 days long. And as it turns out, their planet will finish its revolution tomorrow! So, how about we try and have a celebration as well, just for fun?”

Brock considered the honestly weird offer. He wasn’t interested in social events, and he hated asking if anyone else would be there, as if it would convey that whether he was interested or not based on the answer. But he had to know. “…Is anyone else going to be there?”

“No, it’ll just be a you-and-me thing. I noticed that you were kinda down lately, and I thought that this would help with that. It’ll be in my ~crafting room~,” he said the words “crafting room” with a flourish, like he always did. Brock stifled a chuckle. “And my parents will be very busy, so it’ll just be us! I know how you aren't that into crowds.”

God, he was so sweet. Brock tried to calm down his beating heart while he considered an answer. Hmm, well… if no one else will be there and the house will be empty… but… hm. You know what, why not. He never really considered how he was making him feel by distancing himself away from him, and it was the least he could do. Wasn’t that a thing normal people do? Consider how others feel? And if he was really doing all this to make him feel better… he would hate to turn him down. He focused on Maxim again and his heart almost broke. He looks like a kicked puppy. No, he couldn’t say no to this, especially with how much he spent planning it.

“…Brock?”

“…Alright, I’ll do it. What time do you want me to be there?”

Maxim visibly perked up. “11:00 P.M.!”

Brock made sure to set an alarm when he got home.

———————————————————————————————————————

At the “party”, more like a private get-together for two, it was pretty calm. It was located in the aforementioned crafting room, which looked more like a repurposed basement, but even for a basement it was pretty large. There was an old TV on a stand in front of a couch that looked older than the TV. There was a table with a lamp in the corner, as well as multiple clear containers of bracelets and beads. The floor had carpet, but the walls were pretty much uncovered. Overall, the atmosphere was surprisingly homey. Most of the time remaining was spent watching whatever was on the TV before turning it to the Earth Broadcast Channel that he had on his old TV. Maxim spent a few more minutes making more Kandi bracelets while Brock watched. It was mesmerizing to see how he made them. Overall, the entire thing was uneventful. Brock couldn't have asked for anything more.

A few minutes before the end of the year (at least on Earth), they both turned their attention back to the EBC, seeing the camera broadcasting the large crowds of people cheering, gathered in a city that, honestly, they didn't know the name of. Confetti littered the streets and there was a large structure that looked like a gigantic disco ball on top of a tall structure.

“Wow, they really take this “end of the year” thing seriously, huh?” Maxim asked.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, they really do.” Brock tried to look like he was interested in the TV, but internally he was boiling in his feelings. He didn't have butterflies anymore, he had an entire solarium. He looked over at Maxim to see if he could notice. His eyes were glued to the TV, mesmerized by a celebration that he had never seen recorded before. In that moment, Brock got an idea. Not voluntarily. This idea kept growing and growing in the back of his mind over time and got stronger every day. No matter how much he tried to push it back down to its original size, it just made it stronger. God, he hated this idea, but it was going to get out of him one way or another. After mustering as much confidence as he could with his current mindset, he turned to Maxim. “Hey, Max?”

Maxim snapped out of staring at the TV. “Yeah?”

“Ummm… I uhhhmmm…… okay, can you do something for me?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“I, uhh, need you to psych me up. As hard as you can. And don’t stop doing it until I get enough courage to… do it.”

“Do what?”

“Um… you’ll know.”

Maxim happily obliged and started to speak words of affirmation to Brock. “C’mon Brock! You can do it, not exactly sure what, but i’m sure you'll be able to do it anyway!”

Brock started taking deep breaths, readying himself and praying that he can gain the courage to not choke on his own words.

“Come on!! You can do it!! Just keep breathing, you'll get there!!” Maxim was practically shouting words of encouragement by now. “Come on!! Do it, do it, DO IT!!!”

Let’s hope this works.

“DO IT! DO IT! DO I-”

“I like you!”

Maxim looked surprised for a moment, before asking him to repeat himself. “What?”

“I… like you,” Brock repeats, taking deep breaths like it took all his energy to say that. “I don’t know when these feelings started, or if they’ll ever end. I just… like being around you. You always seem to be like this, optimistic person, and I strived to be like that. I started looking up to you because of that, but I guess while I did, I also found… other reasons to like you, too. Romantically, I mean. So… I like you. And I was scared that you wouldn't feel the same way, and I didn’t want to misread the situation and… accidentally jeopardize our friendship. I’ve never had a friendship, a real one, in so long, and I just… didn’t want to ruin it so soon. So I just… kept quiet. For a while. Until now. By some random boost of confidence, I decided that I wanted to tell you how I feel about you. And regardless of if you feel the same way or not,” Brock stares at the floor. “I wanted to get this off my chest before… I wouldn't be able to.”

Brock was silent for a while, dreading the lack of words coming from Maxim’s side of the room. The silence was deafening. He could feel his ears starting to ring. He could feel the blood rush to his face as he felt like he was either going to cry or pass out. He felt sick. He didn’t want to lose Max. He didn't like losing anyone. He hated losing people. He finally started the first friendship he had since a year after he moved here, the first real friendship in years… and it was going end because he had too much reassurance in how he felt. His mind spiraled further and further into the pit of alternate choices he could've made that would’ve helped him avoid this. He could feel his heart sinking into his stomach, but before it could reach the bottom, Maxim spoke after what felt like hours.

“No way, I like you too!”

His honesty hit him like a truck and brought him back to reality. “… Really??”

“Yeah! Honestly, I feel like it was a slow progression of more and more positive feelings that I got only when I was around you. I started feeling more like hanging out with you whenever I felt sad or upset, and I would feel better as soon as I saw you. You also have this… emotional maturity that I wish I had, seeing you offer these well-put and well-thought out solutions to any problems me or my siblings or my friends have makes me wish I could have what you have that makes it look so easy. And…” Maxim starts to blush as he looks away, embarrassed. “I love making you happy… because whenever you're happy… you have this… adorable smile. Your eyes light up in a way that makes me feel… dizzy, almost. And your laughter? Oh my gosh, I feel like I could listen to it all day. It just makes me feel happier seeing you smile, but I was afraid that you weren’t romantically interested in someone like me… someone immature...”

“I was scared you just hung out with me out of pity or something!”

Maxim paused. “…Why?”

“I—” Brock thought for a moment. In his shock, he forgot about how he even came to that conclusion in the first place. “I… don’t know.”

Maxim scoots closer to Brock and reassuringly puts his hand on his. “Well, it’s okay. Looks like we were both scared of nothing, huh?”

Be still his beating heart. “Heh, yeah…” Brock stared at his feet, as a familiar uncertainty started to creep into his thoughts. Even though he pretty much outright told him, he still needed to make sure. “… do you really mean that? You actually… like-like me?”

“Yeah dude! I like-like you. I guess… I love you.”

Brock's heart was beating a mile a minute at how fast he admitted it. His blush was covering his whole face at this point. His heart was pounding in his chest so hard and it felt like the room was 100 degrees hotter. Was this real??? He suddenly focused on Maxim. His face was so close. He couldn't stop staring at his eyes. …His eyes. Those wonderfully blue eyes. Those beautifully ethereal colors. They seemed to look even more beautiful than they were before. The soothing effects of his eyes still remained, as Brock’s heartbeat finally started to slow down. It felt like the world was still, like a huge weight was off his shoulders, like he could finally breathe now, but at the same time it felt like a whole new weight was settling directly on top of his lungs that was making it hard to breathe again. His gaze slowly shifted to his lips, and he tried multiple times to keep eye contact, but his eyes felt like betraying him today. Of all days. Maxim looked confused for a moment before following where his eyes were staring at. He picked up pretty quickly on what he was thinking, blush starting to fade into his skin.

“…H-hey Max?”

Maxim clears his throat. “Yeah?”

“C-can… I, uh… uhm…,” Brock knew it was too early, he knew this was his first kiss, but he didn't care. All he wanted right now was to feel this from the only person who felt the same way. Love. But he didn't even know if Maxim even wanted to kiss eithe-

Maxim caresses Brock’s hand. “Hey, we can take this slow if you want. You look like you're about to pass out. If you're not ready yet, we don't have to kiss right now if you don't want to-”

“NO!” Brock felt embarrassed at how he practically screamed the answer. He lowered his voice. “No… I want to kiss too… but I just… feel nervous…” Brock looked at his shaking hands as Maxim gently held and squeezed them reassuringly, Brock’s heart fluttering at the simple gesture, but this time he had no reason to ignore it. His gaze traveled from his arms to his face, and he felt calm again as he saw those eyes staring back at him.

“Don’t be.”

They both slowly inch their faces closer, closing their eyes as they closed the space between them, their lips connecting into a soft kiss, as the timer on the TV reached zero. Maxim leaned closer to him to deepened the kiss slightly. Brock, obviously new to this, didn't know how to handle this but tried to mirror his movements. After a few seconds of silence were caused by the buffering broadcast, then it was broken again by the applause coming back from the televised crowd. They both pulled away from each other to catch their breath, Brock breathing harder than Maxim. His face was red from the extremely unfamiliar moment shared between the two of them. Maxim notices how much Brock was breathing, and motions for him to rest on his shoulder, and after a few more seconds of gaining his composure, he accepts the offer. He awkwardly shifts over and leans against Maxim's shoulder, his body relaxing after Maxim’s arm is draped around him.

After a few seconds of watching the live TV footage of the cheering crowds, Maxim decides to break the silence.

“So,” Maxim finally said. “How does this feel?”

Brock is silent as he takes time to consider the question. After a few seconds, he says his answer in a hushed whisper, smiling as he rests his head deeper into Maxim’s shoulder. “…perfect…”

—————————————————————————————————

I hope you enjoyed this! I’ll be posting the lone cover art tomorrow morning! 🥦❤️❄️

[wildstar25]

for the xiv questions, #2 and #3!

question list

2. How did they acquire their Echo? 

It was about five years prior to the seventh umbral calamity. Arsay was 17 and working on a ship in the south seas. She was keeping the night shift, a common occurrence since she had the best night vision on the crew. Arsay was happy to be of use but she never quite liked how lonely it was being the only person awake. It had been a particularly long day for her as well: lots of cargo to be moved at port that afternoon, she had to swim back to the ship because the merchant she worked for (once again) overloaded the dingy with new stock and they didnt have time for two trips, and then she of course had to also help move all the various sacks and crates into the store chambers around the hulls. Needless to say she was exhausted and with no one to talk to or anything to do (other than stare silently at the sea and sky) it was pretty easy for Arsay to nod off.

She had drifted to sleep for but a moment when her ears picked up a whisper on the wind. "Hear... Feel... Think..." Arsay's eyes snap open. The dark blue of the night sky was now a bright, burning crimson. Flame rained down from above as far as her eyes could see, like the stars themselves were shot right out of the sky, extinguishing on contact with the sea. Arsay wasn't sure if this was the work of some kind of monster, or if they were under siege by pirates, but the fear she felt was undeniable. She got to her feet as fast as she could and made her way to the crew cabin. Every step just as uneasy as the last. Had to be the waves from everything crashing into the water's surface causing the boat to sway. Nothing to do with how weak Arsay's legs felt, how heavy her feet were, or how much her head hurt. Finally, the cabin door was in reach. She pulled it open and yelled inside, "Oi, wake up! All of you! There's some kinda monster? Pirates? Somethin' strange! Just get up and get outside!"

She waited for the stirs of acknowledgement before rushing back out to the main deck on her own. The sky was had begun to change, red and oranges turned to back to blues and black. The stars as well returned. A few lingering trails of flame landed across the horizon just as the disgruntled merchant spoke up from behind Arsay. "Right then, catgirl, you figure yourself some kind of jester do you?" "No, I- You have to believe me! Just now, I opened my eyes and the whole sky, red! Huge chunks of fire falling into the-" "Opened your eyes? Ah, so you were asleep on the job." "I mean... I closed my eyes for a quick second but..." "Ever consider it was all a dream, kid?" "I was awake, I swear!" "No need to be embarrassed, everyone's dozed on watch at least once. Though most of us can tell the difference between our nightmares and reality." A few snickers come out from the crew. Arsay felt the fur on her tail bristle out and her face turned flush, "I'm tellin' you, what I saw was not a dream!"

"Yeah, and I'm next in line to the throne in Ul'dah." The merchant paid not Arsay's insistence any mind. He let out a loud yawn and turned back towards the cabin. "By my estimate you've another couple of hours before dawn. Stay awake t'ill then or I'll be dockin' your pay for this little jape of yours." The crew followed suit and headed into the cabin, mocking Arsay along the way. Their laughter remained audible until the door fully closed. Arsay is alone on the deck once more, left to question whether what she saw was reality or a dream.

-- Arsay would never have that vision again. Not until she embarks for Limsa Lominsa. However, that memory was locked away with the rest of the 1.0 adventure Arsay experienced. Upon hearing descriptions of the Seventh umbral Calamity which occurred five years prior to ARR, Arsay rationalized her vision as her witnessing the fall of Dalamud. It only feeling like five years ago to her as well, when in reality it was 10. Though, she could have sworn she continued to see that red moon in the sky afterwards... whenever she tries to recall it now it's kinda hazy. It's not something Arsay gets hung up on though.

3. Does their Echo function like it does in the MSQ? Or is there a twist to it?  Largely yes, with a few points I like to elaborate on and one addition:

Visions of the past that Arsay experiences while awake are fairly uncommon. Aside from one extra instance I have added to her story, she has only had the visions that are shown in the msq.

As well, She has to have some kind of per-existing connection with an individual in a vision in order to connect with their emotional state at the time. Otherwise she can only gleam information from what she sees.

When Arsay has echo dreams, it's always snippets of her Azem's, Lethe, life (sometimes Ardbert's after shb); but, she never remembers them upon waking up. The dreams might leave her in a particular mood but she will often shake it off.

The future vision aspect of the echo like seeing party wipes is canon and a skill she keeps to herself. Mostly because she'd rather not dwell on all the times she's felt herself or seen her friends die.

Arsay's echo can also predict the impact of non telegraphed attacks. She does not see them as aoe markers on the ground, or a vision of her getting hit there, or a build up of aether, it's more like a tingle in her tail telling her shes in the blast zone. (Like a spidey sense) Once Y'shtola gained her aethersight, she clued into the fact that Arsay could sense where danger spots were; however, it was evident that Y'shtola could recognize them before Arsay could.

I always like to say that Arsay's ability to transfigure elemental aether the way that she does while using her Ninja and Summoner skills are largely due to her echo. Basically Arsay is more strongly tuned to some elements than others and when she does pull in aether from her environment its more likely than not going to be those elements over the one she is aiming for. But, by combining the right ratios of elements, she can produce the one she needs!

When she's setting up mudras with ten,chi,jin or drawing shapes in the air, That's her channelling and balancing out the elements she needs.

Wind+Water = Ice, Wind+Lightning=Fire, Water+Fire+Fire=Earth

stuff like that! I know its not /exactly/ in line with how elemental magic works in universe but its one of those ideas i came up with while going through the game and can't let go of. I suppose just think of it similar to how a few butterflies in elpis can become robes to wear. Only it's a gust of wind and a spark of lightning turning into a huge fireball that is or isnt concentrated into the form of a carbuncle depending on the occasion.

[cloudwhisper23]

I saw this 20 questions for fic writers thing on my dash, so I'm doing it now that I'm back to my computer! Also expect writing to return soon, lol

1. How many works do you have on A03?

I currently have 9 works on Ao3! That number would be way higher if I posted all the fics I wrote on Tumblr to Ao3 though.

2. What's your total A03 word count?

Total.... hang on, I need a calculator for this one.

271,112 words! I thought it would be higher, tbh. But again, I don't post everything to Ao3, so that's just a fraction of my writing.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I write for Five Nights at Freddy's (the games) and Hollow Knight. I do also write for other stuff, but I don't post it, so that's not important.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Misguided Protection

There Are Others

Finding a Home

Deal with the Devil

Becoming a Family

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try my best to respond to comments. Typically it'll be an emoji response, mainly to acknowledge my readers when they get all excited. But sometimes people have suggestions or questions, and I feel that if I wrote something confusing, it's my job to explain what's going on (only for fanfiction though. Since I don't revise it before I post)

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmmm.... Probably There Are Others, since I at least tried to give most of them happy endings. But this fic is the reason my friends keep a kill count.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Misguided Protection

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really? It's more that people challenge my view and how I chose to write the story, but I've never gotten outright hate before.

9. Do you write smut?

I don't post it, but yeah.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Within the same fandom. I write crossovers of different AUs within the same fandom, but I do not write crossovers between fandoms. Not currently, at least.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, but it never saw the light of day (it was a minecraft fic I co-wrote with someone in elementary school)

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

All-time? Uhhhh, I've determined that gay ships are absolutely my favorite thing ever. So my favorite is probably one of those. But it changes depending on fandom fixations honestly. Buuuuut, outside of fandom logistics, I'd still say Jeremike. Even though it's a silly one. I just love how people write that ship.

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have a giant incomplete folder of fnaf fics that I've started writing, but they haven't seen the light of day. Which means I've forgotten a bunch of stuff within that. But truth be told, I do want to continue writing Becoming a Family, even though I don't think I'll ever touch it again. My flow just never seems to be in the right place when I try to work on it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm good at silly banter and dialogue in general.

I'm pretty good at adapting to sudden challenges in my writing (aka, plotholes that I've already posted) to still justify things happening as well. But not nearly as good as I am at dialogue.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm terrible at writing descriptions. I'll never forget the day I realized my friends genuinely thought my OC Mikayla was tall, despite how much I tried to write her as short. I usually don't write with physical characteristics in mind, so that used to be my justification, but since i had a clear picture in mind and it did not come across properly, I have to say descriptions are my weakness.

I'd also say romance, but my friends tell me I'm better than I think I am.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I stress out about that sort of thing. I wrote in Spanish for an art trade once (dialogue only, of course), and I made my friends fact-check every sentence to ensure it sounded natural. I could do it, but it's not really something I enjoy.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

MCYT. It was a different group of people back then, but that notebook is still sitting in my house, and I still get embarassed just thinking about it.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

My favorite? Honestly, it's one I'm writing right now. It's a fnaf fic, but I haven't posted much about it yet. It's called Runaway Mike, and I'm super excited about how it's turning out so far. Probably not one I'll post for a while yet.

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary33

10/7-8/2023

fixed one song so far today, i'll see where i end up at the end of this thought.

yesterday i was really taken by hosono's video game music record, i did not realize he wasn't the original composer, which makes me feel way dumb but also, someone had to make those sounds, their genius doesn't go away only one facet of my waxing poetic or whatever is founded wrongfully, that's fine.

anyways, i felt like i had to acknowledge that, admitting when i'm wrong feels important, even when it's just to myself, or especially, and righting some wrong, even if it's like, nothing, and like, nerd stuff. it means something to me, there's some discomfort in my heart now evaporating cuz of that.

anyways i read a book today, derek mccormack's dark rides, it's about a young gay guy sort of incapable of acknowledging what he wants/ where he's at making that impossible. it's a fast moving thing, 108 pages and every passage is short, it's a very tiny book, but it wraps you up with its speed, and the leanness of the description, very little is in image, instead the endless telling of things happening to someone, streaming through life, and stuff. i think it's really lovely, how it works, it at times does kind of explode into vividness, the images typically thin and associative, intentionally so, begin to get colored in, and then cut short.

for instance:

i love this part so much, i love this whole story in the book, about a girl who begins making homemade fireworks because of a job she starts, and he gets involved too.

another great chunk of the book.

i don't have as much to say about what it says entirely because 1) i don't know much about this writer, what drummed up my curiosity (again) is my friend becoming curious, because people both of us enjoy really like his book castle faggot, and we want to know what that's about, dennis cooper loves it, for instance, but my curiosity re that had died because a friend read some of his other stories, and they were i don't know, kind of bad, but now maybe there's some kind of in with his work, i dunno. a lot of the stuff here about repressed perversity, curiosity regarding the perverse and in youth playing with it, really resonates, the constant pull towards the abject while stuck in the "regular" world. and 2) it's still pretty fresh in my head and this book really doesn't have any intellectual obsession it feels like (to say it doesn't actually would be a different matter, i think every book does essentially), hopefully the book will stick in my head, and it will uncover itself to me, or i will uncover it, and be compelled to return by some measure. this is why discovering a new writer is exciting, a whole world of ideas/ways of seeing to absorb, thinking about the book as concerned largely with seeing/observation seems prudent, actually, not that this is special to this book in particular but he seems very concerned observing and all the things you see when you're positioned a certain way. constantly outside everything, even the regular heterosexual relationships tried here, everyone doesn't seem alien, they all do come off though, painfully wounded and sad, everything moves too quickly for anything to settle, you don't know anyone, you flit from scene to scene and relationship to relationship, all the substance there is in what you ignore, so the writing works this out not by hiding it in the minimalism, but using the minimalism to exhume the faint imprints left on you, and when the minimalism fails, it blossoms into the portrait of the things that shock you back into yourself, from the dissociation, thinking here about this portion of the book about electroshock, which oscillates between the 'therapy' which grows worse and more torturous, and the escapism the character engages in by going to a planetarium, and it ends on this:

anyways, i'm excited to read more from him, though i worry this is his one great work, castle faggot seems a little juvenile in comparison, but who knows, i don't, certainly, it sucks i wrote him off because a friend read a bad book of his, because he at least has one great one.

i also wrote a little today, but i'd soon like to stop doing tiny things and make one bigger jump to finish one of these sections and get nearer to like, its actual end. anyhow, that is at least progressing and growing more full, which feels important to me.

what i notice more, as i look at the book, is how powerfully it deploys the poetic, similar to how dennis cooper does it though still different, cooper is much less dry/tense, instead with him it is a case of, i'm not sure of the word here, in the depths of alienation and distance, a discovery of passion/heat and the clumsiness of that passion/excitement, thinking here of the passage in frisk where a boy is described as a polaroid taken of fire, if i recall correctly.

thinking now that i ought to read anais nin, i've meant to for years and never have, spurred on by a friend's consistent love of her diaries being mentioned, plus just always wanting more writing "like that" and like that meaning, i don't know, it's a whole thing though. i've decided on "collages" by here. i dunno why. it's not a typical start i guess, but it's something no one really mentions, and it seems interesting.

the other day in the shower i was thinking quite a bit about maurice blanchot, and how i think it might behoove me to re-read thomas the obscure, at some point, it's an insanely dense book, i love it and i think i got a lot from it, but it feels like it has so much more to give, and it took 3 nights last i read it.

anyways, looking at the songs i have now, and stuff, i really want these more hardcore songs to be brighter/noisier, i'm getting there, i think as i continue replacing the tones, the better off i'll be, and i'll be able to figure out how to get exactly what i want, or like, just basically what i want. i also think some of the lack of sharpness can come down to the bass still being a touch too prominent in these songs, i think in some cases even i can drop by 3 dbs and that'll really help me out.

my decision to just do songs and move onto others, and then come back after a while, seems beneficial, cuz it means i'm not getting obsessed on fine details and i let myself forget what's going on, so w/ fresh ears i can see what's good/what isn't.

anyways look at this insert art for this album i like, these arms are snakes - easter.

and this too, i really like this cover also. my mind just wandered to cover art, and stuff i'm trying to consciously absorb, i guess.

i've now fallen into a hole reading about angura plays and posters, maybe i'll talk more about it tomorrow, however i guess one thing is it's shocking to me how this stuff still has a presence, like in radical kinds of art it never died, for instance:

this poster says, across the top:

"theater, don't die!! we need you!!"

this kind of directly speaking to the text, from another text that is related, and the kind of aggressive pose it takes with the audience, not necessarily about hate but certainly related to critique, and the typography, brings some really obvious stuff to mind, i hate being like "it's like eva" but the similarities are there, the exact ways of hashing out frustrations with the general public (there that huge mass) in such forward facing ways, seems something inherited. this is from 1979! another thing is, looking at these posters and reading about the ethos of these plays and their oppositions in the 60s, read:

and so here we have an explicit attempt at furthering radical art, being more communist (i think) that seeks to use the perverse/grotesque/primitive to embrace all of reality (#so #me). obviously there's lots of ways this can trail off into something reactionary (see above the treatment of the general public, the total frustration/lashing out while maybe in some ways understandable sees the turn from proletarian art to a relation where they need to be told (this apparently comes as the rise of pure consumerism/entertainment arises and the avant garde begins getting ignored more (reminds me of the country teasers lyric: you only mock the avant garde because it's a little too hard (ugly but maybe true sometimes (only sometimes (when it's the beautiful avant garde that loves things and stuff)))))

before i go onto another interesting relation, i just wanna note the obv similarities this has (noted in the book but i thought this before it was mentioned) to tatsumi hijikata's butoh dance, i highly rec/love his essay "to prison"

another crazy recognition in all of this, is strangely enough killer7, which rather strangely comes off as a very explicit effort to update this kind of art/these ideals/this ethos, and the exact underpinnings and goals, to enmesh the primitive with the 60s radicalist art with the newly developed world of digital media, with anime, to have this slurry that communicates in the same fevered ways that these plays operate.

anyways, that's probably enough kunst und kultur for the night. also i read a tiny chunk of anais nin's collages, great as expected, sad i put her off for so long, i feel that she will sit beside clarice lispector for me. interesting that the two are immigrants.

so, byebye!!

[taleasnewastime]

Office politics

Summary: Starting a new job is never easy and nerves course through you when you enter your new office. But when everyone is really nice and you enjoy the job, you assume that everything is fine and there was nothing to worry about. That is until you bump into the man that seems to know all about your past, a past that you have been trying so hard to hide.

Pairing: Taehyung x reader

Genre: fluff; angst; smut; enemies to lovers

Word count: 27.7k

Authors Note: This took me a hot minute to write, but its finally done! There’s mentions of drinking alcohol and probably very inaccurate descriptions of an assistant editor's job, so if that’s not your cup of tea then don’t read. Otherwise, I hope you all enjoy :) 

Staring up at the building you take a deep breath, in an attempt to steady your nerves. Men in smart suits and women dressed equally as smart walk all around you like a flowing river. None of them taking in your existence. You feel like you’re on an island as the stream of people part around you continuing on their journey. There’s an almost calmness in the rush of people trying to get to work, all of them seemingly working together like a shoal of fish ebbing and flowing. You continue to watch as people break off and enter into the building you are staring at. Heart hammering in your chest, the nerves continue to bubble in your stomach. And it’s only when a man knocks into your shoulder that you are pulled from your trance like state. The man shouts something indecent at you before he is continuing on his journey, obviously seeing the fault of the crash as you, which was probably true as you are just stood in the middle of the pavement. With that thought in mind you attempt to bury your nerves as you push your way through the crowd towards the building's doors.

Pushing through the door you are transported into a world of calm. The noise of the outside world is almost completely blocked out by the seemingly thin wall of glass. A quick glance around the foyer has you remembering the layout from when you came a month ago for your interview. A set of smart sofas and coffee tables are placed on one side of the room, while a smart reception area is situated opposite, the hard lines and harsh colours doing nothing to help make the room feel comfortable. A set of glass barriers are placed across from where you are stood, blocking people from the row of elevators that take employees up to the offices above.

A few employees head straight for the barriers, scanning their passes to let them through, while you head for the reception. You tug nervously on your tight pencil skirt, wishing you’d instead gone for the pair of black trousers this morning. Plastering an overly friendly smile on your face and setting your shoulders back in attempt to right your posture, you approach the reception desk and wait for the man sat behind the desk to become free before speaking.

“Hi, I’m Y/N, it’s my first day. I was told to ask for Jimin?” You say the line you had practiced as the man looks up at you.  

“Ok, just give me a second,” he gives you a small tight smile before picking up a phone. “I’ve got a Y/N here for you,” he says into the phone before hanging up. “He’ll be done in a minute, go take a seat if you want,” he dismisses you with a wave of his hand in the direction of the sofas before going back to what he was doing before you arrived.

You thank him, something he hardly acknowledges, before turning and heading for the sofas.  

It’s a sunny day, so as you sit facing the windows to the outside world, beams of light stream in through the glass, causing the white marbled floor to slightly sparkle. Noises sound from all around you; the steady beep of the barriers letting people in as they swipe their cards, colleagues chatting about what they did on the weekend, the doors of the building swooshing open and closed, letting in snippets of noise from the world outside and the patter of people's feet and clicking of heels as they cross the marbled floor. The sounds do nothing to help your nerves, all the tell-tale sounds of an office building not helping you in trying to distract your thoughts.

Looking around for something to take your mind off first day nerves you further take in the layout of the room, you remember it all from a month ago when you had been interviewed, and subsequently got the job as an editorial assistant. You had gone through several interviews at different companies for similar roles, but this had been the company you truly wanted to work for, they were one of the top publishing companies in the city, if not country. When you got the phone call to confirm you had the job at the firm you were currently sat in you were over the moon. Not only because you finally had a job, but it was also a job that you actually wanted to do. Before this you had an admin job that didn’t really interest you and was something you weren’t passionate about, you only held onto it for the money which was hardly enough to pay rent each month. Though this job wouldn’t pay much more, there was opportunity to progress into something you actually wanted to do. The thought of work and your future, for once, actually excited you.

The building obviously held business that made a lot of money, no other businesses would be able to afford the fees to work out of a building like this. And though everything you could see made the room feel imposing, it is not the first time you have been in a building like this. At this point in your life, rooms like this almost felt homely to you as you had spent so much time in them. When you were younger and lived at home with your family you would regularly visit tall, glass fronted, skyscrapers. Your dad was a CEO in one of the country's top financial companies and he spent more time in the offices than at home, meaning whenever you wanted to see him or needed something you had to go to him. Sitting on the sofas and looking around brought back memories of the times you would go and visit him with lunch or something he had asked you to deliver. They may not be normal childhood memories most people have of their dad, but for you they were all you knew, and they were all generally happy ones.

But you hardly saw your family anymore. The pressure of being the CEOs daughter and seemingly everyone in the city knowing who you were all got too much. As their only child, you felt it was down to you to live up to your family's success. The expectation that you would achieve big things, that you would follow in your father's footsteps made you decide to move out of the city. It was a big city, but acted like a small community with everyone seemingly knowing everyone, you needed to move somewhere new to get away from that. You wanted to make your own way in life, create your own career path without your father’s success hanging over your head. You wanted your achievements to be your achievements, something you had gotten because you had deserved it, because you had worked hard for it, not because people handed out favours because of who your family was. It wasn’t your parents fault, they were the most supportive people you knew and never tried to push you into something you didn’t want to do. But even they couldn’t see the difference between a hand out and trying to help sometimes.

So you moved to a city where no one knew who you were. It was hard, as most big companies knew who your father was, but you started using your mother's maiden name and people not knowing you as a child growing up with your father, you’d hoped that would put enough distance for people not to put two and two together. And sitting in the foyer of your new office, waiting to be inducted to your first day, you finally felt like you were getting somewhere, like you had achieved something and that it was due to your hard work and not because of who your family are.

“Y/N?” A male voice sounds from above you.  

Looking in his direction you see a man with perfectly swept blond hair, the effect causing his undercut to show. His face perfectly chiselled and a wide, white smile on his face as he looks down at you. He wears a well-fitting black suit with a skinny tie and it shows off his slim yet muscular form. Standing up you nod your head when a lack of words come to your lips. Good god, this man was good looking.

“I’m Jimin. I work in HR and will be showing you round today,” he says, the wide white smile remaining on his face.

“Great,” you smile back at him, trying your best to act like a normal person as you take the hand that is sticking out for you to shake.

“First things first, here’s your pass,” he reaches into his pocket and takes out a lanyard that has a card attached.

Taking it from him you have a quick glance and see your name followed by your new job title, as well as a picture you had sent in a few weeks ago when the job was confirmed. You try to hide the small grimace when you look at the picture, wishing you had spent a bit longer picking out a better picture.

“It’s a good one,” Jimin notices you staring at the picture. “The ink went weird when they did mine and made me look like an Umpa Lumpa. I’ve begged to get it changed but I obviously have no sway around here as they keep refusing. Though I have a feeling Seokjin just keeps refusing out of spite,” he says it with a small pout on his lips as he looks down at the card that hangs around his neck.

He flicks the card that’s in his hand around so you can look at the picture he is talking about. As described, it is the man stood in front of you but with very orange skin. Somehow he still manages to look beautiful in the picture.

“Have you never thought to just accidentally lose it so they have to give you a new one?” you chuckle, pulling your own lanyard over your head.

“Tried it once. Seokjin just gave me back the same Umpa Lumpa looking photo. Never cross that man,” he says the last bit in a serious tone and you chuckle wondering what Jimin had done to wrong Seokjin.

With a slight shake of his head the seriousness that once fell over him is gone and the wide smile is back on his face. With a “right, let’s go,” he is spinning on the spot and walking towards the barriers, you following close behind. Swiping your new pass, you head through them and towards the elevators. It takes no time before the doors are opening and you are stood inside.

“We’re on the 14th floor,” Jimin says as he presses the number. “Though I guess you’ll know that from your interview?”

“Yeah, I had it in one of the meeting rooms on that floor,” you remember back.

“Who interviewed you?” Curiosity seeps into his voice.

“Urm,” you try to rack your brain for the names. “Hannah and Stewart?”

“Hannah’s in HR, she’s lovely,” Jimin nods, providing no comment on Stewart. “Anyway, most people here are lovely, you have nothing to worry about. And I guess if anyone isn’t lovely then you can just report them to me and I will sort it out,” Jimin gives you a warm smile before exiting the elevator doors that have opened.

You let out a small chuckle as you follow him out into a large open planned room. Tables are situated around the room and people sit at them typing away. There is a wall of offices and you can see a few corridors leading off, to you presume, more offices.

“So this is it,” Jimin spreads his arms wide to showcase the room, as if he is a king surveying his land. “We’ll come back in here last and I’ll show you your desk. First, the most important room. The kitchen.”

Jimin proceeds to give you a whistle stop tour of the office. Showing you all the appliances in the kitchen, where you can store your milk (though be careful of the milk thieves, they’re rife in this office), where the tea and coffee is stored and everything else you could possibly need to know about a kitchen (unload the dishwasher when you can, but if Bess is in, I wouldn’t bother, she likes to do it as an excuse not work for the last 30 minutes every day, and you don’t want to be on the wrong side of her). You both move on to the different offices around the building. Going down the halls you could see earlier you are introduced to the printing and stationary room (you’ll probably spend a lot of time here. Ask Seokjin if the printer ever gets jammed, though don’t be freaked out when he starts talking to them like they’re humans). Jimin proceeds to shove a few notebooks and pens in your arms saying that you’ll need them for all the notes you’ll be taking when being training.

As you walk around the office with Jimin as your guide you wonder why you had any nerves to begin with. Jimin is funny, giving you tips and telling you who in the office you need to look out for. Starting a new job is always scary but as Jimin continues to talk at you, occasionally asking you a question or two about your life, you find there was no reason to be nervous at all. If Jimin was anything to go off this job would be fine.

But with that simple thought, it’s as if you had jinxed it. Because, as you round the corner your eyes on Jimin as he continues to speak, you don’t notice the figure approaching until it’s too late. You collide with a solid mass that turns out to be human and the pile of papers that the man was holding almost comically float into the air before falling and scattering across the floor. Your eyes go from the mess on the floor to the man. If your eyes weren’t wide from shock before, they are now. What is with this office and hiring beautiful men? Jimin was one thing, but this man was something else. Slightly bulkier and taller than Jimin, he wears a black suit, white shirt tucked in to show off his slim waist. His eyes are large but seem to be in perfect proportion with his face. His dark hair is fluffy with a slight curl and falls into his eyes in a way that makes you want to reach out and push the strands away. He looks like a big teddy bear, especially with that boxy smile on his face.

He returns your stare, but as he takes you in you see an unreadable emotion pass over his face, his smile dropping to a glare as he looks at you. His teddy bear looks change instantly, and you wonder how anyone could switch duality so quickly. You watch as he drops to his knees, and starts picking up the papers. Standing frozen you continue to stare at the spot he occupied, confused as to why he would have looked at you like that, almost like he hated you. Snapping out of it, you bend down to try and help him gather the papers.

“I’m so sorry,” your face instantly heats as you try not to crease any of the paper. You silently pray that they aren’t so important that you’ve ruined his work or that they all had to be in some sort of order that you have now ruined. Maybe that’s why he looked at you with such hate.

“Just leave it,” he snaps, pulling the few items you had picked up out of your grasp. His voice is deeper than you expected, but perfectly reflects the anger he is now giving off.

“I’m sorry, I just didn’t see you there,” you attempt to apologise again as you stand back up, looking to Jimin for some sort of help.  

“Why would you have?” He says, giving you a deathly cold stare as he stands, all items back in his grasp.

“Taehyung, this is -” Jimin starts to say.

“Yeah, I know who she is,” the man you now know as Taehyung cuts him off. He gives you one last cold glare before he is pushing past you in the direction he was previously heading.  

I know who she is. The words ring in your head as you look in the direction Taehyung walked, now out of sight. He didn’t look familiar to you, but you obviously did to him. He had acted so cold too, like you had done something terrible to him, but what could you have possibly done to annoy someone you don’t know. Thoughts of how you could possibly know the man fly through your head but are interrupted by Jimin.  

“You know Tae?” You tear your gaze from the empty hall to look at Jimin.

“I - No. I don’t think so,” you say and your voice wavers with uncertainty.  

“Strange. I’ve never seen him like that before,” you can almost see clogs turning in Jimins head as he thinks over the scene he had just witnessed. “Well, I guess I can only apologise on his behalf. He must be having a bad day, I’m sure you’ll see soon enough he’s a great guy,” the smile returns to Jimins face as he starts walking again, carrying on with the tour. “You’ll see him around, he’s an editor here so will be coming to you with lots of important requests. You’ll be friends before you know it.”

“Great,” you say, plastering on a fake smile, unsure that will become true if the glare he had just given you is anything to go by.

There are only a few more rooms and corridors that Jimin shows you, every corner you take from then on you almost poke your head around first to check no one is there before you take a step, not wanting to cause another accident. Soon enough the tour comes to an end and you are stood in front of an empty desk.  

“So this is you,” Jimin gives a sweep of his hand over the empty desk. “I hope it wasn’t too much to take in all at once. You are always welcome to come and find me with any questions. But for now, I will leave you in the capable hands of Alison, she will be your ‘buddy’ and will help get you set up and learning the ropes,” the hand that swept across your desk lands so that it is pointing at a girl who is a similar age to you. Looking over at her you both give a small wave before your attention is back on Jimin. “I’ll send you over all the boring HR documents I need you to read and sign. Otherwise, I guess all that’s left to say is, welcome and we are happy to have you here.” He gives you one last megawatt smile before turning and walking away, giving you hardly any time to fire any questions you might have.  

“Y/N, right?” Alison says when Jimin is out of sight.  

You collapse onto the seat at your desk before turning to look at her. “Thats me. And you’re Alison?”  

“Yep. Well, like Jimin said, it’s great to have you on board,” she says it genuinely, but she also has a mocking tone that seems to be aimed at Jimin. “How was his tour? As boring as it always is?”

Your mouth opens and closes lightly as you search for the right answer.

“Ignore her, you’ll get used to her annoying questions,” a head pops up over the divider at the back of your desk, a beaming man looking at you. “I’m Hoseok,” he pokes his hand out for you to shake. “I’ll be your sanity around here when Alison gets too much.”

“I highly doubt that, he’s more annoying than me,” Alison rolls her eyes and you can’t help the smile that comes to your face, already starting to feel more relaxed.

“Are you both Editorial assistants?” You ask.

“I am,” Alison replies. “Hoseok is in the marketing team. He can be useful when he wants to be, but you can come to me with any questions.”

“Hey, I can be helpful all the time,” Hoseok has a small frown on his face. “I just might not always know the answer to any question you ask.”

“He never knows the answer,” Alison whispers though she makes it loud enough that Hoseok can hear every word. He starts to complain but Alison jumps in talking over him. “Anyway, we should get you started Y/N. I have to get you set up on all the systems. I would hate Bess to come over here and think I’ve just been chatting to you the whole time.” What looks like a shiver runs through her body when she says the name Bess and you recall Jimins earlier comment on the woman from your tour, someone not to cross, you make a mental note to find out what Bess looks like.

“Let me know when she’s boring you too much and we can go and get coffee,” Hoseok says to you before disappearing behind the divider.

And so you are pulled into a word of spreadsheets and data, Alison going through all the systems that you use until your mind is spinning and you start to wonder whether you will ever get the hang of any of it and when you do whether the job would even be fun.

Kicking your shoes off as soon as you enter your flat, you walk to the sofa and collapse head first into the cushions. Your first day had gone well, albeit for the incident when you collided with Taehyung, but the day had drained you. All the data and systems Alison had shown you that you had to learn how to use as well as having to socialise with people you didn’t know, dishing out the same small talk when you met someone new and then proceed to pretend to be interested in what they had to say really took it out of you. You were happy though. The company seemed good, as well as the people that worked there and although you didn’t do much work, in all the day was a lot of introductions to people in the team and reading and signing all those HR documents Jimin sent you, you felt like you would enjoy working there.

You wanted to stay lying on the sofa until sleep took over you, which would probably be soon, but you forced yourself to at least have some food and get changed before you let that happen. One day of work and you were already falling asleep as soon as you got home, what were you, ninety years old? You’d get used to the routine soon enough and not always be this tired after work, you hoped.

Deciding to change first, you slip into some baggy pyjamas, a moan almost leaving your lips when you slip out of the ridiculously tight skirt. Why had you decided that was a good purchase, let alone a good decision to wear today? Picking up your phone you head to the kitchen, sending your mum a quick text to say your first day went ok on your way. It takes barely 5 minutes before your phone is ringing, glancing down you confirm it’s your mum and roll your eyes as you click the green button.

“Hi,” you put on your best chirpy voice. “How are you?”

“Oh love, I’m so happy to hear your first day went well,” she ignores your question and cuts straight to the reason for calling, something that you were generally grateful for. “I want to hear all about it. How are the other members of staff? Did they give you a good desk? Have you met your manager, how is he?” She fires the questions at you and you almost regret sending her a text in the first place, having known this would be the outcome if you’d thought about it.

“It was good mum. Everyone was lovely and very welcoming,” except Taehyung you thought, though you had technically crashed into him so his reaction was probably to be expected, but you weren’t about to retell that tale to your mum. “The office is nice and it only took me 20 minutes to get there this morning, which was good. My managers nice, desk is nice, everyone's just really nice.”  

“That’s amazing love. I know how much this job means to you. Me and your father are so proud of you,” you can almost see the smile on her face as she talks.

“Thanks mum,” you shy slightly from her praise, though it’s nice to hear.

“I mean it’s better than your last job. That was awful, all those extra hours they made you work and for hardly any money. I’m just relived you finally left,” you roll your eyes at her words. Though the pay was rubbish, it was just admin work so what more did she expect than minimum wage? And as for all the extra hours, however many times you had tried to tell her, it was you that had signed up to do them, needing the extra money. At this point it was easier to just agree with whatever she said and not try and fight her.

There’s a slight pause on the line before you hear a small sigh leave your mum’s lips and you know what is coming.

“You know if you are ever struggling with -”

“I know mum,” you cut her off before she can finish. There isn’t a conversation that you have with her where money and her helping doesn’t come up. “I’m fine. But thanks for the offer.” You couldn’t really complain, you were in a very fortunate position where your parents could help out if you were truly struggling, it just annoyed you that they thought you were struggling. You were in your 20s, most people in their 20s were just starting out in their careers and on a similar wage to you, if you were honest you felt like you were doing pretty well for yourself, it just upset you that your parents didn’t always see it that way. Though when you looked at the people you grew up with and the people you parents would be looking at as a comparison for how well you were doing, you were doing pretty shockingly bad, so what did you really expect.

“The offer is always there,” your mum says.

“I know mum. Thanks,” you say. “Anyway, how are you and dad?” You attempt to move the conversation on.  

“Same old,” your mothers voice goes back to the happy, chirpy tone that it had when you first answered. “Your father has just taken on a new project at work so has gone off to Toronto for a few days. I keep telling him that he needs to slow down, but will he listen to me?” Your mothers lets out a small laugh and you can almost see her shaking her head. “Anyway, he can do what he likes, it means I have the house to myself for a few days at least. I’ve started to redecorate the conservatory like I always wanted to.”

“You have been talking about doing that for years. You’ll have to send me pictures of the process,” you say.

“I will dear,” she says. “Anyway, I just called to get an update on your first day and to say that we truly are very proud of you. I need to get back to the sauce I have cooking, if I leave it too long it might split.”

“Thanks for calling mum, it really means a lot,” you smile down the phone.

“Love you,” you mother says before the phone goes dead.

After putting your phone on charge you make quick work of getting something to eat, managing to find some leftover food that you could heat up, and in no time you find yourself in bed watching some trash TV. Thinking over the conversation with your mum, an ache spreads in your heart. You did truly miss your parents and your home city. Leaving was never an easy choice. Leaving behind friends, family and everything you had ever known to start fresh somewhere where no one knew you was a bold choice, one which many of your friends frowned upon. No one really understood the reasons behind your choice. They couldn’t see what was so bad about excepting help from your family and using your connections to your advantage. But then none of them had grown up with the pressure and expectations that you had had.

Still, it was tough, and though you were glad that you did it, it didn’t make it any easier. You had made a few friends at your last job, but they weren’t anyone that you had been close to. The sort of people that you said you would keep in contact with when you left, but you doubted you would ever speak again. You felt lonely. You didn’t really have anyone closer than a phone call away and you hoped that this new job would change that.  

But lying in bed and thinking over your day you are reminded of Taehyung. Reminded of the hatred that had burned in his eyes as he looked at you. All day you had been trying to think where you would know him from. Thinking over your previous job in the city and then back to growing up, but there are no memories of him in your mind, and you doubt that you would have forgotten anyone that looked like him easily. But the way he looked at you continues to plague you. You try to reassure yourself that Jimin was probably right, he was just having a bad day and the next time you see him it will be like nothing ever happened. It is with that thought that you find yourself slowly slipping into sleep.

Your first few weeks pass in a flurry of work making them fly by. Though, you feel that you are at least quick to learn the different processes and systems so you no longer rely so heavily on Alison. You settle in quickly and start to feel less lonely, Alison and Hoseok being the main cause for this. Though at the moment you only hang out at work, you do go and get coffees and have lunch together and you can see that it won’t take long before you start doing things outside of work together. They feel like the first real friends you’ve had in a while.

And you do actually enjoy the work you do, as expected. Once all the of jargon starts to make sense and you no longer feel like the newbie that knows nothing and no one, you settle into your roll and feel like you do a good job.

“Y/N?”  

Looking up from your work to see who is calling your name, the smile you had plastered on drops slightly when you see Taehyungs face. Since you had first bumped into him on your first day you had only seen Taehyung in passing, he had never engaged with you in conversation, he’d never even looked at you long enough to smile. He stands over you tapping away on his phone, so you doubt he has noticed your change in state, you are more tense and have a less genuine smile on your face as you look at him. Even though he doesn’t look at you, you can see he still seems to be just as unhappy to be around you as he did when you first met him, the hatred coming off him in almost waves.

You’d seen him around the office, the smiles he doesn’t give you but are directed to everyone else. The words he doesn’t utter to you but are easily handed out even to the delivery people who are only in for a few minutes a day. The laughs that brighten up his face that everyone else sees are the opposite to the Taehyung that you know. A few people have started to pick up to his coldness towards you too. Alison and Hoseok had started making jokes about it around you, dubbing him FrosTae.

“I’m going to need you to get together all the documents for Ben Malone’s new book. I’m meeting him tomorrow and I need to take it all with me,” Taehyung barely looks at you, tapping away on his phone, as he gives you the request, the first piece of work he had asked for from you since you had been here.

You make a quick note on some paper you have on your desk, not realising Taehyung was expecting a response. From the continued silence you almost thought he had already walked away before he starts talking again.

“Some reaction would be good here Y/N,” Taehyung deadpans, and when you look back up at him his attention is now fully on you. “Do you know what you’re doing?”  

Your face heats at his words. Sure you were still new, but did he really have to be a dick about it? There was a way of asking for things, for checking if you knew what you were doing, and the way he was doing it was rude.

“Yes,” you say, trying to keep your voice level, hoping no one around you was paying too much attention to the conversation. You didn’t want to be shown up in front of them all.

“Great,” he gives you a tight-lipped smile which you return. “Send it over by tonight. I want to be able to check it over before I meet with him,” giving you one last disingenuous smile he does a tight turn and walks away.

“Jesus, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like that,” Alisons voice sounds out from beside you. “FrosTae is in a particularly bad mood with you today.”

“Well he’s never had to speak so many words to me before. It must have been a struggle,” you try to make a joke of the situation as you spin around to face Alison.

“And why is he being a dick and giving you such a short deadline? He would have known before now that he had the meeting tomorrow,” Alison continues.

“I best get cracking on with it then,” you say, not wanting to say anything bad against Taehyung. As much as he was frosty with you, you didn’t have a problem with him and everyone else in the office seemed to love the man. You tried to avoid saying anything too bad about him out loud in case word got back to him, you didn’t need him to have any more reasons to hate you.

“If you need a hand let me know,” you are glad Alison drops the subject. “I don’t have anything too urgent on so can help you out.”

“Thanks, I think I might take you up on that offer,” you say, already feeling the stress weighing down on you.  

You had been here for just a few weeks and felt like you had a handle on the basics, knew what you were doing enough to fill out Taehyungs request. But like Alison had said, the deadline was a bit ridiculous. It was almost like he was setting you up to fail. You think back to the way he acted when he first met you, how cold he was to you, how he acted like he knew you and didn’t like you. But you had no memory of him. You’re also reminded of how Jimin said it was probably just because he was having a bad day. But if that was the case he seemed to have bad days pretty frequently, and they only occurred when speaking to you.

You had to work through lunch that day to get everything done. You were still sat at your desk at 6pm, well past when you would normally have left, one of the only people left in the office. You had taken Alison up on her offer of help and would never have gotten as far as you had without her help. Come 5pm she had even offered to stay and help you finish it, but you had assured her that you didn’t have much to finish and she should head home. You didn’t want both of your evenings to be ruined.  

It took another hour for everything to be tied up. You were probably doing it all a bit slower than somebody else would have, still trying to get used to the process. But it was finally done and having one last flick through you felt proud of what you had achieved. It looked good. Typing out the email to Taehyung you send off the documents and finally start packing up for the day.

As you swing your bag onto your shoulder you hear a door slamming and some footsteps echo around the empty office. You had thought you were the only person left in the office, obviously not. Heading towards the elevators the person creating the noise is revealed. Taehyung stands in front of the elevators, holding his phone he types away completely unaware of your presence. You hesitate, debating what to do. He hadn’t noticed so you could turn and hide for 5 minutes while he gets in the lift and disappears. Rolling your eyes at yourself you force yourself to walk towards him. How pathetic were you? It would just be a few minutes that you’d have to pretend to be polite around him. And you reminded yourself that he was the one that seemed to have the problem with you.

“I’ve just emailed you that stuff you asked for,” you announce your presence as you stand beside him.

You watch him jump lightly out of the corner of your eye. Putting his phone down he turns to look at you.

“You’re still here?” The surprise in his voice makes you look at him, a small frown on your face.

“Well, I’m about to leave,” you decide not to make a comment about the fact he is the reason you’re here so late. You see a flicker of what looks like guilt cross his face.

“Oh really? I was under the impression you liked to just stand here and watch the numbers going up and down,” he jokes and it surprises you slightly, he’s normally so serious and curt with you.

“Thank god we’re only on floor 14. Past that and I would struggle to keep up with the counting,” a small laugh leaves his lips and you wonder what was happening, why was he suddenly being nice and joking with you?

A silence falls over you. The doors to the elevator open and Taehyung holds out an arm, indicating you should enter first. Stepping in beside you, you suddenly realise how small the elevator is, though there is enough space for you to both stand a comfortable distance from each other, the small mirrored room made it impossible for you to get away from him. Taehyung presses the button for the ground floor, and you both watch as the doors close.

“Thanks for doing the work,” Taehyung breaks the silence.

“It’s my job,” you shrug off his comment.

“But I’m sorry it meant you had to stay so late,” you notice how his weight shifts lightly from foot to foot.

“You needed the work done, I was happy to do it,” again you try to shrug off the conversation. “And besides you’re here just as late.”

“I -,” he seems to debate with himself on what to say next. “Well, I appreciate it,” he finally settles on and you give him a small smile in answer. “Are you doing anything tonight?” You are grateful he has chosen to move the conversation on.

“If by anything you mean getting a take away and watching Gilmore Girls, then yes I have a busy night ahead of me,” you relax, giving him a more genuine smile.

“Ah, a Gilmore Girls fan. I should have guessed,” a smile appears on his face, softening his features.

“Am I that predictable?” You ask.

“No, actually,” Taehyungs face turns suddenly serious as his eyes dance across your face, trying to read your features.  

Before you can question what he means, the doors to the elevator open and Taehyung pulls his gaze from you walking out the doors. You stand frozen in your spot for a second, mind slowed down by the previous comment trying to work out what he meant. Snaped back into reality by the sound of the elevator doors closing, you stumble through the doors and do a small jog to catch up to where Taehyung is stood waiting for you. Falling in to step with each other you walk through the barriers and towards the main doors.  

“And are you doing anything exciting?” You ask, the opportunity to ask him to clarify his last words gone.

“Probably just as an exciting night as you. Maybe minus Gilmore Girls,” he chuckles.

“I am pretty wild, not everyone can handle Gilmore Girls on a work night,” you say, both of you coming to a stop at the main doors.

“Some of us are only mere mortals,” he says.  

As you stand there you find your mind scrambling to come up with a question to keep the conversation going. It had been short, but easy and you liked this new Taehyung and didn’t want to have to say goodbye just yet.

“Is that your normal night?” You blurt the words out. “I mean, a night in and TV,” you try and clarify, though you inwardly cringe at the question.

“Most nights,” you notice a small glint in his eye as he answers. “Sometimes I go for a drink after work. You should join us next time we go.”

“Oh - I wasn’t try to – I didn’t mean – I just -,” you stutter out, eyes wide.  

“I think we’re going out next Thursday actually,” he saves your embarrassing splutter, acting as if he hadn’t even heard you. “I know, a Thursday night,” he rolls his eyes. “Blame Jimin. Anyway, I’m sure Hoseok or Alison will give you all the details.”

“That would be great,” you decide to keep sentences short and to the point now to minimise a repeat of what just happened.

“Cool,” he says, eyes still on you.  

You both stand for a second too long, neither of you offering anything to the conversation, but also neither of you making a move to leave.  

“See you tomorrow?” Taehyung finally speaks.  

“Yeah,” you give one last smile. “Tomorrow,” you say before you both turn and head in different directions.

You had thought that elevator talk would have dissipated any tension or hatred that Taehyung held against you. But the next day he was back to his normal self. Giving you last minute requests, asking for minor changes to be done on the work you had given him last night, and ignoring you when he saw you in the kitchen.  

Your heart dropped a little when you realised, offering him a warm smile when he walked past you in the hall, only for it to go completely unnoticed. Then to receive a blunt email asking for changes to be made, you realised nothing between you had changed.  

You weren’t sure why you expected any different. It was just a 10 minute chat between colleagues on their way out of the office. He had seemed warmer towards you but maybe you had imagined that. And when he had invited you out for the work drinks you realised he wasn’t really inviting you, he would have done that for anyone, it would have been awkward if he hadn’t asked you to come. After all he had told you to ask Hoseok and Alison for the details not him.

The annoying thing was that you saw him around the office and like everyone had said, he never acted the way he did to you to anyone else. You would hear his laugh and look in his direction to see his boxy smile, something that was never directed at you. You would hear jokes he made to people around you. Hear him ask people for things to be done, with plenty of time and with a kindness in his voice.  

Since you had first met him you had tried racking your brain for reasons why he might treat you the way he did. Tried to find anything that you might have done that would cause him to hate you. But you always came up short, you couldn’t think of a single time that you would have met Taehyung, let alone a time when you would have done something bad enough for him to treat you the way he did.

Alison and Hoseok started to give you silent looks when Taehyung made a snarky comment to you, messaging you warning when they saw him approaching your desk. You knew that they were friendly with him, they always commented on how it was weird that he acted the way he did around you, but they also had your back and you were glad for that.

You wanted to ask him what his problem was, but you weren’t one for drama or confrontation. He was also kind of your boss in this place and you felt it wasn’t your place to start demanding answers from him. It was his problem with you, you tried to reason with yourself, if he wanted to be a dick then you would just rise above it.

That was easier said than done.

Over the next few weeks Taehyung drove you to the brink of quitting. Demanding work last minute, asking for unnecessary changes or additions, telling you to do things that were well above your pay grade. Yet you did them all without complaint. Still unsure why he hated you so much, why he would want you to leave, you didn’t want to give him any more reasons. Alison and Hoseok would also let you complain and tell you to take it up with HR, especially when you were asked to do things that weren’t in your job description.

And even through all the weird and wonderful requests, you still enjoyed the job. Though he never gave you any praise, you always felt happy when you managed to meet his obscene deadlines, and got a pang of pride when he never complained about the work you did. From Taehyung that was the highest praise you could hope for. On top of that, everyone else in the office was nice. You felt settled in, like you had made proper friends. You, Alison and Hoseok would regularly go for Friday night drinks. You felt less lonely, and for the first time since moving away you felt like almost belonged.

It was a Thursday when you had a meeting set up with Taehyung. He wanted to go through some work you had prepared for him. Picking up all the documents you needed you headed to his office, not needing you being late as something else he could hate you for.

The smell of him engulfed you when you entered his office. Before entering you wouldn’t have thought you’d know his scent, but now stood in his office where the smell engulfed you, you wondered how you ever lived without it. It was musty and warm like a spice, but still managed to smell clean. It felt like a warm hug as it surround you.

“You can just take one of these seats,” Taehyungs voice breaks you out of your thoughts and you realise that you’ve just been stood still by the door the whole time.

Walking to the chair opposite his desk that he had pointed out, you take in the room. It wasn’t a big office but the light colours mixed with dark art and dark wood made the space feel bigger. You wondered whether he had designed the room, had picked out the art work that hung on the walls, had chosen the comfy chairs that sat opposite his desk for meetings. It made you want to see where he lived, made you wonder if the style was the same as here. Shaking your head, you try to rid the thoughts from your mind, why were you thinking about his house and how it was decorated? It was just because you’d never been in his office before and were surprised by its design, you reasoned as you sat down opposite him.

Setting down the papers you had prepared, you gently push them across the table towards Taehyung so that he can look through them. He picks them up and starts flicking through them, pausing occasionally to read specifics. A silence hangs over the room and your face heats as you watch him look through what you had prepared.

You watch as his jaw tenses as he reads something that he doesn’t like. His eyes are firm, squinting slightly as he concentrates on the words in front of him. While he isn’t look at you, you take in his features, eyes rake over the sharp panes of his face, trying to get as much detail in while you can. Because although he was a dick, he was beautiful and it didn’t mean you couldn’t appreciate that.

“You’re work is actually pretty good,” he breaks the silence, still looking through the documents and you are reminded why you are here.

“You sound surprised,” your voice comes out flat, instantly annoyed by his words, you had spent hours on the work after all.

He ignores your statement the way you wish you had ignored his. Continuing to flick through the documents a sigh leaves his lips.  

“What would you do?” He says, looking away from the documents to you.

“What?” You choke out, first he’s acting surprised your work is good, then he’s asking for your advice?

“What would you do if one of your writers was refusing to take your advice and continues to write stuff that is rubbish even when you have tried to tell them nicely,” a sigh leaves his lips and a he runs a hand through his dark hair, causing the already messy locks to be even more tasselled. It’s then that you can fully see the stress, take in the slight dark circles under his eyes, notice that his hair is messier than normal as if he’s been continuously running his hand through it, and his tie hangs slightly pulled away from his neck so that his top button can be popped open.

“I’m just an assistant,” you say softly, unsure what he is expecting you to say.

“You have no opinion on the matter?” His head is held in his hands as he raises his eyebrows at you.

“I just don’t know if it’s my place to comment. I don’t know enough about what's going on,” you continue.

“Even when I asked you to comment? You’ve done the work, you know as much as me,” He holds up a piece of paper as if for evidence of his statement.

You blanch, mouth opening and closing as you try to think of the right thing to say. After all, he was right, you did know a lot about what was stressing him. It was what you had spent hours working over. Ben Malone was one of the best selling authors that the company worked with, and as one of their best editors, Taehyung managed his work. But he was a hard author to manage, you had had to read his manuscripts and while they were good there were areas that needed improving. Taehyung had suggested changes but they all fell on death ears and Ben had refused to take the advice. You could see the dilemma, Taehyung needed to get a good book published, one that were on par with Bens previous books, but he also needed to make sure he didn’t fall out with Ben and risk losing the author altogether.

You sat debating what to say to him. You had ideas of the ways in which you would go about things, them being slightly different to what Taehyung had done. Did you tell him the truth, which he probably wanted you to do but probably wasn’t what he wanted to hear as it was against what the company would say and what he was doing. Or you could lie and tell him what he wanted to hear, that he should just keeping going the way he was and probably achieve nothing. As you debate what to say, Taehyung cuts in.

“Why did you take the job?” He asks.

“As an editorial assistant?” You clarify, confused by the question. “Because I have aspirations to become an editor. Because it’s a good job. And because I need the money.”

“But there are better paying jobs,” he says. “If it’s about money.”

You regret the final comment instantly. You did need the money, but wasn’t that why everyone ultimately worked?  

“Maybe once I gain enough experience. And it’s not just about money,” you reply.

“I just thought someone like you would easily walk into any job they want,” he says, and for the first time he can’t look you in the eye as he speaks.  

“Someone like me?” You are truly baffled now.

A silence falls over the room and you wonder if Taehyung is ever going to clarify what he meant. Just when you have given up hope he opens his mouth.

“I mean, someone from your background,” his eyes flick around the room, before finally landing on you, taking in your reaction.

You are surprised by his words, you would never have expected them to leave his mouth. You assumed that no one knew your background, or who your family was, what with having a different second name and never speaking about them. It wasn’t that you were ashamed of your family, more that you didn’t want people to give you any sort of special treatment because of who your father was, the sort of special treatment that Taehyung obviously thought you would want.

But his words from when you first met suddenly make sense. I know who she is. Things start to fall into place in your mind and you feel like you can see more clearly why he hated you so much.

“Have we met before?” You ask the question that Jimin had asked when you first bumped into Taehyung, the question that had been playing on your mind for weeks.

“I don’t think so,” Taehyung replies, shuffling some papers awkwardly on the table.

“And yet you act like you know me?” You can’t help but let the words slip out.

Taehyung looks up at you. An indistinguishable emotion passes over his face before he is going back to his blank, unreadable face.

“I see,” you say, discouraged by his silence, disappointment rolls over you. Realisation as to why he has been treating you the way he has over the past few weeks, how he must have been viewing you all this time. “I got this job the same way everyone else in the company did. I work hard, just like everyone else. And I think I do a good job.”

“I didn’t say you don’t,” Taehyung says.

“Just because someone with a background like me has a job as low as an editorial assistant doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it or deserve to have it,” you say, anger rising up within you.

“That’s not what I meant,” Taehyung says in a firmer tone, a muscle in his jaw twitching.

“It’s what you said though,” you say. Standing up from your chair, you reach down and scurry to pick up the documents you had brought in with you. “I’ll email over the final copies when they’re finished,” you say before turning and leaving his office, deciding the meeting is over before it has barely begun. You couldn’t bear to sit in the room with him any longer.

What an idiot, you think as you collapse at your desk. How could you have been so naïve? Just because you had moved to a different city didn’t mean people were going to stop knowing who you were. You had grown up in the public eye after all, and this was a big company, even though they probably had no links to your fathers' company it wouldn’t be unheard of for them to know who he was.

You put your head in your hands, allowing yourself a second to wallow in the thing you had grown up hating. People treating you as your father's daughter, rather than as a person in your own right. Maybe you’d been too harsh on Taehyung, taking some of your frustration out on him. He hadn’t actually said anything negative about you, it was implied, yet you had snapped.  

You should apologise, he is basically your boss after all, the way you had acted and spoken to him was widely inappropriate no matter how rude he was. But you couldn’t face going back and seeing him now. You’d just apologise when you next see him. Or when you email over the final copies of the documents. He had been rude to you too, you reason, why should you start going out of your way to be kind to him?

Taking a few deep breaths to settle down the anger that has risen within you, you take your head out of your hands to look at the blank computer screen in front of you. Alison and Hoseok aren’t at their desks, and you are glad that they aren’t around to see you in your current mood. You couldn’t deal with their 50 questions in your current state. Though they would probably help drag you out of the funk you were slipping into.

Your focus goes back onto the work you had. Diving into it as a distraction.

“How was your meeting with FrosTae?” Alisons voice breaks you out of your focus and you look to see her sat at her desk, Hoseok stood beside her.

“Just delightful,” sarcasm drips off every word.

“That good?” Alison laughs. “Drinks tonight will help.”

A small groan leaves your lips. You’d forgotten it was one of Jimins Thursday night drinks. Since starting and when Taehyung had first mentioned it to you there had been a few Thursday night drinks. They were the way you had gotten to know a few more people around the office and you enjoyed going, until you generally woke up with a hangover and work the next day. You were really not in the mood to go out for drinks and pretend to have a good time. The thought of your bed, some carbohydrates and TV was all you wanted to do.

“I think I may give it a miss today,” you say and noises of complaints leave both Alison and Hoseoks lips.

“But you can’t” Hoseok whines, giving no further explanation.

“Yeah, you can’t,” Alison copies his whiny tone.

A small chuckle escapes you and you see the hope in their eyes at the sound. “I just don’t feel like it,” you say.

“Just come for one,” Hoseok offers.

“It’s never just one though,” you reply.

“That’s what I’m counting on,” Hoseok winks at you as he rounds the table to his desk.

You roll your eyes, not knowing what you could say to get out of this.

“Hoseok will buy your first drink,” Alison offers and Hoseok looks at her with daggers.

“Now that is tempting,” you laugh, Hoseok was notoriously tight with his money.

“I will buy you one drink, under the price of £5, and that is my final offer,” Hoseok says, daggers still in his eyes.

“I’ll think about it,” you smile, your mood instantly lifted.

“Not for too long, the offer won’t be there forever,” Hoseok says before sitting down, disappearing from view.

You had caved, not that it had taken much, and now find yourself in the bar just down the road from the office. It is packed with people you work with, a small crowd already gathered at the bar ordering drinks. It shouldn’t surprise you how popular drinking after work was, everyone wanted to relieve their stress, but it did surprise you how popular it was considering it was a Thursday night and 99% of people were due to be working tomorrow. Looking at how much some people were drinking, most people had forgotten that and it would be a fun day in work tomorrow.

“You two go get a table, I’ll get the drinks,” Hoseok says, disappearing into the crowd while you and Alison start the search for a table.

“I didn’t actually think he would buy the drinks,” Alison says.

“Don’t get your hopes up, he never asked what we wanted,” you reply.

You slide into some chairs at an empty table and it doesn’t take long for Hoseok to find you, 3 drinks in hand. He sloshes some the contents of one on the table as he slaps them down.

“What is this?” Alison gives the drink a sceptical eye as she brings it closer.

“Vodka Redbull, your favourite,” he gives her a cheeky smile before taking a sip of his own drink.

One of the things you had learnt at your Friday post work drinks was that Alison hated Redbull. Taking a sip of your drink you decide to stay out of it and watch as Alison lightly slaps Hoseoks arm.

“Hey, I’ll have it if you don’t want it,” the cheeky smile remains on his face.

Alison scowls as she pushes her drink towards him. “This was your plan all along?” She gives him a small pout.

“I’m not that big a dick,” he laughs pushing the drink that he had taken a sip from towards her. “Your vodka and coke,” he gives a small bow.

“You’re still a bit of a dick,” she says, but the smile on her face betrays her.

Though the bar is full of people, you, Alison and Hoseok remain at the table just the three of you for a while. You end up complaining about Taehyung for a while, something that had started to become your favourite thing to do, but after a while the conversation moves on and you find your mood slowly lifting.

But after a while, and mainly because your drinks are finished, you decide to be more sociable and join groups chatting around the bar. You are unsure at what point you lose them, but three drinks deep your find yourself stood talking to a group of people you barely know. The conversation is fine but you find yourself slipping out of it and looking around the room. And that’s when you see him.

He has his wide signature boxy smile on his face, laughing at something someone said. Your eyes wonder down his body, he has taken off his suit jacket and tie so he is left in a well fitted shirt with the first few buttons undone, a small amount of chest is therefore on show and the effect causes you to go unnecessarily hot. Eyes going back to his face, you watch as he takes a sip of his drink a smile returning to his face as his eyes flick around the room. They pause on you long enough for him to tell you have seen him. Still, you spin quickly as if you weren’t blatantly staring, instead pretending to be engrossed in the conversation of the people stood by you. You take a massive gulp of your drink to try and calm yourself.  

This was the first time you had seen him all night, in fact it was the first Thursday night drinks you’d seen him attend, besides that first one, and even then you had hardly seen him. You had thought he wouldn’t be here tonight, but part of you is glad that he is, it was kind of nice to see him out of the office, like it made him more real. You shake your head of that thought, you didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to talk to him, you have to remind yourself that you are meant to be annoyed at him.

You wonder if you should move further into the crowd, but then think that there's no point he is the last person who would seek you out. After he has seen you stood here it is probably the safest place to stay, no doubt he will be avoiding it like the plague. And as the minutes tick by you can’t help but feel disappointed when you are proven right. Casting a look over your shoulder you find the spot he once occupied is now empty and he is nowhere to be seen. Your stomach sinks even lower.

Pushing Taehyung from your mind you remind yourself that you’re here to forget him, the annoyance from earlier still burns within you a bit. So instead you dive into conversations, you’ve always been good at talking to new people and tonight you are glad for it. But after a while even this isn’t enough. Deciding it’s time to try and locate Alison and Hoseok, you decide to head to the bar first. If that fails at least you’ll have a fresh drink for your search.

Although you manage to push your way to the bar, it is still busy. Looking around to see that the only two bar staff are at opposite ends of the bar to you, you wonder if there is any point in ordering a drink anyway. You had only come for one and ended up staying way later than intended, and you have to remind yourself that you still have work tomorrow.

“I hoped you’d be here,” the voice pulls you away from trying to grab the attention of one of the barmen. Taehyung towers over you, a small smile on his face as he looks down at you. “I wanted to apologise,” you can see that he’s nervous and it surprises you. “For earlier in my office. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did, I judged you and that was wrong of me.”

“I’ve heard it all before, don’t worry about it,” you try and brush off his comment. “I was the rude one, I should never have shouted at you the way I did.”

“I deserved it,” he gives you a weak smile which you return.

“Still,” you give a small shrug, silence falling over the two of you and you wonder if he’ll go now that he has said what he came to say. Secretly you hope he stays.

“Can I get you a drink?” He asks, and your heart gives a leap of relief.  

You hum, wanting to accept but also not wanting to feel indebted to him in anyway.

As if sensing your unease, he calls the barman over and asks for what he wants, “And?” he turns to you expectantly, when you fail to answer he leans into you. “Will one drink from me really kill you? I promise I won’t poison it.”

And just like that you’re broken. You give him your drinks order, trying to keep your voice steady as you do and watch as the barman goes off to make them.

“You really don’t have -”

“I know,” he cuts you off. “But I want to,” a boxy smile is shone your way and again you wonder how one person can flip so easily between hot and cold.

“I’ll owe you,” you say it half-heartedly, more because you don’t think there will be another time to repay the favour than the fact you don’t want to owe him.

“You don’t owe me anything,” he says it lowly as if he doesn’t want you to hear, but you catch every word.

You ignore it, deciding not to pick him up on his words. “How did you do that anyway?” He turns to look at you, eyebrows raised in question to what you asked. “I’ve been stood here trying to get someone's attention and all you have to do is walk over and they’re immediately asking what you want?” You clarify.

He gives a small chuckle, his eyes lighting up. “That surprises me,” his eyes flick down over your body, and it happens so quickly that you think you might have imaged it when his eyes are back on yours. “I guess you just have to be more assertive.”

“I can be assertive,” you stand a bit taller when as you say it, and you deepen your voice a fraction.

Taehyungs eyes go darker at your words, his mouth opens to reply but your drinks being placed on the bar snap you both out of it. Disappointment rolls over you again as you watch Taehyung pay for your drinks.

He turns to hand you your drink while taking a sip of his own. And you are surprised when he stays standing where he is, hip leaning against the bar, staring at you. You’d have thought the first chance he got he would be running as far away from you as possible.

“I don’t usually see you at these things,” you break the silence and take a sip of your drink to steady the nerves that are rising within you.

“I know it’s not fun to have the boss lurking at these things,” he says.

“You lurk?” You raise your eyebrows at him, your tone teasing. You would never attach that word to him, you don’t think you would ever be capable of missing his presence, your eyes seem to always find him when he’s in a room.

“I try, but it never seems to work,” he replies.

“I think that’s what is called being the boss, you can’t hide, eyes are always watching,” you reply.

“I guess you would know all about it,” his tone is light, reflecting the teasing tone you used, but the meaning behind the words don’t pass you.

Again, he reminds you of his feelings towards you. And now you know the reasons behind it, that he sees you as some rich princess, all his words hit you harder, cut a bit deeper. Just when you start to think that things between you could be ok, he reminds you that they aren’t.

You ignore his words and try to cover the slight hurt they cause you. Because they do hurt you. You don’t want anyone to think of you like that, let alone him. You had tried to build your life around not being seen as just your fathers daughter, but Taehyung seems hell bent on proving that you will never be able to run from that.

“I think John should consider going professional with moves like that,” you stear the conversation in a different, safer, direction.

What you think is regret flashes across Taehyungs face as you obviously avoid his comment, before he is turning to look over his shoulder. John, a man in his forties, has managed to clear a space on the dance floor and is doing what you can only describe as a dad dance, very enthusiastically.

“You have to admire his bravery at least,” you continue to watch as he seems to be revelling in the small crowd that has gathered, and his confidence and the fact is having so much fun seems enough to get other people to start joining him.

Taehyung turns back to face you, an unrecognisable emotion on his face. “You’re brave though. It must have taken a lot for you to move away from your parents,” he says.

It makes you wonder how much he knows. You hadn’t spoken to many people about why you left, your parents and close friends, but none of them understood you reasonings so in the end you stopped talking to them about it. It also made you wonder how he knew about your family in the first place. You had a better understanding of why he hated you, but you didn’t fully understand it. Someone from your background, was all he had said, that didn’t really tell you much. He could know everything, or he could know nothing.

“Brave for moving away from all their money you mean,” you can’t help but snap slightly at his comment.

“For leaving the people you love,” he doesn’t bite back at your comment, his voice instead soft and you’re surprised.

You shrug at his words, not wanting to talk about it with him. How would he know if you loved them? How does he know that you moved away not because you had a massive argument with them, but because you wanted to be your own person? A good guess, you decide.

“Well, I’m still not brave enough to be doing that,” you nod your head in the direction of John who has stepping his dancing up a level, arms flinging in the air to no particular rhythm.

“A shame. I would like to see it,” the cheeky glint is back in his eye and it makes you think that he means he wants to see more than just you embarrassing yourself.

You are saved from coming up with a response with the arrival of Jimin. Hand clasping Taehyungs shoulder, he gives you a quick hello before turning his attention to Taehyung.

“Jin doesn’t believe that you can pop your eyes out,” his voice is serious which makes the whole situation funnier.

Taehyung looks at you and you can see the embarrassment written all over his face, it makes you smile even wider.

“You have to come and show him. I have £5 riding on this,” Jimin pleads.

A sigh leaves Taehyungs lips, one that makes it sound as if it is not the first time this has occurred.

“You owe me a drink,” he says.

A small whoop leaves Jimins lips before his eyes are back on you. “Want to come and see? It really is weird,” he says.

The smile doesn’t leave you face as you look at Taehyung. You can’t tell if his expression is one that is begging you to go with them or one that is begging you to not to go.

“I should probably find Alison and Hoseok,” you decide for the safer option and watch as Taehyung deflates slightly, out of relief you imagine, he probably doesn’t want you seeing something he looked so embarrassed about.

“Well come and join if you change your mind,” Jimin says before he is walking off back in the direction of where he came from.

Taehyung lingers a second longer. “See you later?” He asks.

“Yeah,” you give him a small smile, knowing that once you find Alison and Hoseok you will probably head home.

He returns your smile and then is gone, disappearing after Jimin. You watch the spot where he once stood before you too leave.

You jump lightly when something is placed down on your desk, it wasn’t done harshly but you didn’t realise anyone was stood by you. Looking up from your screen and popping out a headphone you look at the figure looming over you. Taehyung looks down at you and he has the boxy smile on his face. He still has his long black coat on and his hair is fluffy and ruffled from the wind outside.

“I thought you might need some coffee,” he says in a chirpy tone, something you are not used to being directed towards you.

Tearing your eyes from him you look down to see that he has placed a cup of coffee and a pastry on your desk.

“I had to guess how you like it. I hope it’s ok,” he says as you continue to remain silent.

“I - thank you,” you manage to say as you look back up at him.

“No problem,” he says. “I also need to ask you for some stuff, I don’t need it until early next week but will email you the details so you can start looking at it,” he says before giving you one last smile and walking away.

You stare after him for a second, mind still whirling from what had just happened.

“Wow,” Alisons words cut through your thoughts. “I thought he hated you? Did something happen last night?”

“Oh my god,” Hoseoks head pops up over the divider. “Don’t tell me you kissed?”  

“What?” You almost scream. “No. Where did that come from?”

“He’s never like that with anyone. Before he was cold and now he is overly nice, I just assumed something must have happened,” Hoseok says. “Plus, you two are always eye fucking each other.”

“What? We are not,” your voice raises a few octaves so it comes out more as a squeak. “We just talked?” You offer.

“About?” Alison prods.

“Stuff?” You say and loud sighs leave both Alison and Hoseoks lips. “Just normal things. Nothing I wouldn’t talk to you guys about. I don’t know it was a normal conversation.”

“You’re really good at this. Giving us all the fine details we need, not leaving anything out. Outstanding really,” Hoseok narrows his eyes at you.  

“I don’t know what you expect from me,” you regain your composure and look back at the work on your screen.

“We will just pester you more if you ignore us Y/N,” Alison says.  

“Fine,” you say, trying to think about what you and Taehyung spoke about last night. “We spoke about work.”

“Boring,” Hoseok says it dramatically, dangling his arms over the divider. “What else?”

“I’m sure one of us complimented the selection of alcohol on offer,” you shrug.

Rolling his eyes Hoseok gives a large huff, obviously not satisfied with your answers. “Get to the good stuff already.”

“Oh yeah, how could I forget? He declared his undying love for me,” sarcasm drips off every word and Hoseoks eyes widen in interest for a split second before he is once again rolling them in annoyance. “Like I said, there was honestly nothing interesting.”

You had in general only spoken about work, so there was no lie there. But you fail to give details that even though the conversation was normal, nothing interesting spoken, the fact that it was Taehyung made it feel exciting and special. That your heart rate didn’t decrease in speed from the moment he came over to you. That even though he had been a dick to you and ignored you in the office, conversation came easy between you two and when the time came you didn’t want to say goodbye to him.

“And yet, he bought you coffee and a pastry. Now that is interesting,” Hoseok looks off into the distance as though he is deep in thought.

“Is it?” You go back to typing, trying to get out of the conversation.

“Maybe it’s a peace offering,” Alison throws in the mix. “An apology for being such an ass.”

“Do you think he’s expecting me to return the favour?” You worry. “Am I going to have to buy him a coffee in return?” You think about how he bought you a drink last night too, these favours were mounting up, and you did not want to feel in debt to Taehyung.

“I wouldn’t worry about it. Although you may not have seen it, he is actually a nice guy, he’s not going to expect anything in return,” Hoseok says, continuing when he sees the worry stay on your face. “Just drop him an email saying thanks if you’re that panicked.”

“OK, yeah, good idea,” you say.

“It’s almost as if no one has ever bought you a coffee before,” Alison laughs at your jittery state.

“Not someone that acts like they hate me,” you say.

“Just send him an email,” Alison says with a laugh and a roll of her eyes.

Opening up a new email you type Taehyungs email into the send box, before debating what to type. How formal should you be? Should you also say thank you for the drink he bought at the bar? It felt weird being so friendly around him when you previously had felt so guarded, ready to defend yourself from whatever he was about to say.

As you ponder what to type you receive a new email. Minimising the window, you see Taehyungs name attached to the email, remembering he said he would send you some more work you open it and have a read.  

As predicted the bulk of the email is about the work he requires with deadlines. But at the bottom is a more casual sentence.

Enjoy the coffee and pastry, hope it helps with whatever hangover you may have. I had a nice time talking last night.

You flush at the words, not having expected him to saying anything. It seemed like such a U-turn from how he had been treating you since you first arrived. Pressing reply you reference the deadlines he had given and say that you would get him the work in time before typing out a more casual reply to his email ending.  

Thanks again for the coffee. I guess that means it’s my turn to buy next? I enjoyed talking too, hopefully we can do it again sometime.

Before you can over think it you press send. Only regretting it when it was too late to be able to do anything. Jesus, were you flirting with the man who was basically your boss? The guy that you thought hated you. And all it took was a coffee and a note at the end of an email and you were putty in his hands. God you were pathetic.

Interactions with Taehyung are slim to none as the weeks pass. There are not many more drinks out either, and when they do occur you never see him there. Emails and coincidental meetings in the kitchen are your only contact with him, and though you would never admit it, you kind of miss him. He was hot and cold with you, but when he was in a good mood you could have nice conversations that flowed and weren’t awkward. You felt yourself wanting to get to know him more, and it only pained you more when you would get glimpses of him at work. Seeing him across the office in well-fitting suits would eventually be the death of you. You especially enjoyed when you happened to stay late and he would walk around the office without his jacket, tie off and top button undone, his hair would always be ruffled by the end of the day too from his hand continuously running through it. Whenever you caught yourself staring too long at him you would mentally kick yourself, attempting to snap out of it, but whenever he is in a room your eyes are naturally drawn in his direction.

But again, you mentally kick yourself, he was a colleague, and basically your boss. Nothing would ever happen, even if you wanted it to. And to that effect, he still hated you. After your conversation a few weeks ago, you had a vague idea why, he somehow knew who you were, or more importantly, who your family was. Anger always flares itself within you whenever you think of that conversation, he was assuming he knew who you were just because of your family, the one thing you hated. He hadn’t even given you a chance to prove his assumptions wrong, you remember the way he looked at you when you collided with him on your first day, the words I know who she is still ring in your head.

But aside from all of this, you still had this attraction towards him. Though unsure why, even though he was attractive beyond belief, he was out of your league and hated you, two things that would surely put off any other sane person. Plus, you never saw him in work, let alone outside of it. You literally stood no chance, but still couldn’t help the swoon of your heart whenever you saw him.

With this thought running through your head your phone starts to ring. Picking it up you are shocked to see Taehyungs name on the screen. Shocked not only because he is ringing you and never has before, he’d never even sent you a text let alone called you, but also because it’s a Saturday. Why would he be ringing you on the weekend? What you assume to be nerves, bubble in your stomach as you press the green button and lift the phone to your ear.

“Hello?” It comes out as a question, uncertainty laced through your voice.

“I really need your help” Taehyung almost sounds defeated as he speaks through the phone. You remain silent. “Please Y/N. You’re the only person who can help right now.”

"Is everything ok?” You say, the nerves still bubbling away as you are no clearer as to why he is calling.

“Sorry, yeah,” a sigh leaves his lips and you can almost see the hand that he is probably sliding down his face. “It’s about Ben Malones book. You know the guy that I’m struggling to communicate with?”

He pauses while you nod your head. Realising you are on the phone and he can’t see you, you splutter out a, “yes.”

“Can you just come over and I’ll explain everything?” He continues.

“Come over?” You squeak the words, heart thumping in your chest.

“I’ve got everything set up at mine, it would just be easier if you came here,” he carries on as if unaware that you feel like you are slowly dying of a heart attack on the other end of the phone.

“Your place?” The pitch of your voice raises impossibly higher, and you wonder if he’ll even be able to hear what you have said.

“I’ll text you the address,” again he says it as if this is a totally normal thing to do.

There is a slight pause where neither of you say anything. You unsure what to say, Taehyung probably waiting for your reply.

“Unless I’ve barged in on some weekend plans and you’re already busy,” you can hear the uncertainty seep into his voice.

“No,” you say without much thought. “No plans.”

“Great,” the uncertainty gone from his voice. “I’ll text you the address and see you when you get here.”

“See you soon,” you say, but Taehyung has already hung up.

“You’ll obviously get paid over time for this.” It’s the first thing that Taehyung says when you step into his flat.

“Oh, ok,” you say slightly taken aback, no hello or welcome uttered, just like when he had called you. You hadn’t even thought about being paid when he had called you up, that not being the reason you had come. But you don’t protest, you could do with the extra money.

Removing your shoes on the threshold, you hitch your bag slightly higher on your arm as you follow Taehyung around his flat. His hair is particularly fluffy today, unstyled and not tamed so that some strands stick up in odd directions. He wears an oversized white t-shirt with some black loose trousers, and your heart swoons at how effortlessly gorgeous he is. Even in with the loose fit of his t-shirt you can see the definition of his back muscles as he walks and you have to look away before you do something you’ll regret.

Looking instead at the flat, your eyes are wide as you attempt to take in everything you walk past. His flat is big, and you suddenly wonder whether he lives alone. It seems overly large for just one person, looking down the hall you can see enough doors that would suggest there is a least one spare room, and it hits you just how little you know about Taehyungs personal life. The décor is nice, a few personal pictures scattered around, but none with someone you would deem a significant other. Catching yourself you redirect your thoughts. What business was it of yours if Taehyung had a partner?  

Instead, you focus on other aspects of the flat. The minimalistic, clean feeling, everything seems to have a place, and there isn’t the crowded feeling that you have in your flat. A few big pieces of art hang on the walls of the hall you walk down. You get glimpses into the other rooms where the doors have been left open. A living room with large sofa and a window that opens the room to the streets below. A bedroom with a big comfy bed, clean white sheets and large pillows piles on top.

“Nice place,” you outwardly marvel, suddenly wondering how much he must be earning to own a place like this, as well as all its contents.

“It’s nothing,” he mumbles, pushing open a door towards the end of the hall to reveal a small study.

Papers are scattered across the large wooden desk, and you assume they reflect Taehyungs current state of mind, remembering his tone on the phone and the way he has acted since you first entered the flat, hardly speaking a word. Your mind shifts a gear and you go into work mode, stepping up to the desk you try to take in all the documents that lay on the table top.

“It’s just I feel like I’ve done everything, tried everything and nothing is working and I can’t lose this book deal. I just thought maybe a fresh pair of eyes would help?” The defeated yet somehow desperate tone you heard on the phone is thick in his voice.

Standing here you remember the last time he had asked for your advice and you had pushed it aside, refusing to give it. You were newer to the job then though and weren’t sure if it was some sort of test, didn’t want to say something or go above your position. But that conversation had led to the argument between the two of you where you found out why he hated you so much. As if sensing your unease Taehyung pulls out a chair for you to sit on and offers to go make you both a drink.

Leaving you alone, you can fully take in the room. Much like the rest of the flat his office has few items and all of them seem to be positioned as if they were made for the spot they sit. Paintings and pictures line all the walls so that there is barely any bare wall to be seen. The desk takes up most of the room, a large computer sits on top and but there is still enough room left for the many documents that litter the table. On the opposite side of the desk to where you are currently stood stands a large comfy office chair, while two smaller, but still comfy chairs stand where you are stood, allowing meetings to be held here if needed. The only other notable furniture in the room is a wooden cabinet that is placed along one of the walls to the side of the desk. The glass front shows that some expensive alcohol is inside and on top is a tray with some glasses and an expensive looking vase.

You look back at the documents in front of you just as Taehyung renters the room and you are glad that it didn’t look like you were prying, though you definitely were. You recognise most of the documents as you had proof read or created them, but you still shuffle through them mainly to be doing something.

“I have coffee,” Taehyung places a tray on the cabinet that holds the drinks. Bring over an already filled mug, you take it from his hands with a thanks. “So, any thoughts?”

You are kind of glad he is jumping straight into it. It leaves out any awkward small talk, and you already feel awkward stood in the mans flat, you didn’t need any more reasons to be nervous.

“What have you tried?” You are pretty sure you know most of it, but you want to hear it all just in case there was something you weren’t involved in.

“Well we obviously started by just giving him back the proofs with all the notes, which for his previous book was fine. This time it was obviously not and he refused to make the changes. We spoke about any compromises that could be made, maybe small changes first with the hopes he would give in further down the line. We left it to see if time would change his mind. We asked him if there were any that he would accept or if it was all that he was refusing,” Taehyung runs his hand through his hair and strands start to poke out in wild directions. “I’ve never had this before. He accepted the grammatical changes but no plot changes. He was so cooperative with his last book, accepted changes or at least had a discussion about it.”

“Do you know why he won’t accept them?” You ask.

“I’m assuming the popularity has gotten to him and he thinks he knows best,” he says.

“And he said that?” You ask.

“Well, not in so many words,” Taehyung sounds less sure of himself. “But he wouldn’t say that would he.”

“True,” you nod.

Flicking through the papers you know what you want to suggest but start to wonder again whether you want to say it. He was asking for your advice but you didn’t want to sound like a know it all. Didn’t want to sound like you thought you knew more than him. But you remind yourself why you are here, he has asked for your advice so you should give it.

“I think you should ask him why he doesn’t want to change the plot,” you say, looking at him to see his face is neutral. “I think there's more to why he doesn’t want to change the plot. The story might be personal, may have deeper meanings to him that you don’t know.”

“But why wouldn’t he just say that when we’ve spoken before?” he asks.

You shrug. “He might be offended that you’ve just assumed you know what's best and haven’t asked him, haven’t listened.”

“I’ve listened,” Taehyung starts to get defensive and this exactly what you feared.

You nod, sipping on your coffee as you pretend to scan the documents. A heavy sigh leaves his lips.

“I’ll talk to him, ask him why he doesn’t want to make the changes,” he says.

“Maybe he wants the plot holes, maybe it’s part of his story that he wants to keep,” you say.

“But if it’s not what the publishers want,” Taehyung shrugs lightly. “It’s his story, his name on the book. But ours is right next to it, we’re putting our name right there with his and he needs to understand that.”

You nod your head in agreement. “I wouldn’t worry, the power of the company will win in the end.” You mean it to sound light, reassuring, but it somehow comes out twisted and you realise the double meanings behind everything you have been saying.

Taehyung not listening or talking to you and assuming he knows who you are, that even though you like who you are he won’t accept that. He’s your boss and there is not much you can say to get him to change his mind about you. He’s the big powerful company stuck in their mindset and you’re the author who wants to change his mind.

You hope he isn’t connecting the dots in the same way you are. Making your way over to the cabinet where the pot of coffee sits you start to fill your cup so you can put a bit of distance between the two of you.

“I’ll talk to him,” Taehyung says, his voice rougher than earlier.

You turn to face him and nod, a small forced smile on your face. “And if he still doesn’t listen?” you ask.

Taehyung shrugs. “Then I guess there’s not much else I can do.”

Silence falls over the room and you wonder if there is more you should suggest, something else that you can say that could relieve some of his stress.

“I could try talking to him,” you say and see Taehyungs eyes widen in surprise. “I mean if you want. I wouldn’t want to over step but I know his writing and maybe talking to someone else would help.”

You watch Taehyungs facial features change as he takes in your words and your instantly know that it was the wrong thing to say.

“Editors meet with the authors, not assistants,” his words hold venom and you step back slightly so your legs push against the cabinet.

“I - Sorry, I -”

“This is probably what you wanted. Are you happy to see me fail so you can step in and save the day, get that promotion you want,” he cuts you off.

“You asked me here?” Your voice sounds small and Taehyung completely ignores your comment.

“But I guess none of that even matters, you could just so easily go running to daddy.”

You still at his words, process them in your mind. He looks so angry stood there, you’ve never seen him like this before, like a fire burns in him. He’s stressed, you try to reason, but an even bigger part of you tells you that that is no excuse to talk to you like that.

“You think my dad would have any say in who this company hires? You think I would go to him to ask him to get me a promotion? Surely if I wanted that I wouldn’t still be an assistant,” you say, glad that your voice comes out stronger than before. You pause for him to respond and when he doesn’t you carry on. “My dad may be the CEO of some finance company, he may make a lot of money, but I have worked hard to be where I am. I don’t need his help or his money and I have never used it to help further my career,” you pause trying to regain some composure as you feel anger boil up inside you, but you end up letting it get the better of you and your voice slowly rises. “And you know what? I am sick and tired of people assuming they know who I am because they have heard of my dad. Have you actually ever met him?” This time you don’t give him time to answer, even though he opens his mouth as if he is going to. “Because you clearly haven’t. Because if you had met him then you would understand that he wouldn’t help me. He loves me and would do anything to help me, so much so that he lets me do what I want, lets me be who I want. So stop assuming you know who I am when you clearly have no idea.”

Taehyungs lips are parted, left open from when he started to say something earlier. He stares at you but makes no attempt to say anything and you are the first to break it.

“What's even more ridiculous is that you probably think I live in some expensive penthouse flat. And yet your apartment is so much nicer than mine. I mean look at all this stuff.”

You sweep your arm around the room for dramatic effect, but forget how close you are to the table behind you. Your outstretched hand clips the edge of the vase causing it to rock and fall onto the floor. The anger that was previously bubbling up within you falls flat as you watch the vase smash on the floor.

“Shit,” you curse as you watch pieces scatter across the floor.

The event causes Taehyung to suddenly leap into action, his stance no longer frozen. “Don’t move,” he says firmly as he disappears off.

Ignoring him, you bend to pick up a few of the bigger pieces.

“Leave it,” Taehyungs voice sounds out indicating he is back in the room and you look up to see he has a dust pan and brush in his hand.

“I’m so sorry,” you give a weak apology.

“It’s fine,” he says it in a way that makes it sound like it’s not fine. “Just go. I don’t want you cutting yourself.”

Unsure if he means go to the over side of the room away from the smashed vase, or go from the flat completely, you decide to just slowly back away. Watching him sweep up the mess guilt falls over you. You can see he is annoyed, you had just shouted at him and then smashed and expensive looking vase after all. Deciding that, even if it is not what he means, it is probably best you leave. You’d achieved all you came here to do, and more.

Clearing your throat, Taehyung looks up at you from where he is crouched on the ground. “I should probably head off,” your voice is quieter and softer than previously.

An emotion flashes across Taehyungs face, but is gone before you can decipher what it is. “Yeah, that’s probably best,” he goes back to sweeping as he talks.

Walking towards the desk you grab your bag before heading for the door. Looking back you see Taehyung still sweeping the mess, his back now to you.

“See you Monday,” you say weakly as you leave the room.  

You don’t hear a reply, if he even gives one, as you walk down his hall and then from his flat the door falling closed behind you.

Sorry about smashing the vase, and then bailing on you. Let me know how much it was and I’ll pay you back. If you need any more help with Ben Malones book let me know, I honestly want to help.

It’s no problem.

What did that even mean? No problem for breaking the dish? No problem, you don’t need to pay me back? No problem I don’t need your help with work anymore? No problem for shouting at him? Why were men always so vague over text? Couldn’t he just spell it out, or at least put more than 3 words in a text.  

You felt guilty for shouting at him and then subsequently breaking that expensive looking vase. Had he deserved it? Possibly. But probably not to the extent that you had gone to. You were just sick of your whole life being judge by who your family was.  

“I think he’s back to being cold,” you say on Monday morning.  

“What’s happened now?” Alison turns her chair so she’s facing you. “You two are like a fucking Netflix show, I can’t keep up.”

“I helped him with some extra work over the weekend and one thing led to another and I may have shouted at him,” you decide to keep the details light. “I apologised though,” you jump in when you see Alison about to speak. “But he didn’t really seem to accept it.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, I text him and he just replied it’s no problem. That’s it. I don’t really know what more I was expecting but, I don’t know,” you sigh, placing your head in your hands. “I also smashed his vase,” you add as an afterthought.

“You broke his wh- wait no, just don’t bother trying to explain. You should just go apologise to him now. He can’t run away or be allusive in person,” she suggests. “Buy him a coffee and pastry?” She raises her eyebrows when you look up to meet her eyes.

“I don’t know if I can face him,” you admit, head turning in the direction of his office, though you can’t see him through the wall that’s in the way. You’d been ducking and avoiding seeing him all morning.  

“Well you’re going to have to at some point. Why not on your terms and with an apology?” She makes a good point, you think. “You don’t have to liner long. Do what he did, dump it on his desk with a sorry and walk away.”  

“I guess it’s not a terrible idea,” you ponder.

“I do have good ideas occasionally,” Alison jokes.

“It’s the first one I’ve heard since I’ve known you,” you say, grabbing your purse and running away before she can respond.

15 minutes later you are stood outside Taehyungs office coffee and cake in hand. Your hand hovers over the door for an unnaturally long time, internally debating whether you should bother knocking at all. What if he’s busy and you make it worse by going in and disturbing him? What if he’s not even there? What if he just doesn’t want to see you?

A million what ifs run through your head, and it’s not until someone rounds the corner that you decide you would look stupid if you didn’t knock. A second later you hear his distinctive tones telling you to go in.

Pushing hesitatingly on the door, you poke your head around when there is enough room to double check you aren’t interrupting anything. When you see it is just him sat behind his desk you push the door to reveal yourself, but don’t fully step into the office.

“I bought an apology,” you say, holding your hands up to show the coffee and cake.

Surprise flashes behind Taehyungs eyes. “I said there was nothing to apologise for.”

“I owe you a coffee anyway,” you shrug, not wanting him to think this is a big deal.

Stepping in, you make your way over and place the coffee and cake on his desk. Lingering a second, you fiddle with the ring on your finger.

“I am sorry though. For breaking the vase, for shouting, for leaving you to clean up,” you say.

“It’s honestly no problem,” you watch as he decides whether to carry on. “It’s me that should be apologising. I feel like I’m having to do that a lot around you, having to always say sorry,” he gives you a weak smile. “And your advice was right. I’ve already spoken to Ben and he’s starting to open up and it’s all because of you. We have a proper meeting in a few hours so we’ll see how that goes, but thank you.”

You flush at his words, you imagine it would have taken a lot for him to muster up the courage to speak those words to you.

“Just doing my job,” you smile.

The ice seems to have broken. Coming here seems to have mellowed him and you feel like you no longer have to dodge him in the corridors. You’re glad that you took Alisons advice, if the two of you were going to work together you had to get over this whole issue.

“Well, enjoy your coffee. And I hope I got you the right type of cake, I had to guess,” you remember him saying similar words to you about your coffee order when he got you one.

You slowly back yourself towards his door and watch as he flicks open the small box with his cake in.

“Strawberry?” His face lights up, and your mood is instantly lifted by the thought that you caused that. “My favourite.”

You smile widely back at him. “Who doesn’t love strawberries?” You say before turning and leaving the room, making a mental note that he loves strawberries as you head back to your desk. Although what you will do with that information you are unsure, you just know that if it’s anything to do with him, you want to know it all.

With your mood now fixed you go back to your day. Alison teases you slightly for doing a complete 180 in your feelings towards Taehyung, joking that it was just another wild twist in the series. And you kind of had to agree with her, the boy made you slightly mental.

You end up having to stay late though, something that seemed to happen more often than not. And when you finally pack up and walk to the elevators you can’t help the smile when you see Taehyungs outline stood waiting.

“You’re here late,” you comment, standing next to him.

“I’m glad you’re here,” your favourite boxy smile is on his face when he looks at you. “What you said worked! I met with Ben earlier and you were completely right. I was being blind and it’s all personal. I hadn’t realised it was a book in memory of his Grandma and he was somehow flowing themes of her life throughout.”

“A murder mystery book was based on his Grandma?” You laugh, happy that Taehyung isn’t annoyed by the fact your hunch was right.

He laughs, shrugging his shoulders. “That’s Ben for you. Anyway, I think we’re at least on the right path now and it’s all thanks to you.”

The elevators arrive and you step in. “Not all thanks to me.”

“Take the complement,” he says as the doors close on both of you.

Unlike the first time you both shared an elevator, the room now feels too big, you find yourself wanting to be stood closer to him. As he smiles down at you, happiness in his eyes, smile on his face, you suddenly realise what you’ve been missing. All these months where you have only seen him look at other people this way, you now know what it feels like and you find yourself almost drunk on his giddiness.

The elevator ride downward is almost silent. But it’s not awkward as you look into each other's eyes you feel drawn to him like never before. The elevator announcing that you have reached the ground floor and the doors sliding open snap you out of your daze and you walk towards the exit.

When you reach the main door you still haven’t spoken a word to each other, yet you both naturally pause. Looking at him you search for something to say, like always you want to be with him, don’t want him to leave just yet.

“I realise I’ve been way too quick to judge you,” Taehyung finally says.

“It’s ok,” you say.

“It’s not,” he sighs, head falling down. “I’m sorry. You just make me feel a little crazy.”

He looks up at you and heart quickens. Theres something in his eyes that wasn’t there before and it almost scares you. Your mind goes to mush and you continue to struggle to think of something to say.

And then he leans in and you get the feeling he was going to kiss you. Butterflies erupt in your stomach and you lean towards him, closing the distance. You want your lips to touch, want to see what his lips would feel like on yours. Your faces are inches away, eyes boring into each other as you get slowly closer to one another. His gaze is filled with desire as it flicks between your eyes and then down to your mouth.

But at the last second he turns away, his head instead going in the direction of your shoulder so that he is hugging you. You stomach sinks as his hand awkwardly pats your back, before he is pulling away. He takes an extra step back so that there is now a good meter between the two of you.

The atmosphere has shifted, the once comfortable silence now feels tense and awkward as Taehyung looks around avoiding eye contact. Unsure what just happened you flush slightly. You were sure he was about to kiss you, so why did he change his mind at the last second? Did you really just completely misread the situation?

You could have sworn he was about to kiss you. That’s what you wanted, but he had changed his mind last second. You felt like an idiot, of course he wasn’t going to kiss you, he hated you after all.  

Taehyung lifts a hand to rub the back of his neck as his eyes continue to look anywhere but you.  

“Anyway, thanks again,” he says it as if nothing weird just happened, finally accepting you completely misread the situation. It’s the last straw in these weird emotions he gives you and it almost completely shatters you, tears starting to prick at your eyes out of frustration and embarrassment.

“No problem,” you force a smile onto your face, holding back the tears. He still hasn’t looked at you and for once you are glad, you don’t want him to see you breaking. “I guess I should be going.”

You don’t give Taehyung a chance to respond as you turn from the door. You have to stop yourself from running, wanting to get as far away from this situation as quickly as possible. Dropping your head as you walk away, you continue to hold back the tears, wanting to be out of sight of him before you let them fall.

“Y/N?” Taehyung shouts from his unmoved position at the door.

Biting back the tears and trying to compose your face you turn to look at him. His eyes sweep your face, he wears a concerned look and you widen your smile in an attempt to look ok, though you doubt it does anything of the sort.

“See you tomorrow?” His voice sounds soft and gentle and your heart cracks slightly at the sound.  

Not trusting your voice, you give a small nod. Satisfied that he saw your answer you turn and almost run in the direction of your house, tears finally streaming down your face.

When you next see Taehyung you expect it to be awkward or for him to be back to his normal cold self. But it is neither of these things. Well, it is a bit awkward for you, but Taehyung acts as if there is no problem. He is normal, which to you is weird. He treats you as if you are just like anyone else in the office, says hello to you when you pass each other in the halls, smiles at you when he walks past your desk, and has normal conversations with you about work, no longer giving you tight deadlines or backhanded compliments about your work.

“What’s happened between you two now?” Hoseok asks when Taehyung walks past your desk and says a particularly enthusiastic good morning.

“Nothing's happened,” you say.  

“Why is he being weird then?” You watch as Hoseoks narrowed eyes follow Taehyung around the office where he is greeting people in an equally chirpy tone.

“He always does that,” you dismiss it with a wave of your hand.

“But not to you. It’s weird, and I don’t like it,” Hoseoks narrowed eyes go from Taehyung and land on you.

“As much as I hate to say it, he’s right,” Hoseok does a small cheer and punches the air when Alison speaks.

“Wait, can you say that again,” Hoseok scrambles for his phone and holds it out in front of him as if he’s recording the conversation.

“Hoseok is a dick,” Alison says with a roll of her eyes, and Hoseok gasps putting a hand to his chest. “Why is it always after work drinks and late night office meetings that he suddenly brightens around you?”

“Sure you didn’t kiss?” Hoseok wiggles his eyebrows at you.

Your face heats at his words and you try to keep your face neutral as you stare at them. “Definitely not, we were at the office,” you say it firmly but your insides are anything but. “He’s probably just finally realised my charm.”

“That you complain all the time and are a coffee addict?” Alison scrunches up her face and you reach out so you can lightly punch her arm.

“No,” you whine. “You know, that I’m friendly and approachable,” you say and both Alison and Hoseok scoff.

“Nah, I don’t buy it,” Hoseok says as he sits down. “Something doesn’t add up,” he taps a pen on his chin, deep in thought.

“And here was me thinking you worked with numbers every day. Do I need to tell your manager?” You smirk at him.

“Numbers are easy, people are hard,” he retorts.

“You can say that again,” you agree, especially when it comes to Taehyung, you’ve never met someone who was so hot and cold as him. “If you manage to figure it out, can you let me know?”

“Sure,” he waves a hand in the air, though he still looks deep in thought when you go back to your computer.

It would probably help if you told them about the near kiss the two of you had shared, but you weren’t even sure about that yourself. No matter how many times you replay that night you can’t picture it any other way. From your point of view it was as if he was leaning in to kiss you, but then last minute he swerved into a hug. It made you feel like you had completely misread the situation from the start, he probably wasn’t going in for a kiss in the first place.

But even a hug seemed quite personal for him. When you think about it, the most contact he had given anyone was a touch of the shoulder or a handshake, you’d never seen him hug anyone, not that you saw many people hug at work.

And yet you couldn’t stop thinking about it. Replaying the feeling of his slow approach, the flutters that erupted in your stomach when you thought he was going to kiss you. The disappointment when he turned away and hugged you. But the tingling on your skin where it met his, even if there were layers of clothes between the two of you. The feel of his light breaths on your neck, the steady rhythm that should have caused you to be calm, but instead caused your heart rate to double in speed. These were all things that you went over, analysed in detail all night.

You were glad that he wasn’t causing any awkwardness in the office, though what he had to be awkward about you were unsure, you were the one that misread the situation. And yet Hoseok was right, Taehyung was being weird, a good weird, but weird none the less.  

Taehyung continues to plague your mind throughout the day. He doesn’t have to even be a in a room for memories of him to come to you, a coffee mug reminding you of the time he bought you a coffee, a vase reminding you of the time you went to his flat, an email reminding you that you work with him. It started to get a problem when you would turn whenever there was movement on the off chance it was him. You attempted to stop, but couldn’t get him out of your head. Nothing had even happened between you two and yet he was all you could think of.

It was 3pm when he finally left your mind. A new email pinged into your mailbox and slight panic coursed through you when you realised it was from Eve, a senior member of staff’s PR. She had never emailed you, or anyone you knew before and the repercussion had you worried. Your heartbeat only doubles when you read over the email and see she’s set up a meeting with you and Michael (your bosses boss) at 4pm today.

“Why the hell would big boss Michael want a meeting with me?” You say after reading the email aloud to Alison and Hoseok. Shooting up from your seat, not wanting to be sat any more, you run your hands down your trousers to get rid of some of the sweat gathering there. “I’m just an editorial assistant.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Hoseok attempts to calm you.

“I’m just admin. I’m disposable. I’m at the bottom,” words fly out your mouth without you even giving them much thought. “Why would one of the top people in the company want to see me?” You ask again.

“I’m sure it will all be fine,” it’s Alisons turn to try and calm you. “If they were going to fire you, someone from HR would have done it, not Michael.”

Taking some comfort from her words, you nod, it did make sense. But still didn’t explain what was going on.

“Maybe you’re getting a promotion,” Hoseok gives a small bounce when the idea pops into his head.

“Someone from HR would do that too,” you dismiss the idea with a wave of your hand.

“4pm. You have an hour and then you will find out,” Alison leans over to read the email that’s still open on your screen. “Just get on with whatever work you have and the time will pass in no time.”

You slump back down in your seat, your leg bouncing up and down in a nervous twitch.

The next hour and a half do not go fast. Hoseok and Alison try their best to distract you. Hoseok takes you to go make coffees in the kitchen, but while he happily chats to people on the way you stand in silence as your mind whirls with possible outcomes from the upcoming meeting. Alison takes a different tactic and asks you to do odd jobs for her, you fetch her a new note book, help her sort out a broken spreadsheet and email someone for her. Still the time drags as if it doesn’t want the meeting to happen just as much as you.

Finally, the clock reads that you have 5 minutes before the scheduled time. Standing you deliberate for a second whether you should take a notebook or not. Finally deciding you may as well take it you turn to leave.

“You better give us all the details. Good, in depth, details,” Hoseok shouts after you, pointing a threatening finger at you as you walk away. He is still annoyed about your lack of detail when talking about your conversation with Taehyung at the work drinks.  

You knock lightly on the big wooden door when you come to stand in front of it, entering when you hear the shout from the other side.

Michaels office is a lot bigger than any of the others you had entered in the building, a reflection of his level in the company. The furnishing and art also more traditional, everything solid wood and neutral tones. It reminds you of the buildings lobby, lacking in character and you can’t help but think how you prefer Taehyungs office a lot more.

Stepping towards Michael you take his outstretched hand.

“Miss Y/N, a pleasure to meet you,” he says.

Well at least it doesn’t sound like I’m about to be fired, you think, one possibility checked off your mental list.

“And you,” you say as you sit down in the chair offered to you.

“I can only apologise that it has taken so long for us to meet,” he carries on and you frown slightly, why would he be interested in meeting someone as low down as you, as far as you are aware no one in a similar position to you has ever been called in to meet him.

You nod at his words, unsure what kind of response he is looking for.

“Listen I’m going to just cut right to the point of why I called you here, I’m sure you have lots of work you’d rather be doing,” you nod at his words, though there isn’t any work you want to be doing right now, but you are glad he is at least cutting to the chase. “Why didn’t you tell us who your father was?”

And just like that your heart stops. Time seems to slow around you and the words he speaks turn into a blur of noise. This was the last thing you were expecting and you wish you had had a bit of time to prepare.

How did he find out? Your first thought is that Taehyung must have said, but then you wonder why he would have told anyone when he is the person that hates you for that fact. It wouldn’t make sense for him to go telling everyone when he has complained about how unfair it is when people know who your family are.

You vaguely hear Michael mention meeting your dad at an event and it makes sense. Your dad wouldn’t have been able to refrain from talking about you, asking how you were getting on, even though you had specifically asked him not to. You though the chances of something like this happening were low, but it seems all your calculations were off.

“Anyway, the reason I called you here. I wanted to offer you a promotion.” You had expected something, but a promotion was surely too big? “I hear your work is good and a new title would be nice, right? And I’m sure a bump in your pay wouldn’t go unappreciated?”

A promotion would be nice. And you could really use some more money, you were barely scraping by as it was. But not like this. The way that you had always tried to avoid. You wanted it to be due to your own work, due to your own skill, and this was due to anything but.

“I’m not sure I have the experience to warrant a promotion just yet. Surely there’s someone else who deserves it more than me?” You try to keep the words light, wanting to show that just because of who your family was, that didn’t mean you should shoot up the list.

Michael lets out a sigh. “I won’t pretend that finding out who your father is hasn’t accelerated the time scale of this conversation. And I know that you haven’t worked here that long. But I know good work when I see it. Some of our staff have some excellent words to say about you too. I am offering you the role because I think you deserve it.”

People have been talking about your work? And to Michael of all people. And though he had said that he thinks you deserve the promotion the only words that ring around your head are that he knows who your dad is.

No matter what he says, none of this would be happening if it wasn’t for him. There were people in the same job as you that deserve a promotion so much more than you. Alison for instance is one hundred times better at the job than you. What would she say when she finds out about this? The thought makes you sick.  

Everything you had been running from. Everything you thought you had managed to escape and it turns out it wasn’t enough. Everyone was going to hear about this and then probably hate you. You can almost hear the words, people used to say them when you were younger, you’re only here because of your daddy. Everyone was going to start treating you the Taehyung does.

At least he will be happy, you think. Everything he had ever judged you for has finally come true. He’ll probably just be bitter that he had started to let his defences down around you.

“You don’t have to give me your answer now,” Michael says when you don’t reply.

You already knew your answer though. You didn’t ask for this promotion and you didn’t want it, as stupid as that might sound you didn’t want your dads name attached to it in anyway.

Unable to speak though you simply nod and stand up. Michael mirroring your moves, you can see the confusion swimming in his eyes, he obviously assumed you would be saying yes and shaking his hand by now.

“Thank you,” you manage to squeeze the words out before turning and practically running from the room.

“I hear congratulations are in order.”

You jump, not expecting to see Taehyung stood outside of Michaels door. Despite his statement, he looks like he wants to do anything but congratulate you. All features on his face are downturned into a scowl and you realise that his thoughts about you must also be back to what he originally assumed, despite all you had done to prove you are anything but that rich spoilt girl.  

“Depends what you deem worthy a congratulations,” you reply in an equally cool tone when the surprise of seeing him has worn off.

“A promotion is surely cause enough,” he says.

You bite your tongue, closing your eyes for a second, his words basically confirming all you had thought. He heard about the promotion you were just offered and knows where it came from. Taking a deep breath, you open your eyes and push past him on your way back to your desk. You hear his footsteps following you down the hall.

“I would have thought you’d be happier to hear that I’m leaving,” you say loud enough for him to hear over your shoulder.

“I - What?” You hear him stutter behind you, clearly not expecting that reply.

You stop and turn so you face him, Taehyung nearly crashing into you in the process.

“You’ve always been annoyed that I work here. Never wanted me to succeed. So why would you be happy with me getting a promotion?” You spit the words at him.

“That’s not true,” he says the words softer than you expected. “I just think there are ways of getting a promotion, of deserving a promotion.”

“Through hard work. Which like I said, you don’t think I do,” you say it as a statement but he still answers it as if it’s a question.

“I have never said I think your work is poor, or that you don’t work hard. In fact, I think I have made it perfectly clear I think the opposite,” Taehyungs words continue to shock you.

“And yet you still don’t think I deserve a promotion?” You stick to your point.

“Not when it comes from Daddy,” you finally break him as he almost growls the words at you.

“Bingo,” you almost laugh the words at him, though there is no humour behind it.

Spinning on your heels you head off in the direction of your original destination. Walking into the main office the volume seems normal, people going about their ordinary tasks. And it may be your imagination but when you reach your desk and start putting your laptop away the volume in the room seems to drop.  

Alison stops what she was doing to spin and look at you and Hoseok stands up from his chair so he can see you more clearly over the divider. Both have concern in their eyes as they watch you pack up your belongings.

“I’m going home early,” you say, not able to look at either of them. “I don’t feel great. I should be back in tomorrow.”

Shoving your laptop into your bag you don’t give them a chance to reply as you turn and head for the elevators. Pressing the down button several times in the hopes it will speed up the arrival of the elevator you stand waiting, impatiently tapping your foot. When the doors finally open, you step in and turn to press the ground floor button. Taking a final look through the closing doors you see Taehyung stood at the end of the hall you left him in, concern written all over his face as he watches you leave.

It takes 3 rings for your dad to pick up.

“Y/N, how are you?” He sounds so happy that it almost makes you not want to shout at him.

“How could you do this?” You focus on your anger, snapping down the phone at him.

“What have I done?” Confusion laces his voice.

“I asked you not to interfere with my work. The least you could have done was respect my wishes,” your mind is muddled and you struggle to be any more precises than that, but he seems to understand what you’re talking about.

“I didn’t do anything. I was at a conference and someone from your company was there and it must have come out that you happened to also work at the company,” you let a groan out at how naïve your dad was, but could see that he didn’t do anything to intentionally hurt you. “They said how great your work is. Called you an asset to the company,” you can hear the pride in his voice and don’t want to burst his bubble that they were probably only saying that because you were his daughter and not because you did good work. They probably had no idea who you were.

“Ok dad,” you sigh, struggling to be angry at him anymore.

You were just glad that your suspicions were confirmed. None of this was due to Taehyung. Not that you had really doubted it, but it was nice to know that he wasn’t trying to sabotaged you in anyway.

“Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting for anyone to know,” your voice sounds deflated, your anger gone as you realise that no one was trying to hurt you.

“I’m sorry love, I shouldn’t have said anything. What happened?” Your dads voice sounds concerned from the other end and now you start to feel bad for putting this on him. Since moving away you tried not to concern your parents with too many of your problems. They had a tendency to overly worry about you, with you being their only child, and with the distance you had placed between you and them by moving away, this only made it worse as now you were too far for them to easily help.

“It’s fine dad. Sorry for shouting at you. And it’s nothing bad, they actually offered me a promotion,” the words slip out before you think about them. In your bid to alleviate your dads worries you’d just told him about the promotion you were going to turn down, and would now have to try and explain why you didn’t want it.

“Oh, that’s fantastic. Congratulations dear. Me and your mum are so proud of you and this only proves just how amazing and hardworking you are,” you cringe slightly at his words.

“Thanks. I’m not sure I’m going to take it yet,” you mumble the words down the phone.

“You should take the promotion. They wouldn’t offer it you if you didn’t deserve it,” you dad says, and you are thankful he can read the meaning behind your words. You should give him more credit, maybe he listens and understands what you tell him more than you realise.

“I’ll think about it,” you say, though you are pretty sure your mind is made up.

“Don’t jump into any decisions too quickly,” your dad says.

“I won’t dad.”

“And we are really proud of dear. Not just because of this, but because of everything. Even if you don’t take the job we still love you. I know you’ll do what's best for you,” he says.

Your heart expands in size at the words. Your dad was someone who didn’t shy in making it clear how much he loved you and though you had initially called to shout at him, you were glad it ended up being a supportive call.

“Thanks dad. I love you too,” you say down the line.

You end up talking to your dad for a while longer, catching up on what each other have been doing. Once you put the phone down you feel lighter, slightly less angry and a bit happier. But you can’t shake off the images of Taehyung in the hall.

The anger in his eyes, the hatred he must feel towards you. Just when you felt you had finally managed to knock down all his perceptions of you being a rich kid, you go and get a promotion just like he had predicted. What must he be thinking of you right now? Thinking all those times that you had argued that you weren’t who he said you were and then you go and do exactly what he thought you’d do.

You take the next day off work, falsely calling in sick for the first time in your life. Alison sends you a text asking if you’re ok and you reply that you are ill, providing no extra details. Hoseok also texts a get well soon message and it only doubles the guilt bubbling inside you.

You spend the day as if you were ill. You don’t feel like doing much other than lying in bed and watching trash TV while also eating your body weight in chocolate anyway. It’s a Friday so it means that you have the whole of the weekend to fester before you consider what to do Monday. In some ways you are grateful to Michael that it worked out that way, though even if he had told you on a Monday you probably would have just called in sick everyday anyway.

You mull over you options on the Saturday when you feel a bit better and less moody. You needed a game plan, should you quit your job, just never show up there again? But that sounded a bit extreme and you did really love your job. You could just take the promotion. But that was quickly shot down as you thought about how much everyone probably already hated you, you didn’t want them to hate you even more by taking the promotion. Plus, you didn’t really want to take it, you would always be wondering if you actually deserved it and you didn’t want that.

Mind buzzing with options, and no idea which one to pick you decide it’s finally time to talk to someone. You were good at compartmentalising and now you needed to break down some of your own barriers and open up about what was going on in your life. You wanted to have more friends anyway, and you couldn’t think of anyone that you would rather open up to than Alison. Hoseok would be pissed but whatever. You send Alison a text and she almost instantly replies with a coffee shop name and time to meet.  

Entering the café at the exact time that Alison had said, you are unsurprised to find she is already sat at a table. As soon as you walk over she is on her feet and hugging you, the action already making you feel better.

“Why have you been ghosting me?” She says into your ear, refusing to let you go.

“I haven’t been ghosting you,” you laugh.

“Short responses and avoiding my questions is basically ghosting,” she pulls away to look at you with a stern face.

“Sorry,” you sigh, knowing she’s right and you’ve a dick.

She waves a hand through the air as if dismissing your comment, “It’s all forgotten,” she says and you roll your eyes at her, though a small smile is plastered on your face.

Sitting down you tell her everything. You go as far back to explaining why you moved to the city in the first place, a bit about how you grew up and then you dive into everything Tae. Bumping into him on your first day and not understanding why he was so cold towards you, his hot and coldness with you, going to his flat and smashing his vase, the drinks and the almost kiss and then the offer of a promotion that he knew about and that ruined everything.

“Firstly, you should have told me you are rich,” she holds up a finger, counting out her points.

“My parents are rich,” you correct her.

“Secondly,” he holds up a second finger and ignores your comment. “You should totally have told me and Hoseok all these details sooner. These are the juicy details that we are always asking for.”

You had to agree with her there, you had already feel lighter, as if a weight has been lifted off you. You wonder why you hadn’t thought to do it sooner, probably caught in your own angst.

“And thirdly,” her voice goes softer. “You should talk to him.”

You know who she means by him. And you also knew that this was going to be what she would tell you, but the words still make your stomach sink.

“I don’t think he wants to,” you say.

“He said that? Because you may be surprised,” her voice remains soft. “Text him and ask. What's the worst that could happen? He says no?”

“Yeah and then things become even worse between us at work?” You offer.

“And so what? Theres not much else he can do. If he was any worse you would be well within your rights to report him to HR and he knows it,” she makes a good point, but it doesn’t make the fact that Taehyung begin cold to you is exactly what you want to avoid.

“I’m not sure,” you wring your hands in front of you, nervous.

“Think about it. See how he is at work tomorrow and take it from there,” you nod your head at her words.

You were glad you spoke to her, let everything out, you felt like you could face work now. Though the thought of seeing Taehyung still made you feel a bit sick. Would he say anything? You kind of hoped he didn’t, but then you did also want to talk to him.

You and Alison end up chatting the afternoon away in the café and when you finally make it home, the world feels a little less scary.

Heading into work on Monday, your nerves are all over the place. Though they needn't be. The sole reason they are sky high, isn’t around. You know Taehyung is in the office, but he manages to avoid you like the plague. Though you still remain on high alert just in case.

As expected Hoseok is deeply offended that he wasn’t invited to the café, but you make this up to him by buying him a coffee and filling him in on all he missed. You are soon forgiven and again you wonder why you ever thought you couldn’t talk to people about these things. Not everyone was quick to judge your background. It makes you feel thankful that you managed to fall into this job and that you had Alison and Hoseok to keep you sane throughout. It makes you realise that although you won’t take the promotion you also don’t want to leave the company.

The week seemed to fly, while also dragging. You only see Taehyung from a distance around the office. He seems to be trying to avoid you, but you were no better, once leaping into the stationary cupboarded to avoid him when you saw him at the other end of the hall.

By the end of the week you knew Alison was right, you couldn’t keep going on like this. It was worth the risk, so on Saturday you gave yourself a pep talk and by the evening you felt ready and sent him a text asking if you could talk. It surprised you how fast he responded. A simple yes and where? didn't fill you with much confidence though. Having already considered it, you sent him your address, you didn’t need anyone hearing the possible screaming match about to occur, and you couldn’t invite yourself around to his. Again, you were surprised by his response, another short and simple one, I will be there in 30 minutes.

You remain restless while you wait for him. Though your flat is clean you shuffle items around and scrutinise your flat as if you had never seen it before, wondering what he will think when he sees it. It is much smaller than his, one big main room with a sofa and TV, and a small kitchen and bedroom leading off it, it was hardly a mansion.

The 30 minutes tick by and though you have been clock watching the whole time, you still jump when the knock sounds at your door. You rush over, only pausing when you reach the door and taking a deep breath before you open it.

Taehyung looks as beautiful as ever, it’s almost like the distance and not seeing him so close in over a week has caused you to forget his beauty. But there he stands broad and tall and beautiful.

You give him a simple greeting before opening the door for him to come in. You watch as he takes his shoes off and take in his clothes for the first time. Much like when you went to his flat, he is in more casual clothes than he wears to the office. An oversized t-shirt, this time black, with black trousers, though with the top tucked in you can still see how skinny his waist it.

Standing up he waits for you to show him further into your flat. You push yourself flat against the wall so that you can squeeze past him in the small entry way, but you still manage to brush him. Suppressing thoughts of how solid and warm he feels, you soldier onto the living room. When you are both sat, closer than you would have liked due to the small space, a silence falls over you and you wonder who will break it first.

“Thanks for coming,” you cave, unable to cope with the sound of nothing any longer.

He simply nods his head and you wonder if he is going to remain this difficult throughout. Was there any point in him coming if he did?

“Why do you hate me?” You decide it’s all too much, you both know why you’re hear and you may as well cut to the chase to get this over and done with.

“I don’t hate you,” a sigh leaves his lips as he watches your face and knows that you don’t believe him. “Ok, maybe I wasn’t your biggest fan. But I never hated you.”

“Could have fooled me,” you mumble with a roll of your eyes, remembering all the times that Taehyung had emitted a hatred towards you.

“I grew up around people like you. People who have money and can get anything they want with a snap of their fingers. And I have never had that. I have always had to work hard for what I want,” your face softens at his words, finally starting to see everything from his point of view. “But no matter how hard I worked it was never enough. This world we live in doesn’t care about that, it just cares about who you know. I could out work everyone and yet someone who has the right background, grew up in the right family, has the right connections, could take it all away from me without doing anything. Do you know how frustrating that is?” You can tell it’s a rhetorical question, yet he pauses and you wonder if he wants you to answer him.  

He runs a hand down his face in frustration. You remain quiet, knowing he has more to say and that he is just pausing to gather his thoughts.

“And then I bumped into you,” he looks up at you and your stomach flutters slightly at the look in his eyes. “And I knew who you were, could recognise you from pictures I have seen of you and your family,” you wonder how and when he would have seen these pictures, but push the thought from your mind, it wasn’t important at the moment. “And I thought here we fucking go, the people I thought I had finally gotten away from but there you stood. But then I got to know you and you were nothing like I thought. And that kind of made me hate you more. I started to like the sort of person who I had always thought that I hated.”

He finishes his speech and you realise your forehead has creased in confusion. His words throwing up more questions then they answered. He likes you? Your heart fluttered when you heard those words, but then immediately fell flat when he said he hates you all the same.

You open and close your mouth a few times as you search for the first question you want to ask, there are just so many flying around your head you struggle to know where to start. Taehyung continues to watch you with a softness you had never seen on his face before.

“You’re hard to read Y/N,” he repeats the words he once told you in the elevator. You remember being confused by them then and you still don’t understand them now. “I thought you were like all the other rich kids I knew, and you have the same mannerisms as them. The way you carry yourself makes you stick out like a sore thumb. But then when I actually spoke to you, you were nothing like what I was expecting. Everything you do is the opposite of what I think you’re going to do.”

His clarification doesn’t do much to help your confusion. Does this guy like you or hate you?

“You should take the promotion,” his words shock you.

“What?” This final piece of information is finally enough to get you speaking. The man that hated you and thought you were just a rich kid is telling you to take the promotion that he was so angry with you for getting?

“Your work is good. You basically fixed the problem I had with Ben Malone, something I couldn’t do and yet you could see the problem straight away. You should take the promotion,” he repeats.

“I was just a fresh pair of eyes, nothing else,” you defend him. “And I’ve already turned the promotion down. I emailed Michael this week to tell him,” you admit.

“Well just retract your email. Tell him you’ve thought about it some more and if the offer still stands you want to take it,” Taehyung gives you a small reassuring smile and the effect causes his whole face to light up. “I’m pretty sure if you went back to Michael the offer would still be there.”

“Why are you saying this?” You can’t take it, one minute he’s angry at you, the next he’s routing for you to do something he was so angry about. One minute he’s telling you he likes you, but that that fact causes him to hate you more.

“Because your work is good,” he says and then sighs, pausing as if considering whether to carry on. “Because you should ignore me and any other idiot that thinks you don’t deserve it. Michael wouldn’t offer you a promotion on the fact of who your dad is alone, I know him and he values good work. And who cares how you got it?”

“I thought you cared?” You say and don’t miss the flash of surprise that goes across Taehyungs face.

“Well you shouldn’t care about me,” he half mumbles the words.

“You and all the other idiots,” you smile, repeating his words back at him. “Was it you that told him that my work is good?” Michaels words from your meeting have been going around your head for a while, someone spoke to him about you and Taehyung is the only person who would fit.

He gives a small shrug in answer, and though it’s not confirming anything, the fact he doesn’t say anything tell you everything you need to know. “I’ve been stupid,” he becomes more serious as he talks. “I recognised you when I first saw you and I judged you before I knew you. And then it started to frustrate me when I saw your work and you proved that you weren’t who I thought you were, I hate to be proved wrong. You drove me insane and I took that out on you and I wasn’t fair.”

“I drove you insane?” Your face scrunches in confusion, heart panging in your chest at his words.

His eyes dart around the room avoiding you before they finally do settle on you and you see a fire behind them. The sight makes your heart quicken and when he seems to shuffle closer to you, you think you might be having a heart attack.

“You’re so smart, and funny, and easy to talk to,” your face heats up at his words and you don’t miss the way his body starts to lean in towards you. “And Jesus do you realise the effect those blouses have on the male population of our office? I think Jimin received 30 messages asking if HR could do anything about it because you were causing such a distraction.”

You shuffle uncomfortably at his words. You remember the blouse he was talking about, the neck line scooped low, but you had thought it appropriate for work as it didn’t reveal anything, you just had to be careful when you bent over. But you do remember a snarky comment Hoseok had made about it, but that was Hoseok, he was always making crude jokes.

“You drive me insane,” he repeats the words.

For a second time you felt like he is going to kiss you. Unlike last time, you are right. He leans down and gently kisses you. His mouth is tender but firm and has a taste that you feel like you could easily get addicted to. It is all over too quickly though, one minute his lips are on yours and the next they are retreating backwards. You attempt to chase them but are too slow and they are soon out of your reach.

Opening your eyes, you look up at him and see concern written all over his face.

“What’s the matter?” You reach a hand up and push a stray piece of hair out of his eyes, something you’ve wanted to do since you first saw him, but only now have the confidence to do.

His eye close as your fingers ghost his forehead. “I don’t want to force you into anything,” his voice is gravelly as if he hasn’t spoken in a while.

“You’re not forcing me into anything,” you say softly, your hand coming to rest on his cheek.

He keeps his eyes closed, and you can see him taking deep breaths. Silence falls over the two of you and you can see that he is thinking over everything, so you decide to wait for him to talk first. When he finally opens his eyes it’s almost like there’s a fire burning within them and it takes everything you have not to pull away from him.

“Sod it,” he breaths out before he lips are once again on top of yours.

The second kiss has more urgency behind it, as if it is making up for all the lost time. Taehyungs lips mould around yours and when they part slightly and you feel the flick of his tongue against his lips you can’t help the noise that escapes your throat.

As if spurred on by the noise, Taehyungs hands find your hips and he starts backing you up until you are almost lying on the sofa. Taehyung pushes himself on top of you so that you can feel every inch of his body against his. His hands travel up the side of your body until he reaches your chin. Angling your head up he removes his lips from yours, only to reattach them to your neck. The noises that leave you sound inhuman and you would be embarrassed if you weren’t so distracted.  

“I’ve wanted to do this for so long,” he says in-between kisses to your neck. “That first day when you walked in with that ridiculously tight skirt, I knew you’d be trouble for me.”

“I wanted you too,” You pant, hands running through his hair in an attempt to keep him as close to you as possible, though he was making no move to get away.

He pulls away from you so that he can look in your eyes. His gaze is intense but holds something else that doesn’t make you scared.  

“Are you sure you want this?” he says, his eyes boring into yours as if to find an answer there. “I know I’ve been a dick to you and was too quick to judge you, to assume that I knew who you were. But I’m also your colleague, I don’t want to do anything if this will make you uncomfortable.”

“That’s why you held back? Because we work together?” You almost laugh at how stupid you’ve both been. “I won’t regret it,” you whisper.

“You’re not anything like I expected,” he lightly kisses you, and this time you pull away.

“And what am I?” You smile, eyebrows raised.

“Kind, dedicated, strong willed, bright; the complete opposite to everything I thought you were. You’re a good person Y/N,” he pauses a second and you wonder if he was going to say anything else. “But you’re also insanely beautiful, stunning, radiant, captivating, gorgeous."

“You can tell you’re an editor,” you laugh.

“Every eye in the room is always on you,” he ignores your comment. “And I hate it. You drive me insane.”

Rather than saying anything in reply you kiss him. The atmosphere has shifted, there is no longer the desperation to be close to one another. Movements have slowed, but the kiss still feels passionate as if all your unsaid feelings are being told through your kiss.

Your hands roam from Taehyungs hair down to his shoulders and then carry on to his chest. Fingers fiddle with the buttons of his shirt and it takes you time but finally you have them all undone and can spread your fingers across the expanse of his chest. As if spurred on by the action, he shrugs off his shirt before he is gently pulling your top over your head. His eyes roam your body and you refrain from covering yourself.

“So beautiful,” he whispers before his lips are once again on yours.

It doesn’t take long before your hands are travelling lower. This time your fingers fumble with the buttons of his trousers and when he realises, he releases your lips with a huff.

“Bedroom?” He asks and you think it might be the most sensible thing he’s said all night.

Taking his hand, you drag him to your room and only let go when you are at the edge of your bed. Turning around you look at him as you lower yourself onto the bed and watch his eyes explore your body. You’ve never felt overly confident about your body, but the way that Taehyung is marvelling over you, you feel like you could show him anything and not be afraid.

Taking a step towards you, he lowers himself to a kneel, his hands run up your legs until they reach your waist. He keeps eye contact as he undoes your button and then your zip, dragging your trousers down your legs until you are only left in your underwear. Standing up, he undoes his own trousers, letting them drop onto the floor before he is lowering himself onto you.

Skin now on skin, you still feel like you are missing something as he slowly grinds against you. Your hands can’t get enough of him, wondering the mass of skin on his body, every part of it smooth and hard and you wonder if you have ever felt anything so perfect. Finally snapping, you push him until he is on his elbows looking down at you, a worried expression on his face.

Before he can say anything you wriggle from underneath him so your hand can reach your nightstand. “Condom,” you whisper to him when you return with a foil packet and you see the relief wash over his face.

Pushing down his boxers, you shimmy out of your underwear and watch as he rolls the condom on, a flutter of anticipation at the sight.

Lips back on you, it’s only seconds before you feel him pushing into you, neither of you have enough restrain to wait any longer. Your head rolls back in pleasure and Taehyung takes advantage pressing his lips to your neck as he starts to move his hips. Hands in his hair, tugging and pulling, you feel his hot breath on his neck and you can hear his name rolling off your tongue as if in worship. His hips seem to snap into action, going impossibly faster and harder and you lose yourself in him.

Your only thoughts are him. Nothing else matters apart from him, as you feel all of him. You forget all the bad, all the negativity you have ever felt towards him, all the things that you didn’t understand, all the annoyance because he seemed to hate you. Instead you focus on now, the fact that right now in this moment everything feels right, and that’s all that matters.

Taehyungs head raises from your neck and his eyes make contact with yours. His hand reaches out so that his fingers entwine with yours. And then his other hand reaches down for your knee and lifts it up, changing the angle so that he is diving into you ever deeper and you almost want to scream at the sensation.

Finally snapping, pleasure shudders through you and you make sure you are locked on Taehyungs eyes as you do. It only takes a few more seconds before Taehyung is following you and you have never seen anything so beautiful. Collapsing on top of you, you remain locked together, hands still wrapped around one another, breaths panting lightly for air.

Rolling off of you, you almost whine at the loss, but Taehyung doesn’t go far. Lying beside you, his hands never lose contact, pulling you so that your head is resting on his chest.

“You truly are beautiful,” Taehyung whispers into your hair and you smile at his words.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” you say.

Silence falls over the two of you and for once you don’t feel the need to fill it. You trace unseen patterns on his chest as you feel his fingers lightly trail up and down your arm. Feeling sleep start to take over you, you press a kiss to his chest before lifting yourself so you can look at him. Your eyes search his face in the hopes you’ll see an answer to your unasked question. As if sensing your sudden nerves Taehyung gives you an encouraging smile.

“Stay?” It’s a simple word but worry still flickers in your stomach at his answer.

A wider, more boxy smile takes over Taehyungs face and your heart does a small flip at the sight. “Of course,” he says before pulling you down for a kiss.

Head going back to his chest you wonder why you were so nervous in the first place, but then you never could read Taehyung. Sleep takes over you quickly as you lay in his arms.

You have sex two more times that night. Once when you wake up to him already hard, you already aching for him. It was fast, hard, desperate and full of lust and desire. The second time was an hour or so after that. After talking about everything and nothing, Taehyung interrupts you, mid-sentence, about your plans for the weekend. It was slower and more intense, and there seemed to be almost a love behind it.

When you wake the next day you’re tangled in Taehyungs embrace. You manage to get up and go to the bathroom without waking him, and when you come back with some drinks and food from the kitchen he is sat up and waiting for you. His still bare torso sticks out from the duvet, and it is a sight that you think you could never tire of. He pulls the duvet back enough so that you can jump under and then he is pulling you so that there is no distance between the two of you.

Handing him a drink, you popped open the bag of chocolate brioche buns.

“Not the healthiest, but it’s all I have in,” you say as you offer him the bag.

“I need it to regain my strength after last night,” he picks one out of the bag and gives you a wink and you try not to feel embarrassed. “But seriously. I had a good night,” and in a flash the cheekiness has gone.

“It was good,” you nod, trying to remain nonchalant, part of you worried you’ll scare him away.

Placing his cup and bun on the bedside table he takes your cup and does the same. Hands now free, they go to your chin and lift it up so he can fully see your face. Then leaning in his lips attach to yours and he drinks you in. The kiss is short and he is pulling away and looking at you with the same intense stare, finger running along your bottom lip.

“Are you happy?” He asks.

Your eyes search his as if you can find the answer there, but don’t hesitate when you say, “Extremely. Are you?” You can’t help but return the question.

“Like never before,” he says before pulling you into him, lips in your hair.

[castleoikawa]

‧₊◜ # breath

↳  ❝ i am so incredibly sorry that i fell in love with you, it was never my intention. ❞ 

—description you had never meant to fall in love with the king, his fiery temper and cold demeanor would turn anyone away. yet, the childhood memories seemed to stay with you both.

—pairing king katsuki bakugou x castle stable girl reader

—warnings aged up characters, swearing, angst, fluff

—word count 3k

—authors note my first request! i hope that you enjoy this! :D

masterlist | unedited

Your job was rather boring. You would attend the stables, slaving away to maintain the horses for each of the king and his court. Your day would consist of constant heat, moving, and cleaning up only to start again right after. 

You seemed to always be moving. You would be on a horse, gliding through the acres of land; or you would be feeding them, grooming them, cleaning their hooves and applying new horseshoes. 

Yet, everything seemed to freeze whenever King Katsuki Bakugou would be in your presence. Everything would be in utter standstill. Everything except the beating of your heart that ricocheted against your ribs.

He was an excellent rider; he had to be, being King and all. 

While you were a child, Katsuki would sneak into the stables at dusk and steal them for midnight rides. You lived at a small cottage next to the stables, a small shack made of wood and stone behind the castle. So you always noticed when he would appear in the late morning hours with winded hair and flushed cheeks.

Those were the fleeting moments in which you witnessed the true him.

It continued into the preteen years as well. When his parents would tell him to rest in his bedroom, he would run to the stables and steal his gorgeous black horse named Hades and disappear into the night.

You would watch from your window, eyes gazing at the royalty as if he were a rare bird that you were afraid of scaring off.

“You stare a lot.” He caught you once. He was walking back towards the castle, between the stables and your home. You only blinked in response, pretending that you were invisible.

A small interaction that lead to more.

During the day, Katsuki would pretend to be uninterested and unaware of you.

When he would arrive with his parents, the King and Queen, for their midday rides throughout the week, Katsuki would stand with his back straight and hair brushed. He did not even look like the kid you knew, primed and pampered and perfect for his royal status.

He would ride his horse alongside his parents through the trails and gardens. 

Yet, at night, he was free.

Katsuki indirectly invited you a copious amount of times to ride with him. He would never say it, but he would motion for you to join or say, “Don’t just stare like you normally do, Stable Girl.”

And you joined. Who were you to deny the request of the prince?

Your horse was much slower than his. He slowed down to match your speed, it was an endearing thing that you knew he did. Though he complained nonetheless, strings of “You are so slow!” and “You must be an idiot to enjoy riding like this.”

When you rode your palomino horse alongside Hades, it was as if you were riding next to the night sky itself. The only indicator that he was still with you was his light hair.

That was a routine for a majority of your childhood. Berated and ignored during the day, and free riders at night.

“The sun is rising.” You warned him one particular night.

The two of you were in the stables, just putting the horses in and petting their noses.

“Let it rise.” Katsuki rolled his eyes. “What are my parents going to do? Fire me?”

It was one time that you genuinely thought that he was handsome. At the age of fourteen, he was confident and bright. And as the sun rose, the golden hue reflected off of his skin as if he owned the sun itself.

“Mom, why does that girl have shit on her?” Katsuki once asked the Queen directly in front of you. The two of you were around the age of seven, perhaps eight.

The Queen only rolled her eyes. “Because that’s what her job is, stupid boy. She works in cleaning up the horse shit.”

“That’s fucking disgusting.” Katsuki said. You felt anger boil in your chest. 

“Continue to use words like that and it will be one of your chores.” The Queen threatened. 

He was one of power and authority. Katuski Bakugou was one of strict rules and temper tantrums that left the castle in fear. Because he was to be feared, he could flick his wrist and you would lose your head.

Those moments of childhood were far forgotten. A lost prince replaced by a king.

You should be pissed at the king. For years, you had been a secret. A nightly visitor that shared secrets under the moon. It was as if none of that had happened.

But you knew that he had more responsibilities than some girl who worked in his horse stables. He was to rule his kingdom, marry a wealthy girl from another kingdom to merge powers, and live his life of royalty.

You were to attend to the horses.

“That’s my horse.” Katsuki’s voice echoed through the stables, deep and loud against the near silence.

You realized that it was his horse that you were cleaning. You were too focused on your work to notice.

With the trimmer in your hand, you wiped the mud onto your pants. “If you plan to ride her, it’ll be a couple more minutes. I’m replacing the horseshoes right now.”

“You will make the king wait?” He inquired.

You leaned on the wall from inside of the stable. “I will.”

There was a moment of silence. He stood with his back straight and crown sitting atop his light hair, hands clasped behind his back. His cruel handsomeness peered at you in the afternoon sun.

You knew that you should not talk to him that way, and request instead of demand. You knew that he was debating on whether to hang or burn you for disrespecting him.

But instead, he said, “Carry on then. I will wait.”

You watched him for a couple of extra seconds before returning to your work. He said nothing else as he watched and waited.

He was to be married soon.

There was a three day festival both in the castle and along the streets. The princess is from another kingdom across the lake, and would bring a great deal of trading and business.

The arranged marriage meant that there would be a grand wedding in which everyone may attend, along with a week long festival after. Parties among parties.

And you were still hard at work.

When your parents passed, you were left with the remains with only yourself. An empty house and your single friend was no longer a friend. 

You could not help the feeling in the pit of your stomach. One of jealousy and hope all at once.

“What are you doing here?” You looked outside, as if you were being followed and needed to confirm that no one else was around. 

Katsuki Bakugou stood at your doorstep in casual clothes and a familiar look in his ruby eyes.

“You will come riding with me.”

“I will, will I?” You sighed. “Katsu-- King Bakugou. I suggest you go back to your castle. You have a princess to love.”

“It was not a request.”

He stepped back, expecting you to follow. You did.

“You did not answer my question, My Lord.” You said as you entered the stables. “What are you doing here?”

“Can you not be a complete idiot for just a second?” He barked, turning to you. “We are going for a ride. Like we used to.”

“I did not think you remembered.” You confessed, not fazed by his anger. He was always like that. 

“How would I forget?” Katsuki turned to take his horse. “It was a majority of our childhood, was it not?”

“Didn’t seem like it.” You mumbled, mainly to yourself. 

If he heard, he did not acknowledge it. 

“Get your horse. Let’s go to the trails.”

You treaded slowly behind him, hesitant and nervous. Perhaps he was planning to kill you for your disrespect. He hadn’t said a word.

“King Bakugou...”

“Katsuki.” He stopped. He looked over at you. “You should know better than that.”

“We are not children any longer.” You said. 

“That’s obvious.” His voice was impatient. “But we are in private. You can call me by my name.”

“That is the issue here.” You sat on your horse beside him, glancing at the open field. “We should not be in private.”

When there was no reply, you stole a glance at him. He was absolutely regal despite being in casual clothes. Black shirt and cloth pants almost blending into his horse. His light hair and ruby eyes seem to glow, matching the golden circular crown on his head.

He did not look as he usually did.

“The sun is rising.” His eyes were on the horizon, the darkness being covered in light. 

You smiled. For the first time in a long time, you smiled. You thought that you caught a rise in the corners of his lips as well. 

“Let it rise.” You said. 

And he did smile, a full smile that you hadn’t witnessed since a child. 

You knew at once that you were in love. It crushed into your chest as if it were beaten into you. It had always been love. In love with the king, in love with someone to be married, and in love with faded memories.

He came back at nights again. The saying was correct, history repeats itself.

You would run through the trails and the garden and end at the field, one that overlooked a hill of flowers. It was the same flower field you would end up as children.

“Run with me!” Katsuki would cheer, snatching your hand and bringing you into the flowers. Stubby child legs and chubby cheeks.

You would giggle and follow him as you always did, struggling to catch up to the fiery boy. The flowers would bend beneath your feet but neither of you cared. 

Cold night winds hit your faces, the mixture of that and laughing leaving you both out of breath and with reddened cheeks.

It seemed like lifetimes ago.

You went to one party. One.

You dressed in the one dress you had, your mother’s dress. She wore it to every formal event that you could remember. 

The castle was absolutely stunning, pristine whites and clean floors. Even in your dress and heels, you felt underdressed. You were sure that you smelled of stables and dirt.

“You were not there last night.” A voice said from behind you.

You were talking to one of the cooks, both of you laughing and exchanging jokes about working in the castle. You couldn’t remember the last time you had social interaction this much. It was enlightening.

King Katsuki Bakugou looked more stunning than you could imagine. A red cloak with fur around his shoulders, white and black fitted suit, hair styled to hold his crown in perfection. Rings decorated his fingers and earrings ran along his ears.

He excused the cook from the conversation, leaving the two of you alone in the corner. 

“You will draw attention, talking to me in public.” You told him. 

He scoffed. “It’s my party. I will draw attention if I speak to anyone.” He paused. “You look different, I almost did not recognize you.”

“It’s because you only ever see me in my work clothes or my pajamas.” You semi joked.

When someone walked by, Katsuki’s voice grew louder. “You don’t smell like shit this time, either. I wonder if you made that dress or found it.”

“Hm.” You glared. “Very performative. Must be easy to keep up the scary King act, huh?”

“You’re being rather informal to me today, especially for someone in public.” He said, but his tone was warning.

“Were you not the one who visits me at night and asks me to be informal?” You asked. “That was embarrassing, what you just did.”

“Oh, suck it up. It can’t be worse than what you do on the daily.” Katsuki’s eyes flicked to yours. 

“I would rather clean up horse shit for hours than be berated in front of the castle workers.” You told him, stepping around him to meet with some of the maids.

You ignored the King for days.

It was a rather stupid plan, him being of his position. But you were both petty and angry with him. 

For someone who knew you since you were a child, for someone who met you every day, and for someone who you knew to be warm and not cold... he really did have two faces.

“Open this door.” He ordered, voice casting throughout your house from outside of the door. 

You flung the door open. “Go by yourself.”

“She lives.” Katsuki didn’t even have his crown on this time, just a shirt and clothes pants. “Come. You’re being stubborn.”

“I’d rather not.” You moved to close the door.

“It is as if you want to piss me off and fire you.”

“Go on and fire me then.” You threatened. “Try to find someone else who would take care of your precious horse as I have. Or meet you in the night as I have. Or...”

Something shut you up. A pressure against your lips forced them closed.

It took you a moment to realize that he was kissing you. Katsuki Bakugou, the King, was kissing you. 

You kissed him back. 

Falling into patterns, it would seem, was your specialty.

The nightly rides turned into kisses and smiles. The two of you would ride only to stop and end in the grass. 

You thought of his wife, of his title. You thought of your job, your title. You thought of everything. Yet every thought would cease when he would grab your face and place a kiss to your lips.

You hated it.

Every time you met in public, he would act as if he knew nothing of you. 

One particular morning, he arrived with the newly appointed Queen. His wife.

“It is disgusting here, Katsu.” She complained, lifting her dress to avoid the mud that littered the ground. 

“You said that you wanted to learn to ride.” Katsuki said. “I told you to wear pants.”

He turned to you, not looking you in the eye as you brushed your horse. 

“Is Maple available to ride?”

Maple. His mother’s old horse, a perfect chocolate brown and very calm. 

“She is, and she’s freshly clean.” You said. Your mind flashed with memories of his lips on yours only hours ago. “Maple and Hades, My Lord?”

“Yes.”

You helped them lead the horses out of the stables and watched as he helped his wife onto the horse. She struggled but eventually managed to balance. 

“The girl who works in your stables,” She said, though you were right next to her. Like you weren’t a person. “She’s a bit gross, yes?”

“Eh. I’m sure she’s used to it.” Katsuki shrugged.

“I couldn’t imagine living in such conditions.”

There was no defense, no “I’ve been coming through here every day for so long I hadn’t noticed”, nothing but a simple, “Let’s ride. We don’t want to be here all day.”

“These meetings need to end.” You told him. You were at the field, sitting on your separated horses and taking in the silence. “You are the King. You needn’t visit a girl who works in your castle.”

“You’re different.”

“How so?” You offered. “I work in your castle. It is not my job to kiss you, or...”

“Shut up for—”

“I need to say what I need to say.” Your voice was soft. “And I believe that...”

“ —just a moment.” He cut you off. “You are different. You always have been.”

“Is that why you only ever meet me in the dead of night?” You asked. “Or berate me during the day? I am not stopping these meetings and this friendship just to save your reputation in case we get caught. I am stopping them because I cannot take your constant changes.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” He rose his voice. He jumped off of his horse only to pace in front. “You simply don’t get it. Of course you wouldn’t.”

“You’re the King, Katsuki.” You said from above him. “I get that you have to—”

“Do the years not mean anything to you?”

“Do they mean anything to you?” You asked. “For years, you didn’t speak to me. Didn’t visit or see me as a person. For years I waited around and wondered about our friendship. And you come back and interrupt it now only to repeat the same things.”

“You’re a bitch, you know that?”

“And you’re a coward.” You spit. “You create false memories with me every single day.”

Katsuki went silent, looking up at you before mounting his horse again. 

“I did not mean for this to happen.” He spoke in a single breath. He did not look at you. “I am so incredibly sorry that I fell in love with you, it was never my intention.”

He disappeared back into the trees, as he always did.

​please do not copy, repost, or steal anything created and posted by me © castleoikawa 2021

[brekkerism]

BASIC INSTINCT (Part 1 - A Spencer Reid Series)

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Summary: (Y/N) has recently joined the bau through non conventional and rather privileged means. Couple that with a dark and troubled past, all she really wants is a fresh start. What she didn’t predict getting in her way of that, was one Special Agent Dr Spencer Reid. She thinks it’s hopeless and he’ll hate her forever. That is, until she sees Dr Reid on a rather...unusual place.

A/n: I kinda can’t believe this is my first Spencer Reid/Criminal minds fic. I’ve been obsessed for so long but I never got the courage to post anything. Well, we’ll see how this one goes. I really do hope all of you enjoy this, since I’m planning to make it multi chapters and I’m too in love to abandon it! Forgive me for not giving y’all the smut right away but good things come to those who are patient! And also huge thanks to @imagining-in-the-margins for being such a wonderful human and helping me beta this first one. Shout out to all the lovely people in the discord for encouraging me enough to write this. And also for my sweet liv, bc if she didn’t like this I would def not have posted.

Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader

Word count: 2320

Rating: R-no actual hard smut. For now.

Content warning: 12+ years age gap, description of bdsm scenes and play, swear words, brief fingering

*********

Since the first day I stepped in the bau, I knew Dr.Spencer Reid would not like me one bit.

Call it a gut feeling, a hunch, or maybe my justified pessimism.

 I knew the moment my dad told me, fresh out of the academy and not even slightly experienced at 24 years old, that I ‘mysteriously’ got a generous offer for a job with one of the best teams the FBI had to offer, that I wasn’t going to be liked by a lot of people. Because it wasn’t a mystery how I got the position. It was actually really plain and simple, and could be boiled down to one word:

Nepotism

I didn’t ask for it; I didn’t want it (no matter how much I actually wanted the position, but by my earning it on my own merits), but I completely understood something like this was likely to happen. I knew it the moment I moved back home and decided that the only thing worthwhile I really wanted to do was join the FBI. My dad was a good guy who was just trying to help me, his intentions were just a little misguided. It happens.

What doesn’t ‘just’ happen is that my dad is the deputy director of the FBI. His helping me was ‘making calls’ and ‘pulling strings’, which instantly gives my peers every reason to doubt every achievement I have.

But I was completely ready for it.  

What I wasn’t ready for is for everyone on the team to be normal and so welcoming to me, like I was any other agent. It was everything I wanted.

Well, everyone did that except him. I couldn’t figure it out why, but from the first minute he turned those eyes towards me, looking me up and down but never quite reaching my eyes, I could feel the scrutiny under the stare. Almost like he was saying “Really? This is it?”.

But with a blink it was gone, and he turned away from me and put his attention to the book in his hand so fast I almost thought I imagined the whole thing.

But I knew, I knew I saw it. And I knew that even if I didn’t want it, my body and brain would spend days trying to make him acknowledge me again, to look me up and down again, to try and prove to him what I’ve been trying to prove to everyone:

I deserved to be there. I could earn it by myself. I just need the chance to do it.

And so, my journey to try to not only be useful but a valuable agent, someone he would have to notice began.

 And it was shit.

Everyone was so willing not only to teach me, but to listen to my input.

Luke always had my back, both of us being the newbies in the team. JJ and Tara were always open to listening to theories, doubts and rambling, besides being totally badass inspirations. Penelope always had a eager and friendly attitude that could comfort me immediately, and she welcomed me with open arms. Emily and Rossi were patient, while also pushing me to be so much better, and being the best mentors they could be.

None of them even seemed to have even a passing thought of giving me special treatment or harsher judgment. It was almost perfect.

If it wasn’t for Special Fucking Agent Doctor Reid. He wouldn’t even be an asshole towards me, oh no, It was much, much worse. He ignored me.

He was almost happy to pretend I didn’t even exist. Of course there were situations that he couldn’t avoid socializing, as minimal as it was, but it was like he was talking to a wall. He looked at me like he was surprised that I was even there. He wouldn’t acknowledge me unless he was made to. He wouldn’t even correct me when I was wrong. At this point I was sure that I could be screaming bloody murder at him and he wouldn’t take his eyes off whatever he was doing.

It was the most frustrating and irritating thing that has ever happened to me. It made my blood boil over. It made me cry with sorrow.

And I couldn’t even figure out why. I didn’t know what it was that made me crazy because Spencer Reid wouldn’t look my way.

So I did what every angry and frustrated normal young adult does.

I went to a sex dungeon to drink my mixed feelings away and watch BDSM scenes. Duh.

Even though I wasn’t going there to play, and I thought I would never be able to play again, it was still a safe place for me. A place where I could see people that once knew the real me and provided a place free of any judgement. People who didn’t know who I was outside of those walls, who thought of me as just another person in that safe and different little world.

It also helped that watching, as much as it wasn’t my preference before, was the only thing that could properly get me off these days. And after everything, I thought I still deserved the ability to enjoy some parts of it.

And so, after saying my goodbyes to Pen, JJ amd Emily, and finding flimsy excuses not to join them at the bar for Friday drinks, I hopped the elevator, wondering how long would it take me to get properly dressed and drive across town, and if I was going to be able to call more of my old friends.

But all my happy thoughts of getting to immerse myself on a world I still loved were immediately clouded when a hand stopped the elevator and went in with me. His hand.

Great, just the perfect ending to an shitty day. A awkward elevator ride with Spencer Reid. And as always, he didn’t bother to acknowledge me, even though it was just the two of us riding down.

I was trying so hard to be in a good mood; to ignore the shitty end to a shittier case and go somewhere where I could try to be happy. But I just had to be met with his silence, his awkwardness, his existence in general. I didn’t want to feel like that today. So before I could stop myself, I did something stupid

 “So, what are your plans for the weekend, Doctor?”

Stupid. Stupid, stupid. Like he would voluntarily participate in small talk with me, something he already didn’t like, with someone he didn’t even bother to not like.

 “I think I’m going to go to a party with a friend today.”

Now that took me by surprise. No short replies? No one syllable answers? He actually told me something out of his own free will? He engaged in small talk?!

 “O-oh? I didn’t know you were one for partying... like, at all. Which friend are you going with? Do I know him?”

Talk to me. Keep engaging in small talk, please.

 “You don’t really know me well enough to judge if I am one for partying or not, now, do you? And you definitely wouldn’t know her. I don’t only hang out with people on our team, contrary to popular belief.”

Well that was extremely uncalled for. And rude. I thought that it was the first time he ever referred to me as part of the team, but that was an small detail to analyze later.

 “No need to be defensive or rude, I was just asking.”

 “Well, don’t.”

He was back to having that stupid blank expression on his face, back to not dignifying me with a proper answer, and that just wouldn’t do, would it?

I had a response. I had an excellent, spectacular comeback to use, but before I could actually defend myself in any way, the elevator dinged open. He couldn’t get out fast enough.

It was infuriating. So I did the only reasonable thing:

I followed him to his car to give him a piece of my mind.

Because of those immensely long legs, he almost got there quick enough to drive away and avoid me, but I would not let my stubby short legs get in the way.

I got my hand in before he could close his door, much like he did with the elevator. He still refused to look up at me but, the cheer disbelief and confusion on his face was enough of a response. Can’t ignore me now, asshole.

“You know, the only reason I don’t know anything about you, is because you pretend like I don’t exist. So don’t be needlessly rude to me. It’s better to keep not saying anything at all.”

And there it was. It was just tip of the iceberg, but at least I acknowledged it. I could actually feel a smirk forming on my face.

“Remove your hand please.”

And he finally looked up at me. All the disbelief and annoyance on his face were gone, replaced by that utterly bored and blank stare.

I actually wanted to scream. How was this the same guy that couldn’t stop talking and rambling enthusiastically about any and everything to anyone, the same person who had a perfect smile and warmth on his eyes for everyone else. How.

It was too frustrating. So I stepped back, removing my hand from his car door and walking towards my own car. It was better to just let it end already so I can wallow in my humiliation over this failed attempt at confrontation.

It almost put me in a bad enough mood that I didn’t want to go to the ‘club,’ but I had already promised Amara, who was not only one of my best friends but also happened to be dating that particular BDSM dungeon’s Mistress. There was no getting out even if I wanted to.

 And I didn’t really want to.

 ****

 A hour and dress change later, I was ready to go. This was absolutely nothing like the old outfits I used to wear for this events, but then again, I wasn’t the same girl. Not entirely.

So I opted for a silky black dress with a cowl neck and the best heels I had. It was sexy enough for a night of normal clubbing, but rather tame for a night at a dungeon. It was exactly what I wanted. It was less likely in that type of dungeon for anybody to approach or proposition me if I didn’t look experienced and in my element.

Even if I secretly was.

So I got ready, took my time to properly breathe, and left everything that wasn’t this night or positive thoughts behind the locked door of the apartment. I could come back to them later.

Right now, I was going to be happy and have fun.

 *****

I was not having fun anymore. It was unfortunate, and I felt like somehow that this had to be the bad mood I was in from a particular encounter earlier. I just couldn’t find anything that excited me the way I wanted it to. I had made the rounds with Amara, and she had showed me all of the new rooms and new toys before every space got occupied with busy couples and groups.

It was beyond fun exploring before the spaces were being actually used, and imagining what each person would get out of those rooms. It was a pleasant and happy feeling.

But soon enough the dungeon got filled with more and more people, and each room was occupied and used. Most were open for all that wanted to watch, but each scene I passed failed to get my attention. It was especially more daunting and lonely when Amara left to put on a show with her girlfriend in the main room.

And as pretty and wonderful as they looked, I just didn’t feel like watching a couple as in love as Amara and Celeste performing tonight. It was just... a little too much for me. After everything, most loving was.

No, what I was looking for was not that. I was looking for the thing I used to crave. The thing that used to keep me going at all times of the day.

I was looking for fucking. Not couples making love, not couples having sex, not pet play, not elaborate scenes or people using toys so strange and complicated I couldn’t make out what was what.

I was looking for someone completely fucking dominating their partner.

It shouldn’t be impossible to find. Not on a Friday night, and not in a club this good.

And I did. I finally found it.

The dom had his back to the audience and the door with the little window I was watching through. He was turned toward his sub standing on the side while she spread her legs on the bed, her hands tied up to the headboard, showing her pussy to the audience along the wall. It was the perfect scene for me. In fact, too perfect.

She even looked a little like me, in fact. Same build, similar hair. It got me even more excited to watch this through. I took a deep breath and finally opened the door. Stepping in, I leaned against the door, having a direct view to the bed.

And god did I want to watch.

The dom still had his back to us,but I wasn’t watching him. Rather, I watched the girl’s cunt and how he was fingering it, not saying anything for her or us yet.

He has really nice hands.

Really, really nice. In fact I don’t think I’ve seen such nice hands since –

Not the time!

The girls face looked rather blissful, and I imagined three of those pretty and long fingers should be doing just the trick for her.

But then she did something that displeased him.

She moaned. Loudly.

The sound was immediately followed by a sharp slap in her face.

Fuck, that made me wet.

But before I could even entertain the idea of getting my hands inside my panties, the dom spoke.

He spoke in a voice I almost never heard directed towards me, but could pick out in any crowd.

He spoke in the voice of the man that made me so mad I almost didn’t come to the club in the first place.

“Are my fingers inside you too much? Cause I’ll fucking stop if you can’t obey and stay quiet.”

 And I froze. I froze and panicked and had to stop myself from screaming by bringing a hand up to my  mouth.

 Because that was Spencer Reid, in a BDSM dungeon, dominating a girl right in front of me.

Taglist: @imagining-in-the-margins @spencer-reid-in-a-pool @gretaamyk @prettyricky187 @sunlight-moonrise @fanficlibrary82 @blazinvixen @samanddeanstolethetardis221b @httpnxtt @reidetic @hyper-fxation @blushingspencer @reidlusts @wishingwellwriting @redbullchick

I feel like I missed a lot of peeps but please know I’m still thankful ma loves

[cant-think-of-anything]

I think part of the reason that there’s such a dissonance between what kind of character Matthew is ~supposed~ to have and what kind of poor traits shine through, especially in his treatment of Alastair, is not just because of CC’s poor handling of alcoholism (and, in my opinion, mental health issues and depression) but also because: Our first introduction to these characters happened a long ways before some major changes to TLH.

Namely… Alastair and Cordelia were basically white in CC’s original planning. There’s just no way around that. Their flower cards, where they’re not just whitewashed but purely white, prove that (and they STILL haven’t been updated, by the way.)

Also, Alastair’s hair: in CoG it was dyed blond, and CC wrote it off implicitly as a racism thing when she decided he was Persian (which I guess happened after the short story where we met Alastair and before TLH) , which would have been fine it if it was an arc written better. Except, I don’t think she realized that it would make Matthew’s comments about Alastair inherently and obviously racist, being a white author. And I doubt that it will be dealt with and named or even acknowledged outright in the final TLH installment.

Kind of the same thing with Cordelia. I’m not saying POC can’t have like red hair because obviously POC don’t come in a prepackaged set of five or six traits that are all configured randomly, but something has always rubbed me the wrong way about the way that CC writes the majority of her POC and especially WOC as exotic. I mean, Kamala as a character is to me a special favorite (even though CC did her dirty and didn’t do a good job portraying her character or intersectional identity) but I rolled my eyes so hard when she had lighter brown or “amber” eyes in canon or officially commissioned art. With Cordelia, I know CC once said she uses henna to redden her hair which is great for her, and I guess I have less of a bone to pick with that because it’s semi(?) realistic, but still. Also the fact that so much of her description as a beautiful person comes from her hair. Again that’s cool, and women of color should be loved wholly including being loved for the parts of them that they freely change (such as Cordelia’s hair) but… the proportion of the fixation on her hair as what makes her lovely rubs me the wrong way sometimes. I feel like it’s sometimes an out from CC making the ~scandalous~ decision that a woman of color can be beautiful because of the traits she is born with. Idk it’s just for me I had this long standing repulsion towards my colorings and my facial structure and white girls would tell me I was whiny about it and then I finally began to piece together things like “Eurocentric beauty standards.”

Going on a tangent slightly, but something else that bothered me was when Anna insulted Cordelia after buying her those dresses and everyone kinda treating it as a compliment? And just cause Cordelia, a fictional teenager, didn’t get mad about it doesn’t mean readers of color can’t see the underlying racism behind “Cordelia looks MUCH better in these dresses which are SUITED for her skin tone.”

I think that narrative could have been handled much better: if it was Cordelia picking out her own clothes as an act of maturity and self-realization and ownership, if Cordelia herself said (in a different way lol) “Damn right I can wear lavender ruffles if I want to and crimp my hair but I’m not going to let white fashion prevent me from outshining everyone because dark skinned women INVENTED jewel tones.” And I think some people will argue that Cordelia’s context makes this too self aware of a development but I would say that it would have been a powerful part of her development outside of her relationships, especially considering that she’s supposed to be a main protagonist. Full arcs for the win baby!

But even aside from all that what bothered me about Anna’s dresses was the fact that it was a white woman showing the “truth” or the “right way” or “saving” a woman of color, a trope which I don’t think CC intended but committed nonetheless. I think from a white author POV the thinking was “Anna is such a free bohemian who lives true to herself and she’s going to help Cordelia become that way too,” which irks me because I feel like that just worked against CC in terms of POC rep and also because that same ideology is used in an attempt to make Anna’s treatment of Kamala justified even though Anna as an out person, with racial and economic privilege and the support of an extensive and powerful family network, pressured and tormented Kamala into coming out.

I have a lot of thoughts on that relationship, mainly: it shouldn’t have been dragged out this long because from the beginning, Every Exquisite Thing, it was clear they were looking for different things. And if CC had left it at that and let them go on their separate ways after a week of knowing each other that would have been fine: Kamala can’t do an out and proud relationship and Anna doesn’t want secrecy, so they’ll develop on their own. And then later Kamala’s pursuit of Anna in the actual TLH books was I think meant to be a thing about “the lengths you’ll go for true love” but it felt forced. Honestly… It just feels icky. like this woman of color is just so hung up on this white woman who abuses her repeatedly and can’t handle her own misogyny and internalizations. And I hate that because both had such awesome potential! To me it’s less that I dislike Anna ( I’d need a whole other post to explain that) and more that I dislike CC for wanting so bad to claim sapphic rep but not wanting to put in the effort to portray it effectively- and pretty much all that entails is writing the relationship without acting like it exists in a pseudo-vacuum where the history and realities of interracial relationships and queerphobia don’t exist in the way we obviously recognize and experience.

And characters like Cordelia and Alastair are amazing and have so much potential; I think the true origin of the problems with their portrayal is that they weren’t really intended as POC or even queer representation in the first place. I don’t know if Cassie would have taken a different approach to her characterization had she known Alastair would be a brown gay man when she first introduced him, but I hope it would have at least made her more conscientious of the inherent application of colonialism and racism in her storytelling from that point onward.

I want to finally add that I’m not saying any portrayal of racism is bad. I’m saying that the racism in the story is not part of a conscious framework that critiques racism appropriately. I think CC wrote the beginnings of the narrative, decided she was going to develop the diversity point content, and then either didn’t look back at the older content to analyze it and the other (white characters) through a new lens of race and outsiderness and queer personhood, or she looked at it and didn’t know what to do with it, or looked at it and didn’t care.

Sorry this got so long! Thanks for listening.

- A.

I feel like CC handled everything poorly in regards to characters who had a lot of potential.

The fact that Cordelia and Alastair are both originally white and it's so obvious in the way every bit of racism is handled by the characters. Matthew's comments in CLS are very important and they should've been handled with the same severity that Alastair's words were. CC changing the characters to POC was a big decision and when she did so she should've went back and actually read her own material. I can assure you that it will not be handled in CHOT, my expectations for CC recognizing the importance and gravity in the words she writes regarding racism or any of her "implied racism" bullshit have gone to the ground.

Because while golden eyes are obviously so easy to write when discussing discrimination obviously racism is out of the question /j

THAT'S EXACTLY IT, women of color in these books are so pathetically rare that on the rare occurrence that she does write them they should all be given these features that aren't as common in POC and written as more beautiful because of those features. I read CHOG after I became more appreciative of my ethnic features but if I had read this a year or so ago? Or even if I had read it after just feeling insecure in general? It would've been awful. The implication is that the lighter features in POC are the most beautiful, with Cordelia's red hair being put on a higher pedestal than her dark eyes and Kamala's eyes being focused on more than her hair (because I literally went back and counted the numbers to prove it and it's exactly what happens.)

I'm sure Cordelia's hair is stunning, but it's the way that when she's described (or more accurately being sexualized) it is just her hair and body that is shown, not the color of her skin or the color of her eyes.

God the pastel thing pisses me off so much. It's not even that Anna tells Cordelia that she would look better in darker colors it's that she says it suits her skin tone. Implying that anyone with brown skin should be barred from wearing pastels. And Kamala? In the few times she is described, she's wearing dark colors or champagne gold, never light blue or purple or pink WHICH HONESTLY SUITS HER PERSONALITY. It's also the way that the dresses Anna sent her are described to be more revealing- it's weird. Anna barely knew her when she started dictating everything that Cordelia could put on her body.

“Damn right I can wear lavender ruffles if I want to and crimp my hair but I’m not going to let white fashion prevent me from outshining everyone because dark skinned women INVENTED jewel tones.”

I literally would have loved that. It recognizes that she doesn't need to follow these "rules" on what to wear but still shows her choosing what she wants to wear without making all the darker skinned readers feel like they can't wear a certain color.

I think what some people fail to realize is that these books are also aimed at upper elementary and middle school and a middle schooler with dark skin reading something like that? In a book with characters they love? It's going to be so harmful

Someone else mentioned that CC said Kamanna's relationship was complicated because Kamala didn't defend Anna: Defend her FROM WHAT? Literally what is there to threaten Anna?

These books are filled with tokenism and then praised for it. The idea of Kamala X Anna has so much potential but they're portrayed in such a toxic way. Throughout the last through books Kamala puts herself through so much guilt and regret and turmoil just for Anna to literally use her, blame her, and cast her aside. And it's so fucking annoying because it pushes this idea that this woman of color who was terrified and in an extremely vulnerable position is in the wrong for choosing her safety and presents them as guilty and shameful for doing such a thing.

I would disagree, the portrayal of racism is bad, because it is used at random points in the story and never brought up again, if you interduce racism take it seriously it's not the kind of thing you're meant to half-ass in a book thousands of people will read

I agree on everything else though, so much of these books are incredibly harmful and they are presented to a young audience so it's overall just a gross situation

Thank you for the ask though! I loved answering this, if you ever have anything else you're more than welcome to come back <3

[secretly-a-cold-blooded-murderer]

Five Thousand Miles

Warning: Angst, descriptions of covid patients’ suffering, hospitals

A/n: I researched a lot about what covid patients go through in a hospital and their treatments but still took a couple creative liberties so I apologise if the descriptions aren’t accurate. Do tell me how you liked it!

Summary: Y/n tests positive for covid-19 and has to be hospitalised. Her boyfriend, Harry is five thousand miles away from her.

“Harry, I’m scared,” Y/n confessed as she readied herself, struggling with wearing her mask and gloves while also balancing her phone to continue talking to her boyfriend on FaceTime.  

“It’ll be alright, you are taking every precaution you can. Plus, you have to get out of the house sometime, you can’t survive on air alone. Trust me, baby, you can do this.”

Harry’s voice was keeping her grounded, she wanted to continue talking to him but knew it would be impossible to shop and talk to him at the same time, so she nodded at him, “You’re right. Okay, I’ll call you when I get back. Safely.”

Taking a deep breath, she went out the door to a world of germs, people, and newly acquired viruses.

Being in the middle of a pandemic alone wasn’t her favourite situation to be in. It felt better when she had company, people who would help her buy the essentials. As soon as situations eased up a bit, her quarantine partners left New York to be with their families. She was all alone now.  

Looking at all the empty streets, Y/n was left with a weird sensation. The city that never slept had never been quieter. She was so used to being woken up by car horns and car alarms in the morning that during the first few weeks of lockdown, she found it hard to wake before noon. This quiet was almost poetic, like the stuff of post-apocalyptic films. Y/n wasn’t sure if the silence comforted her or terrified her.

There were more people in the store than she had expected, though all in their masks, she breathed in relief. She went straight to the personal hygiene section, remembering the most important item on her list, only to find that the store was all out of toilet papers, the one thing films didn’t guess would be a big problem. She rolled her eyes at the selfish people who had panic-bought more stuff than they would have needed.

She tried every store near her neighbourhood, and eventually was able to get the last set in the final shop she visited. Tired from driving all over the city in search of toilet papers, she went to the check-out line to finally buy her stuff. 

Standing in her place, Y/n noticed the people in the store, few whose foreheads were furrowed, their eyes darting around making sure they were maintaining the mandated distance from others, panic evident on their mask-covered faces. Some others appeared plain bored. Already used to the new routine and just wanting to get it over with. 

She was so lost her observations, she almost didn’t hear it, the woman behind her in the line coughed loudly, making people jump farther apart than the required six feet.

“It’s just allergies,” the woman announced in a nasal voice, rolling her eyes at people’s reaction. 

As Y/n’s turn came at the check-out counter, she found herself frozen to the ground, she didn’t know why but the cough threw her off. It felt weird to react the way she did, but she could not make herself move. She was nervous. She wanted to laugh at herself for feeling this way because of a measly cough, but it wasn’t so simple and right now all she felt was fear.

“Oh for god’s sake,” the woman moved forward, pushing her aside and placed her items at the counter. Even the employee there seemed wary, but knew he had to comply to keep his job.

It was only after the woman left, was Y/n finally able to move, she shook her head as if to shake the incident away from her mind and finally paid for her items.

She ran all the way home, even though she knew she shouldn’t have. She couldn’t help herself, she just wanted to move away from the public and into the safety of her home as soon as she could. 

As she entered her house, Y/n felt her chest tighten, as though someone was sitting on it, she couldn’t breathe properly. It felt like she was breathing through a squished straw. 

In between her wheezing, she searched around for her inhaler in her side bag. She felt her breath coming back a few seconds after she breathed in the medicine. She fell to her knees in exhaustion and took in a few more breaths to calm down.

She then picked herself up and embarked on an extensive set of tasks- Taking off her gloves and mask, removing her shoes at the entrance of her house, washing her hands. But, this somehow didn’t seem enough to her, so she went ahead and took another shower, just to be extra sure.

While in the shower, she cursed her asthma. It wasn’t usually a big hurdle in her life, but now, everything was a hundred times worse. This was the first time she had feared for her life. Her anxiety was at an all-time high and all she had to keep her sane was her daily FaceTime calls with Harry.

Opening her laptop to do her work, she checked the numbers again- seventy thousand new cases. She sighed and closed her laptop, not having the motivation to do any work. She scrolled through her social media to distract herself only to be shoved more news about the coronavirus, she let out a groan of frustration and switched off her phone, deciding to take a nap instead.

Only she couldn’t sleep. She thought back to all the plans she made with Harry, promising him to be there next to him while he toured the globe. She laughed at the situation and how no one in a million years could have guessed the current world state.

She didn’t know when she fell asleep, but she must have as she woke up with a jolt in her bed after a strange dream. She shook her head and looked out her window to see the sky dark. She switched on her phone, it was 8 pm. She cursed to see three missed calls from Harry and one from her friend, Sarah.

Preparing herself, she called Harry. 

“Where were you, I called like three times?” His voice was deeper than usual, she guessed he had just woken up because of her call. She calculated it to be 4 am in London, where Harry was. She felt bad for waking him up like that.

“I know, I switched off my phone and fell asleep. Sorry,” she grimaced.

Harry hummed in acknowledgement, “how you doing?”

She could hear rustling on the other side and imagined a sleepy Harry sitting up in his bed, his hair messy from his sleep, “Just missing ya’.”

“I know, I hate that I had to leave you like that, wish you could come with me,” there was a hint of a whine in Harry’s voice which made Y/n smile.

“Wish I had a visa for England, I really wanted to come too,” and she meant that. At least that way, she wouldn’t have to be alone.

“I’ll video call you tomorrow, it’s late here, or rather early,” what he was saying next was obscured by his yawn. She sighed, she missed him too much.

“Yeah sure, see you tomorrow, bye.”

“Bye.”

When the call disconnected, she messaged Sarah to ask what the call was about, who didn’t respond. She shrugged her shoulders and went down to the kitchen to start preparing for dinner.

~

It started with a headache. She didn’t ponder much on it and instead only took medicine to curb the pain enough to continue working. 

It was when she felt a certain roughness in her throat, did she pay attention. Her cough worsened within days, she was having a hard time breathing normally. It felt like a less severe but constant asthma attack. She took her temperature, which showed her to be having a fever at 101°F. 

It took her some time to even process what was happening to her, she initially wondered if it could be the flu or something non-covid, but she knew she couldn’t take the chances. Harry was the first person she informed.

“What are you saying?!” Harry was frantic, his forehead creased as he ran his fingers through his hair, messing them up.

“I have a fever, a cough, and I’m having difficulty breathing,” counting the symptoms on her fingers, she informed him again.

“It could be the flu, Y/n you didn’t even go outside. How could it be anything else?”

“H, I did go out to buy supplies, didn’t I? Maybe I got infected there somehow. We shouldn’t be kidding ourselves. I have to at least get tested.” You didn’t want to show him just how scared you were, but it was hard to keep your voice from cracking.

“I am scared, H,” you let the tears out. Your shoulders shook while you tried to wipe your tears as they were leaking from your eyes.

Harry closed his eyes, not being able to see you sobbing, “I know baby, but I know you’ll be strong. I will take the next flight to LA. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He promised, his mouth set in a hard line as a strong look of determination crossed his face.

  She shook her head with as much strength she could muster, “No Harry, you shouldn’t keep travelling, plus, you can’t stay with me and I don’t want you staying at some hotel. It’s not safe.”

“Bu—”

“—I won’t hear another word about it. I have Sarah, and you have your work to take care of. I will be fine.”

She knew Harry wanted to say more, object to her claims, she would not be fine. But he knew it would be of no use, once she had made up her mind, it would be impossible to change it. So, he settled for a low nod.

“Keep me updated, I’ll also talk to Sarah. She better be there for it all. You should now call your doctor, see what’s the next step.”

Y/n nodded, smiling that Harry understood. She didn’t want to trouble him. She also wanted to pretend for a few more seconds that this was not a big deal.

She called Dr Gupta, her heart was beating at an all-time high and her energy was at an all-time low. She barely had enough breath to tell her doctor about her situation who booked an appointment for her to go to the nearest covid testing facility.

She took a deep breath, wore her protective gear and drove to the testing lab which was a ten-minute drive from her place. She was already out of breath by the time she reached the place.

When she was done with her test, she felt worse than she had before. Sarah called to check in on her, but Y/n didn’t have the energy to talk so Sarah video-called her, seeing Y/n’s face would have to be enough for her at that point.

Sarah’s eyes softened, seeing her best friend heaving, eyes shut and groaning due to her chest pain. But she knew, more than anything, her best friend was scared.

“I hope with everything that I am that the test comes back negative,” her voice was tinged with worry and genuine hope.

Y/n could only nod.

The call came two days later, Y/n sat up in her bed, she had been dreading this moment these past days, with Harry and Sarah to distract her.

The test came back positive.

She fell back into her bed, cushioned by her pillow and started shaking uncontrollably as she sobbed.

She felt insanely dehydrated by the time she stopped crying, she didn’t even get to call either of her friends. She stood up with a groan, and following one slow step after the other, she went to the bathroom to wash her now tear-stained face.

The call she made to Harry wasn’t an easy one. She knew he would take the news worse than she had, and her reaction was not a light one.

“I prayed. I promise I prayed Y/n,” his words were almost indecipherable in between his cries. His every tear followed the other with a ferocity never before noticed by Y/n.

Her own tears followed suite, she was so sure she had finished up all her tears, but she was proven wrong. Soon, the only conversation happening between the two was through their sobs.

She wanted to curse all the gods, she didn’t want to go through the pains of having this disease and she didn’t want to do it alone. Even though she had Harry and Sarah standing right beside her, knowing they would not be able to meet her in person, she had never felt more alone.

“I don’t feel good, H,” she confessed. Breathing was becoming difficult day by day, she would rather have an asthma attack twice a day than having this constant pressure on her chest and throat. She knew she had to tell him, “I have to get admitted to the hospital first thing in the morning tomorrow, they say my covid could be worsened because of my asthma,” she let out in between a series of coughs stopping her after every word.

Harry nodded, his heartbeat rising. He cursed himself for leaving his girlfriend alone in the country. If he hadn’t left, she would not be going through this, “I’ll tell Sarah, you go rest,” he promised, seeing it get increasingly difficult for her to even sit up in her bed.

If Y/n was scared before, then the hospital made it thousand times worse. It was a scary sight, the covid ward was in an isolated area of the hospital, the doctors and nurses were in full PPE kits, the patients were lined up next to each other separated by curtains. She passed a room with ICU written on the glass door. With what she could see, she noticed several other patients, some with masks covering their nose, probably providing oxygen. Others seemed in worse conditions, they were intubated via ventilators. 

Seeing them facing the same crisis together, although away from their families, but forming a new family of sorts in solidarity to their conditions gave her little comfort. Those who wore the nasal masks and thus still had the ability to talk were speaking to each other, even reading something from their phones to those who were on ventilators. Covid had seemed like a situation she would have to go through alone, her initial views though were changing.

She was admitted to the regular covid ward, with the rest of the non-critical patients and would be observed overnight. She was assisted with oxygen through a nasal mask, just like the people around her, she had noticed.

“Hey, I’m Cecilia, call me Cece,” a thirty-something woman introduced herself from beside you. The curtain was partially open, allowing Y/n to see only her face.

“Y/n, nice to meet you,” she called back, smiling as much her energy would allow.

“Never guessed this is how I would be spending my lockdown,” she laughed lightly, pointing to her mask. She then followed it up with a cough, groaning with the strain.

Y/n felt bad for her, only to be subjected to the same.

These were going to be some long days. Though she did feel better knowing she would not be facing this alone. She looked around the room, at probably twenty patients around her, in the same situation as her, if not in worse conditions. She then thought back to the people in the ICU and what they must be subjected to.

Her phone brought her attention to itself, it was Harry FaceTiming her; putting on a smile, she picked up the call. 

“Hey handsome,” she suggestively raised her eyebrows, not wanting to worry him any further.

Harry did not even notice her words, he was too busy gawking at her nasal mask, “what is that?” worry coating his voice.

“Oh just my new accessory, you like it?” although Y/n wanted to look nonchalant, the pain in her voice could not be hidden, she sighed, “They are giving me oxygen through this.”

Harry’s eyebrows were knitted together in worry, Y/n wanted to make him feel better. She could not rest knowing her love was out there worrying about her, “Look I made a friend,” she turned the camera to Cece laying next to her six feet apart, “Cece, say hi to my boyfriend, Harry.”

She had forgotten her boyfriend was a big deal but was reminded of it by Cece’s gasp, “Harry freaking Styles ohmigod ohmigod,” Cece squealed, making Y/n forget for a second that she was not a teenager.

“Hullo love,” Harry greeted her in his ‘fan voice’, a smile graced her lips. “Hope you beat covid and get better soon.” Cece’s smile made Y/n realise how long these people had gone without having a reason to smile and how desperately they needed it. 

 Cece’s squeal garnered the attention of the people around them. Noticing the pop icon on the phone screen, conversations started flowing between everybody. Introductions were made, friendships were formed and smiles were passed around, along with Y/n’s phone. So, she asked a nearby nurse if they could access a bigger screen so everyone could see and talk to her boyfriend.

When the staff hooked up a screen, Harry gave all the patients an impromptu concert. Y/n had not smiled in days the way this concert had made her. She expected fear, anxiety, deaths and instead got friends, laughter, and music.

When Harry was done performing for his audience, he gave her a brief look. “I love you,” she whispered to him, smiling when he returned the words.

The next day, she was woken up by the noises around her, she panicked for a moment, not recognising the place she was in; but calmed when she regained her senses and noticed the blue curtains of the hospital, several machines and the people they were attached to. 

She made a short conversation with Cece but had to stop because she was getting out of breath. With every passing moment, her chest pain too was increasing. She did keep listening to people chat around her. Some were on calls with their family, others were busy reading books and listening to music. She kept getting shouts of gratitude from the people in the ward for Harry the previous night.

For the next two days, that kept her going. She learned about her fellow patients, Jonathan was 59 years old, his son was an engineer and he couldn’t have been more proud; Jaya was a 42-year-old woman with bronchitis and wanted to visit Paris at least once in her life. Marc was a 50-year-old diabetic who was in a band in the 80s, they were planning a reunion show. She met countless people, each with their own stories. 

At about 10 am on a Thursday, her situation worsened. The doctors had come for a routine checkup, only to see that her oxygen levels were dropping steadily and she needed immediate assistance.

She was shifted to the ICU ward. She had to be intubated and thus was given a board and marker to write anything if she wanted.

“—Yes sir, she was shifted to the ICU this morning—”

“—We can’t say much right now, but we’ll inform you if anything changes—”

“—Okay, take care, Sir.”

Y/n heard bits and pieces of the conversation her doctor was having with Harry, although since she was on medication, she couldn’t register much of it. The nurses brought her phone to her, a silhouette moving on the screen.

“Hey baby, how are you feeling?”

Y/n pondered how to describe the immense pain burning through her respiratory passage and the lack of oxygen eating away her lungs and not give him nightmares. So, she offered him a tired thumbs up.

Harry watched his girlfriend cough, her face contorting in pain and could not control his tears, he didn’t want to think about the worst-case scenario but could not stop his mind from going there. He knew how low the chances were of people on ventilators coming back. But he had to remain positive, someone had to. She needed him to be strong for her. So, he wiped away his tears, put on his best brave face and talked to her.

He called her every three hours. Giving updates to her about his day, talking to her about whatever he could. He talked enough to compensate for the silence on her part. She smiled through every sentence, even though he could not see it, even though it wasn’t visible on her face, even though she didn’t have the power to, she smiled.

And she listened. So she didn’t have to focus on Josephine dying next to her or Augusta who was a hair length’s distance away from dying the previous day. Even though doctors told her that her situation was worsening, she listened because that became the only thing keeping her from giving up.

As her pains didn’t go away, and her condition worsened further, she was given sedatives and was thus mostly asleep. Which she was thankful for, for she couldn’t take it anymore, she just wanted to rest.

Dr Garcia came by routinely to check on her, talking to her about the outside world, gave her the gossips being passed around the hospital. Even though she was barely awake to listen to any of it, she was thankful for the kind doctor providing a calm lull while doing her job.

“Mr Styles, I’m afraid her condition isn’t getting any better. She should have shown atleast some improvements,” Dr Garcia informed Harry in a heavy voice.

On the other side of the line, Harry didn’t know what to do, it felt like someone was pulling away the floor under him. “What happens now?” He asked, praying for some hopeful news.

“We really can’t say much, each case is different, but it would be better uhm,” the doctor was thinking through her words, wanting to be as considerate as possible, “is there any family of hers that would want to talk to her?”

Harry almost let out a sob as he realised what the doctor was implying ‘is there anyone who would want to give her a final goodbye?’

“No, Y/n’s family passed away in an accident when she was 16, it’s just me and Sarah,” he explained, his voice on the verge of cracking, it was becoming harder to get words out of his mouth. He didn’t want to talk anymore, he just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry.

“Oh, I understand,” Dr Garcia nodded, feeling sorry for the young girl who had stolen the hearts of everyone in the ward. She was a sweet girl, who had dreams and still held love for life even after everything she had seen. “This is not the end, Harry, she can still recover, God, I pray she does, this is not the end.” She really believed the words she was saying and wanted Harry to feel the same.

He nodded, tears clouding his eyes. He too really wanted to believe that.

A beat of silence fell upon the conversation, both in deep thought, “Harry, she wrote something on her board when she was awake yesterday,” Harry’s ears pricked up, “she wrote and I quote ‘I will not give up’ with a smiley face at the end. She is a fighter, you remember that,” Dr Garcia gave her parting ways and went back to her work.

Y/n’s words were imprinted in Harry’s mind. After the call, he made himself more presentable, wiping his tears and drove up to the church near Y/n’s house. He had come back to LA after Y/n was admitted to the ICU. He couldn’t be five thousand miles away from her in that condition.

The church was almost empty, which was surprising to Harry, given the situation, but he wasn’t complaining. He walked up the aisle, his hand grazing each wooden bench as he reached the altar and kneeled. He didn’t what to pray or how to pray, but he tried anyway. He closed his eyes and called out to God; he prayed with every part in his body, with every bone, every muscle, every fibre of being for his love to get better. For her to keep fighting. And for him to gain enough strength to deal with it all.

All this time, he had been feeling so helpless, not being able to do anything to make her better. But he made peace with the fact that the only thing he could do right now was to have faith. To have faith in God to guide him and her, in Y/n to be the stubborn strong-willed woman that she was and continue fighting, he had faith in his faith and that it would not disappoint.

He stayed there, talking to God until the closing hours. He then went back to Y/n’s place and sat on the sofa, waiting by his mobile, ready for any phone call he might receive.

He was awoken the next day by his phone ringing on the coffee table next to him. He looked at the time, it was noon, he picked up.

“Congratulations Harry, she’s getting better,” the relief was evident in Dr Garcia’s voice.

Harry felt himself getting physically lighter.

“I mean there is still a long way to go, but her oxygen levels are rising, her lungs are recovering, she’ll be soon able to breathe on her own. Harry, she did it, she won,” Harry didn’t listen to the rest of what the doctor was saying, he was too busy falling in love with the love of his life. It felt like he himself had come back from the dead. He knew his faith could never disappoint.

“Thank you doctor, I’ll be waiting for the call when you tell me she’s tested negative,” he laughed, his lungs breathing in air after what felt like a lifetime.

Dr Garcia chuckled along with him and agreed, telling him Y/n would call him when she woke up.

~

“You know I love you right? My fighter,” Harry tightened his grip on her hand and kissed her knuckles.

Y/n’s head fell back as laughter bubbled out of her, “You just told me that like two minutes ago.”

“I know, but a few weeks ago I thought I would never get to say it to you ever again. So, I will keep reminding you every minute that I love you and that you are the strongest person I know,” he snaked his arms around her, placing his head on top of hers, “I really missed holding you.”

She breathed in Harry’s scent, slowly regaining her sense of smell, she had missed this too. She cupped his cheek with her right hand and gave him a light peck.

Harry grabbed the back of her head, keeping her lips on his, deepening the kiss. When they separated, he rested his forehead against hers, not wanting her to move even an inch away from him.

Noticing her deep breaths, he whispered in her ears, “This is the only reason I want you to be out of breath. This and well... the other one,” he smirked.

“Oh hush you,” Y/n blushed, she sucked in a breath through her teeth, “Shit man, I love you.”

[bloodfromthethorn]

Misunderstandings

Their partnership might have gotten off to a bad start, but Mac has a good feeling about Jack Dalton - right up until he messes it all up, that is.

Or, the time Jack learns about Mac's fear of heights and it's still not the most important realisation he has that day.

Also on AO3

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Mac had never really been sure quite what he expected from Afghanistan and now, six months in, he still wasn’t particularly confident on exactly what it was he had found. It certainly hadn’t been easy, and he’d already managed to experience the most profound loss he’d felt since the death of his grandpa, but there was still something undeniably… compelling about it all. The way he could fall into an uncomfortable bed at the end of the day exhausted but with the bone-deep knowledge that the work he had done was important, had made a difference. That there were people walking around out there, living their lives, because of the things that he had done.

It wasn’t good, precisely, but it wasn’t all bad either.

Jack was a wrench in the works. They couldn’t have gotten off to a poorer start and for a hairy moment there, Mac had been convinced that the next two months of his life were really going to be hell on earth. Jack was loud-mouthed, crass, opinionated, and had some of the worst taste in both music and film known to man. He had little to no regard for anyone else’s opinion of him and he was more than ready to settle a fight with his fists if he thought the situation called for it.

He was also probably the best soldier Mac had ever met.

It might have taken them some time to get traction but after the first few rocky missions, they’d both managed to settle down just enough to actually get a good look at one another. What Mac had found was nothing like what he’d expected.

For one, Jack was very, very good at his job. A crack shot, backed up with a keenly tactical mind that went far beyond anything Mac had been taught at basic. He’d never asked to see Jack’s file – and given that he was almost certain the man had been an Alphabet at some point, he’d probably get denied even if he tried – but he had a feeling that the record would be long, expansive, and impressive. He knew far too much about soldiering to not have been doing it most of his life and he handled a vast range of weaponry with too much familiarity to have always been saddled with Overwatch duties.

No, somewhere in his past, Jack had been crafted into an immense force to be reckoned with. He might tell jokes, laugh loudly, and act the fool, but buried underneath it all was something dangerous just waiting to be unleashed. It should have been scary – and in a distant, sort-of-intrigued kind of way, it was – but mostly Mac was just impressed. Whatever else he might have done, Jack had decided to use his extensive training to serve the purpose of protecting EOD technicians in a place where there were enemies at every corner.

More than anything, Jack made him feel safe . Safe in a way he hadn’t truly felt since watching Peña die barely twenty feet from him. After so long in the Sandbox, constantly having to watch his back as his hands took apart contraptions designed to kill him, he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be out from under that constant cloud of dread. Jack gave him that freedom and Mac couldn’t help but be hopelessly thankful for it.

Of course, increasing familiarity aside, it wasn’t perfect. Two men trapped in very close quarters in a high stress environment were occasionally going to butt heads no matter what, and Mac wasn’t naive enough to think they’d be an exception.

Jack had been waylaid by a messenger as soon as the pair of them arrived back on base, both already worn out from a long, overly hot day in the sun. In an act of mercy, he’d waved Mac off to go on ahead in an attempt to spare him whatever bureaucratic nonsense was likely about to come his way – an assumption that was almost immediately proved accurate when three minutes later Mac saw him stalking off in the direction of the command centre.

He didn’t think much of it; Jack was perpetually being pulled in by the brass for reasons he was never particularly keen to explain. When directly asked, he’d always brushed it off with some sarcastic comment about how people just couldn’t get enough of his charm, but the hardness in his eyes had stopped Mac from trying to press further. If anything, it only added to his growing surety that Jack was a far more important person than he wanted to appear. Nothing Mac was doing was of particular note to anyone beyond what command already learned through his reports, but if someone with extensive training in observation and tactics was given free rein to roam the area under the radar for the sole purpose of watching what was going on – like, say, an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Overwatch – then that opened up a whole new avenue of surveillance.

If he’d had to bet, Mac would have said that according to the letter of Jack’s job description, keeping him safe was a secondary consideration at best. Fortunate, then, that the man himself didn’t seem like the type of person to do anything halfway.

Today, though, something was different. On the way back to base, Jack had been relaxed and easy, content as always to fill in Mac’s silence with a running commentary of his own about what he was most looking forward to when he got back to Texas, but clearly whatever had happened in the command tent had thrown that off. When he finally stomped into the dorm over an hour later, his brow was shadowed and tense, and he didn’t even acknowledge Mac’s presence as he grabbed a clean set of fatigues and headed for the showers.

Sitting cross legged on his bunk with his gear spread out before him, Mac watched him go with troubled eyes. Jack, as anyone in their situation did, occasionally had off days when he was less talkative and clearly wanted to be left alone, but Mac had never seen him turn on a dime quite so quickly.

Truthfully, Mac hadn’t thought him the type. But, he reminded himself forcefully, he still barely knew the man and regardless, it almost certainly wasn’t any of his business. Far better to just keep going through his kit, cataloguing anything he needed to replace or repair, and let Jack work through whatever his problem was on his own; if he wanted to talk to Mac about it, he knew where to find him.

Despite his preoccupation, Mac did end up immersed in his task. Kit checks were dull but important, and he was fastidious enough to make sure he did the job right every single time. As an EOD tech, he was lucky – everyone else had to do mandatory checks before and after any excursions outside of the FOB, no matter how frequent they may be. Officially EOD specialists were supposed to do the same but in deference to their unpredictable schedule and unique loadouts, command typically waived the usual report requirements and let them do their own thing. He was still liable to be disciplined should he get spot checked and fail, but he had a lot more freedom than most people on the base.

He was about halfway through when Jack made his reappearance, freshly washed but looking no happier for it. He dropped his dirty laundry in a heap next to his trunk and flopped down onto his bunk without a word, reaching out a few moments later to fiddle with the ancient radio beside him. He’d told Mac some time ago that he’d inherited it from his dad and it was clear from the reverence with which he spoke about it that it was deeply important to him. Important enough, apparently, that no one else sharing their tent complained when he had it blasting out whatever station he could pick up, even with the god awful crackle that all but drowned out any actual words that might try to come through.

The crackle that was evidently getting worse, going off the horrendous screech the radio let out the moment it was turned on. Mac flinched sharply at the sudden noise, but didn’t protest. Jack, if anything, looked more pissed off at the continued buzzing no matter how he adjusted the dials, rasping and hissing in turns but never letting any clear audio through. After listening to Jack cursing under his breath for a minute or two, Mac figured it was about time he offered a hand.

“That’s not sounding too good,” he pointed out unnecessarily, keeping his voice light. “Want me to take a look?”

“It’s fine,” was the short response, bitten out and frustrated.

Mac rolled his eyes, not catching the warning edge of Jack’s tone. “Look, I know I promised I wouldn’t touch any of your stuff again, but if you let me have a look, I can probably fix it.”

It was an honest offer – the radio was hardly a complicated bit of kit and Mac was pretty sure he already knew exactly what the issue was. If he was right, he could have it fixed inside of five minutes and he wouldn’t even need to cannibalise parts from anything else to do it. Sure the rule might have been that Mac couldn’t touch Jack’s gear again, but they’d been forced to relax that within a week of working together and recently it had felt more like an in-joke than anything.

Apparently, Jack didn’t feel the same.

“Or you’d just break it down for parts like you do with everything else,” he shot back acidly and for the first time, Mac realised the heaviness in Jack’s gaze wasn’t simple fatigue or irritation; he looked pissed . “Yeah, thanks but no thanks. Keep away from my stuff.”

Mac blinked. The words themselves were surprising, but it was the tone that really cut at him; sarcastic and unfriendly and mean . Mocking in a way that Jack often pretended to be when he was trying to lighten the mood, only this time neither of them was laughing. He looked dead serious.

“I-uh,” Mac said haltingly, forcing himself to suddenly adjust his entire perspective on the conversation. He really had just been trying to help. “Right,” he said after an awkward pause. “Sorry.”

He ducked his head and turned back to the gear spread out across his bunk, wishing fiercely he hadn’t bothered to open his mouth in the first place. Cleaning and sorting his kit had suddenly become a much less enthralling task – and it hadn’t exactly been the highlight of his day to begin with – but he kept his eyes down and vehemently forbade his attention from wandering back to his partner.

Less than a minute later, Jack let out a sharp sigh that might have included a curse, and stomped out of the tent. Mac refused to look up.

They didn’t talk about it. The next morning the pair of them loaded into their transport for the day – for once they’d been gifted an MRAP that in any other situation Jack would probably be crowing about – in stony silence that persisted straight through until evening. The only time Jack deigned to talk to him was for mission-critical comms, almost all of which was delivered via radio in a blank monotone that made it abundantly clear how little he actually wanted to be speaking with him. Mac surprised himself by how fiercely he found he missed the usual inane commentary in his ear.

None of it made sense.

Evidently he’d messed up somehow, done something that crossed a line he hadn’t seen, although he had no idea what it could possibly have been. Okay, yes, the radio was obviously important to Jack on some personal level Mac wasn’t allowed access to and maybe he really didn’t want Mac touching it. That was completely fair – Mac wouldn’t have argued against him at all if the man had just said ‘no’ and left it there. Instead his response had been- Well. There were a lot of words Mac could use to describe it and he didn’t really want to confront any of them.

It wouldn’t change the result either way. Mac had a sneaking suspicion that whatever it was he had broken had been something irreparable, especially if Jack wasn’t even going to let him talk it out.

The closest they came to it that day was during their last call-out for the evening, a surprisingly tricky little device some asshole had planted outside of a shop known to serve US soldiers. A bit of petty revenge most likely, but packing enough explosives to level the building and take out anyone unlucky enough to be standing within a twenty metre radius.

“Everyone within half a block of you is gettin’ out of dodge,” Jack reported about half an hour after their arrival. “No sign of whoever put that thing there.”

Mac digested that, doing a quick mental calculation to decide if the evacuation zone was large enough and ultimately deciding that it was. “Good. You set up somewhere?”

“Behind you, thirty metres back.”

There was a tell-tale tickle on the back of his neck that Mac had come to associate with Jack’s scope passing over him. At the start of their partnership it had made him uncomfortable; now, it was distantly reassuring. A part of him wanted to turn around to make sure of Jack’s position himself, but he knew that was sure to piss Jack off even more – he always got jumpy about Mac indicating his position whenever they were out in the field.

“I’m going to be a while,” he said instead of cracking a joke. “This thing’s complicated.”

“Fast as you can.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

There was a telling silence where a sarcastic retort would normally sit, and Mac had to pause for a second to remind himself that the IED in front of him needed his attention far more than his own unimportant tribulations. It wasn’t until another ten minutes had passed that he spoke again. “Okay, I’ve figured out what I’ve got to do, but I’m going to need some of your gum.”

He said it mostly without thinking, too used to being able to just state what he needed and for Jack to freely offer up whatever it was, albeit with some bellyaching about having to give up his stuff. The words were already out of his mouth before he remembered how vehemently Jack had been against Mac being anywhere near his personal possessions just yesterday.

Fortunately, Jack seemed to understand the urgency of the situation, because he simply sighed before saying, “Copy that. On my way to you.”

He didn’t offer any further protest when he appeared at Mac’s back either, handing over the stick of gum without a word, then hunkering down in the alleyway to keep watch with his rifle balanced on his knee. It was strangely normal for all that had come before, except for the silence that still hung over them like a cloud.

Exhausted, and with bigger things to focus on, Mac just went about his job and didn’t say another word.

Jack’s mood continued over the next few days, with little sign of abating. It would have been much easier to bear if Mac had any clue what exactly had triggered it beyond the vague sense that this was all somehow his fault, but it wasn’t like he could just walk up to the man and ask. Any time he’d even thought about striking up conversation or doing anything to try to make peace, Jack’s responses had been sharp and to the point. He didn’t want to talk, that much was clear, and Mac was nothing if not a quick learner.

After the first day of strained silence, he figured it was better to just keep his mouth shut and stay out of Jack’s way.

One thing he hadn’t really counted on was how strange it would feel now to be wandering around base on his own. Since being paired up with Jack, he’d hardly had a minute to himself – the man took his Overwatch duties very seriously even in the relative safety of the FOB – but now he was apparently free to roam as he pleased. Almost as soon as they returned to base each day, Jack took himself off to places unknown with a determined sort of look on his face and usually didn’t reappear again until he fell into bed beside Mac’s at night. Mac very firmly did not think about what that said about Jack’s newly-discovered ambivalence towards his safety. Now, after only a month of that partnership, it felt almost unnatural to be alone again.

At the very least it meant that he was free to go and eat whenever he felt like it, rather than having to bend around Jack’s schedule. It was that line of reasoning that had him heading towards the mess that evening, late enough to miss the main crowd who piled in at 7 but too early to run into the late shift teams who had a second run at things once the night had drawn in. The approach meant that he could count on getting a good table with minimal interference, but it did mean sacrificing any chance of getting decently hot food. The ‘buffet’, such as it was, would be topped up with fresh food at about 10, but for now Mac was stuck with the dried out, cooling remains that no one else had wanted earlier.

He nodded at the woman KP duty, earning an apologetic smile at the state of the food in return, then glanced around the marquee to find somewhere to sit. 

A group of camp runners were huddled together in the corner, loudly engaging in a round of ‘I have it worse than you’, but otherwise the place was pretty deserted. With his pick of the tables, Mac settled himself down as far from the runners as he could get, hoping for a little bit of peace, but with no other nearby noise to drown them out, their voices washed over him all the same. They’d taken no notice of his presence beyond a quick check to make sure he wasn’t wearing officer’s stripes and in the absence of any authority, they seemed quite content to air their grievances to anyone close enough to listen.

For the most part he studiously ignored them – he had exactly zero interest in the minutiae of memos being passed around the base – and went about the business of choking down the cold food in front of him quickly enough to avoid its bland flavour. 

It wasn’t until he heard a familiar name that he automatically tuned back into the conversation across from him.

“ Please ,” One of the runners was scoffing with an imperial hand wave, “As if Carter is anything to worry about. I’m the one who had to tell Dalton his reassignment request was denied. Thought he was going to take my head off when I said I didn’t know why.”

Mac froze in place, the rest of the discussion fading completely into the background as all the pieces of the puzzle he had been building snapped into place with painful efficiency. So that was why Jack had been so grouchy over the last week, why he’d been so sharp whenever Mac had tried to make conversation: he’d put in a transfer request to get away from him and been shot down. Jack wanted to leave and couldn’t. Of course.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise. Mac knew how he could come across, had seen how people reacted to all the weird quirks of his personality, and Jack would hardly be the first person in the world to take one look at him and start heading for the hills – hell, he’d barely crack the top hundred. And yet, despite all of that, all of his previous experience warning him that anyone could leave at any time for any reason, Mac still found himself caught wholly off guard.

He'd thought they’d been getting better. Sure, it wasn’t like they were close and half the time they could still barely stand each other, but more and more that had felt like an act they were putting on to avoid revealing they didn’t actually mind each other all that much after all. Clearly he’d been wildly wrong in that assumption. What he’d thought was increasing camaraderie was- what? Nothing but his imagination? Or maybe an attempt on Jack’s part to show the brass that he really had given their partnership an honest shot before trying to bail?

Worse than the simple rejection was how deeply unnecessary it felt. As Mac had so often been reminded, Jack only had twenty-eight days left of his tour before he was headed home for good and none of this would even matter anymore. Was he truly so unhappy with Mac’s partnership that he was going to go through the arduous process of reassignment for the sake of four weeks? He’d just had to stick it out for one more month and he would have been free and clear, and yet somehow that was still too much.

It might have been insulting if it hadn’t been so fucking painful.

But this wasn’t the place for that. None of these were revelations he should be having in the mess hall, in full view of anyone who cared to look in his direction. He shook himself forcefully, surprised to realise that his entire body had gone rigid while his mind raced in all directions, and made himself climb to his feet. There was still some food left on his plate but if it had been unappetising before, now it was positively nausea-inducing. Mac knew he wasn’t getting any of it down his throat without it making a reappearance sooner or later, so he quietly chucked the scraps in the bin, returned his tray, and retreated to the barracks as quickly as he possibly could without drawing attention.

Two of the guys were there, both camped out on their own bunks as they occupied themselves with whatever they got up to in their downtime, but neither did more than nod in acknowledgement as he made his way past them to his own bed. Truthfully, he was glad of the pseudo-privacy. He wasn’t entirely sure what he would have done if Jack had been there – most likely he would have said something regrettable – but in his absence, Mac was free to mull over this new information without interference.

A large, loud part of him demanded that he go and find Dalton right now so they could hash this out, get it all out in the open so that at the very least Mac wouldn’t have to feel so fucking stupid for ever thinking they might have been friends. He’d seen that Jack cultivated a very deliberate amiability with the other guys sharing their bunk, even if they weren’t all on the best terms, and he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought for even a second that his Overwatch might be turning the same trick on him. He’d been so goddamn stupid .

Another, much quieter and injured part of him kept insisting that he must have gotten something twisted, connected the wrong wires to the wrong ports, and really this was all some big misunderstanding because he couldn’t bear the alternative.

He ignored them both. As much as he might want not want it to be true, he knew what he’d heard and all the pieces fit together too perfectly for him to have somehow misconstrued their meaning. His own feelings did not affect the facts, and he’d do well to remember that. And fighting with Jack wasn’t going to solve anything, it was just going to upset what little balance they managed to actually maintain. Despite his best efforts, Dalton’s transfer request had been denied so he wasn’t going anywhere for another month – Mac could grin and bear the discomfort until then, even if it meant having to sit next to a man he’d thought a friend for every single one of those twenty-eight days.

The humiliation of it all was almost unbearable, and he knew just how easy it would be to let it become rage instead – but he wouldn’t do that. If Jack wanted to leave then he wouldn’t be the first, which meant the fault almost certainly lay with Mac and there was no point trying to punish the wrong man for it. Sure, Jack pretending they were getting along was kind of a low blow, but it was understandable; they were stuck together in extremely close quarters, might as well act like they were comfortable there, right?

Maybe Jack had had the right idea all along. Mac was the one who hadn’t gotten with the programme already.

Besides, he reminded himself firmly as he bit down on the emotions threatening to get away from him, he hadn’t signed up to be sent into an active warzone to defuse explosives to feel safe . It didn’t matter one jot that Jack had managed to give him that for a time – that wasn’t his job and Mac didn’t have any right to mourn its loss. He needed to grow the fuck up and stop looking to others to protect him – he was a soldier in the US army and it was high fucking time he started acting like it.

With a tight sigh, Mac forced his stressed body to relax and flattened himself against his bunk, glaring a hole in the canvas above him.

Just twenty-eight days, and he could be done with this mess. Four weeks. He could do that.

Despite the bedlam going on inside his head, the heat and the shade must have got the best of him because he was jolted out of a doze an hour or so later by Jack Dalton himself smacking at his foot. He twitched the limb out of range with a muffled grunt of disapproval before his brain caught up with him and he remembered everything that had transpired before he fell asleep. The faux-irritated expression he’d pulled on crumbled instantly into blankness.

Jack blinked down at him, a bemused smirk on his face. Cuttingly, it was the friendliest he had looked in days. “What happened to you?”

Mac frowned, tried to do a quick mental assessment of what he probably looked like. “What?”

“You look like someone kicked your puppy. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Did you wake me up for a reason?”

His Overwatch’s smirk faded somewhat, his eyes taking on that calculating look he normally got a few seconds before he said something much smarter and more observant than Mac would ever have credited him with when they first met. It was almost a relief – focused was a much easier expression to react to than a smile. “Seriously. What’s happened?”

“ Nothing ,” Mac stressed, trying and failing to keep a thread of annoyance out of his tone. “Do you need me for something or can I go back to sleep?”

It wasn’t the right answer, evidently. Jack’s face darkened and he thinned his lips against what was very visibly going to be an annoyed outburst, but in the end all he said was, “On your feet. We’re heading out.”

That was- unusual. He cast a quick glance at the clock. “Now? It’s going to be dark in a few hours.”

“Yeah well, tell that to the T-men. C’mon, get up. I wanna roll out in five.” With that he retreated to his own bunk to retrieve his equipment and resolutely ignored Mac.

Still confused and really wishing that he could just roll over and go back to sleep if only to avoid what was obviously going to be another uncomfortable Humvee ride, Mac obligingly scrambled to his feet and started pulling out his own gear. For all the little bits and pieces of equipment they had to keep track of, both of them kept their packs ready to go at a moment’s notice, so it was really only a matter of slipping on his jacket and vest, then stopping by the mess to refill his water bottle and grab a few energy bars before Mac found himself sliding into the passenger seat of the Humvee. Apparently more prepared than he had been, Jack was already waiting for him.

“Got a bit of a situation a few klicks out,” He announced once Mac was settled. “Looks like someone’s trying to sabotage our communications – a scout team thinks they’ve found an IED on one of our radio towers. Shouldn’t be anything too complicated for you, but there’s a lot of visibility and no cover so we need to get this done ASAP, understand? The scouts are patrolling the area and I’ll have your back, but someone might try to get lucky with a sniper, so keep your head down .”

There was a lot there to work through – most importantly just what Jack meant by on the radio tower – but he didn’t bother voicing any of those questions. He’d see the situation soon enough and his priority needed to be elsewhere. “Did the scout team say what type of device we’re dealing with?”

“Negative. Couldn’t get a good look without approaching and they figured that probably wasn’t a good idea.”

They had likely been correct in that assumption, but it didn’t make Mac’s job any easier. Approaching an unidentified device was nothing new to him, but it wasn’t something that gelled well with the speed at which Jack was evidently hoping this was going to go. If he rushed anything for fear of being shot, he ran a much higher risk of blowing the pair of them up and doing the terrorists’ job for them.

As promised, it wasn’t a long trip and within ten minutes they came to a stop in the gathering gloom, about a hundred metres away from the tower in question. The 150-metre-tall tower. God, this was not going to go well.

“When you said the device was on the tower,” He started slowly, his eyes darting around the ground supports he could see and coming up blank, “You actually meant on , huh?”

Jack snickered, either not noticing or not caring about the thread of uncertainty Mac could feel in his voice. “Hope you’re ready for some climbing.” He paused, then relented slightly by adding, “We don’t have to go the whole way. Report said it was about half way up. There’s a platform for maintenance work.”

If he had noticed the apprehension, evidently he was assuming that Mac just didn’t feel like climbing up there with all his gear dragging him down. Technically he wasn’t wrong about that – he’d just missed the why. Mac wilfully held in a shudder.

“Now, normally I’d say you should wait down here while I go up and see what I can see, but given how open this is, neither of us can risk being up there that long,” Jack said, catching him with one of his no nonsense looks. Dalton might act the fool, but he was still a highly trained army sergeant and despite everything, when he gave orders, Mac would listen. “So we’re going to go up together, okay? You’re going to keep your head down and you’re going to get that device handled as quickly as you can. We’ve not got much daylight left to work with and torches are going to be a dead giveaway of our position, so unless you desperately need more light, you keep it off. Understand?”

“Got it.”

This would really be the time to tell Jack that the very thought of going up that tower was enough to make Mac feel physically nauseous – the man was his Overwatch, he needed to know when Mac couldn’t do his job – but he bit his tongue. There was a bomb somewhere up there and he was the only person in a ten klick radius who had any chance of defusing it. His personal discomfort was nothing against the lives that could be lost should their communications chain fail.

With that in mind, he slipped out of the Humvee and shadowed Jack as he strode towards the tower, not letting himself pause to think before putting his foot on the first rung of the ladder and hoisting himself up.

Here goes nothing .

Something was off with Mac. Jack couldn’t quite put his finger on it, exactly, but he was good at reading people and he’d been watching every single move his bomb nerd made for a solid month now so he had a pretty good idea when something wasn’t right. Right now, hunched over a bomb 250 feet in the air, something was very definitely not okay .

The kid had been quiet for days, wrapped up in his own head about something or other judging by the deeply thoughtful face he’d been wearing, but it had meshed well enough with Jack’s own pisspoor mood that he hadn’t bothered to question it. Mac hadn’t seemed anything more than a little subdued, something any soldier downwind was bound to encounter now and again. Their work was hard and the constant threat of danger could weigh anyone down given enough time. Now though? Now it seemed like more.

Admittedly, the whole bomb-250-feet-in-the-air situation might have been a contributing factor, but Mac had faced down hundreds of IEDs in their time together and he’d never once flinched. Whether he was the bravest man Jack had ever met or he just genuinely had no regard for his own wellbeing was something Jack was still trying to figure out, but the point was, he shouldn’t be acting like this. The situation was far from perfect and every second they spent on that tower had Jack’s anxiety levels ratcheting up, but Mac had always kept a level head.

“How’s it coming over there?”

Mac let out a low grumble of sound, his usual stand-in for when he had too many things going on in his head to worry about actual words.

“That well, huh? Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re running out of daylight so if you wanna-”

“Rushing me isn’t helping,” Mac interrupted before Jack had a chance to finish, carefully pulling a now-disconnected wire from the bundle he had been examining.

“Ain’t trying to rush you, just letting you know-”

“Yeah, well, it’s not helping.”

Jack had worked with plenty of EOD techs who would have given him that response and it would have been the most normal thing in the world. With Mac, it was a glaring red flag. Well, that, as well as the fact that Mac hadn’t even bothered to correct Jack’s repeated assertions that they were perched on a radio mast, when he knew good and well it was actually a telecommunications tower. Momentarily lifting his head away from his rifle scope, trusting that the scouts could hold the fort for the next minute or two, Jack turned to stare at his partner. “What’s going on man?”

“I’m concentrating .”

“I’ve seen you concentrating plenty. That’s not what this is. C’mon, you’ve been weird since this afternoon – is this about the other day? ‘Cause I didn’t mean to snap at you and I’m sorry about that, but right now I need to know that you’re good to do this job.”

Mac huffed a sharp breath out of his nose in frustration, his eyes not leaving the place where he was carefully prying apart the panels of the device’s container. It wasn’t until then that Jack finally noticed the way the kid’s shoulders were up around his ears, his whole body rigid where he was hunched over. His hands didn’t shake in the slightest – a necessity in his line of work – but the rest of him was shuddering with fine tremors.

“Mac-” Jack started, alarms blaring to life in his head. He’d known something was wrong , but clearly he had deeply misjudged just how wrong until he’d actually taken the time to look. Goddamn, he was supposed to the kid’s fucking Overwatch! “I need you to talk to me man.”

There was no response so Jack put his eye back to his scope for another quick scan of the surrounding landscape – still as barren and unoccupied as before – before sliding the rifle strap back over his shoulder and turning fully to face his partner. He was far too well versed in working with EOD to ever touch Mac when he had his hands on an IED, but he only had to wait a few seconds before Mac backed up to fiddle with the tools on his knife and he was free to snatch him by the shoulder and forcibly turn him around.

“Jack, what-”

“Something’s going on with you and we are in way too dangerous a position right now for me to not know what it is so start fucking talking to me Mac.” The shoulder under his hand was rock solid with stress and the kid’s face looked bone pale in the fading light. What really grabbed his attention though was the way Mac had shot out his free hand to snatch blindly at the handrail beside him, anchoring himself where Jack had pulled him off balance. Coupling that with the sudden dart of Mac’s eyes to the yawning chasm of the drop beside them, it wasn’t exactly complicated math. “You’re afraid of heights,” he murmured with sudden realisation, his grip on Mac faltering in the face of his own surprise.

Mac’s expression twisted with some combination of resignation and guilt. “I’m doing fine. Just let me get this thing defused and we can all go home, yeah?”

“You’re afraid of heights and you didn’t think this was important information for me to know before now?” If he hadn’t still been sitting half an inch from an active explosive device, Jack would have shaken him.

“ Jack ,” Mac said, apparently also running to the end of his patience, “I’m fine. I’ve almost got this done and I really, really want to get down from here, so can you please just let me do my job while you worry about yours?”

“Looking out for you is my job, dumbass,” Jack snapped back, but he did at least let go of him and return to his post. As much as he might hate everything about this, the fact was that Mac was already here and there was an IED in desperate need of attention right in front of him. Getting that fixed and getting Mac back on the ground pronto had just become priority uno. “Work fast.”

With the dusk drawing in, it made sense to switch out his scope for the thermal one he’d thoughtfully decided to bring with him, though it did mean he’d have to zero the thing before it would be of much use to him. Then again, any shots ran the risk of drawing attention and from so high up, the sound could travel for miles without hitting anything. He held up the loose thermal scope to his eye while he mulled over the problem, making note of the scouts’ positions and checking any obvious spots for potential shooters. Still nothing.

“I’m not rushing you,” he said lowly, “But do you know what kind of timeframe we’re looking at here?”

Mac hummed absently. “Couple more minutes I think. Starting to need light though.”

Which really only meant they needed to get this over with as soon as possible, for Mac’s sake if nothing else. Jack slid the thermal scope back into its slot on his vest and tugged free the square of tarp attached to his pack. Its official use was to give him something to lie on should he need it when settling into a sniper nest, but right now it was of far more use to both of them as a light break.

“This thing isn’t going to go off if I tuck this around you both, is it?” He asked, holding the tarp where Mac could see it.

Even scared out of his mind and all but shaking with it, Mac caught onto the idea in a heartbeat. “No, we’re good. Just make sure you don’t jostle it.”

Jack did as he was bid, carefully constructing a makeshift tent around Mac and the device so he could use a torch without broadcasting his exact location to anyone in a five-mile radius. It wasn’t perfect, certainly, and from the way Mac’s breathing hitched ever so slightly the confinement was doing nothing for his nerves, but it would have to do for now. That taken care of and trusting that Mac could get on with things without further assistance, Jack returned to his rifle and performed another sweeping check of the area.

Still deserted. A quick check-in with the scouts reaffirmed his conclusion.

It was strange that someone had felt the need to climb up here to plant an IED and then hadn’t even bothered to hang around to see the fruit of their labours, but it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. It would hardly be the first time a would-be bomber had seen the US army rolling in and got the hell out of dodge. Regardless, Jack couldn’t help but count the seconds until he was free to get his infuriating EOD technician back into actual, honest-to-god cover. 

“How’s that vertigo treating you?” He asked, more to distract his own mind from the sudden, crippling mental image of Mac being taken out by a sniper bullet Jack had no chance of stopping than out of any genuine curiosity. Mac wasn’t going to be happy until he had his feet back on terra firma, that much was clear. 

“If you’re trying to help, stop. It’s not working,” was the irate reply. 

Despite the gravity of their situation – literally – Jack snickered. “You’re mean as a snake when you’re uncomfortable, aren’t you?”

Mac didn’t bother responding to the dig at all. It could be down to his discomfort at their current predicament, but Jack’s instincts were warning him that there was something more going on here and he’d long since learned to trust his gut when it was trying to tell him something. Another anxious look over his shoulder revealed nothing more than that his tarp tent was mostly doing its job of stopping light spilling out into the growing darkness.

His normal go-to technique for prompting Mac to open up was teasing, but evidently that wasn’t going to get him anywhere this time. Certainly not when they were still so high in the air. Perhaps this was a conversation better saved for when the device was defused and they were back safe in the Humvee on the way back to base; at the very least, Mac couldn’t escape him that way.

Right on cue, the faint glow of Mac’s torch snapped off and his blonde head poked up out of his mini tent. “We’re good.”

“Defused?”

“Yeah. Explosives are still a risk though – we can’t leave them up here.”

Jack eyed the bulky shape still hiding beneath the tarp. “Getting that thing down isn’t going to be easy, kid.”

Mac might have scowled at that, but in the dwindling light it was hard to be sure. “I know that, but no clean-up crew is going to be getting out here until tomorrow morning and a well-placed incendiary round could still set this thing off. I can’t leave it.”

“Okay, okay, I getcha,” Jack soothed. “How’re we doing this then?”

 “I can take it apart. Split the weight and the bulk between us. Nothing’s motion or impact sensitive any more so we don’t need to be that careful.”

Jack obligingly slipped off his pack and pushed it in Mac’s direction, trusting him to have a better idea of how they could get everything down safely and instead using the time to dismantle the makeshift rest he’d constructed. Attuned to each other as they were, it was the work of mere moments.

In the interests of getting Mac out of the line of fire – and back on the ground – as fast as possible, Jack ushered him down the ladder ahead of him while he radioed the scouts to fill them in. They returned a chorus of relieved gratitude and promised to maintain their position until Mac and Jack were well on their way out of there, making sure that whoever had set the device in the first place didn’t come back to try again. Already feeling exhausted and knowing he had a debrief waiting for him back on base, aside from whatever the hell was going on with his bomb tech, Jack wrestled down a sigh, and started making his way down the ladder.

He was pleasantly surprised to find Mac waiting for him at the bottom. Jack had long ago implemented a rule that Mac was to stick to his side like glue whenever they were moving in potentially hostile territory, but with whatever was going on with the kid, he hadn’t entirely expected it to hold. That it had was encouraging.

“Alright, let’s- get out of here,” Jack announced on reaching the ground, only just managing to cut himself off from saying ‘blow this joint’ . Mac might normally appreciate the gallows humour, but now was almost certainly not the time.

As if to demonstrate that point, Mac just nodded silently and fell into step just behind his Overwatch without a word.

One of the scouts had been keeping watch over their ride to make sure no one left them any nasty surprises while they were otherwise occupied, though he melted into the shadows of the night as soon as they reappeared. Comforted in the knowledge that he didn’t have to waste any more of his evening waiting for Mac to do a trap check, Jack gratefully folded himself back behind the driving seat and heaved a great sigh of relief. Mac twitched at the sound, but said nothing.

In deference to their shared fatigue, Jack let the silence reign for a solid minute before he broached the subject. “So,” he started slowly, “I get the feeling you and I need to talk.”

Mac’s eyes flicked to him too quickly to be casual, but still he stayed silent. Well, if that was the game he wanted to play, he was damn well going to have to listen, wasn’t he?

“Let’s start by saying that you not telling me about the heights thing was reckless as all hell man, and I mean really, really stupid.” He did what he could to keep the anger out of his voice, but did nothing to soften the seriousness of his tone. For their partnership to work then they needed to be able to trust each other with their flaws and weaknesses; without that, they wouldn’t stand a chance. “You gotta tell me when there’s something going on that’s going to affect your ability to do your thing, no matter what it is. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s something small or unimportant, you have to fill me in. I’m not going to judge you for it if that’s what you’re worried about, but the only way I can do my job is if you’re honest with me. You get what I’m saying to you?”

The blonde was back to his usual sullen trick of staring straight out of the windshield, seemingly seeing nothing, but he did at least incline his head. Even when they’d first been starting out, he hadn’t been this difficult.

“Right. Well. If that’s out of the way, you planning on telling me what’s going on in that head of yours? Something’s been bothering you since this afternoon and clearly it’s important. Fill me in?”

Mac’s forcefully blank expression momentarily fractured into a frown before he got it back under control. “I’m fine Jack. Just tired. I wasn’t expecting to get called out again tonight.”

That was a reasonable excuse, except for the fact he was clearly lying. “Yeah, I’m not buying that. Didn’t I just get done telling you that you needed to let me know when something was going on with you? Whatever this is, I’m pretty sure it qualifies.”

The frown reappeared and didn’t immediately melt away again. Annoyance wasn’t exactly what Jack was aiming for, but at least he was getting a response. “I think I just proved that I’m perfectly capable of doing my job.”

Jack couldn’t help the sharp sigh that escaped him as frustration started to seep into his bones. Clearly he’d miscalculated just how far from alright Mac really was in that moment. Maybe he should have been paying better attention over the last few days after all; well, lesson learned, at least. “I know you are man,” he tried as gently as he was able. “That’s not what I’m getting at. But something’s clearly thrown you off your game and I want to help if I can, okay? This job’s rough enough at the best of times; you don’t need t’be adding to the pile.”

If Mac recognised that for the olive branch it was, he made no sign of it. His only outward reaction was to return his eyes firmly to the windshield and clench his hands together to keep himself from fiddling with a piece of wire he’d been worrying at since they started driving. There was a long, strained pause; Jack desperately wanted to press the matter, but he knew Mac well enough to know that trying would only shut him down further. If Mac didn’t want to share whatever was going on in his head, then he wouldn’t – it was as simple as that.

Fortunately for Jack though, Mac had never seemed all that comfortable with expectant silences. “It’s nothing. I’m just working through something in my head. Don’t worry about it.”

“Mac… Is this about the other day? ‘Cause I meant what I said up there; I’m sorry I lost my temper. It wasn’t ‘cause of anything you did-”

“Look,” Mac said with sudden force, dispensing of his heretofore unconvincing meekness and turning to put Jack directly into his sightline. “I get it. It’s fine. I’m sorry your request got denied but it’s- We’re both stuck here, okay? We’ve got four weeks left and then you can get back home and put all of this behind you. We’ve just gotta get through one more month.”

For the first time in a very, very long time, Jack was stunned into utter silence. Mac apparently took his frozen expression for one of acceptance and turned back to stare straight ahead with a sharp nod, as though they’d come to some sort of arrangement. Jack, for his part, did his best not to crash the Humvee into a ditch as the bottom of his stomach dropped away.

Then he rethought quickly; to have this conversation he definitely needed to be able to keep his eyes on his partner and driving wasn’t exactly conducive to that. He hit the brakes and pulled over. Mac chirped in surprise.

“Okay, woah, hold on,” Jack started, turning bodily to face the man beside him. “Let’s slow it down real quick because I think I’ve missed something here. What are you talking about man?”

Mac blinked at him like he was the one acting weird. “What?”

“What what?”

The blonde scowled faintly, but it wasn’t entirely clear if it was actually directed at Jack. Regardless, he relented with a sigh. “I heard about your transfer request getting shot down. I’m guessing that’s why you were so pissed off? Well, I’m sorry about it. You shouldn’t be stuck with me if you don’t want to be.”

A lot of things suddenly made a lot of sense. Jack could have kicked himself – he would certainly have deserved it. “That’s not- You’ve not heard the whole truth there, man. Shit I’m sorry, it’s-” He bit down hard on his tongue and forced himself to get the words in order. Mac seemed willing to take his stumbling apology as an embarrassed confirmation of the story he’d so readily believed and to be honest, Jack could hardly blame him.

“It isn’t what it sounds like, I promise you,” he said carefully. “I didn’t tell you about the request and that was stupid, but I swear I wasn’t trying to get away from you.”

Mac snorted very softly, a grim smile playing at the corner of his mouth for a moment before he choked it down. In all their time together, Jack had never seen him look so bitter.

“I mean it. I don’t know what you heard, but the request was for both of us.” That got Mac’s head snapping up to stare at him in visible confusion. Jack’s chest clenched painfully with emotion he didn’t want to put a name to. “I heard a rumour we’re being shunted to Paktia to shore up the EOD team in Gardez. They’ve taken some heavy hits lately and want more hands on deck.”

Mac’s brow was furrowed, clearly not entirely trusting what he was hearing but at least willing to listen. Given the circumstances, Jack was surprised he was even allowing that much. “And you didn’t want to go?”

“Hell no,” Jack said instantly. “The Gardez boys might need help but I don’t want to put you within a hundred miles of that place. Ghazni ain’t been kind to you, but at least it hasn’t blown your fool head off; worst we’ve had to deal with here is individual cells trying to make things difficult. Paktia’s crawling with T-men.”

“All the more reason we should be there, helping.”

“Yeah, and what happens in a month when I ship out and you’re stuck there without me to watch your back, huh? I don’t know who your new Overwatch is gonna be and if I can’t be sure they’re gonna have your back, I want to at least try to keep you as safe as I can while I’m here. I put in the request to shift us to Wardak instead. It ain’t safe there either, but it would have given you a cleaner run at things.” He huffed, remembering the raging argument he’d had with the Captain when his request had been denied. Looking back, he’d been lucky to walk away without disciplinary action but he didn’t regret it for a second. “’Course, none of that matters now, since we’re heading to Gardez regardless.”

He forced himself to meet Mac’s eyes and tried not to flinch at the calculating look being shot back at him. Evidently his partner needed a moment to work out whether or not Jack was lying to him to try to save face and that-

-That hurt. It was fair, completely fair , given that Jack had given him exactly no heads up about what was happening before going behind his back to try to rearrange his life without permission, but it was still crushing to realise how badly he’d fucked up. Their start together had been rocky, to say the least, but Mac had a kind of honest goodness about him that made him impossible to dislike after about thirty minutes of knowing him. Put together with his dry humour, endless patience, and his literal, honest-to-god genius, and Jack hadn’t stood a chance of not befriending the kid. It was somewhat convenient that it was Jack’s job to watch Mac’s back, because he had the sense he’d want to spend every second he could trying to protect him.

Then again, that’s what the transfer request had been about and look how that had all turned out. God, he was such a fucking idiot.

“I should have told you all of this before I did anything, I know that. I’m really sorry for it, and I’m even more sorry that you ended up finding out the way you did. That was shitty and you didn’t deserve it for a second. But I promise you, none of it had anything to do with me not wanting to be here.”

There was a pause while Mac’s face did something complicated, then he asked quietly, “You weren’t trying to get away from me?”

“Not for a single second, kid. I would never.”

It was the honest truth and yet Jack knew instinctively that it wasn’t going to sink in in the way he wished it would. Mac hadn’t talked about home all that much in their time together, and what he had let slip had some gaping holes where family should have been; Jack was good enough at hearing what people weren’t saying to understand that at some point, someone had let the kid down badly. Now, apparently, he had to add his own name to that list. 

This was all such a goddamn mess .

Whether or not he bought Jack’s attempt at reassurance, Mac did at least appear to accept the truth of his account with a small, thoughtful nod. To be honest, even if he hadn’t believed it, this was something Jack could easily prove once they were back at base by digging out the request file, but it was comforting to know that he hadn’t screwed up so badly Mac couldn’t take him at his word.

“Okay,” Mac said softly, still frowning thoughtfully but no longer twisted up with bitterness and hurt. “Okay. I understand. Sorry for leaping to conclusions, I guess.”

“You ain’t got nothing to be sorry for,” Jack replied instantly. This was not the kid’s burden to bear. “I should have told you. You have every right to be pissed as hell about it, even knowing the truth.”

“That’s not- It’s fine,” Mac said haltingly, not meeting Jack’s eyes. “I appreciate you looking out for me.”

Jack watched him for a long minute as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, taking in all the tiny little signs of distress he should have noticed days ago. It was only now that he was really looking that he could see how fucking exhausted he looked. Like the whole world had come crashing down on him and he was still trying to soldier on under its weight like nothing was wrong.

“Man, I really fucked up, huh?” He murmured quietly. Mac’s gaze twitched to him and away. Louder, he said, “I let you down and I’m sorry for that. I promise, no more secrets.”

There was a pause, then Mac seemed to decide something because he turned to look at him properly again. “That mean you’re going to tell me what you’ve been up to the last couple of days?” At Jack’s blink of surprise, he actually managed the shadow of a smile, despite everything that had happened. “What? You think just because I’m not Overwatch I’m not paying attention?”

Jack couldn’t help but grin at the spark of life returning to his partner’s tone. Of course he’d noticed when Jack had made himself scarce around the FOB. “I watch you and you watch me, huh? Should have known.” He shook his head ruefully. “Well, in that case, if you really want to know, I’ve been hitting up my contacts.”

Mac’s eyebrows rose. Jack rubbed at the back of his neck self-consciously.

“Yeah, yeah, I know I’m just a grunt but I know some people okay? I figured that if I couldn’t get us reassigned from Gardez, at least I could rope in someone I trust to replace me when I’m gone. No one’s as good as me, o’course, but it would be something at least.”

It took Mac a moment to digest that, as if trying to work out what he should react to first. In the end, he settled on, “I don’t think you’re a grunt.”

That was news to him. “No?”

Mac’s smile was a careful thing, like he wasn’t sure this was something he was allowed. “You play a good game, but you know way too much about- well, everything to not have been through something more than bootcamp.”

Jack should have known that he couldn’t get anything by a kid as smart as Mac obviously was, but he was still struck with a quiet swell of pride at how easily his EOD had figured him out.

“Plus, you know you’re by far the highest ranked Overwatch sniper on base? There can’t be many sergeants electing to watch bomb nerds day in and day out.”

There was an obvious question in there, but Mac was still too unsure of the situation to ask him straight up who he’d managed to piss off to get lumped with babysitting duty. And, honestly, that was a whole can of worms that Jack really didn’t want to dig into right now – or ever, really. Instead, he deflected. “Oh? That almost sounded like a compliment. You been checking out my record?”

“No. But if I did, I’d be surprised if most of it wasn’t redacted. Am I wrong?”

He definitely wasn’t. Jack’s smile was sharp as he started up the Humvee again. “You sound like you have some idea already.”

It was a clear invitation and, with only a slight hesitation, Mac took it. “You’re observant in a way that has to be taught. You seem too well travelled for it to not have been international, so I’m guessing CIA. Then there’s the tactical stuff – command wouldn’t ask for your opinion unless you’d been involved in something important. Putting that with that team of yours you sometimes mention without meaning to, I’m guessing you were special forces of some description. That’d explain the rank too.” He hummed thoughtfully. “Still doesn’t explain why you’re stuck watching me though.”

Jack whistled in surprise. Evidently Mac had been paying much more attention than he’d given him credit for. “I’m not stuck doing anything,” he protested lightly. “I like working Overwatch; it’s more relaxing than most gigs.”

Mac shot him a wry smile. “So I’m right then?”

He chuckled easily, letting the strain of their earlier conversation start to bleed out of his shoulders as they settled back into their usual patter. He hadn’t realised until right then just how much he’d missed it and from the way Mac was leaning back in his seat, he was thinking much the same. “About pretty much everything,” he confirmed. “You’re far too smart for your own good, you know that right?”

There was a pause. “You aren’t going to tell me what branch of the special forces you were in, are you?”

“You’re a smart kid,” he said with a broad smile. “You’ll work it out.”

 ..

The scene I didn't write is in a few weeks, after Mac's done some thinking and some very careful asking around and he sidles up to Jack one afternoon and very quietly says 'Delta'. Jack smiles, says 'Hooah', and neither of them mention it again.

[wonder-womans-ex]

The High Road

Chapter the First: In Which Logan Enters Into a Non-negotiable Negotiation

There is a man in Logan’s room. 

For a moment, he stands there in the doorway, motionless, because that fact alone is a little difficult to come to terms with. There is a man in Logan’s room. 

He’s not just in the room; he’s sitting cross-legged on the foot of Logan’s bed, picking at a loose thread on one of the blankets. Logan, still stunned, shuts the door behind him, and the man looks up abruptly at the sound.  

He jumps to his feet, bowing and saying “Your Highness,” at the same time as Logan starts to fire questions at him. “How did you get in here?” he demands first, and, without waiting for a response, moves onto “Why are you here? Who are you?”

He doesn’t expect an answer, but he gets one—and what an answer it is.

“My name,” the man says with an air of great importance, “is Leo Knut.” 

There’s a pause. “Never heard of you,” Logan tells him. 

“Good.”

Another pause. Logan takes a step forward, then two, until he’s close enough to get a good look at the intruder. There’s a black bandana covering his mouth and nose, and another pulled over his hair, but a blond curl is still peeking out and falling over his forehead. A slit has been cut into one of his slender, pale eyebrows, and it takes Logan a few seconds to tear his gaze away, but he’s glad once he does. He meets Leo’s eyes, and he’ll be damned if they aren’t the most beautiful eyes he’s ever seen. 

He could get lost in those eyes—they’re a bright, sunny blue, speckled with glints of sapphire and shimmering aquamarine; they seem to glow in the same way a cloud does when it passes in front of the sun—and, indeed, he does. Reclaiming his senses takes a few moments, but it’s worth it for the energy that passes between them. He and Leo are a current, brighter even than the sun shining outside, and Logan starts to mourn the loss of that current the instant he forces himself to look away.

“You were wondering how I got in here?”

So, sure, it’s not the first time Logan has heard him speak, but it’s almost like it is. Before, he had only been able to hear Leo’s words, not his voice, but now it’s a completely different story. Leo’s accent washes over him, and it takes him a moment to place it—American, he realizes now, which means that the boy standing in front of him has roots buried halfway across the world—but once he has, he’s gone. 

“I—I was, yeah,” he stammers, trying not to blush. Leo scrunches his eyebrows up, and then he turns and steps back to sit once more on the bed. One hand, fitted snugly into a fingerless black glove, pats the space next to him, and Logan sits, trying not to show how flustered he truly is. The wool blanket is rough against his palms, so he folds them into his lap. He imagines he must look like an idiot—a stuck-up idiot, for that matter—or some sort of damsel in distress, but it’s worth it if he gets to be just that much closer to Leo. 

“Well,” begins Leo, earnestly meeting Logan’s eyes once more, “first I had to distract the guards. They’re good at their jobs, you know, especially the one by the west gate…”

The apparent problem with Leo, Logan reasons, is that there’s just so much of him. Not physically, no—in fact, he’s on the slighter side, muscular but with the leanness of someone who knows what it’s like to go for days at a time without proper food—but he’s overflowing with personality. Passionate is not a word Logan uses often, but it truly is the only word that comes to mind when he thinks about Leo Knut. 

Well, not the only word. There are a few others, too, on the tip of his tongue: beautiful; vibrant; charming; the only thing ever envied by the sun itself, but passionate is the one that gives him the least pause; it’s the one that needs no modification or analysis. Leo is passion. Passion is Leo. To Logan, at least, it makes sense in a way very little ever has before. It can’t have been even a quarter hour since Leo entered his life, but already Logan knows he’ll never recover. 

Leo’s voice is like honey. It’s like melted butter in a frying pan. It’s like dipping his toes into cold, clear water on a hot summer’s day. It’s like waking up in the morning to sunshine streaming through the gap in his curtains. It’s like laughing and crying all at once. Logan’s strong suit may not be description, but there is no world in which he could not write poetry about Leo Knut’s voice. 

Logan has always fallen in love fast, and this is no exception. 

“...that’s the brilliant part, see? The others think they’ve seen an intruder, so they shoot, and the one at the west gate runs off to see what all the commotion is. Now I’m free to get past his post, and—Logan? Are you listening?”

Logan starts. “How do you know my name?” he asks, somewhat stupidly. 

“I don’t think there’s anyone from here to Prussia who doesn’t know your name, Lo.”

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Logan’s heart really does not melt inside at ‘Lo.’ Plenty of people call him that—his sisters do; most of his friends do; heck, even a few of the servants he’s known for a while. 

But Leo is not plenty of people. 

“Oh,” says Logan, “right.”

“‘Oh,’ he says, like he isn’t the heir to the fucking throne of France—”

“Shut up, Leo!” Logan protests playfully. At least, he tries to pass it off as playful—he’d be lying if he tried to tell himself he isn’t flirting. After all, there’s something truly intimate about using someone’s name in conversation when alone. 

It rolls off his tongue right, too—out loud, it sounds like some sort of tree spirit, or a star in the night sky. For a moment, he even entertains the thought that perhaps Leo is a prince, too; he knows what it’s like to be royalty and can therefore understand Logan’s life in a way so few people can. But just as quickly, he lets himself acknowledge that Leo is no prince. 

For Leo’s hands, when Logan reaches out towards them and takes them in his own, are rough and calloused. These are the hands of a woodworker, or of a hunter. They are not at all like Logan’s own soft, pale, occasionally-inkstained ones, and this alone is proof that he and Leo are and always will be worlds apart. 

He knows why it matters to him, but he also knows why it shouldn’t—after all, there is no world in which he and Leo would ever be able to love each other, anyway. Not when the law and the people and everything else Logan was born to uphold are against it. 

Leo smiles—or, at least, his eyes squint in the telltale way that means he’s smiling—but, even from what little Logan can see of his face, there’s something off about it. It’s halfway between awkwardness and confusion, and Logan isn’t sure there’s a word for exactly what it conveys. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t protest or resist when Leo gently pulls his hands out of Logan’s grasp—or maybe there’s another reason, too. 

“You didn’t answer my other question,” he points out, simply to continue the conversation. He’s not entirely sure what he’d do if he doesn’t hear Leo’s voice again right now, and he doesn’t think he really wants to. “What are you doing here?” 

Leo nods thoughtfully, eyes seeming to darken. His entire personality shifts. He no longer has happiness radiating from every inch of him; he no longer seems to emit warmth like he’s a fire. He becomes cooler and more poised and almost more vicious, but in a way that is, paradoxically, anything but angry. He’s still smiling, though, and Logan has no idea what to think of that. “I’m here to kidnap you.”

It takes Logan a second to register this. Once he does, however, his hands clench into fists and he’s immediately on the defensive. “What?” he asks, but it’s clear this is a how dare you ‘what’ and not a please repeat yourself; I think I misheard ‘what.’ “You—that’s illegal! You can’t just tell the prince of France you’re planning to kidnap him and expect him to let you get away with it!” 

He’s blustering, and he knows it. “I could get you arrested, you know. Every guard on this floor will come running if I just so much as scream!”

It happens so fast he nearly misses it. One second, they’re sitting next to each other, a good two feet between them, and the next, Logan is flat on his back against the pillows, Leo pinning him down with one knee on either side of his torso and his left hand holding both of Logan’s wrists above his head. The other hand is pressing something sharp and cold into Logan’s neck, and he knows without having to look that it’s some sort of dagger. Leo’s bandana has slipped down, too, and his whole face is visible for the first time. 

“You could,” Leo agrees, grinning to reveal a narrow gap between his front teeth and two perfect dimples, “but you’re not going to.”

.

wonderful characters by @lumosinlove

thanks to @heyitssmiller for beta reading :)

[spaceskam]

someday we’ll find out what that means

another part of my On Earth series for @christchex ! Happy belated birthday<3

warnings: aftermath of a traumatic event, coping, non-descriptive references to the shed scene

ao3

Not many people caught Alex’s interest.

He wasn’t deliberately rude to people that didn’t, but he typically didn’t give them the time of day. He’d rather sit in his own head, rather just be with his friends and wait it out until high school ended and he got the freedom to get away from people that were close-minded and drove him insane.

He’d heard that there are places where Antarians aren’t othered. It gave him some hope that maybe there would be a place for him that would make him feel less othered too.

That being said, when he first got a glimpse of Michael Guerin, he caught his interest. He didn’t see him often, but it was enough. The guy was gorgeous and apparently ridiculously talented, according to his eavesdropping. He had a lot of control for an Antarian this young. It was almost scary, one of their teachers who “specialized” in teaching non-violence to Antarians had said, because someone with that much control must be a ticking time bomb. Alex was even more intrigued.

That was hardly a secret, not that there was anyone around to notice. He loved Liz and Maria, but he was convinced he could wear the same shirt for a month straight and they wouldn’t notice. By the time he got to have Michael, got to kiss and touch him and know him, it was easy to keep it to themselves until they were ready. Even when Alex told them, it was easy to keep it from everyone else because no one really cared all that much.

That is, until it became impossible to really hide that something happened.

“Call or text me if you need something,” Alex told Michael as they sat in his truck. First day back to school after the incident and Alex was on edge, but he was trying hard not to be. He needed to act like normal.

“Okay,” Michael agreed, “Same for you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I know you will,” Michael said, giving a sweet little smile, “Now, give me kisses.”

Michael pursed his lips out dramatically and Alex momentarily wondered if the pain medication was still making him a little over the top. However, it really just might be Michael trying to distract him from his own head. Either way, Alex leaned forward and gave him a soft kiss.

“Okay, let’s go.”

They went their separate ways for the beginning of the day. There were a few times they could feasibly cross paths outside of music class, but usually they had to plan that shit to an annoying precision. For both of their sake, it was safer to keep their distance. People were going to ask about Michael’s hand. More than that, people were going to assume.

Alex’s job here was to act like he wasn’t involved.

“Alex,” Liz’s voice said as soon as he stepped into the hallway. She was at his side, staring at him with concern. So much for acting like he wasn’t involved. “Where have you been? You’ve been absent for days and you haven’t been answering our calls or texts. What happened? Are you alright? We thought about going to your house to see if‒”

“But you didn’t, right?” Alex said quickly, his heart involuntarily picking up speed, “You didn’t go to my dad’s house, right?”

“No,” Liz said, though that only seemed to raise her worry, “We figured you’d talk to use when you wanted to. Alex, what happened?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Alex said, “When there’s not so many people.” And when he had time to trust himself to tell a good lie.

“Well, at least tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” Alex said. It sounded hollow and he knew it, but Liz nodded her head and accepted it because she was a good friend like that.

Alex didn’t have it in him to deal with anyone today. He let the hallways part in his wake, but he didn’t bother acting cocky about it. He was feared. He got that. But now he wasn’t too sure what that got him. Fear was pointless. The only solace he had was that most of the people making way for him, he’d never even acknowledged. And he only hurt people who hurt others’ first. They should really only fear him if they were guilty.

Which. Maybe they were.

The idea alone was exhausting and, as he reached his locker, he began counting down the hours until he could get back into Michael’s bed where everything smelled good and it was warm.

“Alex,” Maria said as he sat down in their pre-calc class. She leaned close, that familiar concerned look on her face. “Where have you been?”

“Stuff came up, I’ll tell you and Liz later.”

“Would that stuff have anything to do with Michael Guerin’s hand?” Maria asked, voice an almost inaudible whisper, but Alex heard her clearly. His entire body tensed up and he held his breath. He didn’t trust himself to breathe without giving everything away. “Everyone was staring at him and everyone knows you both have been gone. Alex, there’s gonna be rumors that you did it.”

“I didn’t‒” Alex started, but he stopped himself. He took a slow deep breath and let his mind remember Ezra’s words, a never ending ‘this isn’t your fault, you did nothing wrong’. “I didn’t do it.”

“I know you didn’t. Obviously. I meant, like, people who don’t know you,” Maria said, looking around and lowering her voice, “Because your reputation.”

Alex squeezed his fists tighter, his heart thudding in his chest and his throat and his ears and everything. He shouldn’t have gotten out of bed. Well, he should’ve gotten out of bed and still hooked up with Michael in the shower, but he shouldn’t have left the house. He should’ve stayed and doted on Michael all day.

People were going to think he did it.

“Maybe they won’t,” Maria jumped in, trying to make him feel better, probably but not doing too great of a job due to his mind already running with the idea, “I mean, you’ve never beat up an Antarian before. In fact, you’ve gone out of their way to be nice to them! Maybe they’ll think you protected him.”

Alex, involuntarily and yet still stupidly, flinched.

He didn’t protect him. 

He didn’t do shit.

“I’m sorry for bringing it up,” Maria said. Alex shook his head, trying to tell her it wasn’t her fault but not being able to find the words. She didn’t do anything other than observe.

Alex thought about getting up and leaving, but school had just begun and he wouldn’t have a very valid excuse. He could possibly fake being sick, though that would only do so much and he knew Michael would have a much harder time getting out of class. They wouldn’t be able to meet up just yet.

So Alex stewed in his own head, trying to keep distracted and only being minutely successful in that endeavor. He just had to hold out until lunch. That’s it. It’d be fine.

Still, his classes dragged. They seemed to all be speaking in slow motion and he still didn’t get any notes. He didn’t hear a thing through pre-calc and when he got to biology, it sounded like gibberish. The only solace he had was that he would have to ask Michael for help going over it. He would lean real close as he went over the information and stare at his lips and wait, wait, wait, until he could lean over and kiss him. He was still allowed to do that. He was allowed to kiss him senseless. That was good. He could manage with that.

Maybe they would get lucky and Michael’s parents would be kept late at work and Alex would get the warm opportunity to get his mouth on other parts of him. He wanted to just kiss him all over, touch him where he was able to, let his mind empty itself out with the taste of him. That’s what he needed.

By the time lunch came around and he got to see Michael again, he was itching for him. They met at their usual place behind the school and Alex barely got to take in his pretty, welcoming smile before he was kissing him and slowly backing him into the wall.

He held his cheek with one hand and had his other on the back of his head so it wouldn’t hit the bricks, kissing him like he had nothing left to do in life. And maybe he didn’t. Maybe this was what he was meant to do: kiss Michael until he was numb to everything else.

“Whoa,” Michael breathed after he pulled away. He couldn’t kiss him for too long, he knew, because he wouldn’t want to stop and they were still at school. Sadly. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Alex murmured, nudging his nose against Michael’s warm cheek and then nuzzling his face into the crook of his neck. He let his hands fall to wrap around his waist and Michael’s arms moved to hug his shoulders.

“You okay?” Michael asked, pressing a kiss to Alex’s ear. He closed his eyes and breathed him in and tried to imagine being tucked in his bed. Alas, there was too much rough clothing for that to be accurate. Michael slept in soft clothes. And, since Alex didn’t have anything of his own, he also slept in Michael’s soft clothes.

“I just need you.”

Michael let out a breath and relaxed a bit, the first time that Alex even noticed he was tense. God, he needed to get better at noticing that. Michael was just so good at pretending he was totally fine.

“Same,” he agreed, hugging him tighter, as much as he could without messing up his hand more.

They stayed there for probably too long, just holding onto each other. Surprisingly, no one came to bother him. Alex half expected both Maria and Liz to come and ask too many questions that Alex wasn’t prepared to provide the answers to.

“Has anyone asked?” Alex whispered against his skin.

Michael was quiet for a second too long.

“Mrs. Wilks saw me in the hall,” he said, “I thought she was going to cry over it for a second. Kept asking what my doctor said about the piano, if I’d be able to play again.”

Alex swallowed harshly and lifted his head. The idea Michael wouldn’t play an instrument again hurt. He was so smart and strong and powerful, but he was a gifted musician. More than that, he loved it. Alex had only really gotten to see him play in his comfort zone once or twice, but it was so clear that it brought him peace.

“You haven’t even asked the Evans’ about it, have you?” Alex said. Michael avoided direct eye contact.

“No,” he said softly. All Alex heard was that he was terrified for the answer.

“Hey, we’ll figure it out. I mean, we got you to a doctor. They worked on you. If-if you can’t play like you used to, I know you’ll figure it out. Or I’ll just play the other hand for you forever and we’ll be a duo,” Alex insisted, “Left hand is easy without the right, usually, anyway, I can handle it.”

Michael smiled at him, a little nervous and a little fond. Alex would enjoy drowning in that smile.

“I’ll do whatever I can for you, okay?”

“And I’ll do the same,” Michael responded earnestly. Alex wanted to tell him no, but he knew that would lead to an argument and he didn’t want that.

He just wanted him.

“Think they’ll miss us if we skip the rest of the day?” Michael asked, trying to lighten the mood. Alex grinned and leaned close again, nudging his nose against his cheek.

“Tempting, but I want your parents to still like me.”

Michael scrunched his nose up in defiance which just made everything a little easier. They could still be normal after this.

Whatever normal meant when it was the two of them. Alex was ready to be reminded.

[ethvn-torchio]

Walls Could Talk | Chapter Two

a/n: sorry this chapter took so long! writer’s block is a bitch 😩✌

Summary: Steve and Peggy's search brings them to Paris - where they happen to meet up with an old friend.

Warnings: an intense makeout session/implied sexual content (it’s not smut, i haven’t decided if I’m putting actual smut in this fic)

Wordcount: 1.5k (unedited, also I'm sorry it's so short 🙃)

AO3 | prev chapter | next chapter (coming soon!)

ᴏᴄᴛ 𝟸𝟿, 𝟷𝟿𝟺𝟿

ᴏxғᴏʀᴅ, ᴇɴɢʟᴀɴᴅ

Steve wakes up in a cold sweat, bolting upright in bed. Was he still dreaming? Was this...was this real?

He gazes at Peggy - to make sure she was there, that all of this wasn't a mere fantasy, who begins to stir.

So, not a dream then, at least. His heart is racing, his mind buzzing and yet still confused and his breathing erratic. She's speaking to him, saying something, and he isn't quite listening, his heart thundering his ears. Adrenaline surges through his veins.

“I’m...I’m sorry, Peg. I didn’t mean to wake you up,” he whispers. His pulse was still racing.

Lightning illuminates the room for a split second and he can see the sympathy in her eyes.

"It's quite alright, Darling. Will you tell me what's wrong?" She asks, trailing her fingers through his hair.

"I...I don't- I don't remember much," he admits. "It was just...some stuff from the past...or, future..." he could almost laugh at that if he was in a better mood.

She nods sympathetically. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

He drinks in her appearance, nodding slightly. He presses his lips against hers softly.

He kisses her, gently and imploringly at first.

His one hand softly trails down her back, and he notices her sharp intake of breath when his hand ghosts over her lower back.

"This hurt?" he asks.

She nods stiffly. "I do believe I forgot to tell you with everything that happened tonight. I had a bit of a scuffle in the restroom with a Hydra agent. She slammed me against the sink," Peggy explains.

An idea forms in Steve's head; a single minded goal to make her forget.

He would make the only thing on her mind be him.

Wordlessly, he smiles and dips his head towards her neck, brushing his lips against it. His teeth graze against a sensitive spot on her neck and she makes a soft "Oh,"

His hands go to rest against either of her thighs. He pulls back, pupils blown.

“Steve,” she whispers. She lifts her hips in a silent invitation.

He leans down to kiss her, his lips against hers, and she's already breathless. He doesn't want to rush things, but he can't resist her.

Her hand slides down his back, and she lets out a soft moan against his mouth. His hands trail up her shirt, he can feel the goosebumps on her skin. He kisses her neck, and she can feel his hot breath against her skin.

"God, you're so beautiful. I love you," he whispers.

"I love you too," she replies.

He pulls her in for a desperate kiss once again, pulling her close.

—

The rain came and went, and with it sunshine followed.

“Peggy. Peggy, wake up,” is the first thing Peggy is greeted with in the morning.

Peggy groans, rolling over in an effort to ignore him. “No, not now,” she mutters, burying her face in the pillow.

Peggy feels weight on the bed as Steve sits down next to her. She tries in vain to ignore him.

"Oh, c'mon now, Peg. It's a new day, it's time to get up," he says.

“You are far too cheerful considering how early it is,” Peggy complains, shielding her eyes from the light pouring in from the blinds.

“...Peggy, it’s eleven in the morning.”

Peggy groans, glancing at the clock as if to make sure he’s right. “Point withstanding, you’re still too cheerful.”

“Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” Steve teases, narrowly missing a pillow flung haphazardly at him.

“Do shut up, Steve.”

He snickers.

Peggy yawns, stretching her sleep-infused joints. "Where are we going, again?"

"Word is our target's in Paris,” Steve replies. “Or at the very least, someone important is.”

Peggy hums, sitting up. The blanket wrapped around her falls off, revealing her bruised back.

"Jesus, Peg. Have you seen your back? That looks like it hurts," Steve notes.

"Yes, thank you for that insightful observation."

"I just mean- do you want ice or something?"

Peggy shrugs nonchalantly. "It doesn’t quite hurt. I can deal with it, I’ve faced worse."

“To be fair, you are the woman who fell asleep standing up in a trench.”

“Exactly,” Peggy winks. She stands up, beginning to sift through her suitcase. “So tell me, Steve. When’s our train leaving?”

—

ᴘᴀʀɪs, ғʀᴀɴᴄᴇ

A few hours later, they arrive at their dingy, rundown hotel just outside of Paris. The lobby smells like bleach and old carpet, and a radio plays a somber, mellow jazz tune.

Peggy clears her throat, waiting for the receptionist to acknowledge them.

The receptionist does not, however, care to notice.

“Can we have a room, please?” Peggy asks the woman at the front desk.

The woman hardly looks up from her magazine. “Name?”

“Carver,” Peggy answers automatically before Steve can.

The receptionist takes a long, seemingly never ending sip of her tea. Finally, she says. “Take the elevator to the third room, first one on the left. Here’s your key,” the woman says, sounding as disinterested as she possibly can. “Enjoy your stay,” she adds dryly.

Peggy eyes her warily. There was something a bit...off, about that woman.

Perhaps it was just her imagination.

They make their way to the elevator, and Steve finally breaks the silence. “So...is it just me or was there something weird about her? I mean, she could’ve just been a disgruntled employee, but…” he trails off, scratching the back of his neck.

Peggy hums. “No, I happen to agree. Though, perhaps we were just inconveniencing her by making her do her job.”

The smile fades from her face. “Stop,” Peggy whispers. She tilts her head toward the door, which was ajar. She clutches her gun in her purse.

Steve snorts. “Maybe,”

She laughs right along with him, but she pauses abruptly outside their door.

It could be the maid...but they haven’t even gotten into the room once.

Silently, the two stalk toward the door. The smell of smoke escapes from the room when Steve nudges the door open.

Which, in both of their experiences, usually did not happen to be a good thing.

In the chair in the corner, there sat...

Howard Stark.

A collective groan escapes the couple.

“Howard, must you break into our hotel room?” Peggy scolds, turning on the light.

“We thought you were an intruder.” Steve adds.

Howard smirks, taking a long drag of his cigar. “Technically, I am. But don’t you kids worry - I bring a peace offering. By peace offering, I mean I’m inviting you to stay in my Paris apartment instead of this dump,” Howard gestures loosely. “I mean, I don’t think this building even has heat.”

Steve shrugs. “Wouldn’t it be better to stay somewhere inconspicuous?”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Peggy agrees, her arms crossed.

Howard sniffs. “Okay, fine, don’t accept my extremely generous offer to let you stay at my apartment. I know when I’m not wanted. Just know I’ll remember that in the summer when you want to come over because I have air conditioning and you don’t.”

Peggy rolls her eyes. “Quit the melodramatics, Howard. We’ll stay with you,”

Steve wraps an arm around her. “Yeah, we- wait, we will?”

“...What? This building doesn’t have heat, and quite frankly I enjoy summer visits to Howard’s house.”

“Attagirl, Peg.” Howard beams. “I’ll meet you two in the lobby,”

—

Later, the trio eats lunch at Howard’s apartment.

"-you are not funny, Howard." Peggy informs him, pointing at him with her fork. "You could've at least feigned innocence."

"Innocent? If you looked up "innocent' in the dictionary, you'd see my picture on it," Howard says defensively.

Peggy snorts at that. "Oh, please, Howard. With your history you could easily father a small country,"

Howard grimaces. "Eugh, kids hate me. Plus, who has time to tend to a baby all the time? I mean sure, kids probably aren't annoying when they're...late teenagers? But for most of their lives, kids just seem so clingy and needy."

Steve picks at his plate absentmindedly, reminded of a conversation he had with Tony.

"Clearly, you must've met a different version of my father. He was cold. He was calculating. He never told me he loved me, he never even told me he liked me."

The sound of Peggy’s voice brings him back to reality. "...That's because they're children, Howard. Babies aren't self-sufficient from birth. Do you expect them to come out of the womb ready for rocket science?"

"Well, thank you for absolutely shattering my argument, Agent Carter." Howard mutters, downing his coffee. Deciding to change the subject in order to deflect attention off of himself, he says, "Steve, you still with us?"

Steve snaps to attention. "I, uh, yeah. I was just daydreaming, I guess."

Peggy makes a mental note to ask Steve about that later.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Howard asks.

Steve shrugs noncommittally, continuing to eat with much less gusto than before. "Just thinking about our mission,”

Peggy eyes him carefully, choosing to say nothing but clearly knowing something was wrong. In due time, she would ask.

In due time hopefully meant whenever Howard left the room.

—

lmao so like i was listening to a bunch of james bond songs bc they’re dramatic and spy-ey right (cough cough tho a song that fits the general tone of the fic would be "the world is not enough" by garbage)?? and then there’s absolutely none of that in this chapter lmao. sorry if this chapter was boring compared to last one but i mean we can’t have constant action in the fic, silly goose. 

also can we talk about how it took me like 8 DAYS TO WRITE THIS and it’s this short i’m sorry ajsjdfkgjjklk 😶✌

taglist (dm me if you’d like to be added!):

everything taglist: @return-of-the-simp​ @thereblogcrusader @stillmourningtonystark ​

walls could talk taglist: @deedepee​ @rizwritesfandom​ (extra thanks to riz for helping me when i was struggling with being descriptive u a real one) @mcu-academy​​

If you enjoyed, please rb/leave a comment! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

[jawritter]

When The Lights Go Out

Chapter 5

Summary: Life hasn’t been your best friend lately, you lost your job, and are on the verge of losing your apartment. Who knew when you decided to join a Sugar Daddy app that your best friend suggested ina last ditch effort to save your apartment, and not end up on the street, your first and only client would turn your whole world upside down.

Pairing: Mobster!Dean Winchester x Virgin! Reader

Word Count: 2369

Series Warnings: Mob level violence, injured Dean, description of injury, creepy Godfather John Winchester, John is pretty much a douche bag, escort services, virgin reader, lose of virginity and all the insecurities and fun stuff that come with it, age gap (23 year old reader; 40 year old Dean), angst, unrequited/requited love?, language, smut, unprotected smut.

Chapter Warnings: Angst, Fighting, Angry Dean (yes that’s a warning), John being the douchebag he is, language, I think that’s everything. 

A/N: Beta’d by @deanwanddamons! Thanks so much love!! Please don’t copy my work!! Feedback is golden! Hope you all enjoy this one!! It’s gonna be a little bit of a slow burn y’all, but just hang in there!

(This fic is based on this request: Could you do a Dean x reader where she is 23 and lives alone in her apartment, she gets fired and can loose her house, her friend tells her about a sugar daddy app, she makes a profile and Dean 40, contacts her, she is virgin and don’t offers sex, Dean is billionaire business man and needs a girl for his business parties,the reader is really shy, blushes a lot, they fall in love, he takes her to a trip and makes love to her on a private island, could it be a series?)

Want more? Check out my masterlist!!

***MASTERLIST***

***SERIES MASTERLIST***

Two weeks.

That’s how long you’d been in the prison that was the sprawling Winchester Estate. 

Well to you it was a prison anyway, to anyone else standing from an outsider's perspective, you hit the jackpot.

You, on the other hand, didn't feel so lucky.

You felt trapped, and alone. No matter what Dean did to try and make it better, no matter how close you and Jess had become over the last few weeks, it wasn’t home, and that’s the whole reason you joined that whole Sugar Daddy app to begin with. Now you didn’t even have that.

You knew that you had gotten in way too deep when you first met Dean Winchester, but damn if you didn’t know that you had gotten in that damn deep. 

Now, you had lost your only home you’d ever really had, along with what felt like your freedom to live and move like a normal human being. 

Dean had tried. He really had. He felt horrible about what John was making you do, and he and Jess helped you pack up everything in your apartment the day after John’s declaration. That was probably the hardest thing you had ever done. Keep up the happy couple act for Jess, while silently you felt like you were dying, or wishing that you would. 

That’s when you really started to resent Dean Winchester. 

If he would have just left you alone, if he  had never contacted you, if you had never got into his SUV that Friday night, you wouldn’t be in this mess, and better yet, if he would have been man enough to tell you the fucking truth about who the fuck he was, you wouldn’t be in this mess. You would have never agreed to go on that God forsaken “date” with him in the first place. No matter how much money you needed, or how fucking attractive he was. 

The first week that you were here, Dean really tried to spend as much time with you as his “work” would allow. Taking you out to get ice cream, down to the peer to watch the boats, anything and everything he could think of. 

You couldn’t tell if he was just trying to keep up the happy couple act for his family, or if he just felt guilty, and was trying to make it up to you.

That just drove your resentment deeper. 

You were forced to share a bed with him, but mercifully it was large enough that you could throw a pillow between the two of you to use as a wall, keeping him at bay, at least mentally anyway, and still have enough room to sleep comfortably. 

The first night you did that, you could have sworn the most hurt look you had ever seen on a person crossed his face, but he hid it quickly, and now when he got into bed, whenever that was he just turned his back on you, and fell asleep, or passed out, because Dean had taken to drinking a lot. 

Week two started, and you barely spoke to each other inside your shared room. Only on the outside of the room did you even attempt to act like a couple with him, and that’s because you didn’t want to die. 

When the second week started, John had started taking Dean on a lot more “jobs” with him, and usually they were gone late into the night. When Dean finally did stumble back in the door, he recked of whiskey, and stumbled to the bed without so much as a good night, or fuck you, just like you were another piece of expensive furniture that filled the room. 

You didn’t ask Dean about his work.You didn’t ask Dean about much of anything.You found it easier just to ignore each other. 

Tonight was no different. You had spent all day working on the transcript that your new job Dean had got you, just like he promised, had sent you. 

You were thankful for the job. It was a nice distraction from the reality you now found yourself in, even if you knew Dean probably only got it for you to cover his ass. 

Dean had been gone all day with John, which freed you up to move around the house without risk of being caught by John, who you tried to avoid with everything in you.  Something about the man just made your skin crawl. Still today you had work to do, and that’s what you did, from the moment you woke up to the empty bed, Dean on another “job”, to the point where a knock on our door disturbed you from your distraction. 

“Hey woman! You’ve been hauled up in here all damn day! Care if I join you?” Jess asks, coming in without invitation and flopping down at the foot of your bed. 

“Be my guest. Nothing really all that exciting here today though,” you tell her, typing away on the computer in front of you.

“You're still working? You do realize it’s almost seven in the evening right?” she asked, shock clearly evident in her voice. 

Looking up at the clock on the wall, you look back down at your computer with wide, burning eyes. You hadn’t realized that it was that late.You had successfully wasted the whole day staring at this computer. 

“No, I hadn’t realized it was that late.” you mumble, shutting your computer, and shoving it away from you like it might come to life and attack you, earning a smile from Jess.

“Well come on.The men are home, and it’s time for dinner. I haven’t even seen you leave this room today, so I know you probably haven’t eaten. Dean won’t be happy if you get too skinny now will he?” she said with a wink.You forced a chuckle in response, but said nothing in fear that you would blow your cover, and Deans. 

Truth be told, you weren’t sure Dean would even notice you died, much less lost weight. 

Getting up from your perch on the bed, you stretch and follow Jess to the dining room where you could hear the men’s voices filtering in from the hall. Bracing yourself for another acting session, you take a deep breath, and step down into the room.Thankfully, they were all so immersed in conversation that they didn't even see you two walk in. 

Jess took her seat next to Sam, and you next to Dean as the maid came into the room  with the butler that you didn’t even know the name of, and started to plate everyone’s food. That was one thing that you just couldn’t get used to. People waiting on you hand and foot that way.

“Well I’m telling you Sammy, another person in the car is nothing but another liability, and Dad and I can move in and out easier with just the two of us,” Dean said, not even acknowledging you sitting next to him. 

“I agree with Dean. Sam, stay here and watch over the ladies. Dean and I will be in and out quicker if it’s just the two of us.”

Sam throws down his silverware, and Jess leans over to quiet him down before he can make too big of a scene.

“When are the two of you gonna stop treating me like a child? I can handle this job, just me and Dean!”

“Well Sammy, maybe if you weren’t walking around acting like a little bitch every fucking job you were sent on, then Dad would trust you with this.” Dean said, shoving food into his mouth, not bothering to make eye contact with his little brother. 

“Fuck you Dean.You think that since you’ve got a woman now, and the high table is back to kissing your pretty little ass, that you can say and do whatever the fuck..”

“ENOUGH!” John’s voice boomed, and everyone at the table froze. “Sam, you're not going on this job, and that’s final. It’s dangerous, you’re not experienced enough, that’s it, that’s my call, and that’s final.” 

A defining silence fell over the room. Sam sat there brooding at his plate of food, pushing food around with his fork. Jess dared not say anything, but instead busied herself pouring another glass of wine. Dean continued to give you the cold shoulder, and busied himself with his own food. 

John, on the other hand, was watching Dean and yourself with a sickening smirk on his face. 

“So Y/N. My son and I will be leaving early tomorrow to go on a rather dangerous job.This one is one of the biggest deals that we’ve done in a long time, and if it goes south, it might be awhile before you see Dean again, I assume you plan to send him off properly tonight.”

You turned white as the table cloth sitting on the table in front of you, and Dean paused from eating only a moment, before returning to his meal, a little smoother at hiding his shock than you at his father’s boldness. That or he was just used to it. 

You, on the other hand, had to force down the wave of bile that was working its way up your throat at John’s lewdness. 

“I...I...Don’t see how that’s any of your business.” you stutter, still shocked he boldly asked such a question, much less at the dinner table. 

“Oh, it’s plenty my business princess. See what we have to do tomorrow requires a lot of concentration, and I need my boy’s head in the game, and not on what he did not get last night. See sweetheart, it’s your job to take care of my son, and he’s one of my best, so I expect you to never let him leave this house with his balls….” 

“STOP!” Dean yelled, shocking everyone at the table. Throwing his napkin down he shoves his chair back with force, and goes to walk out of the room, stopping only to look over his shoulder and to call you to him, the first time he’d spoken to you directly in three days.

“Y/N, come, now.” 

Whatever raft Dean had planned when you got back up to your room was better than this conversation, so you quickly got up from the table and followed him there without a word, grateful for an excuse to get away from that room, and away from John.

As soon as you got to your room, you quickly thought maybe you were better off downstairs, because as soon as Dean shut the door and locked it behind you, he rounded on you with more fury than you had ever seen in the green eyes that still haunted your every dream.

“What the fuck was that down there? Do you realize you almost got us both fucked down there?!?! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKING MIND?! You have the audacity to disrespect my father, at his table, and think he’s not going to make me pay for it?”

Dean backed you to the wall before letting his fist land very close to the side of your face, literally letting you feel the breeze of the blow as he hit the wall with force, pinning you against the wall.

“Dean, how can you say that? You heard what he asked you down there?”

Dean snarled at you, and you cowered back into the wall further.

“He suspects what’s going on between us, or else he wouldn’t ask.You could have played along, but no you had to show your ass. Don’t you get it? He’s dangerous Y/N! One word and he could have you killed, and no one would ever come looking, nothing I could do would stop it!!”

Shoving off the wall and away from you, Dean poured a glass of whiskey in the expensive crystal tumbler that sat on the little table by the door. He took a deep breath to calm himself, before taking it down in one pull. 

When he turned back to you, his eyes were colder than you had ever seen them, and it made your stomach curl sickeningly. 

“How often do I have to apologize to you for this? I know it was my fault. I know I fucked up and pulled you into this mess. I’ve tried to tell you I’m sorry. I’ve tried to show you I’m sorry, everything I’ve done, every job since you got here was to ensure you have a future, to make sure YOU want for nothing!! Night after night, day in and day out, you walk around here mopping, ignoring me, hurting my feelings, disrespect me! This job I’m doing tomorrow is to present you to the high table, to make sure that we can live whatever life there is for us now comfortably, and no one calls a hit out on you!! Do you give a shit? Fuck no!” 

Anger boiled under the surface of your skin like water in a pot, and you had to swallow hard to make your voice work as tears streamed freely down your face. How dare he try and make this all your fault. Like you had disrespected him, when he’d taken everything away from you. 

“I hope your ‘high table’ kills you tomorrow, then maybe I’ll be free of you and your lies.” you spat at him, and he flinches before collecting himself, careful not to let too much show. 

“Oh no baby girl. Because if they kill me, you belong to John Winchester, so you better fucking pray I come back alive.” Dean turns to go into the bathroom connected to your room, undoing his tie with force and throws it across the room.

Turning to face you, his face showed more hurt than he’d let you see before.

“You know, I thought maybe, just maybe I could convince you to feel for me what I’ve felt for you from the moment I saw you. Guess I was wrong.” 

Slamming the door to the bathroom before you could say anything, you stood there with your thoughts reeling. Was he playing with you, or was he telling the truth?

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[heyyyharry]

Chapter 13: Last Dance

(from ‘The Winter and The Crown’)

…in which there’s a masquerade ball.

Word count: 3.5k

AU: queen!y/n, commander!harry

Description: Y/N and Harry set off on a new adventure to find ‘the cure’ for an ancient curse, meanwhile, the enemies are plotting to take her kingdom.

Wattpad link (Reyna as Y/N aka Peach)

A/N: 

GUYS, TRUST ME! LISTEN TO THIS WHILE READING

Also, if you've read my other stories, please let me know in my inbox:

which genre do you think I write better at? 

Contemporary romance (Flatmate, My Girl), or Fantasy romance/Historical romance (TCTM, In Another Life), or Fantasy/mystery with romance as a side plot (TCTM2)?

Thank you! :)

Love, Allie.

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Harry had sat by the window from when the sun started setting. He watched the shadow at his feet dissolve into blackness, until the stars came out and pallid moonlight washed over the room.

A maid came to light a fire. She asked if he needed anything. He gave her no response, just a flick of his wrist to dismiss her. He could feel her eyes sweep over him as she left. He didn’t care. He knew what the servants in the castle had been whispering about him. People always had a lot to say when they only knew half the story. Which was why Harry hadn’t spoken to anyone since he’d come back. Not even Kenny and Stefan, whom he’d known his whole life. They could sympathise. However, they would never truly understand what he’d gone through.

Though the lake had obliterated all the scars on his skin, he could still feel the pressure of the blade buried deep in his side whenever he thought about the day of the ambush. He’d lost so much since then. Dying and coming back to life only to live like a ghost. Getting his memory back didn’t suddenly make it all better.

A knock on the door disturbed his thoughts. He whipped around just in time as the door creaked open, and Mary poked her head in. Witch, he thought, rising fast from his chair. He remembered being chained up in a cell, and the only thing he’d seen had been her one eye glowing in the dark as she cursed him with her evil spells. He regretted having felt sorry for her once. He should have killed her when he’d got a chance.

“Don’t be scared,” she said, lifting a hand as though she was approaching a prey animal. “I just want to talk.”

“I’m not scared of you,” he told her, his voice rough. “You should be scared because it takes everything in me not to put my hands round your neck right now.”

Mary kept a considerable distance between them as she stopped and swallowed hard. “I’m very sorry about everything you’ve gone through. You know I was forced to do that.”

“No, you chose to do that. You chose to serve Calanthe.”

“I did,” Mary sighed. “I’d lost my sisters. They were all I had. And I blamed Y/N for it. When I came to Calanthe, I was desperate and mourning. But I swear I’m a better person now. I didn’t mean to hurt so many people.”

Harry scoffed, waving towards the door. “You’re not making this any better. Just get out.”

Mary didn’t move. She looked even more determined to get her apology across. “I know I’ve caused a lot of pain for everyone here. That’s not my intention anymore. I just want this war to be over and for everyone to be safe.”

Harry flopped back into his chair, looking out of the window with his chin on his knuckles. If he didn’t acknowledge her presence, hopefully she’d leave him alone.

It didn’t work.

“Something’s bothering you,” she said.

“Yes, I’m still waiting for it to stop talking to me.”

Mary exhaled, ignoring the insult. “It’s the Queen, isn’t it? Because of her bond with the King.” Despite there being no answer or even a reaction, Mary still went on, “I think...it’s for the best, if you just...let her go.”

Harry stiffened. Slowly, he turned to her, appalled. “What?”

“I know you’ll hate me even more after I tell you this,” she said. “But it’s impossible to compete with someone she’s been looking for from lifetime to lifetime. Fate is cruel, but it always does its job. It always brings soulmates back together.”

“I don’t...understand.”

Mary studied Harry with her wide eye, as if she could not figure out why he seemed confused. Then, it occurred to both of them that Y/N hadn’t been completely honest with him.

“She hasn’t told you,” Mary mumbled, more to herself.

“Told me what?”

Harry thought of Y/N’s conversation with the deer before they’d followed it out of the woods. It must have told her more than she’d revealed to him.

Why did his love have to hide the truth from him? Was it because she didn’t trust him? Or because she didn’t think he could handle it? Or was it because she couldn’t believe it herself?

“Then I think you should hear it from her,” Mary said fast.

Harry got to his feet right as she was about to leave. “Tell me.”

Reluctantly, she looked back at him over her shoulder.

“Please,” he added, desperate.

She pondered for a moment before letting go of a heavy sigh. Both of them knew she’d regret this afterwards, and yet she didn’t have it in her to just stay silent.

“All I can say to you is that…” she wet her lip, “Y/N and Lance have a special kind of bond. Two people need years to build such a connection, but those two had already got it when they first met. You may think you understand her, but you’ll never know her as well as he does. And if she ends up choosing you, she’ll probably spend another lifetime missing him.”

Harry was trying to process all that when Mary spun on her heels and slipped out of the room as quietly as she’d entered. The door shut with a soft ‘thud’, and Harry stood there, staring at it with his heart and thoughts racing.

Although he could not make sense of what the witch had just told him, the ball of fear within him grew until his chest felt like it might combust. He fell back into his chair. The moon outside his window was round and high above the empty branches. Harry contemplated it as he recalled the dreams Y/N had told him.

The Moon Lady and the Man in Black.

The witch and the King.

The winter and the crown.

He twisted her gold ring around his finger, agitated. “Fate,” he mumbled to himself.

When the door was opened for the third time, it was Y/N who came in. Harry pressed his lips into a smile, hoping she wouldn’t notice something was wrong. She always noticed. That was the problem.

She put her hands on her hips and surveyed the room before taking him in with a look of concern. “The maid said you’d been here all day. Are you not feeling well?”

“I’m good,” he lied. “I’m just trying to get familiar with all these changes. How was the meeting?”

She stood by the fireplace, folding her arms across her chest and resting her forehead against the wall. “It was...interesting. Soon the news will arrive at Theros, so we’re bracing for the worst. Lance speculated that this was all Calanthe’s plan. She needed a reason to invade the North.”

“She had her most trusted advisor murdered?”

Y/N shrugged. “You don’t think she’s capable of it?”

“We’ve met her, Peach. She’s just a girl.”

“We don’t know her.”

Harry got up from his chair and walked over to stand in front of Y/N. He raked his fingers through his hair and released a sigh. “I can’t imagine her being so cruel and calculated. They’re using her.”

“What do you mean? Who?”

“The Monks. Taking me was their idea. I could vaguely remember them telling her what to do to me. Would you like to hear my theory?”

Y/N nodded, looking intrigued.

“They’ve got her believing that she’s special,” Harry said. “That she’s the chosen one, so she’d trust them and let them guide her. When the war’s over and she’s won, they’ll find a way to get rid of her. They wanted your father, your uncle, and your brother dead. How hard would it be to take down Calanthe?”

Y/N chewed her bottom lip as she averted her troublesome eyes. She seemed to ponder over his speculation for a long moment before letting go of a short breath. “Let’s not speak of it. I’ll discuss it with Lance in the morning.”

Harry knew he was doomed when even the King’s name made his stomach twist. “We can talk about it if you want to. I don’t mind,” he said.

She shook her head. “I do, Harry. I’m tired. I just want to not think about it for a second.” Seeing the bafflement on his face, she smiled and touched his cheek.

“I want to help,” he mumbled.

“I know,” she sighed. “And I’m grateful for your help. I just don’t want to feel like a queen when we’re alone. We can talk about anything, not war and death.”

Harry nodded as he placed with hands on her hips, pulling her in. She wrapped her arms around his neck. He traced the flame’s shadow on her cheek as she smiled, content. He hated that they could be holding each other, and there’d still be plenty of distance between them.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too,” she said, squinting her eyes. She knew there was more to it.

He took a deep breath. “I need you to be completely honest with me.”

“All right.”

“Do you love him?”

Y/N froze for a second as she blinked blankly. “What? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m serious, Peach.” He brushed her hair out of her face. “There’s no right or wrong answer. I just want to know how you feel. I’m not good at reading people, and lately I’ve been having a hard time trying to figure you out. I’m not saying this to make you feel bad, my love. I love you. And I want you to be happy so I must hear it from you. Do you love him?”

Harry’s heart thudded wildly in his chest as Y/N worked her jaw for a reply. “I’m afraid of losing him,” she said at last. “He’s become a part of me. Perhaps he’s always been. So I guess I do love him. Just not the way he wants me to. Not the way he deserves to be loved.”

Though that wasn’t the answer Harry had expected or the answer he wanted to hear. For him it could only be yes or no. He was surprised yet not saddened by it. He even felt quite hopeful that she still trusted him to say what she really felt. He might not have all of her now with everything they were going through. However, he could still get her back.

“He’s a good man,” Harry said.

Y/N’s doubtful eyes scrutinised him. “You’re not mad at me, are you?”

“No,” he chuckled and kissed her forehead. “I love you. And I want you to be happy.”

The corner of her lips raised nonchalantly. “I will be again, eventually. But you do make this living hell a lot better.”

Harry tossed his head back and laughed. Y/N laughed, too. He’d missed that heavenly sound. Why should he believe anything Mary had said? She’d nearly killed him and sabotaged what he had with Y/N twice. So she should be the last person he should listen to.

Right?

“Oh, there will be a ball tomorrow night,” Y/N said, fixing his hair with a big grin on her face.

“Really?”

“Yes. A masquerade ball.”

Harry never liked dancing. However, he knew she did, and so he was excited about this ball. “But,” he rubbed his chin, “is it insensitive to hold a ball after what happened?”

Y/N’s smile faded, making Harry feel terrible for ruining one rare moment of happiness for her.

“George Wallace’s death was a week ago,” she said, her brows knitted. “And the fact that people in court are still talking about it and assuming that they’re in danger is a great concern for me. I need to show my subjects that we’re not living in fear. Besides,” she gave a half shrug, “dancing makes me happy.”

Harry chuckled, shaking his head. “Well, whatever makes you happy, Your Majesty.”

Y/N giggled as she waved off his comment. “Stop teasing. You know you love me.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Mmmm.” She leaned in and kissed him on the lips.

Suddenly, the door burst open, and a breathless guard stuck his head in right as Y/N and Harry jumped away from each other.

“Your Majesty.”

“What?” Y/N breathed, sounding annoyed. Her cheeks were still red, and Harry couldn’t help but smile into his fist.

“His Majesty requested for your attendance,” the guard said.

Y/N immediately looked to Harry. The apologetic stare she was giving him had said it all.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Your Majesty,” he said, took her hand and kissed it once.

“The ball,” she mouthed at him. And then she was gone.

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.

.

Music swelled as the orchestra was readying for the first number. Y/N watched the queue of stragglers seeking admittance at the entrance, amused by their excitement, which was evident even though their expressions were hidden behind their masks. Some even had painted faces, vying to outdo the splendour of the palace.

“May I have this dance?” A man dressed in dark blue stretched his hand out to Jo. With an uncomfortable smile, she was whisked onto the crowded dance floor. Y/N had noticed that Jo seemed distracted tonight. She’d keep seeking the room for someone. Y/N’s curiosity was piqued. Could it be possible that Jo was looking for Lance? Could something had happened between Jo and Lance while she’d been away?

She pushed the thought to the back of her mind, straining her eyes as she tried to locate Harry among the colourful masks. All of the ladies had found their dance partners. Their dresses fluttered as they twirled like snowflakes in the wind. Where was he? He’d said he’d be here, and he wouldn’t break his promise.

“Why is the prettiest girl in the room sitting this dance out?”

“Lance!” Y/N flinched, pressing a palm against her chest as Lance tapped the back of her chair and flopped down into the one beside her. He was dressed in a fine suit of blackest wool, impeccably tailored to his frame. A dark mask obscured his face from forehead to nose. Tiny jet beads sparkled at the edges.

He offered a quick smile. “How do you know? I’m wearing a mask.”

Y/N scoffed as she rolled her eyes. She was grateful he was being his snarky self and not the person who’d told her he’d loved her two nights ago. Still, those words were all she could hear whenever she looked at him.

“Even Jo’s dancing,” he pointed out.

“Speaking of Jo, I want to ask you something,” she said, fixing her gold mask. Even with a mask on, she still wasn’t able to handle the weigh of his stare. “Is there something between you and Jo? She’s been distracted.”

Lance smirked. “Why do you assume I have something to do with her being distracted?”

“I don’t know. You were probably flirting with all the maids while I was gone,” she joked.

Lance breathed out a casual laugh. “I was flirting with your entire library, actually. In fact, I have another theory–”

“Please. Not here,” she said, pouting. “I’d like to be a normal girl for just one night.”

Lance arched an eyebrow as he eyed her up and down. “Said the only lady here not dancing.”

“You’re obnoxious.” She rolled her eyes, unable to stop beaming.

Lance sucked in a breath. He stood up and straightened his back with a hand stretched toward her. She looked up, amused.

“Dance with me. You’re being embarrassing right now,” he said, glancing at their feet as if surprised to find them staying still.

Y/N gave a nod as she got up, her fingers sliding into his outstretched hand, which was cold and rough yet familiar. For a second, she caught a glimpse of them standing in that cave. The dream in which he’d visited her had felt so real. It’d felt like this. She glanced up to meet his questioning eyes. She reassured him with a tight smile and followed him to the centre of the room.

A new tune began. She snaked her free arm up his shoulder, holding her breath as his other hand came to rest at her waist. She once again swept her eyes across the room for Harry. Her heart sank when she couldn’t find him. He hated dancing. Perhaps he’d changed his mind at the last minute and decided not to join. She’d check on him after this dance.

“My eyes are here,” Lance said.

Y/N jolted, feeling glad that he couldn’t see her blushing. “Pardon me.”

“It’s all right.” He laced his fingers with hers. His hand at her waist was warm and sure. A ribbon of comfort unravelled inside her, and she allowed Harry to be absent from her mind for this tune.

Lance skillfully led her through the familiar steps, his smile bright. “Not bad,” he said, making her laugh.

“Is that how you compliment someone?”

“My apology, Your Majesty. I assumed Northerners didn’t have fun.”

“You’re right.” Y/N rolled her eyes. “I’m miserable right now. I cannot wait for this to be over.” As soon as she’d said it, she feared he’d take her joke the wrong way. Thankfully, he tossed his head back and laughed. She rarely got to hear Lance laugh, so her heart vibrated with excitement.

“Don’t worry,” he said, tilting his head. “This will be our first and last dance.”

She did not ask what he meant.

As the song came to an end, Lance drew her in, so close she could feel the heat of his chest. Behind the mask, his eyes burned down at her. The crowd broke into applause for the orchestra as they broke apart.

He reached out and pushed aside a loose curl behind her ear. His thumb traced lightly across her cheek. Before she could thank him for dancing with her, he spun on his heels and slipped into the crowd of courtiers.

.

.

.

“Argh!” Calanthe charged, swinging her sword in a furious arc. The soldier cooly stepped into his charge, catching the descending sword with his own. He twisted and wrenched upward with all his strength. The sword flew out of Calanthe’s hand. She grabbed for it frantically, but her opponent snatched it out of the air.

“Enough!” shouted a gruff powerful voice.

Calanthe whirled and dropped the sword to her feet, catching her breath. Vossler, the leader of The Monks, appeared like a phantom. His gaze trailed from Calanthe’s face to her weapon on the ground. He didn’t need to say a word to describe how disappointed he was. She knew that look. She’d received it her whole life from everyone she’d ever met. Ever since she’d taken the throne, no one had dared to look at her like that except for Vossler. He reminded her of her father. She’d give anything to impress him.

“Your Majesty,” he said, dragging the title with an agitated tone. “I told you that sword-fighting was very similar to dancing. You have to feel, not think.”

“I know, I know,” she muttered, bending down to pick up the sword. Vossler kicked it out of her reach before she could close her fingers around the hilt. Her guards drew their swords. She lifted a hand to tell them to stay where they were.

Vossler held her stare as if challenging her to punish him for disrespecting the Queen. She knew she couldn’t. People feared her because they feared The Monks. She hated that. Still, she was the chosen one. Vossler would have no choice but to kneel at her feet when she became the ruler of one hundred kingdoms.

“You can’t rule when even a child could take the sword from you,” he said as if he could read her thoughts.

She lifted her chin proudly despite the fact that her fingers were still trembling. “I’m tired. I’ll practice again tomorrow.”

Vossler regarded her with a raised eyebrow. His lips twitched in a despicable manner. “Very well. You should get some rest, Your Majesty. Get all the rest you need. Why should you worry about a nineteen-year-old, whose best friend is her sword, who murdered her own brother in a duel, brought someone back from the dead, and survived the North Mountain?”

Calanthe was frozen in place, too shocked to react. “She survived?”

“She found the lake.”

“Fuck!” Calanthe screamed into her hands. “The Mountain was supposed to kill her!”

“The witch didn’t tell us the whole truth,” Vossler said. To Calanthe’s surprise, he sounded as calm as ever. She was about to ask him what the witch had been hiding from them when he flicked his wrist, and a servant hurried to retrieve Calanthe’s sword.

“Your Majesty?” he said, his eyes piercing at Calanthe.

The wind whipped by, blowing strands of hair across her face. She bit the inside of her cheek, glared back at the servants who were observing her, making her feel like less than a queen she was.

She took a deep breath, then grabbed the weapon. “Again.”