#whoops angsted time to sleep

[hogans-heroes]

Don’t think about Bucky shivering in the first Stalag winter with his thin leather jacket, dull eyes and arms clutched around himself, and Gale being exasperated with him. “Why did you get rid of the sheepskin ya loony we could never peel it off of you before?” And Bucky muttering “you hated it,” lips pressed tight because what did he do wrong now but Gale is lost because he’s never seen this side of Bucky before and Bucky’s eyes are damp and he freezing without a proper jacket because of Gale and it breaks something inside Gale’s chest. That’s the first night he makes Bucky bunk with him so he can wrap him up with his own body warmth and blankets as Bucky waits till the others are asleep to curl close and press his face to Gale’s neck, hands fisting in the back of Gale’s sweater.

[moonlight-records]

Because I Liked A Boy | LN4 (PSDE)

pairing: reader x LN4

summary: You were known as the one who tamed Mr. Playboy of the paddock and for a moment, you thought you had. Then everything goes sideways and suddenly you regret what you've done all because you liked a boy.

warning: angst. so much angst. break-up, player!lando, OOC Oscar?? it's based off the song, sorry not sorry

a/n: welcome to the playlist series, deluxe edition! i put my stim playlist on shuffle and picked the first 12 songs that was played (last two songs are bonus songs!). yes the titles are the songs, whoops

wc: 1.9K

song 1 out 12: because i liked a boy by Sabrina Carpenter

You and Lando had “broken up” right before Baku. Aka, Lando had dumped you right before Singapore which was horrible because he had given you tickets to the race. He let you keep the tickets, thank god, but you would’ve easily sold them if your flight was refundable but the asshole had done it quite literally 24 hours after they hit the non-refundable mark so you decided to go.

That was the first mistake you made. The news broke right after qualifiers when Lando was spotted with another girl at a club.Then the rumors spread that night about how Lando and this girl were a thing first. That you were nothing more but a psycho. Obsessed. A “proud mistress.” A homewrecker. A slut. You decided that it wasn’t worth the energy because you knew the truth and that things would blow over within a week or two.

That was mistake number two because by the second week (and the first week into summer break),  you were still getting hate and death threats directed at you or about you and it was too late to attempt to clear your name. You were thankful for the handful of fans who defended you and found it really odd Lando decided to just let himself be seen with another girl instead of announcing his split beforehand since clearly this girl came after you but there was nothing to do now to change the public’s view of you.

Clearly, it showed that Lando really did not care for you as much as you thought so you decided to do yourself the favor and just disappear. You deactivated all your socials and only told your close friends you were going on a social media detox. Your family were going on a mini vacation when in reality you found yourself waltzing into

Plopping down on the couch, you run your fingers through your hair before letting your head hang. Your fingernails dig into your scalp and suddenly your sweats are wet from the tears falling onto them before dragging your hands down and silently crying into a mix of  your hands and hair. You tried to figure out what had happened.

What has gone wrong?

You swore that you and Lando were happy. Sure, the long distance at times was rough and the time zones felt killer but you had held strong. You were convinced that you two could make it to the postseason and the few month or two that you two had together would help immensely. Still, you had been warned to keep him at a distance. That Lando was nothing more but a player and a heartthrob that moved on when he was bored but you swore that you were the one and for a bit, you were fooled into believing it along with everyone else.

It was almost a year. A fucking year basically you spent with Lando before he decided to dump you. A year of fucked up sleep schedules and sleepless nights. A year of traveling to go see these races. A year of meeting his friends and slowly being integrated into his world just for it to come crashing down. God, how stupid were you? You had poured so much energy into this boy just to be the one that got hurt in the end. What you would’ve give to punch him in his stupid fa—

“Here.”

You look up to be greeted with a carton of ice cream. You take the carton without a second thought, top flung off, and spoon diving in. You grunts slightly as you struggle but you manage to be victorious as you get a spoonful. The couch shifts next to you and tears immediately swell again when there’s a gentle comforting hand rubbing soothing circles on your back.

“…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” you mumble while shaking your head before shoving another mouthful of ice-cream into your mouth, “you tried to warn me. I didn’t listen. This is the consequence of my action.” You laugh bitterly, “God maybe I really am nothing more than a naive hopeless romantic who can’t pick a good guy to save my own life.”

“Don’t say that, y/n.” You can hear the frown as you look over, “you aren’t naive. You see the good in everyone and I admire that about you greatly. You saw the best in him,” gently brushing some hair out of your face. “But he’s never going to change unless he wants to. Sadly, he doesn’t and you got burned in the end because he’s too busy being a player.”

Wrapping his arm around your shoulder, he pulls you into his side. “You’re too good for him.” Pressing a gentle kiss to your temple, “Now. Do you want a trashy movie or trashy TV?”

“Trashy TV. Maybe that new mom documentary about those Mormon moms from tiktok?”

You snicker slightly at the . “The what documentary?”

“Do you seriously not keep up with these things?”

“No.”

“We really have to change that.”

Summer break had come and gone. You had done a lot of crying and snacking but you had also done a lot of healing. You think you’ve done a lot of healing anyway but today would be the deciding factor.

Your stomach twisted and turned as you watched the destination time get lower and lower the closer you arrived to the Austin track. You glance out the window anxious before looking back at your phone. When you arrive, you thank the driver as you climb out, holding your purse just a bit tighter before making your way to one of the back entrances you knew existed. Nobody in the media knew about it so you got into the paddock undetected from the media as you started your journey to a certain garage.

You’re so close to your destination before you’re finally spotted. “Y/N?”

You freeze hearing the familiar British accent behind you. His voice sounded surprised. You should just keep walking, you’re so close to your destination but your body betrays you as you turn. You study those stormy green eyes that seem to grow a bit colder seeing you here. You ball your hands into fists, nails digging into your pal to keep from crying. He didn’t deserve that from you.

You silently stare at Lando, who was in his cream sweatshirt from his new academic merch drop and some joggers along with that stupidly beautiful mullet. God, you swore that Aphrodite herself had hand sculptured Lando which would explain why you could not find it in you to hate his looks. Instead, you clear your throat, “can I help you?”

Lando decides to save both of you the trouble and cuts right through the bullshit. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to support my friend.”

“Friend? Seriously?” Lando looks around then back at you, “last time I checked we weren’t even acquaintances. Hell, are we talking again?”

Anger simmered in your stomach but you kept it at bay, “Why would you think I was talking about you?”

Lando seemed a bit surprised by that, “Well, you aren’t really close with anyone else here,” he let out a small chuckle. “The boys might’ve liked you but I’ve known them longer.”

“Well, maybe some of them weren’t happy with how you let things end. I mean, with your new fling starting rumors about me being a homewrecker and such even though when all that went down we’d already broke up. Yet you didn’t have the balls to say that to the media, did you?”

Lando grits his teeth, “I never told her to—”

“Doesn’t matter,” you cut in. “You let the rumors spread. You let the fire grow. You never denied the rumors or told her it was wrong. You didn’t even tell the media we broke up before that night. Now I’m just the homewrecking slut when she came into the picture after me. Seemed like she was doing a lot of projecting and yet, here we are.”

You cross your arms over your chest staring the Brit down. Silence falls upon the two of you and you’re ready to leave before an arm is slung over your shoulder startling you and Lando. “There you are.”

“Oscar!” You exclaim and smile, “hey.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Lando interjects.

“Excuse me?” Oscar asks, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Spare me, Oscar. Why the hell are you inviting Y/N knowing damn well we broke up just a little over a month ago.”

You can feel your heart twist as Lando speaks. His words were like a knife that would stop at nothing until you were nothing more than a shell of yourself wallowing in pain occasionally through the numbness.

“Well, Y/N and I are friends and I invited her as my guest this weekend so…” he lets his words trail off for a moment.

“When did you and Y/N become friends?”

“When you decided to treat her like trash and tossed her to the side for some random girl probably after you just for your fame and money.”

The silence that followed Oscar’s comment was suffocating. Your jaw was opened a little while you stared at the Aussie in pure awe while Lando’s jaw had dropped to the floor. He quickly regained some of his composure, still unsure how to respond to his teammate and friend (maybe?) remark but Oscar wasn’t done.

“I mean, come on. Y/N is great. Everyone loves her. Everyone looked forward to seeing her. She stayed up countless nights for you. Rearranged her schedules to visit. Hell, she didn’t know anything about F1 until you and worked her ass off to learn your profession. What’s the thank you gave her for almost a year of your life? Some random girl at the club? Seriously?” Oscar shakes his head, “Mate, I love you but I’m not gonna side with you. You fucked up. You picked a girl who’s known to be a celebrity hopper over someone who gave you everything and you want me to side with you and the celebrity hopper? Who has to slander other girls and put them down so nobody focuses on how fast she moves on?? No thanks.”

You stare up at Oscar in awe for coming to your defense. You feel tears starting to swell because this has probably been the worst month in your life and here was Oscar, reminding you first hand that there were people in your corner. That there were people who saw you for you. Who knew the kind hearted person you were. The one who gave it their all until they couldn’t give anymore. The one who saw the good in everyone and loved way too much and never got the same energy in return. You avert your eyes quickly when Oscar’s gaze meets your and you clear your throat. “You should head back to your garage before they look for you. I’ll meet you there.”

“You sure?” Oscar asks.

“Yeah!”

Oscar nods, “Okay,” he glances at Lando but doesn’t bother saying goodbye. They’d see each other soon enough.

You watch Oscar leave before turning to look at Lando, unsure what to say. It seems he was in the same boat as you both stood there awkwardly.

“Well.” You start finally.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Save it.” You hold a hand up, looking away from him, “please. I don’t. The damage has been done, Lando. It’s over. You’ve already told me who I am from your actions. Just…have a good weekend,” You turn and head to Oscar’s garage without a second glance back at the man who was once your everything.

[oddinary4bts]

Chasing Cars | ch 7 (jjk)

☆summary: when your brother goes to study on a semester abroad, your life collides with his best friend Jeon Jungkook, who's coincidentally your roommate. Will you survive the collision, or will you crumble into dust?

☆pairings: brother's best friend!Jungkook x younger sister!female reader

☆rating: 18+ (minors DNI, this chapter contains mature content)

☆genre: forbidden love?au, college!au, slice of life!au, smut, angst (as usual a lot of it), fluff

☆warnings: hangover, curses, alcohol, leg day at the gym, jungkook's reputation, a v dangerous game of spin the bottle, explicit content: jungkook's ass, hickeys, oral sex (female and male receiving), praising, fingering, marking, mouth fucking, hair pulling, spitting, degradation, protected sex,

☆word count: 15k (whoops)

☆a/n: more frustration?? and then not. Enjoy <3 and thank you to @moonleeai for beta-ing, you're the best <3

☆series masterpost

☆add yourself to the taglist here!

☆☆☆☆☆

If I lay here If I just lay here Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Chasing Cars, Snow Patrol

☆☆☆☆☆

Saturday, March 2nd

[08:12 am] bröther👽: call me when ure up

You’ve been ignoring the text since you woke up an hour and a half ago. Pretending that you never received it, pretending that Jimin held his promise and didn’t tell anything to Taehyung. 

It’s a foolish dream – the text is proof enough that Taehyung knows, or at least perhaps suspects something about you and Jungkook. You don’t know what to do, what to think, so you ignore it altogether.

Maybe if you ignore it long enough, it’ll disappear.

Maybe if you ignore it long enough, yesterday won’t have happened. 

Jungkook invades your thoughts, his drunken kiss chasing everything else away. Your blood heats up, your cheeks redden, and your heart is beating faster in your chest as you relive the scene, again and again. 

You’ve been reliving it all night long, the ghost of his soft lips on yours haunting you in your sleep. 

You sigh, rolling on your side, hiding your face in your pillow. You’re aware you should get up, but you can’t bring yourself to, too afraid to run into Jungkook. Though you haven’t heard him move from his room, and you assume he’s fighting against his hangover, or maybe he’s still asleep. Another sigh escapes your lips as you turn on your back, looking up to the ceiling. 

Maybe Jungkook was drunk enough to forget about last night. It’d make things easier - maybe then you won’t have to confront him at all. But you know it’s wishful thinking - he was steady enough to kiss you dumb, so you highly doubt he’ll forget.

Especially if the kiss stole the breath from him like it did to you…

You groan, turning to hide your face in a pillow again. Maybe you should disappear, vanish into shadows until you don’t have to talk to your brother or to Jungkook. Or maybe you should just move to another country and start a new life.

You hate this. You wish it’d be easier, simpler, but of course you had to get involved with your brother’s best friend. It feels like the start of a corny teenage drama, the kind of thing you’d once watched with reverence.

Now you know it to be hell. 

Your phone vibrates a couple of times on the mattress where you left it, multiple text messages coming in at the same time. You raise your head from the pillow, trying to catch a glimpse of the screen, but from this angle you can’t see who texted you. Annoyed, you roll until you can grab your phone, and you look down at the screen, squinting your eyes.

Your eyes widen, and your heart stops beating far too long for it to be normal. And then you gulp, rereading the messages to make sure you aren’t imagining anything.

[10:12 am] bröther👽: plz call soon, got some plans tonight [10:12 am] Nabi: do u want to go shopping this afternoon? [10:12 am] JK: sorry about last night. do we have painkillers?

The texts don’t change. In truth, you don’t mind about Taehyung or Nabi. You just didn’t expect Jungkook to text you, especially not to apologize. It makes you think about the kiss, though differently this time. 

Is he really apologetic? Or does he only believe it to be the right thing to do? You can’t tell. But you still get out of bed, going to the bathroom so that you can retrieve painkillers for him. You make a pit-stop by the kitchen to pour him a glass of water, and then you walk to his bedroom. You stop in front of the door, heart suddenly beating out of your chest. 

This is just Jungkook, you try to remind yourself. Nothing to be worried about. Except that he’s your brother’s best friend, and that you fucked, and that you can’t really get him out of your head now…

You take a deep steadying breath, and then you gently rap your knuckles on the door. You wait for a few seconds, awaiting an answer, but none come. 

“Jungkook?” you let out.

A long groan replies, and you can’t stop the smile that grows on your lips.

“Can I come in?”

Another groan answers, though this time Jungkook eventually says, “Yes.”

So you turn the doorknob, pushing the door open. Jungkook’s room is neater than you’d expected it to be - a few scattered items of clothing lay on the floor, and the dark monitor of his PC setup faces you. You scan the rest of the room, your cheeks turning bright red when you notice Jungkook.

Mostly, you notice Jungkook’s ass, as he’s lying on his belly, naked, over the covers. 

“Put some damn clothes on,” you blurt, looking away from him.

He groans. “Don’t speak so loud, shit.” A few seconds of silence, and then he adds, “Besides, you’ve seen me naked before.”

“You have no shame,” you grumble, but you still step into his room. “I got you painkillers.”

“Why have shame when you’ve got a body like mine?” he teases, raising his head. A boyish smile sports his lips, though he quickly lets his head fall back down, grunting. “Thanks for the painkillers.”

To your relief, he pulls a blanket over him as he turns, hiding the lower half of his body. He sits up, wincing, and you hand the water and the pills to him. He looks at them like they’re foreign, before patting the bed next to him.

“Don’t be shy,” he says, leaning back against his headboard. The one you’ve heard banging in your wall way too many times. “I don’t bite.”

You roll your eyes. “Just take the damn pills.”

He pouts, lower lip jutting out, and you ignore the way it makes your heart race in your chest. He finally grabs the painkillers, and you blush as your fingers brush, electricity jolting through you.

How can he have such an effect on you?

“Thank you,” Jungkook lets out once he’s taken the white pills and downed the water.

You nod. “I’ll let you sleep it off, now.”

“Is my room so not inviting?” he teases as you’re walking out. 

You turn around, leaning against the door frame, arms folded on your chest. “We can’t do this.”

“We can be friends,” he says, features serious as he holds your gaze. Though you struggle to keep your eyes on his - his strong body invites the gaze, and you seek to explore the planes of his body.

He must have noticed it because he breaks into a smirk

“Friends wear clothes around each other,” you reply.

He rolls his eyes, sighing deeply. “Is my body that bad?”

“Do you really need the compliment that bad?”

He wiggles his eyebrows. “So you admit it would be a compliment?”

You shut your eyes in annoyance. “You’re insufferable, Jungkook.”

When your eyes flutter open to that same boyish grin on his lips, you feel yourself folding. You tell him you’ll just get your phone in your room, and then you walk back to his bedroom, hesitantly crossing the threshold. He’s already lying down again, and he’s thankfully pulled the blanket higher over his body.

You sit on the side of his bed, clutching your phone in your hands as if it’s a lifeline. Jungkook’s gaze is heavy on your profile, and you glance at him.

“Don’t worry about yesterday,” you tell him, meeting his gaze.

Big eyes welcome you in, and you feel entranced. You wonder if he feels the same - if your gaze is prison to his eyes as well.

“Are you sure?” he asks, tilting his head to the side.

You shrug. “I kissed you back, didn’t I?”

“You did.” He slowly breaks into a smirk. “You seemed to enjoy it quite a lot.”

“Oh my God,” you let out, making to get up and leave. Jungkook is quick - he grabs your wrist, stopping your motion.

“I’m just teasing you, peach.”

“You can’t tease me like that,” you scold him. “We can’t do that.”

He lets go of your wrist, almost reluctantly. His fingers twitch as they fall on his bed between the two of you. “Sorry,” he apologizes, and you’re surprised at how genuine he sounds.

You nod once. “No worries.”

Eyes locked on his, you both fall silent. You feel like you’re falling forward, like Jungkook really is the sun pulling in the comet that you are. You wonder if he reads everything in your eyes - if he knows that the moment you fucked for the first time, you were gone.

You hate that you are. You feel weak, but how can you resist?

The sound of ringing startles you, cutting through the tension in the room. You look down at your phone in your hands, and your heart drops to your ass at the picture of Taehyung looking back at you.

And maybe you’re hungover too, or perhaps still drunk. Because you don’t think about it - you answer the Facetime call, and you smile a tight-lipped smile as you wait for it to connect.

“Hey loser,” Taehyung greets you when you appear.

The moment his eyes narrow, eyebrows bunching together, you realize your mistake. Somehow, you take it in stride, immediately crafting a lie out of thin air.

Or maybe half a lie.

“Your loser of a best friend got so drunk he needed me to give him painkillers,” you offer as an explanation, and you turn the camera towards Jungkook, who gives a thumbs up, face hidden in his mattress.

“Sounds on brand,” Taehyung replies, features relaxing. “Tough party yesterday?”

“He hosted your friends over here,” you explain, surveying Taehyung through the screen. “He and Jimin got pissed out drunk.”

“Hey, I wasn’t that drunk,” Jungkook interjects, faking offence.

“Shut the fuck up, JK,” Taehyung says, and you really try to read his features. 

Has Jimin told him anything after all?

“What are your plans tonight?” you ask your brother, trying to stir the conversation away from yesterday.

Taehyung smiles. “Date night with this girl,” he says, and he turns the camera towards a pretty girl that you recognize from the Instagram Jungkook showed you. 

“Tae!” she shrieks, and she turns away from the camera.

“She’s shy,” Taehyung says, chuckling. “But we’re going to go eat at a restaurant near the Eiffel Tower.”

“Romantic,” you chime.

His smile grows wider, and you see it in his eyes. You see the light overtaking them, the fond softness that makes him look so young and vulnerable. “Always.” 

There’s a shared silence, interrupted by the shuffling of Jungkook behind you. You look over your shoulder to find him sitting again, and you can’t stop your eyes from dipping down.

You hate that the sheet has slipped. Because you see his semi for half a second before he’s able to hide himself again. If he noticed, Jungkook doesn’t let it show, instead saying into your phone, “Partying without you isn’t the same, bro.”

“We’ll party when you get here,” Taehyung promises. “The French know how to party.”

You stare at Jungkook’s reflection on the screen of your phone, at the smirk that grows on his lips. “Oh, we’ll have catching up to do, I’m sure.”

“Think I can still beat you at beer pong?” Taehyung asks, grinning at his friend.

“Good luck with that,” Jungkook replies. “I’ve been perfecting my form.”

Taehyung bursts out laughing, and Jungkook chuckles behind you. It’s a cute sound - the one he reserves for his close friends. You like the sound, like that he’s comfortable enough around you to let you hear it.

The two friends keep on talking, Jungkook seemingly healed from his hungover as he goes on and on about stuff that happened yesterday. He avoids everything related to you, but he speaks about Lisa, far more than you expected he would. 

So you gulp, listening to him praise the girl, listening to Taehyung asking when he’ll fuck her. It does something ugly to you, and your features fall, though the two men seem to be too focused on their conversation to notice.

Until Jungkook’s gaze dances on your features, and he says, “Sorry, I hi-jacked the conversation.”

You shrug. “Don’t worry about it.”

Yet he slightly furrows his brow, concern seeping into his gaze. It stays for the rest of the conversation, as Taehyung’s girlfriend - Ariane - finally joins in. They look happy, and for a moment, jealousy steals your heart. You’re good at hiding it though, far better than you hide your disappointment from Jungkook speaking about Lisa, and soon enough the conversation reaches its natural end, Ariane and Taehyung needing to head to their reservation.

You tell them goodbye, Jungkook waving at them over your shoulder. The moment the call disconnects, Jungkook says, “You know I don’t care about Lisa.”

You glance at him. “Okay?”

“I’m just trying to make sure he’s not unto us…” he sheepishly adds. “Jimin texted some shit in the group chat last night.”

Your throat goes dry. “He did?”

Jungkook’s tongue darts to toy with his piercings, and he nods once. “Yeah.”

You wait for him to say more, but he only looks at you, features unreadable. “What did he say?” you ask after a few seconds of holding his gaze.

“That you and I are pretty friendly,” he admits. “With a lot of emojis.”

You shut your eyes. “Tae is going to kill me.”

“I wouldn’t be worried about you,” Jungkook reassures you, chuckling lightly. “If he kills someone, I guarantee it will be me.”

“Fuck.”

He nods, then shrugs his shoulders. “It’s not like we can do anything about it.” He holds your gaze for a few more seconds, before glancing outside. “Anyways, I think I’ll head to the gym.”

You tilt your head to the side, a small, disbelieved laugh escaping your mouth. “Aren’t you hungover?”

“Working out helps with headaches,” Jungkook explains. “At least for me.”

Unconvinced, you nod once, and then you get up from where you were sitting on his bed. You cast another glance around his room - your eyes still on a frame with two young boys in Disney World, smiling brightly. You recognize Jungkook in the youngest one, and something about the fact he keeps a picture of him when he was younger on his bedside table is far too endearing.

“You have a brother?” you ask.

His eyes trail to the pictures. “Yeah, Junghyun.”

“I’ve never heard about him before.”

He smiles, winking at you. “You never asked.”

You roll your eyes, though a smile curves your lips upwards as well. “Alright then, I’ll let you go to the gym.”

“Want to come with?” Jungkook asks.

You widen your gaze. “I don’t really go to the gym.”

Jungkook slips out of bed, keeping his sheet around his waist. The muscles on his abdomen move under his skin, and you can’t help but glance down, remembering his semi-erection earlier. You flush entirely red, and Jungkook laughs, clearly knowing where your mind went.

“Never too late to start, peach,” he teases. “I can help you.”

“I’m supposed to go shopping with Nabi this afternoon,” you say, though you haven’t accepted your friend’s invitation yet.

“You don’t need more clothes,” Jungkook says, heading towards a drawer. You watch as he rummages through it, before pulling a pair of black Calvin Klein underwear from it. “You’ve got plenty enough already.”

“And?” you let out. “Girls go shopping for more than clothes, Jungkook.”

He winks at you, before turning his back to you. The sheet drops to the floor, and you immediately look away as he puts his underwear on, facing you again when he’s finally hidden himself from you.

“Please?”

“Please what?” you ask.

“Please come with me?”

There’s a light in his eyes. Something hopeful, vulnerable, and it takes you aback. So much so that you almost take a step back. Your heart goes wild in your chest again, and you hold his gaze.

What would have happened between you and Jeon Jungkook if he wasn’t your brother’s best friend?

“Why do you want me to come?” you ask, sounding a little breathless.

“You’re fun to be around,” Jungkook offers as an explanation, shrugging. “And I prefer working out with people.”

“Can’t you invite Jimin or someone else?”

Jungkook pouts. “Jimin’s hangovers are a lot worse than mine. He won’t want to go out.”

You sigh, holding Jungkook’s gaze as you ponder if you should go or not. If it’s a good idea to spend friendly time with Jungkook after everything that’s happened. But you don’t seem to be able to escape his orbit. Not when his gravity is so strong, his eyes so open.

“Alright,” you say. “But don’t expect me to lift heavy.”

*****

You meet Jungkook in the hall after you’ve both eaten a small breakfast - nothing too heavy before the gym, as Jungkook said. He offers you a friendly smile, and then he looks down your frame, the smile melting into a smirk that makes your blood eat up in your veins.

“You look hot, peach.”

You sigh, rolling your eyes. “You’ve never seen a girl in sports leggings before?” you ask as you make your way to the closet so that you can pull your coat out.

Jungkook is already wearing his, and he watches you as you put your coat on, stuffing your phone in the pocket before zipping it up.

“None that look as good as you,” he flirts.

“Shut up,” you grumble, slightly shaking your head. 

“What! It’s true,” he insists, and you push him towards the door so that he moves away from your boots. 

You put them on, before grabbing a pair of sneakers from the closet as well. Once you straighten, Jungkook grabs the shoes from you, stuffing them in his gym bag as you go to retrieve your purse from where you left it in the kitchen, cursing yourself for not grabbing it before putting your boots on.

You meet Jungkook in the hall again, and he leads you outside, glancing at you over his shoulder. “Careful, it’s pretty icy.”

You nod, and you hold onto the railing of the staircase, following behind Jungkook after you’ve locked the door. You successfully make it to the bottom, and then he guides you to his car. As you climb in the passenger seat, Jungkook throws his gym bag on the backseat, before walking around the car to sit behind the wheel.

As he turns the key in the engine, you pull your phone out of your pocket. You go to Nabi’s conversation, feeling bad that you will have to decline her invitation.

[11:09 am] You: can’t, going to the gym

Jungkook pulls out in the street, and then he’s driving towards his gym, turning the music on. He hums to the radio, seemingly fully at ease. You don’t know how he does it - your heart is racing in your chest at the perspective of going to the gym with him. 

[11:11 am] Nabi: the fuck [11:12 am] Nabi: who are you going with

You debate telling her the truth for the whole ride to the gym, and some more as you walk in. Jungkook hands you your sneakers as you stop in the place where you have to take your boots off, and then he offers to keep your coat and purse in a locker with his stuff. You accept, though you ask to buy a water bottle for yourself first.

“I got you covered, peach,” Jungkook says, flicking your nose. “I brought a reusable one for you.”

“How kind,” you tease, and he grins boyishly before heading into the men’s locker room. 

You wait for him outside, eyes on the conversation with Nabi. You wonder what she would say if she knew - would she tease you about the Incident? Would she freak out like you know Ria would?

You say to hell with it, and you reply to her last text with the truth before turning the screen off, looking up to watch Jungkook as he walks out of the locker room, now clad in athletic shorts and a skintight black t-shirt that leaves little to the imagination. 

“Ready?” Jungkook asks, and he hands you the water bottle he mentioned. 

It’s already full, and you take a small sip before nodding your head. “What do we start with?”

Jungkook smiles softly for a few seconds, and then his features grow conflicted. He looks away from you, his Adam’s apple bobbing once as he swallows. You’d give a lot to know what he’s thinking of right now, though life doesn’t work that way.

And would you be able to handle the truth anyway?

“We warm up with cardio, and then it’s leg day,” he tells you as he motions towards the corner with all the cardio machines. “Let’s see how much you can squat, peach.”

You snort as you follow him. “Are you just trying to get a good look at my ass?”

You’re relieved when he bites, offering you his usual cocky smirk. “So what if I am?”

“You’re disgusting,” you say, though you laugh with him as you reach the treadmills. “By the way,” you let out as you both climb on a treadmill, turning them on. “I’m hosting some friends at the apartment tonight. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh are you now?” Jungkook teases. “And you were mad at me for it yesterday?”

You glare at him, right as he helps you with increasing the speed of the treadmill. “I got it,” you say, swatting his hand away. “This is not my first time at the gym.” You pause, adjusting the walking speed and the inclination of the treadmill to your preferred setting, and then you turn to look at Jungkook again. “I wasn’t mad at you for hosting friends, I was mad because you didn’t warn me.”

“To be fair, it wasn’t planned in advance,” Jungkook reveals. “Jimin cornered me at the library while I was finishing my shift with Sera and they looked way too excited. I suggested our place because they’re always the ones hosting us.”

You’re not surprised Jungkook would offer - he’s a good friend to those he cares about. 

“Makes sense,” you let out. “So I’m telling you about tonight in advance, see?”

“It’s tonight,” he says, cocking an eyebrow.

“And?”

“I’d hardly call it in advance.”

You sigh, looking up to the ceiling. “Whatever.”

“Hope your friends don’t mind me around,” Jungkook says after a whole minute of silence.

You shoot him a surprised look. “Don’t you have plans tonight?”

“Yeah, your party.”

“It’s not a party.”

He shrugs. “I’ll be there nonetheless.”

The thought of Jungkook staying when your friends will be there makes you anxious, and you quickly shake your head no. “You can’t.”

He frowns. “Why not? It’s my apartment too.”

“I don’t…” you trail off, thinking of Ria and her obsession with him.

You know her enough to know she’d jump on the occasion to seduce Jungkook. If she knew what happened between the two of you, she wouldn’t approach him at all - but she doesn’t know.

None of them do, except Hoseok, and even then he doesn’t really know.

“I promise I’ll be on my best behaviour,” Jungkook says, winking, and then he increases the speed of his treadmill to a run that doesn’t allow a conversation at the same time.

You follow suit, just so that you can blame the hammering of your heart in your chest on something else than the fear of what is going to happen tonight. You’d hoped Jungkook had something planned - anything, really - but maybe that had been wishful thinking.

Maybe you should have told him well in advance, asking him to clear the apartment tonight. But he’s been nice, if you forget about the fact he kissed you stupid last night. You don’t have it in you to push him away when he’s acting so… nicely. 

And he keeps acting that way all through the gym. Even though you’re not nearly as strong as him, Jungkook encourages you, helps you with every exercise. You do notice him ogling your ass while you’re squatting, but you do the same to him, and he calls it even as you roll your eyes, blushing furiously. 

It’s fun. It always is – spending time with Jungkook, that is. His easy laugh and smile keep the conversation alive, alight, and you don’t notice the time fly when Jungkook guides you to the mats, where he claims you’ll do some planks and then stretch.

You plop down on the mat, legs feeling like jelly, and Jungkook’s giggle fills your ear, warming your chest. You glance at him, catching him as he smiles down at you.

“We went easy,” he teases, sitting next to you. “You’re adorable.”

“You call that easy?” you let out in fake outrage. “I won’t be able to walk for a week.”

“Oh, won’t you now?” 

You roll your eyes at the innuendo in his voice. “Shut up.”

He grins, patting his pockets. As a frown moves on his features, you push yourself up, sitting.

“Is there something wrong?” you ask.

“I think I left my phone at the squat rack,” Jungkook answers. “Wait here, I’ll go see if it’s still there.”

You don’t have time to say anything before he’s jogging away, and you follow him with your gaze as he makes his way to the squat rack you used earlier. He doesn’t find his phone there – he shoots a look in your direction, and then he’s heading to the reception, to likely ask if someone brought his phone there.

You sigh before grabbing your own phone. You’re about to turn it back on when someone clears their throat, and you look up, eyes slightly widened in surprise.

“Hey,” a buff guy says. “You’re with JK?”

It takes you an awkward four seconds before you reply, “Yeah?”

The guy smiles, nodding once. “Thought so. I just wanted to warn you, that guy is a dick.”

“Excuse me?”

You can’t help it – the offence that takes over you at someone insulting Jungkook burns like acid in your mouth, and you frown as you look up at the buff guy. He raises his hands in defence, but you just keep on staring him down.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you.” The guy’s hands fall at his side, clenching into fists once before he releases it. “We used to be friends, until my ex cheated on me with him,” he offers as an explanation. “I’d hate to see him hurt someone else.”

Though you do feel bad for the guy, you’re still offended – does he believe Jungkook is out to hurt you?

Is Jungkook out to hurt you?

“Listen, don’t worry about me,” you eventually say, not wanting to fight with someone that looks like they could kill you with one well-placed punch. “We’re just friends.”

The guy’s features relax, and his smile feels more genuine now. “Good, I’m glad.” He doesn’t move for a few seconds, and then he catches sight of Jungkook jogging back towards you. You meet Jungkook’s gaze at the same time as the guy says, “I’ll leave you two to it, then.”

You don’t say anything, and Jungkook stops next to you, barely winded from jogging around. He drops on the mat next to you, phone in hand.

“What did Colton want with you?” he asks.

You shrug your shoulders. “Nothing, really. He was just wondering if we were together.”

“Together?” Jungkook repeats, teasing tone in employ.

You cock an eyebrow. “Not like that, dumbass.”

He pouts, though he doesn’t say anything else. And when you look at him like this, you can’t believe he’d cheat on one of his friends. He’s always seemed like a good friend – hell, an hour ago you’d thought him to be a good friend to those he cares about. Which means he probably never cared about the guy – Colton.

But isn’t there something ugly in the act of cheating with someone that’s in a relationship? 

“So we’re doing three minutes of planks,” Jungkook tells you. 

“Three?!” you shriek.

He chuckles. “One minute of regular plank, and then one minute on each side.”

“Bruh.”

“You can do it, peach.”

He gets into position, and you reluctantly imitate him, mind still swirling with what he’s done. At the beginning of the semester, you wouldn’t have been surprised by that fact, yet now it feels odd, strange, even a little disturbing. As if for a moment you forgot how much of an arrogant asshole Jungkook can be, as if you forgot the reputation that follows him.

You wouldn’t be surprised if he’s broken up other couples than this Colton and his ex.

If Jungkook notices your unease, he doesn’t mention it. He does his planks like a champ, while you’re shaking for your life next to him, and then he shows you his stretching routine. You copy everything, and then you follow him back to the man’s locker room, waiting outside for him to change back into his clothes. 

Colton goes into the locker room before Jungkook comes out, and he nods to you as he passes in front of you. You offer him a tight-lipped smile, and then watch him disappear at the bend in the hall. Jungkook gets out a couple of minutes later, as you’re turning on your phone again.

At the sight of the frown on his features, and the light red tint on his cheeks, you can only assume that he and Colton had a talk.

“Something wrong?” you ask him.

“No.” His answer is curt, almost cold, and you widen your gaze slightly as he hands you your stuff.

He barely waits for you to put your coat on before he’s walking to where you can grab your boots, and you awkwardly jog behind him, thighs burning, almost afraid he’s going to leave without you.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” you insist as you kick off your shoes, putting your boots on.

“Honestly peach,” Jungkook says. “Just drop it.”

It’s your turn to frown. “Did Colton speak to you?”

His silence is answer enough.

“Fuck that dude, Jungkook,” you try to reassure him, but it doesn’t look like it works.

Maybe because you’ve changed since Colton spoke to you, thoughts of Jungkook being a cheater haunting you.

“Just put your boots on,” Jungkook dismisses you, and anger starts welling in your chest.

You don’t say anything until you’re out of the gym, Jungkook’s car just a couple of meters away.

“You don’t have to act like a dick with me, you know?” you tell him.

Jungkook spins around to face you, and you almost bump into him. You catch yourself at the last second, and you look up to meet Jungkook’s dark gaze. Even in the light of the day, shadows are hiding behind his pupils. It makes him look raw – like he’s been chased by demons of his own, thoughts haunting him in ways you can’t understand.

“I’m not being a dick with you, peach,” he drawls. “We’re just friends, and I don’t feel like talking.”

Oh.

“Are you upset because I told him that we’re just friends?”

“I’m upset because that fucker told you stuff I’d rather you not know,” Jungkook answers, voice slowly rising as he fails to put his anger in check.

You furrow your brows. “Everyone knows your reputation, Jungkook.”

He recoils. He physically recoils, taking a step back as if you’ve just punched him in the face. You feel bad – you feel infinitely bad, as his gaze grows pained for a few seconds before the anger hides it away again.

“Right.” He scoffs, shaking his head. “Why do you want to be my friend, then?”

“Because people are going to say shit,” you answer, shrugging your shoulders. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

He laughs, but it’s so cold, devoid of any warmth he’s offered to you recently. “Before you start believing some shit, I was fucking the girl before Colton got in a relationship with her. I told him she wasn’t trustworthy, and we fucked at a party again after she told me she dumped him.”

“You don’t need to tell me this.”

“Oh, but I do.” Jungkook chuckles bitterly. “Colton’s always been jealous of me, and when I told him what happened he just got mad, and refused to listen to me.”

You get why – whoever that girl was, Colton probably had feelings for her. And it sucks to see someone you like getting it on with one of your friends.

Jungkook’s gaze moves from yours to the door of the gym, and you look behind you to see Colton walking out. He notices the two of you, and you think you see him rolling his eyes in the distance.

“Let’s go home,” you tell Jungkook, walking around him to reach his car. 

Jungkook doesn’t move for a few seconds, but then he does, unlocking the doors as he makes his way to the driver’s side. You get in, and the engine purrs to life as Jungkook turns the key in the ignition.

There are a few seconds of silence as he adjusts the warmth, and then he looks at you.

“I wouldn’t have slept with her if they were still together,” he says.

His big eyes hold so much innocence that you immediately believe him. You don’t know if you should, if you’ve just been ensnared, the prey to the spider, but you’re in too deep him.

You’re already in too fucking deep.

“I know, Jungkook,” you reassure him. “Don’t let this dude get to your head.”

You see his Adam’s apple bobbing once, and then he nods and faces forward, getting ready to drive. You can’t divert your gaze from his profile, and you find yourself gulping.

You really are in too deep.

*****

Turns out that letting Jungkook stay for your get-together was a good idea. Indeed, he’s cooked noodles for everyone, and your friends have been eating, praising Jungkook for his skills. He only shrugged his shoulders, as if to say it’s nothing, but you know he likes the praise.

It shows in the way his eyes swim with stars, so far from the shadows that invaded his gaze earlier at the gym. 

And you’ve been trying not to think about it too much. Not to think that whenever Ria looks in his direction, you feel something ugly twisting in your chest. So far, Jungkook hasn’t given her any attention, but you know her – she doesn’t stop until she gets what she wants.

Tonight, what she wants is Jeon Jungkook. 

You’re not the only one who’s been monitoring the two – Seokjin, with his quiet and calm presence, has been looking at your friend ever since everyone got to your apartment. You think you see his disappointment as Ria barely speaks to him, though you don’t know him well enough to tell.

Jungkook turns out to be a good barman as well. He takes everyone’s order when you finish eating, and then he heads to the kitchen to make every drink. Ria follows him, and you clench your jaw, though Hoseok immediately follows as well, offering you a wink.

You’re lucky you have him. Otherwise, tonight would surely go to shit real quick.

“Didn’t know your roommate was so chill,” Yoongi says from where he’s sitting on the couch. 

You’re currently sitting on the floor next to Nabi, with Namjoon on the other side of her. They’ve been conversing just them two for a while, but Yoongi’s statement attracts their attention.

“I mean, with the reputation that he has…” Namjoon trails off.

You cock an eyebrow, indignant. “What’s wrong with his reputation?”

Nabi turns to you, eyes going wide, while Seokjin’s lips spread into a small smile. Yoongi snorts, though you keep the eyebrow cocked, meeting Namjoon’s gaze.

“I mean, isn’t he the guy that’s fucked most of the campus?” Namjoon asks, sounding far too innocent.

“What’s wrong with it?” you challenge. “Wouldn’t you fuck the whole campus if you could?”

Namjoon looks scared now. His gaze falls to Nabi, who shrugs and meets your eyes again. “Why are you so pressed?” she asks, though her lips spread into a smile. “Is it because of the Incident?”

You roll your eyes, though a smile tugs at the corner of your lips. “It’s not.”

“The Incident?” Yoongi chimes in.

You send a warning glare towards Nabi, before saying, “Nothing.”

“What’s nothing?” Jungkook’s familiar voice says as he walks back from the kitchen.

He’s holding two gin and tonics, and he offers the first one to you, before handing the other to Seokjin. Everyone stays suspiciously silent as Jungkook walks back to where you’re sitting, before plopping down on the floor next to you.

Nabi loses it. She bursts out laughing, and your cheeks burn as you punch her in the shoulder.

“Ow!” she shrieks.

Hoseok and Ria walk out of the kitchen then. Hoseok has two beers – one for himself and one for Namjoon – while Ria carries a cranberry vodka for herself and a whiskey on ice for Yoongi. You see the slight frown on her face as she notices Jungkook next to you. It’s only there for a fraction of a second, and then her gaze slides to you, an eyebrow cocking.

When a small, knowing smirk grows on her lips, you feel like disappearing through the floor.

After that, conversations start around you once more, as Ria sits on the couch between Yoongi and Seokjin, and Hoseok sits in front of you, on the other side of the coffee table. Jungkook leans closer to you, trying to catch your gaze, and you turn your head towards him.

“What?” you ask.

“Do you like your drink?”

He’s cute like this. Big eyes awaiting your answer as if it’s the most important thing he’ll hear all night, tongue toying with his piercings anxiously. The glint in his eyes resembles a star, and for a moment you bask in its glow.

Until you snap back to reality when he slowly frowns.

“Is it bad?” he asks.

“No!” you quickly say. “Not at all. I like it.” You make a show of taking a big sip, and though it’s stronger than your usual, you still offer him a small nod. “See, it’s delicious.”

His lips curve upwards. “Good.”

You smile softly, your eyes falling to his empty hands in his lap. The tattoos on the back of his right hand are stark on his skin, and your eyes slowly trail up his arm up to where the ink disappears in the sleeve of his oversized white t-shirt. He’s smirking by the time you meet his gaze again, and you gulp, eyes falling to your drink as if searching for a safe haven.

“You’re not drinking?” you ask.

“Never two nights in a row,” he replies.

You don’t buy his act at all, as you’ve seen him drinking more than two days in a row a lot of times already.

“Bullshit,” you call him out.

He narrows his gaze. “What do you mean, bullshit?”

“You drink all the time,” you state.

Though as you say it you remember the parties when you’ve seen him as the designated driver. It makes you furrow your brows, right as he says, “I’ve been trying to drink less. Besides, I work tomorrow.”

“Oh,” you let out.

He’s about to say something else when Hoseok, beaming with mischief, says, “Should we play Truth or Dare?”

A chorus of yes and nos answers, until Nabi says. “We should just play Spin the Bottle. Truth or Dare is for kids.”

“Hey, Truth or Dare is fun,” Hoseok says, pouting, his eyebrows almost touching over his eyes.

Nabi winks at him, especially as her suggestion ends up winning, and Yoongi and Hoseok clear the coffee table and move it to the side so that you can all sit in a big circle on the floor.

“Younger should spin first!” Ria suggests, knowing fully well that she is the youngest. 

You all agree, and she reaches for Namjoon’s empty beer bottle that was put on the floor between you all. She grabs it by the body, then looks at everyone, gaze shining with amusement. 

“Who wants to kiss me?” she teases.

You wonder if you’re the only one who notices Seokjin’s cheek turning pink as Nabi bursts, “Me!”

As everyone laughs, and Seokjin catches up with a small chuckle, Ria finally spins the bottle. You watch as it spins once, twice, thrice, slowing down on the fourth spin until it fully comes to a stop, facing Hoseok. 

“Well, I guess it’ll be you, Hoba,” Ria says, shrugging her shoulders, and then she kneels so that she can reach Hoseok across the circle.

He grabs her by the cheeks, and he lands a big peck on her slightly parted lips. Both of them didn’t close their eyes for the kiss, and they start laughing awkwardly as Ria sits back.

Yoongi’s cool smile tells you everything you need to know, and you hold in the knowing smirk that wants to split across your features.

Hoseok spins the bottle, and it turns for longer than it did with Ria. It stops on Seokjin, who lets out a startled sound as Hoseok turns towards him, grabbing his cheeks.

“Come here, Jinnie!” Hoseok exclaims.

Seokjin lets out a disgruntled sound, which quickly turns disgusted as Hoseok kisses him, with a lot more lips than he did with Ria. It earns a lot of laughs, especially as Seokjin repeatedly wipes his mouth, using the sleeve of his shirt as a napkin.

“Why was that so wet?” he complains, but ever so the good player, he still spins the bottle.

It turns and turns, a never-ending dance until friction finally slows it down.

You purse your lips when it lands on you, and you look up to meet Seokjin’s gaze. 

“Well, well, well,” you let out.

“I’d much rather kiss you than him,” Seokjin grumbles as he leans across the space.

“What do you mean, he’s a good kisser,” you tease, and Hoseok beams as Ria and Nabi let out a prolonged “Ew!” at the reference to the fact that you and Hoseok used to sleep together.

Though they don’t know that you’ve stopped, and that Hoseok is dating Yoongi now. Not that you’ll be the one to tell them.

You lean forward, meeting Seokjin in the space over the bottle. Right before your lips press on his plump ones, you turn towards Ria. To your surprise, she isn’t looking at you – her eyes are on Jungkook, and the knowing smile from earlier comes back in full force.

It’s too late for you to look behind you, and your eyes flutter shut as Seokjin’s lips find yours. They are soft, warm, and his kiss is gentle, as if he doesn’t want to scare you away. If it wasn’t for the fact that Jungkook is here, you think you’d indulge, but you immediately pull away, sitting back next to your brother’s best friend.

Next to the man with whom you’ve been pretending you haven’t fucked like animals just a few weeks ago.

Unable to resist, you glance at him. He is frowning, though he quickly hides behind an easy smile. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and for a moment you want to scream at him that he’s stupid, that he shouldn’t care, that you need to pretend… but you resist.

Not because you’re surrounded by your friends, no. Because you want him to want you – you want to be the moon he chases at night, and you don’t know what to make of it.

You look away from him, reaching in the middle of the circle to the glass bottle awaiting your spin. Seokjin nods encouragingly, and you spin the bottle…

Only to have it end on Seokjin again.

“Bruh,” Nabi lets out. “I want to kiss people too.”

This time, you don’t miss the muscle ticking in Ria’s eyebrows. So you offer her a wink as you lean towards Seokjin, who meets you with a smile on his lips.

You make to pull away again, but Seokjin grabs your cheeks, holding you in place as he deepens the kiss. Your body immediately reacts – heart racing in your chest, blood pumping in your ears. Your friends cheer as Seokjin’s tongue teases your bottom lip, and then he lets you go, sitting back in his spot while you stay still for a few seconds, eyes fluttering open to meet his.

He’s not looking at you. Instead, his eyes are on Ria, who’s looking down at her drink.

So he’s trying to make her jealous… You slowly nod your head, before sitting back in your spot. Jungkook shifts next to you, and his knee brushes against the side of your thigh.

You shoot him a look, and he offers you a tight-lipped smile, before settling his attention on Seokjin as he spins the bottle again. This time, it lands on Yoongi, and they exchange a small peck, though Seokjin fake-gags through it all. 

“What’s wrong with kissing the homies?” Hoseok teases him, elbowing him in the ribs.

“Nothing,” Seokjin grumbles. “I love you guys, but I’d rather not kiss my friends.”

“You seemed to like kissing Y/n, though,” Ria says, an innocent look on her face that you know she’s faking.

You snort, hiding it behind a long sip of your drink, as everyone watches Seokjin as he looks at Ria, gaze wide, trying to find something to say but clearly coming up short with ideas. 

Silence stretches, growing awkward, until Seokjin says, “I’d kiss you like that too.”

Both Nabi and Hoseok let out a long “Oh!” though Nabi immediately follows hers with, “Then kiss her.”

Seokjin flushes fully red, and Ria grins, cocking her head to the side. 

“I’m game unless you’re too shy,” she says, voice a little sultry.

Seokjin seems afraid now. He looks around the group, as if searching for salvation, but everyone is just looking on with expectation lighting up their gazes.

“Well…” Seokjin lets out, and he gulps. “Hopefully we’ll spin the bottle on each other.”

“Come on, bro,” Jungkook interjects. “Don’t tell me you need that to kiss her?”

Before Seokjin has time to say anything else, Ria grabs his face from where she’s sitting next to him, and she pulls him into a languid kiss that, despite his shy demeanour, he reciprocates right away. People cheer, and you smile widely, your eyes turning to Jungkook amidst the chaos ensuing. 

He’s already looking at you. His eyes dip down to your lips as if he’s considering kissing you right then and there as well, but he glances away, sucking on his piercings. Though the interaction might have passed as nothing to an outside gaze, you feel your blood boiling in your veins, far more than when Seokjin kissed you earlier.

Because no one other than Jungkook can have that effect on you.

When Ria and Seokjin finally pull away, Yoongi hesitantly reaches for the bottle, making a joke that everyone laughs at except you, as you’re still reeling from the way Jungkook looked at you. The bottle spins, and it stops on Nabi, who beams.

“Finally,” she jokes.

The peck she exchanges with Yoongi is cold, that of two friends more than anything, and then Nabi is spinning the bottle as well.

You don’t miss the way her gaze slides sideways to Namjoon. You also don’t miss the way Namjoon slightly leans into her – what you do miss is the bottle as it stops.

Pointing towards Jungkook.

“Oh,” Nabi lets out, and she turns red.

Jungkook, suddenly the picture-perfect arrogant asshole that you know him to be, says, “Don’t sound too disappointed, I’ve been told I’m a good kisser.”

Nabi chuckles awkwardly, and she meets Namjoon’s gaze. He motions towards Jungkook with his beer, as if to encourage her, and she nods once before leaning towards Jungkook.

They kiss right in front of you, and you feel the blood leaving your face as Jungkook has the nerve to tease her mouth with his tongue. As she has the nerve to let him in, their tongues meeting for a few seconds before Jungkook pulls away. He winks at her, smiling triumphantly, and she sits back, face so red she’d put a tomato to shame.

Jungkook slides his gaze to you, winking at you next, before leaning towards you. And though he has to be aware that everyone is carefully watching you, he says in your ear, “Had to make you jealous too.”

Yep. The arrogant asshole.

You push him, rolling your eyes. “Fuck off,” you grumble, and you meet Ria’s gaze as she looks at you way too excitedly for your own sake.

He laughs it off, sitting back in his spot, and then he grabs the bottle spinning it. Whether he meant it or not, it spins twice before stopping, and you stare down the neck of the bottle as it points towards you.

You think Ria is about to leap up, screaming, ‘I knew it!’ Especially as you just keep on staring at the neck of the bottle, refusing to turn your face towards Jungkook. You see his smirk in the periphery of your vision. See the way he wets his lips, far too ready to kiss you dumb like only he knows how to do.

“What are you waiting for?” Nabi asks from beside you, nudging you with an elbow.

You take a deep breath, chuckling. “Let’s pray Taehyung never learns about this,” you say, referencing everything that your friends don’t know, and then you turn towards Jungkook.

Your comment has made him pensive. He’s lost the smirk, and his eyes scan your face, lingering on your lips for far longer than necessary. It makes you blush, makes you feel vulnerable and naked, and you try to find a spark of defiance in you.

All you find is his gravity, and you lean towards him.

He meets you halfway – with none of the fire he had for your friend. Instead, his soft, pink lips move against yours, slowly, and your eyes flutter shut as you instinctively cup his cheek. It feels like time stretches, endlessly. Your mouths dance together, like suddenly eternity found you in its hold. 

When Jungkook’s tongue teases your bottom lip, you let him in, circling it with your own tongue. You hear the cheers now – they’re distant, like they are on the other side of a veil, in an entirely different universe. You ignore them, focusing on the man next to you, kissing you.

You feel Jungkook’s hand as it finds your thigh. He holds you, thumb digging slightly into your skin, and memories of your bodies entwined flash behind your eyelids. So much so that you sigh in the kiss, rhythm suddenly accelerating. It grows frantic, though still just as languid. For a moment, you’d wish for your friends to disappear, to leave you alone with Jungkook but…

“Damn, get a room!” Ria yells, then bursts out laughing with the rest of the friend group. 

You startle, pulling away from Jungkook. Your gazes meet, both wide as if scared, as if you just crossed a line. Though you reckon you’ve crossed the line a while ago already.

You can’t focus on the game after that. You spin and kiss Ria, who then kisses Yoongi. You lose track after that, and thankfully the bottle doesn’t point towards you or Jungkook again. All you can do as your friends exchange kisses and saliva is try to tame your wild heart, but it’s started a race you are bound to lose – a race to the man by your side.

You wonder how Jungkook is feeling. If he, too, feels deeply affected by that kiss. If it rendered his mind a blank canvas like yours, erasing thoughts and memories, leaving just him, him, him.

You’re going insane. You’re going insane for someone you can’t have, for someone who you told to never kiss you again, not even twenty-four hours ago. But his lips and his tongue are drugs you’re starting to like too much – they are an addiction waiting to ensnare you in its web.

You only come back to your senses when, bored, your friends decide to stop the game in favour of watching some dumb movie and making a drinking game out of it. You participate in the drinking game, hoping that it will numb the beating of your heart, but it does little to no good.

Perhaps because Jungkook sits next to you, and you’re all too aware of every spot where your bodies touch. And you wonder – in a universe where he isn’t your brother’s best friend, would you be leaning in his side? Would you let yourself be ensnared, even though his reputation follows him like smoke follows the fire?

You think about what Colton said. You think about Shelly, and about all the other girls Jungkook has had under him. It finally douses the beating of your heart, fire returning to a slumbering ocean, and you feel like you can breathe for the first time since the bottle landed on you and he kissed you.

The second movie the group decided to watch after that drinking game is almost over. Ria fell asleep with her head on Seokjin’s shoulder, who sits with a straight-back, his cheeks turning pink when you notice their position. Hoseok and Yoongi sit next to each other on the couch – pinkies subtly linked, which brings a soft smile to your lips. Jungkook is next to you, though his deep breathing and soft snores tell you enough about what state he currently is in.

You don’t know how you missed it. But Namjoon and Nabi aren’t in the living room anymore. You wonder where they went off to, and the answer comes by itself as they walk back in, clothes wrinkled and hair undone, both of them sporting small, satisfied smiles.

You can’t resist. You pull your phone out, heading to the group chat you have with Ria and Nabi.

[2:43 am] You: I hope you guys didn’t fuck in my bed

You snort to yourself before turning off your phone, and the movie comes to an end a few minutes later, rousing those that had fallen asleep. Jungkook offers you a sleepy smile, and your heart skips a beat. So you look away, think about Colton and Shelly, and the emotion passes.

“I guess we should be going,” Hoseok says as everyone stretches.

Everyone agrees with that statement, and you walk your friends to the door. You make round eyes at Nabi, motioning towards Namjoon, and the shade of red she turns to is enough to let you know that she and Namjoon really did it. You stifle your laugh as you hug her, and then Ria comes to you, resting her head on your shoulder.

“I’m so tired,” she whines. “Can I sleep over?”

You don’t know why. But your eyes go to Jungkook, who’s watching the interaction unfold from where he’s leaning against the wall. Your throat goes dry, and you look away from him, telling your friend, “Nabi will get you home.”

Nabi nods, “Come, baby. Your bed awaits you.”

Ria grumbles, but she follows Nabi, and slowly everyone filters out of your apartment.

Everyone but you and the guy you’re starting to think you should maybe avoid.

“So,” Jungkook lets out, and he laughs lightly. “Tonight was fun. I didn’t know your friends were so chill.”

You lean against the door. The cold from outside lingers, but the way Jungkook is looking at you is warm, hot.

“They are,” you reply.

“I should hang with you guys more often.”

You gulp as he tilts his head to the side, toying with his piercings. “What would Taehyung say?” you ask.

“Who cares what Taehyung says? I’m allowed to have other friends.”

“Right.”

Jungkook’s tongue pokes at his cheek and then he sighs. “Are you upset about the kiss?”

You shake your head no, shrugging your shoulders. “It was just for the game.” 

Though, was it really just for the game?

“Right,” he echoes. He changes tactics, chuckling lightly. “Your friend Ria wants me. She told me while we were in the kitchen.”

“I think you lost your spot to Jin,” you quickly reply, and he doesn’t miss the undertone of jealousy in your voice.

“You didn’t look like you liked me kissing Nabi.”

“You didn’t look like you liked me kissing Jin.”

He wets his lips. “Oh, peach. I loved watching you kiss him, looking all guilty after.” Another chuckle. “You think you can fool me?”

“You’re an asshole.” You don’t mean the insult. Or maybe you do. Maybe some part of you thinks about Taehyung, about what Colton has said. Because you want him to be an asshole – a red flag, so easily avoidable. You want him to be easily pushed away, like the emotions you thought you pushed away earlier.

Though maybe you’ve just been fooling yourself.

You don’t want Jungkook taking a step towards you, stopping where he’s now standing a couple of steps in front of you. You don’t want the conflict unfolding in his big, doe eyes. You don’t want any of it. You just want peace, you want to protect a heart that’s barely healed from Sam Hwang’s passage in your life. 

You want peace so much that you walk closer to him as well, stopping close enough that you have to tilt your head back to look up at him.

“I’m an asshole?” Jungkook repeats, making it sound like a question.

You nod. “Yeah. Because we shouldn’t kiss again. Because you said that it meant nothing, that we have to pretend nothing happened.”

He’s so still in front of you you’d imagine he was turned to stone.

But yes, here’s why your heart has been going crazy. You’re trying to blame it on Colton, on Taehyung and on everybody else. But the fault has always been Jungkook’s. The fault was the way he made you feel, and how just a day later he decided that it wasn’t enough, that it wasn’t what he wanted. Though maybe that was you, and your constant fear of Taehyung learning about you and Jungkook despite the ocean between you.

“But it meant nothing, right?” Jungkook challenges, dark eyes searching for the truth in yours. “Is that why I haven’t been able to fuck anyone else since then?”

Your mind empties out.

“Jungkook…”

“Is that why I kind of want to just say fuck it and tell your brother?” His hand reaches between you, and he runs a hesitant finger on your jawline. “Is that why we’re oh so pretending that nothing happened when you’re the only thing I look at when we’re in the same room?”

“You wanted this,” you remind him.

“You wanted Taehyung to never know, peach,” he counters. “I’ve been wanting you since the first time I saw you.”

You don’t know what to make of this revelation. You don’t even know if you believe him, or if Jungkook is just too good at spinning words into beautiful lies countless hearts have wanted to believe in, only to end up broken. 

You do want to believe him. You do want to believe that every time he’s called you peach, he meant something more. That that first kiss in the kitchen, during a power outage that’s brought you far too close for comfort, meant something to him the way that it meant something to you as well.

“Then why the fuck do I still see you flirting left and right?” you ask.

His jaw clenches. “This is about what Colton said, isn’t it?”

It is, and it isn’t. “Jungkook, I saw you at that bar. I saw you tonight with Ria. It is what you are.”

“What I am?” he repeats, chuckling bitterly. “Is your opinion really so low of me, peach?” He leans towards you, and you tilt your head to the side, letting him run his soft lips up the side of your neck. 

Your breath hitches in your throat. “I’ve heard you fucking girls in this apartment.”

“And I’ve heard you touching yourself at the same time,” Jungkook whispers right in the shell of your ear. “I’ve heard you and that Hobi dude too.”

His hand finds your waist, and he holds you in place as you say, “I think we never should have fucked.”

He leans his forehead against yours. “Why?”

You offer him the truth, in all its vulnerability. 

“Because there is no going back now.”

He laughs, yet it sounds void of joy. “And is that a bad thing?”

“You will just hurt me.”

“Not planning on it.”

You wonder if his heart is beating just as loudly as yours, or if this is just an act to him. It’s hard to tell, and your soul vibrates on a frequency you can’t ignore anymore. It takes everything in you and builds you anew, destroys all the restraints you’ve been trying to have in order to protect yourself.

The spider caught you in its web, and you have no escaping now.

“You can’t say that,” you whisper, eyes fluttering shut as he finds the other side of your waist, and he pulls you closer.

“Why do you want to believe the worst of me so bad?”

Because you’ve never given me a reason to believe otherwise, you want to reply, but you can’t bring yourself to say it. Not when his thumbs are tracing idle shapes on your waist, speaking in a language you think your body already knows.

“Because it’s the only way that I don’t end up getting hurt,” you whisper in a voice smaller than the atoms holding you together. “When you believe the worst of people, they never disappoint you.”

Jungkook moves one of his hands to your back, and then it glides up until he’s lost it in the hair at the back of your head. “But if you don’t risk anything, you don’t get anything,” he says.

He’s right, and you almost purr as he gently massages your scalp. “I risked once, and it wasn’t worth it.”

“That asshole didn’t know how to handle you, peach,” Jungkook affirms, softly. “And trust me when I say this – he will regret it later.”

Sam Hwang comes to the forefront of your mind. You remember the summer, remember the easy smiles and the dancing and the driving with the windows down. You remember it all, and then you remember the date yesterday, and the way the dream he’d once been had curdled like milk left outside of the refrigerator for too long. 

Sam was poison shaped like the prettiest flower. His lies were your undoing – has Jungkook ever lied to you?

You don’t think he has. He’s always been crudely honest, playful in his arrogance. But he’s never once lied to you, or at least you want to believe so.

“And do you know?” you ask, murmuring the words so close to his lips you feel them move when his mouth slightly falls open.

Time stops, the whole entire world holding its breath. Your arms are around his neck now – you don’t remember moving at all – and you tighten your hold, just a little bit. As if you think he’ll walk away now, flick your nose and tell you that this is all just a joke.

That he’s played your heart better than anyone before, and that you can laugh about it now.

“Let me show you,” he answers instead, and you think you hear thunder in the distance.

Or maybe that’s your heart, as Jungkook ravishes your lips in a languid kiss that makes you melt into his touch. His large hand finds the small of your back, pushing you into his strong body. You mold yourself to him, arch your back as his feathery soft lips move against yours, his piercings pushing into your lower lips.

He tastes like addiction, like you’ll never be able to kiss someone else. And right now, you don’t think you’ll ever want to. Because you’ve never been kissed the way that Jungkook kisses you. Like he’s branding himself on you, burning his name in your heart so that his flames will keep you warm, always.

He turns you around, pushing you into the wall. A second later he makes you jump so that he can wrap your legs against his waist, and though his lips have momentarily disconnected from yours, he’s quick to kiss you again, to push his tongue in your mouth. You suck on it, and he retaliates by grinding into you.

He’s already hard. He’s already fucking hard and you’ll go insane.

“Jungkook,” you breathe the second he pulls away from your mouth to leave a trail of wet kisses down your neck. He stops at the neckline of your shirt, lips ghosting as he moves back up.

“Do you know how mad you made me when you said you wanted to keep things between us?” he whispers, and he teases your earlobe with his teeth. “When you said that Taehyung doesn’t need to know everything?”

Your head is too clouded with thoughts of him, of what you know is about to happen, so you barely remember. You thought he was the one who wanted to pretend like nothing happened, but then again, he did say that that was you.

You’re confused, and you don’t have time to revisit the past before he sucks on the skin of your neck, hard enough to leave a hickey behind. You run your hands through his hair, and pull at the longer strands on top until his mouth finds yours again.

“I’ll tell him,” Jungkook adds when he pulls away from the kiss. “I don’t care what he says, I’ve been wanting you so bad.”

“Kook…” you trail off, and he grinds into you, before pulling away from the wall to carry you towards his room.

“I’m serious,” he says in your ear, and he does sound more serious than he’s ever been with you. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

You nuzzle your face in his neck, peck the mole you find there. “Can we just figure shit out between us before we tell him?”

You think you feel Jungkook stiffen, but it might just be because one of his hands let go of you so that he can open the door to his room.

“Sure,” Jungkook whispers. “Just let me know when I should speak to him and I will.”

You appreciate it, but you reckon you should be the one to break the news to your brother. You have a lot more chance to be able to handle the tantrum he’ll likely throw, but you don’t want to think about that right now.

You just want to think about Jungkook, about the way he’s gently putting you down on the edge of his bed, amidst the mess of blankets.

And then he’s taking off his shirt, throwing it to the side, and your mind eddies out.

He’s beautiful. You’ve known this, you’ve seen him before, but there’s something about him that’s different right now. Maybe it’s the neon light coming from the street outside. Or maybe it’s just because the fear that’s been plaguing you finally disappeared, and the relief of knowing he wants you too overpowers everything, painting him with all the beauty he beholds.

And he beholds far too much for your frail heart to endure. Yet you still gaze at him, admire all the strong planes of his body as he fishes his cell phone from the pocket of his pants to turn on the LED lights in his room. They shine red, and he winks at you before strutting to the window so that he can pull the curtains shut.

“Red lights?” you tease.

“It’s to set the ambiance,” he says confidently as he walks back towards you.

“You’re an idiot.” It’s said affectionately, with a twinkle in your eyes that you know he doesn’t miss. Because he grins, that bunny grin that does funny things to your insides, and then he stops in front of you.

He drops on his knees, his hands spreading your legs. You widen your gaze, but he’s already bending down, pressing a kiss to your clothed pussy.

“You’ll come on my tongue, mmh?”

Cheeks burning, all you can do is nod your head.

“Good girl.”

Jungkook makes quick work of getting you out of your pants, but he leaves your underwear on. He watches the wet spot where you’ve already soaked through, smirk curving the corner of his lips.

“Gosh, look at you,” he says. “You’re already so ready.”

He pushes your thong to the side so that he can see your glistening pussy. You know you’re wet – you feel your juices dripping out of you, and it only increases when Jungkook leans in, turning his head at the last second to kiss the inside of your thigh instead.

“What do you want?” he asks.

“Huh?” is all you’re able to let out.

He laughs, and he grins up at you. “You’re adorable.” He kisses your thigh again, and then his lips ghost on your clit. You try to move your thighs, but he’s firmly holding you against the bed, refraining any motion from you. “What do you want?” he repeats.

This time, you were ready for the question. “Your mouth,” you breathe out.

He hums, looking up at you through half-lidded eyes. “Where?”

“Eat me out,” you say.

“That’s what you want?”

You nod.

“Then that’s what you’ll get.”

And then his lips close around your clit and he sucks hard, tongue flicking at the sensitive bundle of nerves. You immediately grip at his hair, moaning softly, your eyes shutting as he moves from your clit to your entrance. His tongue pushes in, laps your juices, and all you can do is pull at his hair, as if that will keep you grounded.

As if you’re not already floating towards the ceiling.

“Fuck, Jungkook,” you curse.

“You like that?” he queries against your pussy, the movement of his lips making you shiver.

“Yes.”

He sucks on your clit again, eyes shutting in concentration as he switches to drawing circles around it, sending bolts of lightning up your spine. You moan, and you feel him smirk against you as he keeps going. As one of his hands hesitantly leaves your thigh to slide between your legs. 

He teases your entrance with a finger, circling it in time with his ministrations on your clit. The breathy sound you let out is interrupted by a louder moan as his finger slips inside, immediately curving to find the right spot inside of you.

Jungkook shifts, pushing your leg on his shoulder so that he can reach around your frame, his hand resting on your belly. He pushes just enough for you to know that he wants you to lie down, and then he holds you there, the new angle making you see stars.

“How can you-“ It breaks into a moan. “Be so good?” you conclude.

Jungkook laughs, pulling away to meet your gaze. “I’ve seen how you touch yourself,” he reminds you. “I’m just trying to reproduce what you did.”

Which makes no sense because he barely saw anything, but you’re too blissed out to question him. You just take the pleasure in, feeling it rise like the crescendo of a song. 

You’ll come. It only grows more evident when Jungkook pushes a second finger in, and he fucks you like that, relentlessly. His tongue on your clit draws expert figures, and he mixes it with just enough sucking for you to not fall into oversensitive land. No, he keeps you at the edge, pushing you towards your orgasm so quickly you think you’ll explode.

And you do. The second you climax you let out a broken moan, your thighs closing around his face. That doesn’t deter him, and he milks your orgasm out of you, letting you crash into walls and walls of it, until you feel like you’re not even in your body anymore.

Only then does Jungkook sit back on his heels, your juice dripping from his chin. He doesn’t dry it yet – instead he climbs on top of you, pressing a wet kiss to your lips that tastes of you. And the kiss is savage, wild, with his tongue in your mouth and your hands pulling at his hair.

He grunts, pulling away from your mouth to leave a trail of wet kisses on your neck as your hands move to his back, where you leave scratches behind.

“Fuck,” he groans. “Do that when I’m fucking you and you’ll make me come in no time.”

“Then take off your clothes,” you say through the haze. “I want you to fuck me.”

He obeys, standing up to take off his pants and boxers. His dick springs free, proud and tall, precum on the tip that looks far too inviting. So you sit up, hand grabbing the base of his cock, and Jungkook stills as you take him in your mouth, looking up at him.

His precum tastes salty on your tongue, and you lick him all clean before pulling away, jerking him off slowly. 

“Sorry,” you apologize. “I couldn’t help myself.”

He grabs your cheeks, bending down so that he can steal another languid kiss on your lips.

“Don’t apologize, peach,” he says as he straightens. “I’ve wanted to know what your mouth feels like on my dick for a really long time.”

So you dive in, wrapping your lips around his dick to suck on his tip. He bucks his hips, pushing deeper, and you hold the gag reflex in as he hits the back of your throat, immediately pulling out.

“Sorry.”

“For what?” you ask, and the line of drool that connected his dick to your mouth breaks.

“I didn’t mean to fuck your mouth,” he explains.

“What if I want you to?”

He just looks down at you with so much lust in his eyes that you think you’ll drown in it. To your dismay, he says, “Not tonight.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ll come before I can fuck your tight pussy if I fuck your mouth right now.”

Yet he doesn’t move right away, so you keep jerking him off, licking at his slit. “Do you always come so easily when you fuck girls?”

He doesn’t like what you say. Indeed, he pulls on your hair, forcing you to tilt your head back as he bends down. 

“Open your mouth,” he orders.

You obey, far too pliable, and Jungkook spits in your mouth.

It takes you aback, but he doesn’t let you think about it before he pushes your head closer to his dick. 

“Now you can suck my dick.”

You glance up at him as he lets go of your hair, gently brushing it as if to make sure he didn’t hurt you.

“Damn, Jungkook,” you let out.

He freezes, his lustful gaze turning apologetic. “Oh… wait, I’m sorry if-“

“No,” you interrupt. “That was hot.”

“Are you sure?”

Without breaking eye contact, you swirl your tongue around the tip of his dick, mixing his drool with yours that was already there. “Yes.”

And then you unleash yourself, taking as much of him in your mouth as you can. You hollow your cheeks, swallow around him, and then pull away so that you can lick from between his balls up to the tip of his cock. You apply pressure to his frenulum, teasing it for a little longer, and then you circle the head of his dick again, sucking on it.

“Fuck,” Jungkook curses.

And he keeps on cursing as you keep going, the taste of his precum far too inebriating. You want more of it, you want all of it, and you give it to him, show him just how much you’ve wanted him too. Just how much you’ve always found him hot, how much you’ve always dreamed of choking on his dick when he bucks his hips again, and this time the gag reflex makes you choke.

You pull away with drool on your chin, teary-eyed as you look up at him.

“Listen,” he says. “If you keep going, I’ll come. I’m down if you are, but I really, really want to fuck you.”

“Put a condom on your fucking dick, JK,” you tell him. “I want you.”

You don’t have to say it twice. Jungkook walks to his nightstand, fishing a condom out of the drawer. He’s quick to rip the tinfoil package, pulling the condom out so that he can wrap it on his cock. You watch from where you’ve lied back down on the bed, fingers mindlessly drawing circles on your clit after you’ve taken your panties off.

“You’re so fucking desperate for me, peach,” Jungkook purrs. “You really are just a dirty slut for me.”

And then he’s climbing on the bed, pulling you up. He rids you of your shirt, and he curses under his breath at the sight of your lace bralette. 

“You’re keeping this on,” he says, and you nod as he pushes you back down on the bed so that he can climb on top of you. “Stop me if it’s too much, okay?”

You blink once, not sure you heard right, and Jungkook bends to press a gentle kiss on your forehead. You weren’t expecting it, and your heart melts in your chest, even as his tip nudges your entrance.

“You sure you want me?” he asks. “We can stop-“

“Jungkook, fuck me before I go insane.”

He smirks, and he pushes in unforgivingly, slamming his dick in to the hilt. Your eyes roll to the back of your head as your mouth falls open, though no sound escapes your lips. Jungkook grunts, and his dick twitches inside of you, bringing back stars to your vision.

“How can you be so fucking tight?” he asks. “Am I not turning you on?”

“Oh, you are.” You shudder in delight at the feel of him inside of you.

He pulls almost all the way back, and then snaps his hips forward again. “You better not be fucking anyone else,” he says. “Your pussy is mine.”

A part of you wants to say your pussy is no one’s but yours, but Jungkook immediately starts pounding into you, so hard his headboard hits the wall repeatedly. Once, you would have been on the other side of the wall, thinking about him fucking some girl, but now he’s fucking you.

Now he’s fucking you, his large dick dragging on your walls so perfectly you understand his reputation. He’s good, far too good, and you know he’ll easily be able to get you to come again. Especially as he bends forward to hit a better angle, and your hands find his thighs so that you can mark him there.

“Peach,” he moans, and you’re surprised to hear the nickname in the heat of the action, yet it makes so much sense.

It makes so much sense for you and Jeon Jungkook, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

“You feel so good,” you cry out, and Jungkook slows down so that he can lower himself on top of you, his forearms framing your face.

He pecks your lips. “It’s because you take me so well.”

You moan as he increases his pace once more, jackhammering into you. It hurts a little, but there’s something so sinful about the feeling of his dick hitting your cervix that all you can do is beg for more, even though he’s already pounding into you.

He doesn’t disappoint, clearly understanding what you want. Indeed, Jungkook pulls out, flips you over, settling himself between your legs so that he can hit it from the back. He raises your hips, just enough so that he can align himself with your entrance, and then he’s fucking you again, the new angle so good your orgasm approaches you at light speed.

“I’ll come,” you warn him in a high-pitched sound.

“Yeah?” he grunts, and all you do is moan his name in reply, right as he reaches in front of you, fingers skillfully aiming for your clit.

The second he’s pressing circles on your clit you climax, vision turning fully white as he slows down inside of you, giving you a respite so that he can milk your orgasm out of you.

“That’s it, peach,” he says, voice so low it’s almost a growl. “You’re such a good fucking girl for me.”

The words barely register, yet they make your head swim with ecstasy, swim with desire for the man behind you, on top of you. And once he’s sure to have milked your orgasm, Jungkook resumes his unforgiving speed, and his headboard bangs in the wall so loud you wonder if it’ll break.

Jungkook breaks first, bending down as his high hits, and he grunts and moans, his dick twitching inside of you. You wrap one hand around his forearm closest to your face, your walls fluttering around his dick as he shakes, spurting his cum into the condom.

He comes for a long time, but eventually his high recedes, and all that’s left to be heard in the room is your heavy breathing mingling with his. He’s wet on top of you, his body covered in a sheen of sweat, yet you don’t want him to move. 

You feel safe here, under him. Like his large frame will keep all atrocities of the world away from you.

Jungkook takes a deep breath and presses a kiss on your cheek. A tired smile grows on your lips, and it only gets bigger when he does it again, his lips lingering on your skin.

“That felt good?” he asks against you.

“Mmh,” you let out. 

“Good.” He pauses, pressing another kiss on your cheek before straightening, returning to his previous kneeling position. He massages your ass, and you almost purr from how good it feels. His softening dick falls out of you, and you look at him over your shoulder.

He’s dishevelled, sinfully so. The top of his chest is red, and wet strands of hair cling to his forehead. Yet he’s more beautiful than you’ve ever seen him, and it makes your heart flutter in your ribcage.

“You look good,” you tell him, even though you didn’t mean to say the words aloud.

He takes it in stride, a grin growing on his lips. “Thanks peach.” And then his gaze falls to your ass, and he playfully slaps it. “So do you.”

You snort, rolling on your back as he moves off from on top of you. He discards the condom, tying a knot in it before throwing it in the trash can, and you watch as he carefully cleans himself with some tissues. You should probably do the same thing, but all you can do is watch, feeling content in the swimming bliss, in the red light and Jungkook’s company.

“Do you want to take a shower?” he asks.

You hum, nodding lazily. “I should.”

“I’ll come with you,” he offers, hand extended towards you.

You can’t say no, so you take a shower with him, revelling in the feel of his large hands as he washes your back. You offer him the same treatment, and he teases you about it, yet it’s lacking its usual bite. His tone only holds endearment now, and maybe that’s why you don’t get angry.

Maybe that’s why you both are a giggling and blushing mess when you step out of the shower, and he wraps you in a towel before grabbing one for himself. He dries his hair first, and then wraps the towel around his waist, uncaring that he’s dripping water all over the floor. It’s usually something that drives you crazy, but right now you really can’t bring yourself to care.

Instead, you brush your teeth beside him, shrieking when he pokes your ribs.

“Jungkook!”

He laughs. “Sorry.”

He doesn’t look apologetic at all, and so you narrow your gaze at him, before spitting the toothpaste in the sink, letting the water carry it away.

“I’ll get my revenge someday,” you warn him.

“I’m terrified,” he teases, and you roll your eyes as you put the toothbrush away, leaving him alone in the bathroom. He’s quick to follow behind you as you aim for your room.

You’re not surprised when he follows you in, looking far too at ease in your space.

“What are you doing?” you ask him.

“Aren’t we sleeping together?”

You widen your gaze, letting out a small laugh. “You want to share a bed?”

He frowns, lips jutting out in a small pout. “Yeah?”

“You’re simping.”

His mouth falls open, and then he laughs, though it’s short-lived. His eyes darken, and he steps closer to you, one large hand wrapping around your throat. You gulp, and he tightens his grip, bending down so that he can steal a languid kiss on your lips. He tastes of mint, and you let out a breathy sound as he deepens the kiss, pushing his tongue in your mouth.

“Then I’ll let you sleep alone, peach,” he says when he pulls away, his hand falling to his side.

He’s already in the hallway when you call behind him, “Wait!”

Jungkook stops, but he doesn’t turn to look at you. So you walk over to him, pulling on his arm.

“Stay?”

He slides his gaze to you, a smirk adorning his lips. “Look who’s simping now?”

You clench your jaw, yet all he does is flick your nose as he moves back into your room, plopping down on your bed.

“My mattress is more comfortable,” he comments.

You glare at him, though your expression softens when his eyes shift from the ceiling to you. 

“Then do you want to sleep in your bed?”

“With you?” he asks. As you nod yes, he adds, “Absolutely.”

And that is how you find yourself in Jungkook’s bed, his inked arm wrapped around you as he holds you close to his chest. He turned off the LED lights, and his breathing is steady and deep behind you.

Your thoughts slide to Taehyung. To how he’d react if he saw you and Jungkook right now, all cuddled up in his best friend’s bed. You wonder, would he kill Jungkook or you first?

You reckon that that will be a bridge you’ll cross when you get to it. You don’t want to ruin what you might now have with Jungkook, not when getting to where you are tonight was such a hassle already. 

A hassle, yes, but worth every step of the way. If only for Jungkook to tighten his arm around you, pressing a kiss on the back of your head.

“I’ve been thinking,” he whispers.

“Yeah?” you let out as he doesn’t say anything else for a few seconds.

“Now I’ll allow you to call me crazy,” he adds, and you laugh, turning in his hold so that you can face him. His features are barely visible in the dim light filtering from behind the curtains, yet you’re pretty sure his eyes are soft as they meet yours. “But I want to go to New York with you.”

Your brows furrow. “To New York?” you press.

“My brother has an engagement party next weekend, and I’ve been dreading going.”

Now you’d say your heart just dropped to your ass because, is he really asking you to meet his family?

“You want me to go with you to your brother’s engagement party?” you let out.

He chuckles. “Yes.”

“But we’re not…” you trail off.

You’re not delusional enough to believe you’re suddenly dating Jeon Jungkook. Just because you both admitted your attraction to the other doesn’t mean that you have to dive head first into a relationship… right?

“No, we’re not,” he says as if sensing your unease. “My family sucks and I just… I’ve been dreading going, but I thought that it could be fun with you.”

You feel bad for him, for that vulnerable mention of his family, but you don’t want to push, so you say, “And what will you tell your family that I am?”

“Would you mind pretending to be my girlfriend?” he suggests. “Just for the weekend, so that you don’t get any wrong ideas.”

You roll your eyes, and he laughs, having probably seen the gesture. “What do I get in return?” you ask.

“My undying love and gratitude?” he teases, his bunny grin on display.

“Are you saying you love me, Jeon Jungkook?”

The silence is a little too long for comfort, and your heart races in your chest, awaiting his answer. Yet he only shrugs his shoulders, before saying, “You wish. So, is that a yes or a no?”

“It’s from next Friday to Sunday?” you enquire. 

He nods, and you truly take the time to ponder. Because you don’t know if it’s a good idea. If it means just getting attached more when one day this is all bound to go up in flames. 

Or maybe it won’t. Maybe Taehyung won’t be the overbearing asshole that you’ve known him to be your whole life, and maybe he’ll let you do whatever it is that you have to do with Jeon Jungkook. Maybe he’ll let you live what you have to live with Jungkook…

But then you think about Colton, you think about Lisa, about Shelly, Jungkook’s reputation once more haunting you. You’re not delusional enough to think you’ll be the one to change him.

Yet a weekend away, just the two of you… It sounds like heaven, though you’re aware it might just be hell disguised as a beautiful memory that will taunt you somewhere along the line.

College is meant to experience things though, right?

So you find yourself asking, “At what time do we leave?”

Prev | Chapter 7.5 | Next

☆☆☆☆☆

gosh where are these two headed :') next chapter is v special to me and i'm really excited for you guys to read! But first, let me know what you thought of this chapter? did we like it?<3

All rights reserved to @/oddinary4bts, 2024. Do not copy, repost or translate.

[forlix]

‧ ❆ ˚ 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐲 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝・h.j.

— stars flare brightest in the absence of light, and you see his clearer than day.

words・6.4k

pairing・han jisung x female reader

genres・college!au, friends with benefits to lovers, snowed in trope, smut, MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS THAT INTERACT WILL BE BLOCKED, angst, ANGST, you have been warned, hurt/comfort, i can't write normal fluff to save my life, happy ending!!!, semi-slow burn

warnings・depictions of insomnia, recurring nightmares, graphic violence, character death (in the nightmare), fears of abandonment and falling in love, alcohol consumption, humans helping each other heal. smut warnings under the cut

playlist・stay - acoustic by jonah baker・all of me by big gigantic・babydoll (speed) by ari abdul・oasis by exo・volcano by han

a/n・hi, here's my second installment of winter falls. writing this was immensely challenging and twice as meaningful, so feedback would be greatly appreciated. thank you to my may for being so fucking instrumental in piecing together this rollercoaster—this one is for you, i love you. thanks to my sahar for everything, always and forever. and thanks to all of you for being here. happy new year ♡

smut warnings・spitplay, unprotected piv, please practice safe sex!!!, car sex, dirty talk, jisung's dick game is kinda crazy, squirting, lots of aftercare

Every time Jisung closes his eyes, he sees somebody’s back.

It’s leaving. Traipsing somewhere he can’t follow. He tries to chase it—he always does, he never learns—but the premise doesn’t so much as surface before the ghosts circling around his ankles go for his throat instead. They snare him by the shoulders, force him to his knees, slam his forehead into the permafrost hard enough to break bone. They make sure the next time he tries to move will be the last.

So he remains, keeled over in the cold, until tearwater clings to his lower lashes in small icicles. Until bloodstained snow coats his lips like the manifestation of a curse. Until the back has disappeared.

Who does it belong to? He’s left to wonder. Where is it going?

Why can’t I follow?

Then he wakes up.

No longer does he lay awake for hours afterwards, scouring the dream’s every frame for his answers.

Now, he tosses and turns in clammy sheets until his exhaustion wins.

Now, he welcomes sleep like a miracle granted by some pitying god.

You see him.

Through a living room packed with red-faced partygoers and dissected by oscillating strobe lights, albeit, but you see him anyways. 

Jisung can barely make out the rest of your face—he blames the lighting, or the soju, or both—but your eyes alone turn him to glass. Not a fancy vase through which the world distorts, but a simple pane that puts him and his ghosts on full display.

He hopes you like horror movies.

Felix knows you, because of course he does, and Jisung has never been happier to call the extroverted Australian his friend than when you come over to say hi. You stumble out of the crowd all smudged makeup and sweaty skin, your figure hugged by a short black dress with two diamond-shaped openings just above your hips, your glossy lips curved in a drunken smile. Jisung immediately wants it against his mouth.

Instead, it disappears behind his friend as you pull him into a quick hug. A few wisps of your hair dust over Jisung’s arm, momentarily replacing the smells of grease and vodka with cherry blossoms and vanilla.

“Lix, hey!”

“Darling, it’s good to see you! Feels like it’s been ages.”

“I know, right? How are you? How is everything?”

“Good, thank you. Just happy the semester’s over.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Then you go to lift your drink and discover thin air in its place. “Or I won’t. Whoops.”

This prompts Jisung’s first contribution to the conversation—and his first effortless laugh in a long while.

“Eventful night, huh?”

He meets your gaze from all of two feet away this time, and his knees buckle under him. That gaze, fuck. So clear and true, like a prism of glass refracting light into a rainbow. He would let you refract him a thousand times over if he had any light to give.

“Maybe,” you giggle. “Seems I’m a little too happy the semester’s over.”

“Wanna not get a drink to celebrate?”

Your expression flickers. Not in a bad way, more like you hadn’t expected him to ask so soon—or for yourself to have your answer so quickly.

A strobe light catches right under your eye and refracts the color in your blushing face. A rainbow.

“I’d like that.”

He tilts his head towards the kitchen. You give Felix’s elbow a light squeeze before moving past him; he gives Felix a glimpse of his growing smile before falling into step behind you. The blonde shakes his head, throws back the rest of his beer, then swivels at the sound of someone calling his name from across the foyer.

Felix will get drunk enough to forget the sight of you leading Jisung up the stairs, two bottles of pink lemonade tucked under your arm. Nothing stronger, as promised.

Jisung asks his question an entire minute after he intends to. “Where are we going, by the way?”

“Somewhere I can see your pretty face without having to squint,” you reply, and his stomach tumbles like a schoolboy with a valentine.

You don’t stop at the second floor. Instead, you nudge open a door Jisung swears just materialized to his left and emerge into the night air.

It’s warm for December, but he’s still met with chilly winds licking down the sides of his neck. That’s not the only reason he shudders, though. Below his feet, he finds a metal platform akin to that of a fire escape. Above his head, a staircase that looks one forceful step away from dropping off the side of the building.

You turn towards it. 

In a hurry, he sputters, “I’m, uh—I’m not sure about this.”

A beat passes. Your hold on his wrist loosens, not to let go, just to trace wordless reassurance down the back of his hand. Your fingers feel perfect sliding into the spaces between his, like drops of honey in the craters of soufflé pancakes.

“It’s safer than it looks, I promise.”

Jisung heaves a sigh. It seems saying no to you is an impossible task.

You’re right, though. The iron rungs are surprisingly rigid beneath his feet, and the two of you make it to the roof with no trouble. He does stumble when you pull him up onto the gravel, but it’s intentional, a purposeful blunder to have you closer. To snag another glimpse of that blush, another trace of that floral vanilla.

“Sorry,” he whispers almost directly upon your lips. And that earns him all three.

The next hour evades him for the most part, and Jisung is pissed about it. He’s with the woman of his dreams under a sky so clear it’s almost lustrous and he’s too shitfaced to recollect when he gave you his hoodie to wear; what you said that made his lungs capsize with how hard he laughed; how you ended up so close to each other, your legs strewn over his lap, his hands tracing over your thighs.

Thankfully, he remembers a few things. He remembers how frighteningly easy you are to talk to; he remembers your habit of smacking his stomach when you get flustered; he remembers you getting flustered a lot. He remembers the timbres of your different laughs and how your stunning features crinkle with each. He remembers feeling like a pane of glass in front of you, just like he had downstairs, and he remembers liking it, somehow. Liking the way you see through him, the way you allow him to just exist as he is. Liking the way you acknowledge his ghosts with such nonchalance, inviting them over for tea and biscuits.

He wants to remember everything about you.

It’s not often he wants to remember anything.

Eventually, your conversation comes to a natural close. In its absence, Jisung notices that the alcoholic sludge in his brain has largely diffused; with it, the rumbling bass of the party below. The full moon hangs at its highest point, blanketing the two of you with anticipatory silence, nudging you towards the only topic you’ve yet to breach.

He meets your gaze again, from all of two inches away this time, and his insides twist.

“You’re still drunk, aren’t you?”

You blink at him, not following. Then he leans his forehead against yours, lets his eyes flicker to your mouth with such unbridled want that you’re instantly dizzy—and no longer confused.

Regret pools in your eyes moments before they close. “Yes, I think so.”

Your lips are so, so close that he can feel the air shift between you when they move, can feel the soft warmth emanating from them. Jisung pulls away before he does anything stupid.

You do the stupid thing for him.

You push his shoulders to the plaster behind him, push yourself onto his lap with a swing of your body and a slotting of your legs on either side of him. 

The plush of your thighs hugging his hips, the curves of your breasts pressed against his chest, Jisung tries to stare up at you, perplexed, aroused. But you’re so close that he can’t, so he settles with whispering upon the underside of your chin, “what are you—”

“Gimme your lemonade.”

The authoritative words come out in a slurred haze, and he all but hastens to oblige. 

You pluck the plastic bottle from his wavering grasp. His empty hand hovers as if uncertain where to go. But matters as trivial as hand placement drop off his mind’s precipice as he watches you unscrew the cap, the slope of your neck illuminated by spindly moonlight, and without thinking he pushes his hands beneath the hem of your—his—hoodie.

The skin of your waist is warm and smooth where his fingertips are cold and calloused, the juxtaposition unimportant in your reciprocal desires to touch and be touched.

“Open,” you murmur.

His jaw goes slack, firstly from pure disbelief. Then, obedience. The dark locks that obstruct his vision of you fall away as his head meets the brick half-wall behind him, as if the midnight breeze itself mandated their removal.

You pour some of the pink liquid past Jisung’s parted lips. Stray rivulets slip down his cheek and vanish beneath his neckline. You break eye contact to follow their path with dilated pupils and fluttering lashes. With unadulterated desire.

He swallows, gently, and feels the sweet substance surround his tonsils.

He swallows, forcefully, when you wrap your lips around the bottle, the plastic still slathered in his spit.

The swig you take is long, deep. Your throat bobs and your eyes close as if you’re savoring a finely-aged nectar. Then your lips are popping off the opening with a soft thwock, leaving a thick strand of saliva to suspend, suspend, suspend until the very second it’s about to drop, which is when you collect the residue with a deft swipe of your tongue.

“A placeholder,” you breathe, and Jisung’s head careens. A shared bottle. An indirect kiss.

“You’re a monster,” he croaks.

You giggle and lean down, curling a hand around his cheek, pressing a wet kiss to his Adam’s apple.

“Tomorrow, if we’re both sober…”

One, two, three pecks up the length of his jaw.

“...and you still remember my address…”

A suckle to the lobe of his ear.

“...you can kiss me, for real.”

A trembling breath.

“And then some.”

Jisung moans, loudly.

Thankfully, he remembers a few things.

He shows up at your place shortly after sunset the next day. You swing open the door, your face already alight with your world-ending smile.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

Then he’s kissing you like a man famished.

Jisung learns to love your back, that night. He loves its dips and curves, loves its rise and fall. Loves how it arches into him, how it looks drenched in his cum. It’s the back of his dreams.

The back in his dreams keeps walking.

Jisung has never liked winter.

He has never liked its winds, whispering woefully as if mourning something unnamed and unseen. He has never liked its palette, whitewashing the world as if refracting a rainbow in reverse.

He has never liked cracking open his eyes and seeing the scenery of his nightmare outside his window. Nor does he like trudging over the sleet as if weighed down by the same ghosts that break him time and time again in his dreamscape. They love winter. 

And this winter, he swears, is the bitterest yet. On the nights when he’s allowed to sleep, the nightmare comes in such sharp relief that he thinks he’d rather anything else, the ghosts meaner, the blood redder, the silhouette slower. It’s an act of mercy when he’s still awake by the time bleached sunlight perforates the curtains, resting upon his salted cheeks and balled fists.

This winter, it is not just dislike that he feels towards the gray winds—it’s hatred. A maelstrom of loathing so large and dark that Jisung no longer knows where it’s headed or what it’s directed to. Or who.

When winter break comes to an end, he’s probably the only person who’s happy about it.

His friends certainly aren’t, looking like a line of angry nutcrackers with their folded arms and thunderous faces standing outside Greem Cafe.

Jisung calls out a greeting as he jogs towards them, and cue the grumbling.

“What is there to smile about? Enlighten us.” That’s Hyunjin. “I have to deal with four finals and three essays in the next five days and this guy is smiling.”

“He’s accepted his fate, I reckon.” That’s Felix. “We should do the same, boys. Let ourselves down easy, y’know?”

“No, no, he’s smiling because he remembered to bring me his chem notes.” That’s Jeongin. “You did, right? Please say you did.”

Jisung is stunned into silence. “Can I not be happy to see my friends?”

“No,” Hyunjin and Felix reply in unison.

“My bad,” he sighs.

“My notes,” Jeongin repeats.

“I have them, dude. Let’s sit down first.”

The younger boy shouts an impassioned “THANK YOU” at the sky like the clouds just saved his GPA. Jisung reaches for the door to the café, then stops at the sound of Felix’s voice.

“We’re waiting on one more person.”

He turns towards the blonde with puzzled eyes. He’d been under the impression the study session would comprise just them four.

“Who?”

Felix’s response falters on his tongue when he catches sight of something in the distance, and his face changes in a way Jisung’s seen before.

“Look behind you.” Felix shuffles past him, raising his voice to shout, “yo!”

Jisung glances away from the newcomer as quickly as he sees her. It’s not until his eyes pivot to the fire hydrant across the street that he processes her identity.

In one second flat, his mind clutters full. He thinks back to that party, when all it took was the sight of your smile for him to theorize you were the most exquisite thing ever made. He thinks back to the next evening, when he kissed you and verified his hypothesis. He thinks back to what followed and would continue to follow in the few days that remained before break: entwined tongues and emblazoned hickeys, whitened knuckles and whiny praise, snapping hips and shaking bedframes.

This winter, Jisung swears, is the bitterest yet.

But seeing you, the scarf wound multiple times around your neck doing nothing to hide your gorgeous smile, feels like catching a fragment of summer in his frozen hands.

“Thank god,” Felix groans before embracing you. Collapsing on you, more like. “I’m saved.”

You reach around to pat the boy on the back, your eyes brimming with laughter. “Lower your expectations, please. I did well on one exam.”

“You aced the midterm. That automatically makes you a rocket scientist,” Felix corrects, his voice muffled into the shoulder of your coat. A few beats of silence pass. Then, “this is comfy.”

“Okay, okay, let’s go get some caffeine in you,” you giggle. “We have a lot of ground to cover today.”

Felix straightens up sleepily. And sadly. “Superb.”

Jisung hangs back as you introduce yourself to Hyunjin and Jeongin. He doesn’t even notice his growing smile until you’re standing directly in front of him and for the first time in three weeks there’s the smell of cherry blossoms in the air and a rainbow shining on his face again.

“Hi,” he offers.

“Hey,” you reply.

Hyunjin is the one to shatter the prolonged silence that follows. “Are you guys betrothed?”

Felix and Jeongin stalk into the café snickering. You and Jisung trail behind with flaming cheeks.

It takes Jisung two and a half hours to talk to you again. At that point in the afternoon, Felix is napping on the second practice test you’ve given him; Hyunjin has downed three shots of pure espresso and is currently viewing his screen with concerning intensity; Jeongin is at another table on a quiet Zoom call with his chemistry T.A., Jisung’s notes clutched to his chest like a life vest. And you’re leaning back against your seat opposite to him, scrolling through your phone in what he presumes to be a well-deserved study break. As good a time as any.

He opens up his texts with you. His fingers fly across the keyboard.

Jisung: do you have plans after this?

Your eyes stutter to the top of your screen, linger there for a moment, and lock onto Jisung’s from across the table.

He presses his lips into a thin line to suppress his smile. You let yours spill over in full form, and with it comes a soft giggle that would be worth getting his number fucking blocked just to hear one more time.

Three gray dots appear before elongating into a prompt response.

Y/N: I was gonna ask you the same thing…

He’s the one who laughs this time. Fuck, you’re cute. You’re so cute.

Jisung: can i take you to dinner? Y/N: Yes, I’d love that :) Y/N: When should we leave? Jisung: 9? Y/N: Sounds good~ Jisung: cool Jisung: it’s a date Y/N: It’s a date! Y/N: Excited 💛

With that, you put your phone face down and return to work, though your lips remain privately upturned. Jisung wants to kiss them again.

He also wants to turn you into a mess on his cock again.

Or both.

He doesn’t get much studying done after that thought surfaces.

Jisung: me too <3

When nine o’clock rolls around, you and Jisung begin cleaning up your work stations in near-perfect simultaneity. There’s confusion written all over Hyunjin’s and Jeongin’s faces as they watch you swing your backpacks over your shoulders—but Felix’s expression is a blank slate as he sips from his macchiato. Your ingenuity isn’t the only reason he invited you today.

As you make your way out of the café, your shoulders brush once, twice, and then Jisung drops his hand into the space between the two of you without uttering a word. You scoop it up in your own without missing a beat.

He steps into the freezing night feeling warm all over.

“You know what I realized?” You say as you walk towards his SUV.

“What did you realize?”

“We’ve never had a sober conversation before. Can we change that tonight?”

Jisung has broken hearts before.

There’s no euphemistic way to describe his tendency to abuse the sensitive organs, to wring them out and throw them away like irrelevant trash. To juggle and drop them with a sheepish laugh like they’re nothing more than props in a circus act.

He doesn’t do it to save himself or his partners from getting hurt or any self-ingratiating bullshit like that. It’s for himself, all for himself. All to unload his balls and his mind for fifteen blissful seconds. 

There’s blood on his hands. He never cared to wash it off.

Except you are the one asking for his heart this time around, a dash of hope in your smile as you do so, and he thinks it would be his life’s greatest honor to be discarded by you.

“Sure,” he answers.

He doesn’t even last until he’s inside the car.

Your back meets the door to the passenger’s seat, guided there by his hands on your hips. From millimeters away he watches your surprise morph into understanding, then darken into lust.

“I like when we don’t talk, though.”

It’s the most annoying thing in the world to remove so many layers in such a cramped space.

Combined, your clothing forms a tower high enough to block out the driver’s window completely. An unnecessary blockade.

The glass fogs up anyways.

“Fuck, Ji, yes, right there, oh my god.”

You have your legs spread open and the back of your neck digging into the cupholder on the door. It’s not comfortable. You’re too busy getting fucked open to care.

Jisung detaches his lips from your neck to ask, “here, baby?”

The head of his cock hits that gummy spot again, harder, sweeter. You convulse, your hand scrambling for purchase in his raven locks.

“Yes, yes, yes, don’t stop, please.”

Please. The word plays over in his fuzzy mind.

It seems saying no to you is an impossible task.

His cock slips out of you and you lament the loss of contact with a high wail.

“W-why’d—where’d you go?”

He can’t help but chuckle at how incoherent you’ve become. He cradles the back of your head with a tender hand and lowers your upper body onto the leather seat, adjusting himself to your new elevation.

“Right here, beautiful. Didn’t go anywhere—promise—” 

He expels the final word through gritted teeth as he slams into you again, and the new angle is glorious. Your bodies keen in flawless harmony. Profanities tumble from his lips in a steady stream before they turn back into syllables.

“Would never go anywhere. Would never leave without making this pretty pussy cream like it deserves—holy fucking shit, baby.”

You clench around him at his words and then he’s setting a new, relentless rhythm, rocking the whole vehicle with every hearty smack of his hips against yours, your wet walls squeezing him so dreamily he thinks he sees nirvana with every thrust.

You’re enjoying it just as much, if the bubbles of spit in the corner of your mouth are any indication, and Jisung is viciously proud to be the cause. Unbelievably lucky to feel your breasts jiggling under his chest and your nails digging into the back of his neck.

“Good?” He whispers, and you nod blissfully.

“So—good, Ji, so fucking good. Your cock is perfect, fuck, I can’t even—can’t even think.”

“You’re the perfect one. Can’t believe how well your cunt takes me, shit. It’s like it was fucking made for this.”

“It was,” you breathe, and he nearly shoots his load into you at this alone. “It was, it was—oh, god, I think—think I’m gonna come—”

“Do it,” he rasps. “Come for me. Come on this cock and it’s yours.”

“R-really?”

“Really.”

“Then, I will. I’ll come on your cock—make it mine. Need it so fucking bad, I’m so fucking close, oh—please—”

He anchors himself in place with a hand against the windowsill and the other travels down your body to rub fast, tight circles into your clit. You let out a wanton, prolonged moan, tilt your head back to expose him to your fluttering throat. And then you’re pulling his lips onto yours again, and the following kiss is sloppy beyond belief, the kind that can only antedate the happiest of endings.

“My cock,” you sigh into his mouth. “Mine.”

“Forever,” is the breathy response he doesn’t know if he means, the response he gives you anyways.

And then you curl your fingers in his hair. Clamp your teeth around his lower lip. Clench your thighs around his waist. There’s liquid everywhere. Tearwater spilling down the sides of your face. Release gushing all over his dick and pelvis and backseat.

He catches up the moment he realizes what’s just happened. Pulls out of you. Presses his head against the roof of his car. Spits on his hand. Pumps his pulsating cock. Sends himself over the edge you’ve just finished tripping over.

Eventually, he regains feeling in his limbs.

He opens his eyes, surveys the damage, and grins.

Your stomach is covered in ropes of white, your expression hidden behind your hands. You start shaking your head in profuse embarrassment the moment you feel his eyes on you.

“You squirted,” he says.

“I know,” you almost yell, and his grin erupts into a laugh.

He lowers himself back over you, takes your wrists, and removes them from your blushing face. He doesn’t think he’s seen you so flustered before and it has him palpitating in ways he never thought feasible.

Maybe he did mean the damn thing after all.

He pushes off the strands of hair clinging to your damp forehead and replaces them with a gentle kiss. “It was sexy as fuck and you’re everything.” 

There’s a certain softness in your eyes when he pulls away. He hopes, for your sake, it’s all in his head.

His car is in need of aftercare most of all. You shrug on your clothes with considerable effort and get to work, all while sharing comfortable chatter and easy laughter.

Those things persist during your dinner date at a nearby Chinese restaurant and the drive back to your place, which Jisung knows well enough to no longer need his GPS. Those things persist until he kisses you goodbye on your doorstep, because he would have to be fucking crazy not to after you gave him the best night he’s had in so long.

After you reminded him that he’s still capable of comfort and ease, in spite of it all.

Snow comes a few weeks into the new year. 

This winter, it falls late, and it falls hard, like a gust of breath expelled from drawn lungs at the very last minute. Held there as if lying in wait for something unnamed and unseen. 

The gust of breath is too quiet to be heard over the one Jisung lets out against the shell of your ear. “Wait here.”

He goes to roll off you. You don’t let him just yet, darting your hand around his wrist and bringing his face back within centimeters of yours.

Han Jisung is beautiful. You knew it for the first time at that houseparty and you’ve known it every hour of every day since. But it’s always clearest to you in the afterglow, when his bare skin is golden and sticky and his delicate lips bitten to bright fuchsia. 

When his irises have gone black and you see stars, flaring in the absence of light.

You close the distance that remains between you. Your lips part with a content sigh. Your hands drift over the slant of his neck; his find home in the dips above your waist.

He breaks away once you’re both out of breath, and the pad of his thumb wipes lightly at your lower lip.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes,” you reply shyly. “I couldn’t help myself.”

The smile this brings to his face reminds you of a candle’s flame. Soft on the eyes and scalding to the touch when he presses it back against your lips. Once, twice.

“Can you wipe your cum off me now?” You whisper, and he laughs straight into your mouth.

The mattress lifts. His footsteps grow quieter. You shiver in his absence.

Only then do you notice the blizzard.

You stumble off the bed to throw your curtains aside. Snow descends from the sky like spools of unraveling yarn. The streetlights have been reduced to foggy specks, the parked cars to blurry heaps. Every sidewalk and rooftop in sight has already been slathered in ivory.

Jisung announces his return with a disbelieving whistle.

“Am I dreaming?” You murmur.

“When did that happen?”

“I have no idea.”

You don’t even notice the wild smile on your face until you turn to him and catch his reaction to it. He looks like he’s asking himself the same question.

“C’mere,” he hums, and you oblige.

He laves the warm towel over your breasts and stomach, as well as the places his release has trickled since you flung yourself to your feet. All while supporting the small of your back with a touch fatally careful, an expression wholly adoring. All evidence of just how blurry the line between sexual escapade and lover has become in two short months.

Your ribcage fucking throbs.

“You don’t seem excited,” you say.

He finishes cleaning you off. You give him a distracted thank you, noticing the sudden shadow draped over his face like a netted veil.

“I’m not,” he answers, not unkindly.

“You don’t like snow?”

“Not really.”

“Why?”

He circles around the bed to get dressed. You bend to pick up the clothes tossed aside earlier and drop them into your hamper, then slip into a clean pair of underwear and sweatpants.

“It’s a long story.”

Just as you reach for a top, a bundle of cloth travels in an arc across your bedroom and hooks itself around the crook of your arm. His T-shirt. 

You glance at Jisung. He’s already looking elsewhere, but his private smile makes its way onto your face as you slip it on.

“Well, I have time.” You sink into your mattress, now surrounded by his muted musk, his papyrus and petrichor. “We’ll be stuck here a while, after all.”

“Stuck?” Jisung repeats, the lanyard of his car keys dangling from the pocket of his hoodie, his feet turned towards the door.

A pregnant pause commences. His intentions dawn, and you gape.

“You’re not driving right now.”

He breaks eye contact.

“Right?”

That was the plan, you read in his expression.

You know better than trying to reverse a river’s current by kicking up rocks. You know better than trying to curtail the flight of an albatross by clipping its wings.

You know better than asking someone who thinks he was made to leave to stay.

And you won’t.

“I have somewhere to be early tomorrow morning,” he stammers, the lines terribly rehearsed. “The snow’s not heavy, I’ll be—”

“Stay.”

You’re not asking.

Jisung looks at you, startled, as you glide across the bed. You place your feet on the hardwood and circle your arms around his waist. Lace your fingers upon the hollow of his back. His pulse goes uneven at your abrupt proximity.

Akin to the drag of a feather, you mouth at his cheek, then the side of his neck.

“You can stay, Jisung.”

He shudders at your words, and you’ve got him.

It’s oddly normal, the sight of him clambering into your bed in your clothing—a pair of old sweatpants and your favorite crewneck—like this isn’t the first time you’re sleeping together in your two months of sleeping together.

In fact, the only indication of anything unordinary is the floaty feeling in your stomach when your head hits the pillow and discover Jisung’s face only inches away. He drapes an arm over your waist, gathering you close. You nuzzle into the crook of his neck.

The inevitable question follows.

“Can I save the story for another time?”

“Sure,” you return, keeping your voice small. He doesn’t hear your disappointment this way. “Should we go to sleep, then?”

“We should.”

Your foreheads touch. Your noses bump together. Your eyes cross, watching the adoration pull at his. You dimly register your hand threading in his fluffy locks, his thumb running over your cheekbone. Your lashes narrowly miss the surface of his eyes, and then he tips your face up by millimeters.

You don’t remember when you fall asleep. You only recall the hour beforehand that you spend with Jisung’s lips traversing yours, like you are the ocean and he’s uncovering new waters with every bruise he prints against your throat, every suckle he leaves around your tongue.

In your dream, the roles reverse and you are the one exploring him, mapping out his constellations with wide-eyed wonder.

You wake to a black hole.

For the first five seconds, you see nothing. You hear nothing. You feel nothing. You only blink in the darkness, your mind kicking into groggy gear to ask the very good question of why you’re conscious again.

Instinct moves your hand across the mattress. Empty space greets you where Jisung should be. Unfounded dread shoves your back off the bed. You gasp, the sound seeming to echo in the cavernous silence.

Your eyes adjust enough to discern light in the crack beneath your door, and you’re wide awake.

The following events go by in a blur. You stumble out of bed and into your closet, fastening your fingers around the thickest piece of fabric you find. You fly into the living room, where the lamp by the couch is left on and the pair of worn black Converse on your doormat have gone missing.

The front door is cracked open, and through the narrow inches you spot someone hunched on the stairs outside, his dark hair dyed platinum by the awning light’s fluorescence.

Your heart stills in relief, then quickens with anxiety.

You’ve tried wearing this crewneck in January enough times to know you can’t. In fact, you suspect that it somehow soaks up the temperature, lets it seep in between its every seam until it becomes one with the bitter winds. 

But he isn’t shivering, you notice as you take a seat next to him, draping the puffer over both of your shoulders on your way down. He’s simply staring off into the bleak storm, snowflakes sitting atop his head like a coating of ash, their color matching that of his frozen skin. He’s becoming one with the bitter winds. 

At first, you don’t recognize the man in front of you.

You’re well familiar with those ring-laden hands and the whetted jawline thrown into shadow, those remnants of cologne clinging to his frame. But you have never seen that gaze before, bloodshot and bleak and belonging to somebody new. Somebody who isn’t completely here, straddling the partition between the realms of people and phantoms.

Then he lifts his eyes and you see stars, flaring in the absence of light. Your stars.

And you recognize him for the first time ever.

You drop your hand to your hip, and his fingers feel stiff and cold and perfect, sliding into the spaces between yours.

“Why don’t you like snow?” You ask.

Jisung’s eyes return to the swirling sleet, but he moves your interlocked hands to rest on his thigh, and you know that he’s with you.

He’s been having this nightmare.

It takes place in a small clearing. It’s winter, and everything is covered in snow. Not the gentle kind that you can catch on your tongue, but the unyielding kind that’s hard and dense and covered in cracks, like a lake newly frozen over.

Somebody is in front of him, walking away. He can only see their back. He wants to chase after them. He doesn’t want to be left behind. But there are ghosts nearby, and they’ll split his skull open on the permafrost and tie his windpipe into a pretty bow if he so much as dreams of pursuit. He always does. He doesn’t know how not to.

Normally, the back leaves, and he can do nothing but remain. He can direct his loathing only to the snow into which he bleeds. 

Normally, he waits for the dream to end with something bordering on boredom. He’s seen this movie too many times. He fucking hates how it ends.

This time, though, the snow tastes like something.

After the flavors deliquesce upon his tongue, his head shoots up, his eyes blowing wide as they latch onto the retreating figure. He knows who it is.

His feet scrabbles against the ice with his attempts to rise to them. He lunges forward with frenzied resolve, and that is when the ghosts snap his neck.

He wakes up.

“Cherry blossoms and vanilla.”

You blink, tearwater streaking from your eyes in silent, steaming trails.

“That’s—”

My shampoo.

A broken sob escapes you in lieu of the rest of your sentence, and Jisung laughs, a flimsy facade that crumbles when he lifts his hand to dab at your moistened cheeks and it’s trembling.

“Silly,” he murmurs. “I’m used to it now.”

“I don’t want you to be.”

“I don’t want you to cry for me.”

“You died.”

“And I would do it again.”

This response comes without an shred of hesitation.

You first realized you had something to confess, that night in the the back of Jisung’s SUV. You’ve kept it locked away for your sake and his, even moreso. You see how fear clings to him like an unshakeable wraith, and you refuse to feed the parasite.

Now, your confession explodes from its fortress in the center of your soul and rises up your larynx. You panic like an inept security guard letting their only prisoner bolt free. Is it really the right time? Do you know what to say? Have you really thought this through? 

Too late. It’s rushing to the point of your tongue already. You suppose you’ll find out.

He saves you the trouble.

“Honestly?”

Your confession stills. 

“I don’t know if I’m okay, and I won’t try to convince you otherwise. You’d call my bluff. You’re good at that.

“But everything feels okay when I’m with you. You see me. You allow me just to exist as I am. You make me feel human again—you make me want to feel human again. You empty my mind.”

You feel as if you’ve been ejected into space naked, griping for air where there is none.

“I never believed in having somebody to lose,” he utters, gently leaning his forehead against yours. “But I would rather disappear than watch you go.”

You cradle his jaw with shaking fingers, trying and failing to quell the violence of your emotion.

“Don’t go,” he exhales.

You kiss him.

It should feel the same as before. You reach for the slant of his neck, him the dips above your waist. You sigh into him, parting your lips, and he moves into you deeper, harder, dipping into your mouth with his tongue’s pliant swipe. But there’s something new in the way you hold each other, in the seal of your mouth against his.

The line between sexual escapade and lover vanishes as if swept off the sand and into the sea. His stars come out of hiding at last and they bathe you in their residue, light your heart aglow.

Your confession resurfaces. It wants to stargaze also.

“I love you too,” you breathe.

The night comes and goes.

The two of you spend it entangling, sweating, your lips glued the expanse of his neck and the arcs of his shoulders, writing over the ghosts’ injuries with bruises of your making.

Only when the winds have faltered outside do you attempt to rest again. You are curled up in balmy bliss, utterly depleted. Jisung’s arms around your middle and legs threaded among yours bring you that much closer to slumber’s cusp.

You attribute it to your exhaustion when he mumbles something against you, and you have no idea what it means: “Thank you for refracting me.” 

Your confusion is palpable in your silence. His laugh hits the nape of your neck with a gentle puff, and he kisses the spot just beneath your ear. “Never mind.”

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© 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐱 (est. 090323) · 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤? please consider reblogging, commenting, or sending me an ask to let me know; or, read my other writing here. thanks so much for the support!

[islayhawkin]

Let me take care of you

Newt x f!reader (clint x jeff mentioned- if you don't ship it just ignore it lol)

2,8k

Summery: newt accidentally overhears you talking about liking him but he thinks you were talking about minho

Request: Hello can you do a newt x fem!reader when the reader is a medjack and talk about (I forget if it’s Clint or Jeff) how she is love with him but she didn’t realize he was behind her ? Please

Misunderstandings; hurt/comfort, angst

A/N: okay this escalated pretty quick into angst whoops

Can be read as a part 2 of 'let me help you'

It was a usual morning in the glade. The runners were getting ready to start their rounds. Alby started to wake everyone up and frypan made breakfest ready.

You and jeff on the other hand were already in the med-hut to check up on a slicer who almost got his arm chopped off yesterday. Jeff held his fingers to the boys neck.

"He's still alive."

You hummed in relief.

"Lost much blood?"

You collected the things to change the bandage on the young boys arm.

"Nah seems pretty good."

You handed jeff a container of warmed up water and a cloth. "Thanks" jeff muttered as he began removing the blood soaked bandage from the arm. You sat down next to the bed and gave jeff a helping hand whenever he needed.

"How are things with clint?" You gave Jeff a teasing grin. Jeff sighed.

"There are no 'things' between me and clint." But he gave up long ago to deny it convincingly in front of you.

"You looked shucking cute cuddled up yesterday evening." You grinned as you took the dirty cloth and water bowl from him.

Jeff scoffed. "Oh yeah what about you lovebirds then? I'm pretty sure you two were the ones cuddled up. Half the glade was probably jealous." He took the new bandage from your hand. A blush coated your cheeks but you smiled softly at the memory. "Yeah we were quite close yesterday."

You realised that the boy jeff was currently treating was still fast asleep. "Nothing wakes him up does it?" You pointed to him.

Jeff chuckled. "He sleeps like a rock. But don't try to distract me. I'm telling you, you need to ask him out."

"Because you're the expert in that?" You raised your brow.

Jeff rolled his eyes and sat down too after finishing the bandage. "No. Because it is so clearly obvious to everyone. Do you know why the boys don't try anything anymore with you?"

You blinked confused. "No...?" "Newt threatens them. They're afraid they'll be banished or beaten to a pulp if they try something with you."

You were speachless for a moment. "What...? No newt doesn't do that... I know he's protective. That's why they set up the rules but he never uses violence."

"Well he does when you are involved. You remember how gally was brought in with a bashed in face? That was newt. Gally, as gally is, apperently said a lot of disrespectful stuff about you which he could not tolerate."

Your heart beat a bit faster. Newt did this for you? You knew newt avoided violence and stuck to order as much as he was capable off. And that he completely neglected these believes as soon as you were involved was weirdly...sweet.

"So I'm telling you- he cares about you very deeply. Almost concerningly so. And everyone of the boys is aware how you two look at eachother."

You couldn't contain your bright smile. "I never knew that. That is very sweet." You sighed dreamily. "He's just so adorable."

Jeff laughed quietly. "I tell you he's beaten someone up and you call him adorable?"

You glare at him with a pout. "You know that's not what I mean. He's just- so handsome. Even when his hair is touseled of sweat at the end of the day. I don't know how he does it. I could listen to his voice all day too. Every time I see him I just want to squeeze him out of excitment."

"I'm sure he is." Jeff muttered with a grin.

"He always looks out for everyone and rather neglects his own needs than others. I'd rather he wouldn't but I like that about him. He also has everything in control. I mean alby is the leader but he's the leader in the background. He always notices when something is wrong and asks about it. When he laughs he has these really cute crinkles on his nose. Sorry I'm rambling."

Jeff leaned forward. "Then do something about it. Honestly in the eyes of everyone you're already-"

Newt cleared his throat as he stood awkwardly in the doorway of the med-hut. He had walked in a minute ago and heard you talking about someone. At first he thought you might actually be talking about him but his self-consciousness told him you were probably talking about minho. You two always were so close. Minho was a phisical guy. He was muscular. Had great humor. Of course newt understood why you'd fall for minho. After all it was his best friend. But it still stung. A lot.

Newt didn't mean to eavesdrop but he couldn't really find a good moment to interrupt until he couldn't stand hearing more.

His face showed a friendly expression but his eyes wouldn't meet your face.

You on the other hand were turning around to look at newt with wide eyes. You didn't know how long he stood there. How much he heard. If he even heard anything so you tried to slow your heartbeat and act normally.

Jeff glanced between you two as if he was watching a very interesting story unfold before his eyes.

"I uh. I need to get some supplies for the runners. They're about to start. But maybe you'd like to bring it yourself to minho?"His eyes were lowered to the ground.

"Yes of course. No problem." You hastily stood up and collected the small supplies for the runners. As soon as you finished speaking newt was already gone again.

You stilled as you realised this and turned to jeff with wide eyes. "Do you think he heard?"

"He heard something."

"Why did he storm off then?"

Jeff raised his shoulders. "You should probably go talk to him."

***

You did try and talk to him but after the encounter Newts behavior changed. He clearly tried to avoid you. He was a lot more in his room. Even locked up so alby couldn't get in to sleep. He almost worked aggressively hard as a track-hoe. Not stopping to work at dinner time and starting to work before the others were even up.

The others noticed too of course. Newt was the glue after all. Without Newts full help the glade got into a more chaotic state. Alby needed to scream around a lot more. He even seemed to be angry at newt for acting this way.

He didn't come to the med-hut anymore. Neither for his limp nor to pick you up for sleep.

For you and frankly everybody else it was a unreasonable change of behavior. You knew the things he overheard in the med-hut were the trigger for this but you could not fathom why he'd be so distraught because of it.

But to Newt it was perfectly reasonable. You were in love with minho and the latter obviously in love with you. The whole glade seemed to be. You were the only girl. What chance did he have.Newt saw it clearly. You always were with minho. Sometimes even disapearing with him into the woods. He didn't even want to think about what you did. You always kissed minhos cheek. Hugged him a lot. Minho always flirted with you.

And it was even worse that minho was his best friend. He loved minho dearly. They've been through everything together. And he couldn't bare the thought of losing you both when you two were so close.

This reaction to the pain he felt in his chest may have seemed overdramatic to a outsider but to newt it wasn't only about 'not getting a chance with you'. It made him realise that the love he felt for you, the hope you gave him, was all in his head. He needed your love. Desperately. And he didn't know how to cope without it again.

This worried you. A lot.The behavior reminded you of the time after his incident. How you first got to know him after waking up in the glade. He seemed broken then and he did now.It made you realise that nothing really changed about newt. He was still that small kid that you first met.

What worried you even more was his self-harming behavior. Not taking any consideration about the state of his body.

He didn't stop working even when alby told him to. Sometimes he didn't show up for dinner because of it. You always took a extra ration from frypan and brought it up to his room.

You knocked softly on the locked wooden door. "Newt?" There was no answer. "Newt I brought you dinner. You need to eat something."

Silence.

You almost layed the plate down in front of the door again when the door opened a bit.

Newt couldn't help but take that glimpse of your care.

You gave him a smile. "Hey." You held the plate out in front of you. "Here. You missed dinner."

Newt took the plate from your hands hesitantely and scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Thanks."

Before he could close the door again you held the door open with your foot. "Newt what's wrong? I know I've been asking this constantly the last few days but I worry about you. The whole glade does. You're not acting like yourself." Your voice was soft.

He shrugged carelessly. "Maybe I just have my period." He tried to joke. You were glad he attempted a joke again. But you also knew it was his way of distracting of the matter at hand.

You gave him a look. "We both know that is not the reason."

Newt sighed. "There is nothing wrong. I'd like to sleep."

You scanned his face desperate for a answer. "Is all this about what you heard me talking about?"

Newt froze up. "I never heard anythin'. Good night." He closed the door and locked it. He leaned his back against the door and took deep breaths. Blinking away tears.The situation didn't stop him from defending you though. On the contrary. He got more angry. More irretable. The usual calm and collected newt was overcome with a more emotional one.

Minho and alby gave you a explicit instruction to get throught to him at breakfast table that morning.

And you were determined to do so today. This has been going on for a few days too long for your liking. When you made your way over to the gardens in search of him the sign you were met with made a stabbing pain in your heart. Newt was working in the garden as usual. Pulling vegatables out, getting new fertilizer, sowing new ones. You normally loved watching him work. But today the pain was evident on his face. His limp finally catching up with the pressure he was constantly putting on it. You saw him stumble a few times but he pushed through obviously.

Until he just...collapsed. His leg gave out under him. You could see him staying layed on the ground. His face on the earth. Exhausted. Suddenly his lanky frame you oh so loved looked a bit too skinny for your liking.

You hurriedly made your way over to him. When he noticed you he tried to scramble up fastly which only made his limp buckle under his weight again. He cursed under his breath.You kneeled down beside him and gripped his arm and a hand around his waist. "Shuck newt. What are you doing..."

"I'm fine. I'm fi-" he struggled to get up again with the few strength he had left.

You pulled him down against you by the waist again. "Stop it." There was a plea in your voice. "Stop it newt. You're hurting yourself."

He still struggled against your hold. "Let go. There is nothing...wrong" his voice cracked.

You didn't let him go. He turned his head away from you as a tear rolled down his cheek and he started to shake slightly.

Everything hurt him. His body. His mind. Only your soft touch gave him comfort.

"Shh." You turned his head to you gently. He didn't meet your eye but you could see in them the pain he was in. You wiped the tear away with your thumb.

"Come on. I'll take care of you." You stroked a dirty strand of hair out of his face and helped him stand up. A lot of his weight leaned on you as you led him into the med-hut. Clint looked up startled when he saw you carry a half limp newt in.

"Out." You ordered him but added a thankful smile.

Clint nodded with a glance at newt and scrambled out of the hut. Newt let himself fall down onto a bed. You took a blanket and tucked him into it, started to boil water on the fire and pushed another pillow under his head.

"I will be right back. Don't go anywhere." Newt watched how you gave him a sweet smile and made your way outside again.You came back with a bowl of food and a bottle of water, shut the door to the med-hut to build as much privacy as possible.

You sat yourself down on the side of his bed and showed him your loot. "What do you want?" A loving smile thrown his way.

"Carrot" he cracked out.

You put the rest of the food aside and handed him the carrot. He moved up to rest his back against the wall and hesitantely began to eat the carrot under your careful watch. The silence engulfed the room for a while only the cracks of the carrot being heard.

You made a heating pad with the boiling water meanwhile and pulled the leg of newts trousers up to gently lay the warm pad onto his throbbing knee.

You did what you always did. Care for him. Take care of him. He had missed this terribly. But he hadn't forgotten what had happened.

He looked at you a long moment. Watched your every move. He felt like he hadn't been able to look at you proberly for way too long. "Do you-" he swallowed. "Do you like my voice too?" His voice was timid. He wasn't sure why he chose that detail to ask.

"What?" You ask perplexed and looked up at his face.

"Nevermind" his voice was still raw.

"Of course I like your voice. How do you come to that question?"

Newt didn't know how to answer that question so he stayed silent.

You sighed and slid nearer to him on the bed. "Newt what's wrong? Please tell me. You are in a horrible condition. I'm worried. Everyone is worried."

"I- heard you. The other day. Talking about minho. You should give him a go if you feel that way about him."

You blinked. To you his talk was making none sense at all.

"but uh-" he swallowed. "Can I still come to you if you...?"

You frowned. "I'm not sure what you're talking about newt. Of course you can come to me. Always. You know that. But what has this to do with minho-?" The words now registered completely in your brain. "You think I was talking about Minho?"

Newt looked away painfully. "Yes I suppose it was obvious for a while..."

You shook your head in realisation. "Newt."

His eyes snapped up to yours. "I wasn't talking about minho. I was talking about you."

Newt thought he hadn't heard right. "W-what?"

"Yes. I mean minho is great. I love him too. But he's not you."

"You like all that about...me ?"

"Of course. You are...amazing." You laughed quietly.

Newt was speechless.

Your heart was beating a lot more faster than normally but you tried to ignore it. Taking a deep breath. "May I...lay with you?" You whispered.

He never wanted- needed anything more. But his brain was in freeze and he could only nod his head.

You cautiously layed down next to him and crawled your body under the blanket too. You were very clode to eachother. You could feel the presence of his body next to you. He felt himself relax in the presense of your body next to him. Your small breath tickling his cheek.

You decided to let your instincts take over and slid your hand around his waist gingerly. Newts body tensed up and he sucked in a small breath at the sudden contact.

"Thank you." He breathed out. His body relaxing again.

"For what?" You whispered.

"Loving me. Pulling me out. Caring for me. Without you I'd probably would have taken another go at that jump long ago." His self humor shone through.

You smiled but lightly squeezed him. "Don't joke about that. I'm glad you feel that way. Thank you too."

"For what?" He retorted my own question back.

"Being you. Looking out for me. I heard the boys were threatened by you?"

A blush formed on his cheeks. "Yeah they were saying disrespectful stuff and I can't let them wander around thinking they can try whatever they want with you."

You smiled. "Always holding the order up."

"It's my job." You looked at his big brown eyes.

"Please don't punish yourself like this again. Don't shut yourself off like this. I'm not sure why you're punishing yourself. You don't have to tell me. But I don't want you to do it. Please? At least talk to me."

"I'll try."

[parfaitblogs]

loml ❀ s. reid x reader

in which even six years apart isn’t too much time for spencer to come see you.

pairing: ex!spencer reid x fem!reader genre: angst/comfort sort of tags: that freaky shit (soul crushing angst). a lot of nothing. approximately the time morgan left the bau (it's mentioned). spoilers for 5x9 (‘100’) if you haven't watched it yet... fade to black.  word count: 1.2k a/n: heyyyy… enjoy my the contents of my sad brain lol. this can kinda be a waiting room pt. 2 if you squint. i’m super sick right now so here’s a draft i wasn’t going to post until august (although it’s july 31 so is it technically august?) because i have no energy to write rn. whoops. enjoyy

Your mother once told you she doesn't think you can be just friends with some people. 

They're either there to be in your life forever, souls so deeply woven together that you have to be more than friends. Or they're fleeting, and your lives will line up for a short enough period of time that they'll impact you, and then you'll never see them again. 

You wished Spencer Reid was the latter.

Not at first. No, at first he was the man you were going to marry. You were certain of it. Discussing your wedding with your friends because it was going to happen, and you were picturing him at the altar. You had fantasised what was supposed to be the happiest day of your life so many times, dedicating so many hours to the concept of it, that when you lost it, you mourned the loss of it as much as you mourned the relationship. 

But Spencer Reid was the former. Unfortunately so. Losing so many years to a man you didn't even speak to anymore, because you just can't get over it. Can't get over how you could give someone so much of you, and they will still throw it all away for a narrative they've made up in their mind. Can't get over the narrative he made up of you. 

It was justifiable, you supposed. His boss had just lost his (ex) wife because of the job. It was tough for everyone on the team. You didn't think it was so bad he would freak out as much as he did, though. 

Because in his mind you were next. He was going to lose you as well. And even that stupidly large brain of his couldn't see how ridiculous that sounded. He refused to listen to you when all he could hear was the screaming in his head of you being next, and the statistics of female abductions. Statistics that were no different between the day before the incident, and the day he broke up with you. They were just louder to him.

An achingly long amount of time had passed from the last time you spoke to him. A pathetic meeting you had requested two months after the breakup, because your life was falling apart and maybe seeing him would make it better.

It didn't. 

You wondered if you'd still be shedding tears over him if you hadn't met him that night.

You heard your name, and so your head lifted from your lap. Right, you thought, bitterly. He was here. In your apartment. The same one he used to sleep at, for days on end.

You knew triggers like the back of your hand. They were usually things that made sense. Loud noises, blood, anniversaries. Could you justify your trigger being a whole person? 

You hadn't known he was a trigger until that evening, when he had showed up at your apartment door with a bouquet of flowers that you didn't really want, and an insultingly pretty smile. You had broken down, right there in your doorway, crumpling to the floor in a hyperventilating, miserable heap. 

He had held you, and frustratingly so, it helped. He didn't speak when he had done it, until you were calmer and were muttering apologies to him, embarrassment replacing the upset. 

At which he shushed you. You listened. 

"Why are you here?" you broke the silence that followed his calling of your name, voice shaky.

He exhaled audibly. "I wanted to see you."

"No, Spencer," you sniffled. "You don't get to come over with flowers just because you wanted to see me. Why are you here?"

He fell silent, and you wished you could crawl into his brain to see what he was thinking. You presumed a million things. 

"Morgan left," he said, quietly, and you felt your mouth go dry. 

"Oh."

Then; your eyebrows furrowed. Because did he really have no one to go to? You stared back at him for a few seconds, and for a moment, you let yourself forget about the weight between you two. Staring into his eyes was an easy way to forget that, apparently. It was comforting for you, but perhaps uncomfortable for him. 

Because he cleared his throat, and adjusted his position on the couch. "I didn't know where to go. And you said if I needed anything, you would be there and—"

"—People say that as a courtesy, Spencer," you breathed out.

"I know," he said, quickly. "But I really needed someone, and I genuinely didn't know where else to go."

You couldn't slam the door in his face even if you wanted to. Because now you were registering more than just your own emotions. The red rimming his eyes, the dusting of pink on his nose and above his lips. 

So, you nodded your head. "Okay. Come here," you said, opening your arms, and took him in between them. Albeit hesitantly. On both ends. 

This time he broke down, and you let him. His face pressed into the crook of your neck, your fingers entangled in his curls, scratching at his scalp in the best soothing motion you could. 

He cried until he had dehydrated his body, and your arms had begun to cramp from the position they were in. When he pulled back, your heart cracked a little more at the sight, his face wet with tears that stuck his hair to his cheeks, that you cleaned up. 

"I miss you."

You froze. He did as well, but for an entirely different reason. At the idea that he had said it. Not you. Him. The words decorated the air and hung there for minutes as you fell silent. 

Finally; "You don't mean that."

"Yes I do," his response was quick, as if expecting you to deny him of his own feelings.

"You're upset, and I'm comforting you. You miss Morgan. Not me. Transference," you mumbled, hands dropping from his face. 

"This isn't transference."

"Spencer."

You were right. You knew it in the way his shoulders sagged in defeat, and his lips parted as if to say something, only to clamp shut in mental defiance. 

"Maybe," he finally said, quietly. "But I do still miss you."

"It's been five years," you answered. He nodded his head in agreement. You exhaled. "I miss you too, Spencer."

He lips twitched, but never reached a smile. "You aren't seeing anyone, then?" he asked. 

"You can deduce that, I'm sure."

You were right, he could, and he nodded his head, lips reaching a smile, albeit sadly. "Yeah. Me neither."

"I also figured," you said. "You would've gone to your girlfriend if you had one."

"I would've," he nodded his head, laughing a breathy, awkward laugh. "Instead I went to my ex-girlfriend."

"You did." More uncomfortable silence, before you let out a sigh. Again. "Movie?"

"What?"

"Do you want to watch a movie?" you say the full sentence, a little slower than what was probably necessary. You knew him well enough to know that he hated talking about his feelings, he was an awful communicator. Had been, your brain screams at you. He could've changed. 

It seemed he hadn't, because he nodded his head, a smaller, more genuine smile painted his lips. "Yeah. Okay."

your reblogs and replies are always appreciated dearly ♡

[rafeandonlyrafe]

pizza night

words: 2.2k

warnings: mentions/implications of sex but no actual smut, best friend!rafe, jealousy, angst but happy ending, friends to lovers, rafe with another girl, reader sleeps with kelce

“PIZZA NIGHT!” you shout, rafe letting out a whoop as you carry in the two boxes, plain cheese for you, and a mess of toppings for rafe.

“was worried you weren't gonna show up.” rafe glances at the clock. you're only about five minutes late, only running behind because the pizza place was busy and your order wasn't ready on time.

“as if i would miss our weekly pizza night.” you roll your eyes. you've had to shift times around occasionally to make sure you get the pizza night in, like for rafes football schedule, or you having to help your parents out at a fundraiser. for the past three years, it's been every thursday night, even both getting pizza from your respective locations while you facetime when you're not both in the outer banks.

“come here.” rafe opens his arms up to you. you step into his familiar hold, strong arms wrapping around you, tugging you against his chest. you inhale his scent, so uniquely rafe.

he's been your best friend for as long as you can remember, your parents being friends when both became pregnant around the same time. you did everything together. pizza nights started as plum puree, as your mom loves to joke.

“what do you wanna watch tonight?” rafe asks, knowing whatever you put on will soon become background noise to your chatting, rafe happy to listen to any gossip you have to say.

“umm…” you tap your finger against your chin as rafe plates your pizza for you, loading his plate with three slices for himself. you know he's already got your preferred drink sitting on the coffee table. “mulan.”

“sure.” rafe nods. he used to argue when he was younger. you'd want barbie swan lake or a romcom while he prefered superheroes and action. he learned throughout your friendship to just not fight it.

you immediately start to tell rafe the latest gossip, filling him in on everything he's missed since you saw him last, even though it was only two days ago.

“oh and you'll never guess!” you squeal. “callie, my friend from florida?” you see if the name jogs rafes memory, which he quickly nods. how could he forget. the one other friend that competes with him, despite you only seeing her for weeks at a time when you went to visit your grandparents in florida. “she's coming to the outer banks! she's gonna stay with us for the summer while her parents travel.”

“oh, nice.” rafe nods. he's happy for you, he really is, but he hopes she's not going to get in the way of his time with you, especially pizza night.

--

“girl, why didn’t you tell me rafe is hot as fuck?” callie giggles, looking out the window where rafe and a couple of his friends are chatting on the patio.

“ew.” you scrunch your nose up. you mean the criticism about callie finding him attractive, not about rafes looks, but callie doesn’t take it that way as she rolls her eyes.

“seriously, he’s so fine.” she slices into another lemon, handing one half to you as you squeeze it to make fresh lemonade.

you just frown. you don’t want callie to find rafe attractive and you’re not sure why the jealous feeling builds in your gut, so you quickly change the subject.

“wanna come to a party friday night? at kelces.” you question.

“oh my god, yes.” callie nods, helping you carry out cups while you bring out the pitcher of lemonade, pouring a glass for yourself and whichever one of your friends also wants one before sitting next to rafe.

callie takes the open spot on the other side of him as the conversation instantly strikes back up. you remain quieter than normal, eyes flicking between them as you watch them interact. you’re glad they’re getting along, truly, but you feel like gouging your eyes out when callie laughs and places her hand on his bicep.

“you okay?” rafe asks after everyone else had gone home, callie having taken your car back to your place to shower while you plan on asking rafe to drive you home.

“yeah.” you put on a wide smile. “whats up?”

“you just seem quieter than usual.” rafe watches your face carefully, noting the way your face falls before you perk back up with a shake of your head.

“nope, im fine. just glad you're getting along with callie!”

“speaking of…” rafe pulls his phone out, handing it to you. “can i have her number?”

“oh… yeah.” you nod quickly, grabbing his phone and typing in her number. you have it memorized along with rafes and your mom and dads, the only ones you’ve typed in enough to know by heart. “why do you want it though?”

“i thought i’d get to know her a bit.” rafe shrugs. 

“okay.” you force a smile on your face before standing up. “im gonna walk home. see you thursday for pizza night!”

“y/n, wait-” rafe tries to call you back, but you’ve already disappeared into the house.

--

you struggle to knock on the door with the pizza boxes in your arms. usually its unlocked, or rafe is there to open it for you the second your car pulls in the driveway.

“shit.” rafe opens the door, his face pale.

“what?” you shove past him, needing to set the cardboard boxes down.

you walk into the kitchen, going to place the boxes down on the counter when you realize there is already a box sitting there, opened up with a couple slices missing. you carefully slide the boxes out of your arms onto the marble before looking at rafe.

“i-i forgot-” rafe says as you look into the living room, seeing callie sat on the couch, her eyes on the television screen as she takes a bite of pizza. 

“you forgot about our pizza night?” you question, not even trying to hide your tears this time as they form in your eyes.

“i just didn’t realize it was thursday, y/n i-”

“its fine.” you shake your head, heading towards the door. you need to leave before your emotions explode. 

“y/n, please.” rafe grabs your hand right as you reach for the doorknob.

“no.” you turn around to look at rafe, knowing that there are tears streaming down your cheeks, yet you still attempt to force a smile. “no, go. have fun with her.”

you pull out of his grasp and leave, rafe standing on the front porch watching you drive away.

--

“coming to the party?” callie asks, wearing a tiny dress with high heels, showing off her flawless legs.

“nah.” you shake your head. “im feeling kinda tired.” 

“alright.” callie frowns, but doesn’t push you any farther as she walks towards the front door, looking back once before leaving. 

you are genuinely tired. you stayed up all last night waiting to hear callie arrive back at your house from rafes. she didn’t get home until 10 in the morning the next day. you know rafe has slept with girls before, but usually when he’s way too drunk after a party, and never with a girl you considered your friend.

you turn the tv on to a random channel, just needing something to distract yourself and stop you from crying again.

hours tick by as the sun sets, your eyes burning from staring at the television and holding back tears when a sudden knock on the door makes you jump.

you stand up, hoping its rafe, hoping he’s coming to apologize and to put all his attention back on you. you feel bad when you open the door and see its topper, your face no doubt giving away your disappointment.

“y/n, are you okay?” he asks. “you aren’t at the party.” he states the obvious as you stand in your sweatpants and a flimsy tanktop.

“just not feeling it.” you shrug. 

“is it… callie and rafe?” topper asks. he doesn’t need you to confirm as tears well in your eyes.

“i-i like him. i didn’t even realize until i saw them together.” you finally admit it to yourself why you’re so upset. 

“shit.” topper pulls you into a hug as you cry into his shirt, glad for his comfort as he rubs his hand up and down your back, hoping he can help you feel better.

“i shouldn’t be telling you this…” topper sighs. “but kelce has a crush on you. if you want to go to the party and… i don’t know, make rafe jealous back.”

“he won’t get jealous.” you shake your head. “he likes her.”

topper just stares at you with a look of pity. so in your head about your friendship that you can’t even put together the pieces that rafe likes you back.

you look down at your outfit. honestly, you can’t even manage to put on anything other than your crocs, you’re not going to change into a dress and heels just to dance up on a guy you don’t even really like.

“just come wearing that.” topper says, sensing your apprehension. “im serious, you look good. it’ll show how different you are then all the other girls there.”

you look back into your house at your couch, the tv still turned on before looking back to topper. he nods at you with encouragement.

“i need to get drunk immediately.” you tell him as he laughs, pulling you out the door.

--

you let out a groan as you turn over, snuggling into water warm body is wrapped around you as sleep slowly clears from your head.

“good morning, beautiful.” kelce says, making you blink your eyes open as the memories of last night come back, of ignoring rafe and callie dancing together as you move to kelce. topper was beyond right about the outfit as you captured the eye of most of the guys there, especially rafe as he tried to get your attention, but you were up in kelces room before he could steal you away.

it felt good to sleep with kelce, but not completely right.

“morning.” you smile. kelce is handsome, especially with the warm morning light shining in on the two of you, but your heart hurts as you wish it was rafes face you were looking into.

“can i have you again?” kelce asks, reaching down to grab your ass.

“yeah.” you nod with a smile. another distraction won’t hurt.

--

“where were you?” rafe asks as you arrive home, not expecting to see him snuggled up to callie on the couch.

“sleeping with kelce.” you say with a shrug. if rafe isn’t gonna hide his relationship with callie, you certainly aren’t going to hide what you were doing either.

“he doesn’t care about you, y/n.” rafe stands up, callies face shifting to one of worry as she looks between the two of you, realization sinking in. “he just wants to sleep with you.”

“okay, and?” you laugh, a bitter, spiteful laugh. “he’s got a big dick, and maybe i just wanted to sleep with him too.” 

you stomp away towards your room, blaring music from your speaker the second you’re inside. you don’t want to hear any noise rafe and callie might make as you flop down on your bed, quickly falling asleep despite the blaring music.

--

the music being turned down wakes you up as someone sits on your bed. you groan and turn onto your back, expecting to see rafe.

“callie?” you question, glancing at the bag slung over his shoulder and the suitcase sitting in your open doorway. 

you sit up quickly. “are you going to stay with rafe?”

“no.” she says with a gentle laugh and shake of her head. “im going back to florida.”

“what?” you question. 

“i didn’t mean to come between you and him. i thought you didn’t like him. i… i don’t want this to ruin our friendship, so i’m leaving. he was fun to be with, but it was never serious for either of us. he’s serious about you.”

the words sink in as you look to her with hope in your eyes. “you talked to him about it?”

“i did.” she smiles with a gentle nod, glancing towards the clock on your nightstand. “the taxi is waiting outside to take me to the airport.”

you shoot forward to wrap your arms around callie, pulling her into a tight hug. “thank you.” 

“of course.” she holds you back just as tight. “come visit me in florida, okay?” 

you nod enthusiastically before she gets up to leave. 

--

“finally.” topper sighs with relief as he opens the door to tanneyhill. “i’ve been trying to get him to go over and talk to you for the past four hours.” topper pulls you inside before you can even react. “seriously, you guys just need to date already. he slept with callie, you slept with kelce, and now you’re even. go make out.” topper shoves you into the living room before fleeing.

it takes a second for rafe to look up, his eyes red with tears.

“i had no clue.” rafe shakes his head. “i had no clue you liked me. i never would have done anything with callie if i knew. i thought i’d never get to have you, so i thought settling for your friend would be the next best thing.”

“i don’t like you.” you say before quickly clarifying. “i love you, rafe.”

rafe is standing and making his way towards you so quickly that you don’t even process his movements until his lips meet yours in a fierce kiss.

you hesitate for a moment before kissing back, feeling his arms wrap around your body, holding you tight to him, not allowing you to escape or leave ever again.

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[uraveragelonelysapphic]

Home (1)

Part 2

Pairing: Rio Vidal x fem!Reader

Summary: She's fading away from you. Is the love you two share enough?

Word Count: 1.3k

Warnings: brief mentions of blood and injury, angst with a hopeful ending, it is sadder than I thought it would be I'm so sorry in advance

a/n: The birthday fic!!! Except it turned out to be a lot more sad than I intended...whoops! I'm promising a part 2, because I want to show a glimpse of the healing process with a lot more fluff. In the meantime, enjoy!

It’s fascinating how quickly a home can lose its warmth. How quickly two people can begin to grow apart.

A part of you craved what the two of you once had.

It hadn’t always been like this, after all. When things started between the two of you, she was gentle, considerate, attentive. She let you see a side of her that not many people got to see. They saw death. You saw Rio.

You saw how her eyes softened at the sight of you, how her eyebrows furrowed as she concentrated on cooking dinner for you, how she tilted her head as she admired how you looked beneath her.

But recently, you saw a different side of her. You saw how her body tensed as she hunched over her desk, looking over things for a work assignment. You saw how her previous warmth towards you was slowly turning cold. You saw how she was fading away from you.

You had been patient, trying to ease her tension with gentle touches and warm gestures, and she had seemed to soften briefly at this at first, but now it seemed that nothing you did could bring her closer to you.

Of course you knew who it tied back to. You had seen the pin board flooded with red string and sightings of Agatha. You knew it all came back to her. They had been lovers for such a long time, you knew you couldn’t measure up to that if you tried.

But you had to try. You had to.

So, after a full day of gathering up the courage, you approached her in the kitchen, fully intending to tell her how you were hurting, how she was fading and you wanted nothing more than to reel her back in, to hold her close to you again.

But as you approached, you saw her preparing a bag. She turned at the sound of your footsteps, a tight smile on her lips.

“Just the person I wanted to see,” she began, and those words were enough to make your heart flutter with hope.

“I’m going away for a few days. It’s work stuff and it’s really, really important. I’ll be back as soon as I can, yeah?” She said, and your heart dropped. You wondered if she knew what she would be missing if she left for days on end.

You plastered a smile on your face. You hoped it would convince her. “Yeah, of course. I’ll see you soon,” you said quietly.

You could’ve sworn you saw a flash of regret on her face, and before you knew it, she had pulled you close to her for the first time in weeks, one arm wrapping around your waist and the other caressing the back of your head.

You were confused by the sudden act of affection, but couldn’t bring yourself to pull away, instead gripping her by her shirt, desperately trying to pull her closer.

She kissed your temple before pulling away almost reluctantly.

“I’ll see you soon,” she said, a softness briefly returning to her eyes before they hardened again as she stepped back, grabbing her things and exiting the cottage.

You were left standing alone in what used to feel like a home, holding onto the feeling of her arms around you, her lips on your temple, as you willed yourself to be strong.

Maybe she’d be back in time. Maybe your Rio was in there, after all. Somewhere.

Empty sheets. That’s what you were met with when you opened your eyes. You couldn’t help but sigh, bitter disappointment causing your stomach to drop. You scolded yourself internally for getting your hopes up when she had made a habit of letting you down recently.

You had just wanted today to be different.

You pondered if you should let yourself sleep the day away. Rot in bed, hoping to miss out on the day in its entirety. 

But, if there was one thing you had learned, it was that you were more than the people you surrounded yourself with. You loved Rio. You loved her so much it made your heart ache, but you loved yourself more. You had to.

So you got up. You got up and you got dressed. You put on a beautiful pink sundress, one that made you feel beautiful. You forced a smile at the sight of yourself in the mirror. You pushed the pang of disappointment away as you braided your hair, adding a flower crown you had made to the top of your head as a final touch.

Tears rolled down your face as you smoothed your dress. Of course you were sad. You missed your love. But you brushed them away, your smile returning, half forced, half authentic. You deserved a good day. Today was your day. And you’d be damned if you didn’t give yourself the love you’d been deprived of in the last few weeks.

Joy filled you as you put on your favorite playlist, humming to yourself as you made pancakes to start your day.

You let that joy continue to fill the cottage as you decided to clean up a bit. You and Rio had let things get out of hand, the cluttered stage of the cabin almost directly reflecting the state of your relationship.

You took your time cleaning up, allowing it to take up most of the day, the task providing you with a distraction from any negative thoughts threatening to enter your mind.

Until you came face to face with the pin board again. Your content smile faltered at the sight, negativity creeping into your soul slowly and thickly as you continued to stare at the pictures of Agatha.

Joy quickly became anger as your hands tore at the board before you could help yourself. You ripped pictures off as you frowned deeply, not noticing as the pins scratched as your skin as you clawed at the board. Your hands bled as you screamed; pent up emotions finally coming out uncontrollably.

Your anger faded out as you sat on the floor of the office, looking down at your bleeding hands. They stained your dress, causing you to laugh humorlessly. Tears filled your eyes as screams became sobs.

You felt like nothing. Your day was almost over and you felt like nothing.

You continued to sit, just staring. You didn’t have much fight left in you. You knew Rio was in there, but you didn’t know where, and you didn’t know if she would ever come back to you.

Hours passed before movement passed through the cottage. The door opened, but you couldn’t even bring yourself to react.

“Babe?” Her voice rang through the house. It was uneasy; concerned.

You heard her as she slowly approached the office, checking each room for you before she found you.

Her eyes soften at the sight of you. She’s kneeling in front of you before you can say a word, touching you gently as she inspects your hands, kissing them with a softness you hadn’t experienced from her in far too long.

“Mi vida,” she whispered brokenly.

“It was my birthday,” you croaked, your voice raw from the emotion you had experienced just hours prior.

You finally met her eyes, watching as her heart seemed to break right in front of you, her face crumpling as sobs began to erupt from her throat.

You allowed her to pull you close, your bodies becoming one as you entangled yourselves in each other, tears blending together as you gripped to each other with a desperation like no other. 

“I’m sorry,” repeating like a mantra from her lips as she kissed whatever skin was available to her.

You nodded, shushing her as the two of you sat there, crying, holding, healing.

And in a home that had grown cold, the warmth began to creep back in.

Because she was back. Your Rio was back.

[indecisive-capricorn]

Priorities || Miguel O'Hara x Wife Reader

WARNINGS: Loads of fluff, a few mentions of blood, mentions of pain, slight angst, children, Mama O'Hara in action, Baby O'Hara, stubborn Miguel O'Hara, father Miguel O'Hara, etc.

SUMMARY: Miguel got injured after a mission and you insist for your stubborn husband to go to the medical center.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I got all of the medical information, especially the teething one, from the internet, so take it with a grain of salt since I didn't do much research on it. If it's wrong, please tell me and I'll correct it as soon as I can. :) And I know I'm a little late to publish this but I had to rewrite it twice because it kept on not getting saved.

MASTERLIST & REQUESTS: Before you go, have a glass of wine or better yet, recommend a good bottle. any kind of message is always a delight.

"She won't like this," Lyla remarked as she observed Miguel who was focused on tying the wound on his arm with a bandage. He didn't respond to Lyla's words, leading her to point out, "That cut isn't small either. It'll bleed right through the bandage if you keep it for long."

Miguel merely grumbled in response, feeling discomfort from his wound, while Lyla studied his wounded arm, concerned about the potential of an infection.

"I'm only going to check on the recruits' reports for a minute," Miguel voiced under his mask, before narrowing his eyes at Lyla, "and don't tell her about this. She already has enough to worry about."

Lyla rolled her eyes at Miguel's command, but surprisingly, she stayed silent instead of pestering him to tell you about his recent injury. It was unusual for her since Lyla would usually insist for Miguel to update you about everything after he had finished his missions, especially if he got injured. However, Miguel made no comment about it, not wanting to jinx his luck or change Lyla's mind to not pester him about it like last time.

When Miguel went into his office, expecting to see a large pile of reports on his desk, he was instead met with the sight of you standing in front of his desk, holding the baby car seat that carried your sleeping baby boy. Miguel would usually be in awe at the sight of his little boy and his beautiful wife, and he would have done so at that very moment. However, it was impossible for Miguel to not notice the intense glare you were shooting at him, telling him that he had fucked up.

"Whoops! I forgot to tell you, she's already in your office," Lyla said casually, her tone nonchalant, as if she had known about your arrival and purposely chose not to tell Miguel. And he couldn't shake the feeling that Lyla did do it on purpose.

Miguel cursed in his mind and made a mental note to find a way to get Lyla to notify him of your arrival at HQ in the future, although he knew it would most likely fail due to how much she adore you over him.

"Miguel O'Hara," your voice was sharp and stern yet it was laced with concern as well, your eyes glancing back and forth between his face and his wound, "why aren't you at the medical center right now?"

"I need to check on the reports, cariño," Miguel stated, already expecting your disbelief and the scolding you were going to give him for his stubbornness. Before you could voice your protest to Miguel, he interjected, "I was only going to take them and check it in the medical center while they treat me."

That wasn't Miguel's original plan though. He had intended to put off going to the medical center for as long as he could to continue working, possibly only going to the medical center at the last hour of the day. That way, you wouldn't scold him for not treating his wound and ban him from going on missions for a while, which you have done in the past. You can be a really scary lady at times. Although he was very intelligent, Miguel tend to be obsessed with finishing his work at times to the point that he would dismiss his wounds and insist that they were only "small scratches".

They weren't just "small scratches".

And knowing your husband's tendencies, you found it hard to believe that he had planned to take the reports to the medical center with him instead of continuing his work in his office. Raising an eyebrow, Miguel was prepared for you to question him about it. However, instead of pressing further on the matter, you surprised Miguel by asking, "And have you eaten yet before your mission?"

"Of course I have—" Miguel paused mid-sentence, suddenly realizing that he hadn't eaten anything before the mission. In fact, the only thing preventing him from experiencing gastric pains was likely the peanut butter and jelly sandwich you had made for him that morning. However, at that moment, Miguel also realized the reason you had come to headquarters- he had forgotten to bring the homemade lunch you had packed for him before he left for work.

Tilting his head slightly to the side, he caught a glimpse of the lunch box you had brought for him on his desk, along with a small note containing your usual declarations of love for him, which never failed to bring him motivation. He cherished these notes, keeping them secretly tucked away in a special place.

"Mi vida, how long have you been waiting for me?" Guilt began to brew in Miguel's stomach, knowing that you wouldn't mind waiting for him to return from his mission just to catch a glimpse of him for a moment.

You shook your head gently. "I didn't mind waiting," you responded back, avoiding his question. The mission had stretched on for more than three hours, and with it already being around three o'clock in the afternoon, and the fact that you weren't one to delay meals, Miguel knew you had likely been waiting for almost three hours for him as well.

Before Miguel could respond, he felt something trickling down his arm. Looking down, he saw blood seeping from his wound. You quickly rushed to Miguel's side and inspected the injury, a frown forming on your face. "We have to go to the medical center now before it gets infected," you firmly said, taking no arguments from him. "The reports can wait. It won't be the end of the world, amor. Peter and the others will take care of it."

Miguel nodded and gently took the baby car seat from you with his uninjured arm, though you tried to protest, insisting that he was in no condition to carry anything and that you were perfectly capable of carrying baby Benjamin yourself.

As he carried Benjamin, Miguel felt a wave of guilt wash over him for forgetting to bring the homemade lunch you had worked so hard on to work, especially since you were barely getting enough rest lately from taking care of Benjamin who recently began having teething pains and became increasingly restless due to it.

Miguel had done his best to help soothe Benjamin's teething pain whenever he could, even taking a few days off work to care for him alongside you at home. However, he eventually had to return to work, as the Spider Society needed him physically for missions as well. At first, Miguel wanted to hide his injury from you to avoid adding more stress, but he knew you would find out about his wound eventually.

On the way to the medical center, Miguel made sure to be mindful of his steps, not wanting to wake Benjamin up. The last thing either of you needed was for him to wake up, especially since the poor baby was already struggling to sleep due to his teething pain.

When Miguel arrived at the medical center, the spider-healer in charge was slightly surprised to see him, knowing how stubborn he could be and how he sometimes insisted on treating his own wounds. However, it made sense to the healer when you arrived alongside him. The spider-healer pulled aside a chair for Miguel to sit on while they began treating the wound on his arm.

Throughout the treatment, Miguel remained quiet, only grunting slightly as the healer worked. You watched the healer's movements carefully, placing a comforting hand over Miguel's to soothe him. A moment after the healer was finished stitching Miguel's wound up, Benjamin began to cry from the baby car seat, slowly waking up from his slumber.

Miguel's eyes softened as he watched you lift the crying baby from the car seat, cradling him close to your chest. You rocked Benjamin gently back and forth, murmuring soft words of comfort as you rubbed his back soothingly. Benjamin's cries gradually softened, feeling warmth from his mother's embrace.

"Did you have a nightmare, Benji?" You asked the seven month old in a gentle tone, as he lifted his head from your chest, his eyes looking around his surroundings until he stopped at Miguel. With a soft noise, Benjamin leaned towards his father, seeking comfort in his arms.

Miguel's heart swelled with warmth at Benjamin's action, and he carefully accepted him into his arms, mindful of his stitched arm. Despite the caution, you could see Miguel's eyes sparkle with love and adoration as he held Benjamin close.

Miguel chuckled affectionately as Benjamin grabbed a handful of his dark hair with his tiny hands. "Did you miss me, tesoro?" he asked Benjamin, his voice filled with warmth. In response, Benjamin babbled happily, his tiny hands still tightly gripping Miguel's hair.

"I'm sorry for not telling the truth to you, mi amor," Miguel apologized to you sincerely, his voice laced with regret. With Benjamin now distracted by the toys you had brought, Miguel took a moment to express his remorse, gazing into your eyes for forgiveness.

He reached out, gently grasping your hand, his thumb rubbing over your knuckle in a comforting gesture. "You were already stressed with Benjamin, and I didn't want to worry you any more with my injury," Miguel explained softly.

You sighed, expressing your concerns gently but firmly. "Miggy, I'm always grateful for how hard you work for our family, and I understand how important your role is in the Spider Society. But I sometimes get worried that you're not taking care of yourself properly at work like you used to, especially after what happened today," you frowned, knowing that Miguel's old work habits were hard to shake off.

As you intertwined your fingers with his, you continued, your voice filled with genuine care, "You getting injured worries me a lot, but what worries me more is the way you brush off your injuries and continue pushing yourself as if nothing happened."

Worry was evident in your eyes. "Please promise me that you'll prioritize your health over your work and treat your wounds properly after missions. And if you're struggling to remember to eat and drink, I can come by here everyday and remind you about it. I'm still on maternity leave, remember?" You added with a reassuring smile, showing him how much you care about his health.

He squeezed your hand gently. "I remember, and you're right. I promise to take better care of myself for you and Benjamin," He leaned in to press a tender kiss to your forehead, feeling grateful for your love and care.

Benjamin, ever the adorable child he is, wiggled his way between you and Miguel, continuing to babble joyfully. With chubby fingers, he repeatedly pointed to his cheek, a clear invitation for you and Miguel to leave kisses.

"Do you want a kiss too, Benji?" you cooed, your voice filled with affection and awe at the little boy's action. Without waiting for an answer, you peppered Benjamin with kisses all over his face, earning delighted squeals of laughter from him.

Miguel couldn't help but chuckle, staring at you and Benjamin with a smile, as he was silently thankful for the chance to have his own family again.

[mickyschumacher]

style was so fucking good HOLY SHITTTTT can u please please please do a part 2 xx

𝐒𝐓𝐘𝐋𝐄 𝐏𝐓. 𝟐 .ೃ࿐

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: after separating from carlos, you thought you would never ever have to see him again. but fate is demanding and it demands you bumping into him in a club. 𝐏𝐓. 𝟏 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄!

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: 18+ (minors DNI), jealousy (bc where would we be without it), reader is younger than carlos but not like insanely, reader has vagina, angst, ferrari SLANDER, charles moves to redbull oop, GOOGLED SPANISH! I'M SORRY 😭, teasing, p in v, unprotected sex (wrap ur willies peeps!), oral sex, cumming inside, car sex = dangerous car driving, brief handjob, dry(?) humping, confession time AHHH, incorrect modelling stuff again lol, nicer!carlos ♡︎

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: complicated ex!carlos sainz x model!fem!reader, bestie!lily he x reader

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 6k+ (whoops)

𝐀/𝐍: a lot of people wanted a part 2 so.... here it is! i hope this is up to your par with what you were thinking about ♡︎ has bit of a build up but the smut is there! decently proof read... i think? my eyes are vv tired from these exams :(

𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

⋆  •°.  。  .°•  ⋆

Three years.

A lot can happen in three years.

For you that meant with some crazy luck becoming the World's top supermodel. Kendall Jenner, Gigi and Bella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski... whoever the top once was, you had put them all to shame. You were booked and busier than ever. You could've sworn you used to get your beauty sleep but now you were lucky if you could even get an hour let alone eight. The billboards and the magazines loved you and the public, god the public, they cherished you.

Never had the world needed a relatable, kind role model more and there you were. A diamond in the rough, waiting to be seen. You were even on your way of becoming an entrepreneur in sustainable fashion.

Everything was going your way.

It was a surprise for you. After Carlos, you thought you would be moping forever. And you did, at least for a few days. But when your manager and stylist advised you to release your pent up emotions, you thought the best way to do that was fully committing yourself to your work.

No more relationships. No hookups. No races. No Carlos.

And somehow, it worked. You were a single supermodel who won over the public. No races, no Carlos. You were bringing your company money.

But yet, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't stop thinking about Carlos. His smugness, the puppy brown eyes, his touch, the little signs that he cared; the softening of the side of his eyes when he looked at you before they were ridden with lust or his need to have some part of him touching you; his hand on your thigh, an arm around your waist, or soft circles rubbed on your inner wrist.

You missed him.

But that was three years ago.

You and Carlos didn't even run in the same circles anymore.

For Carlos, three years meant extending his contract with Ferrari, although God knows why, losing three chances at a championship, fighting with Adami over the radio far more than he liked, and losing Charles to Red Bull. All while feeling very empty. No one really recognised who Carlos was anymore. Not his family, not the drivers, and not the fans. Hell, he himself didn't know who he was.

Whoever Carlos was right now... it was the mere shell of who he used to be.

He was drinking far too much for an F1 driver celebrating other's podiums. And now he got angry. He didn't get angry, he seethed. He let himself feel vexed in order to get motivated. But now he was just angry and torn but not for no reason.

Carlos was an idiot. He had made an irrevocably stupid decision. Separating from you was the worse decision he had ever made. And that said something considering he had extended with the most infuriating F1 team of the past few years.

How could he have even made that decision? Normally, he thought things out. He was an F1 driver, for God's sake. Some sort of thought could be accounted for. But he didn't know what it was... maybe he was too emotional the night he was with you. Whatever it was, he should've thought it out.

God, Carlos should've realised that all he needed to do was put more effort it. You and him... it would've worked. He would've stopped hurting you. He would've been fully committed to you.

But no. He had fuck to it up.

To say Carlos hadn't been stalking your socials everyday was an understatement. Cumming to your name was a pre-race ritual that had now turned into checking what projects you were doing. Not to be dramatic, but to him, it felt like you were just keeping him alive, giving him a reason to live.

Carlos couldn't even muster the courage to call you and ask if you could talk. He didn't deserve that. Like he said, you deserved more. And all these fans and the fame and money... you deserved all of it and more. Staying away from you was the best thing he could do for you.

━━━━━━━━━━━

Carlos had made a terrible, terrible decision to attend the Miami after race party after saying he wouldn't. In fact, he couldn't. Not when he knew for a fact that you were in a club only down the street.

The temptation to see you was strong.

The club lights flared across the dance floor while the heat and humidity of all these dancing bodies clung to his warm skin. Carlos' hands shook silently at his side while Charles and Lando mixed in conversation. Every fibre of his body was telling his feet to stick to this floor. He couldn't see you. He was only going to ruin your night. He bit down on his lip, feeling a familiar ache in his chest.

But his heart... it was a strong heart. And it was telling him to take that five minute walk.

"I'm just going to get some fresh air," Carlos yelled over the music blaring in his ears. Charles and Lando gave the Spaniard a nod before returning to their conversation.

Carlos tried to make his walk to the club as long as possible, veering off to the side, staring far too long into the windows of other stores. But eventually, he stood in front of the thriving club.

You were celebrating having reached 50 Vogue covers, including the Big Four twice. You told your manager you were fine with having dinner at home but the refusal was immediate and came with the claim of you needing a break. So here you were, dressed in the most sparkly, skimpy, backless deep cleavage silver slip dress, dancing your ass off.

When Carlos entered the club, it was hard to miss you. How could he? You were the centre of attention, dancing around in your little dress that was fighting to cling to your body while everyone cheered you on.

He shouldn't of come. He knew it. Because now, he couldn't leave. No matter how much he knew that to leave was the right decision.

You, on the other hand, didn't notice Carlos so easily. You were having the time of your life, swaying your hips side-to-side as the beat coursed through your veins. Your skin was dotted with sweat while a handsome stranger had come up to you, clearly looking to hook up. And while you weren't looking to screw just anyone, you couldn't shy away from the little bit of grinding your body so desperately craved.

The euphoria wasn't as high as you had once felt but it was enough to keep you on your toes. Heat travelled through your stomach while your eyes closed and your head fell back as another man moved behind you. You were in a haze of pleasure that made your pussy ache.

God, maybe you were too desperate for some pleasure. Because why did it feel like Carlos' cologne had engulfed you? Why did the fire burning within you flare up even further all of a sudden?

Your eyes shot open and a gasp fell from your lips when you felt a familiar hand wrap around your waist.

You tilted your head slightly, looking up at the man with wide eyes.

"Cariño," Carlos breathed out, hooded eyes peering down at you.

Your throat felt constricted. Your eyes watered with anger and shock.

"No," You said, pulling yourself away from him.

"No, no, no," You repeated while Carlos took a step towards you, hand reaching out to stop freaking you out.

"Y/N... I–" Carlos was cut short as you raced towards your table and picked up your purse and jacket, heading towards the exit doors of the club.

You could hear Carlos jog to catch up with you. Sighing, you put on your jacket, striding as far as you could in those stupidly beautiful heels you had worn. But you seemed to forget that he was an athlete at the end of the day.

"Y/N, please. Don't do this," Carlos begged, an inch away from you.

Your lips sunk into your bottom lip, ears attempting to block out the warm voice you had been craving for the past three years. Your heart was racing against your chest while your mind fell into disarray.

"Y/N," Carlos repeated, grabbing your arm gently.

You sucked in a sharp breath at his touch, feeling the hairs of your body stand straight. You turned and looked up at him with with reddened eyes, making him pause for a second.

"Three years, Carlos, three goddamn years... of nothing," You exasperated with the familiar words falling off your tongue all too easily.

"I know. I'm–"

"'... so sorry, cariño. I don't have any excuses.' Is that what you were going to say, Carlos?" You asked incredulously, arms folded as if they were going to protect you from all this sudden pain.

Carlos winced at your words, staring at you helplessly.

You sighed, running a hand through your hair. "I was doing fine... and you... what the hell were you thinking, Carlos?"

A silence settled between the both of you as the cold night air raced to cool down your flushed cheeks. Carlos breathed deeply. "I-I... I missed you, cariño. That's what I was thinking. That what I have been thinking for the past three years. I miss you all the time."

You stared at Carlos silently, chewing down on your lip nervously. This was what you wanted. You had waited all this time to hear those very words fall from his lips. Yet all you could say was: "So? That doesn't change anything." The lie made you crumble on the inside but you continued to speak. "You said it yourself, Carlos, we aren't good for each other. That I... deserve more."

"And you do!" Carlos spluttered, hands flailing about. "You deserve more than a better man, Y/N. You deserve the fucking universe. But I was wrong! I was wrong to say that we aren't good together. We can be good together. I think you complete me and if you let me even have the chance, I would be the luckiest man ever to be with you."

Carlos' hands were now gently holding your face, thumb gently brushing your heated skin. Your heart was now pounding in your eardrums. Your throat was caught. You felt impossibly warm. Your eyes burned, but no tears came out. "I... I gave you so many chances," You whispered.

Carlos' eyes softened at your broken voice as a sorry expression fell over his face. "I know," He sucked in a sharp breath. "I don't think I can ever forgive myself, cariño. But if I have to spend forever trying to make it up to you, I gladly will."

"Carlos," You sighed, closing your eyes. You were annoyed with yourself. Annoyed at the fact you were leaning into his touch and annoyed at the familiar heartache that always let him get away with what he wanted. "I'm terrified. I don't want to hurt again. I don't want to hurt you either."

Carlos felt his heart clench, jaw taut with irritation. Every fibre of him hated that you even had to say that. But you were right. You always were. He whispered softly, letting his forehead meet yours, "You won't. I promise. I promise to be a better man. Just please give me a chance... give us a chance."

You opened your eyes to see those desperate puppy eyes boring into yours. You brought your hand to the one holding on your face, rubbing it gently. You knew your answer the moment he asked. "Okay," You responded with a small smile.

━━━━━━━━━━━

Initially, it was hard to get as comfortable as you once were with Carlos. You took every step with caution and he could tell by the scrunch of your nose and the chewing of you lip when you pondered for a moment too long. It was eating at him but there was nothing he could do but fufill his promise to you.

Carlos took you out on several dates as opposed to the few he previously taken you on. They weren't grand. No. Instead they were intimate. Dates that showed he was putting effort in. Like the time he decided to have a dinner date at his house where all the food was prepared by him. It was disastrous to say the least but you were also convinced he had gotten his sisters to help him out given that there was burnt food in the trash and it's aroma covered by candles and perfume in the air.

A sunset picnic followed after that. It was one of your favourites. The sun was setting, of course, and the warm breeze brushed past you while you ended up reading one of your favourite childhood books to Carlos. He listened intently as his hands roamed your skin. It wasn't necessarily sensual but it was intimate. Like all he wanted to do was just bathe in your presence. And bathe Carlos did as he began to ask you questions about your childhood and your family.

It bugged him that despite being with you for some time, he knew nothing about you. At least not really. Knowing your body reactions felt superficial in comparison to finding out you had a family pet that you cherished so much, your financial hardships, or that your parents disapproved of your modelling. That really hurt him. You didn't have anyone close to you. And he had just left you.

Carlos mentioned to you how much of a polla he truly was, apologising for all you had gone through. And while you laughed at his comment, you thanked him, hesitantly pressing a small kiss to his cheek.

Carlos gazed at you as his heart throbbed at your action. He stared at you with a twinkle in his eyes. There was something about this moment... he wasn't quite sure whether it was the setting sun that made you glow or that breeze that made your hair gently fly while your perfume consumed him, but it made him nervous and happy.

Carlos smiled at your raised brows. "You're just so beautiful, cariño."

You sucked in a sharp breath. That look in his eyes... it was the same one you gave him when you were just mesmerised by his beauty. And now he looked at you the same way.

━━━━━━━━━━━

Three months had passed and you had finally stepped into the paddock after what had felt like forever. Everyone was psyched that you were back here. Fans were screaming your name and the drivers had finally seen the reason behind the sudden change in Carlos.

"So... you and Y/N?" Lando queried carefully, watching you talk to Lily and Alex about all the things the both of you had missed.

Carlos peered over to you, catching your passing eyes. His heart skipped a beat at your little wave and smiling eyes. He grinned at you and waved back.

Lando watched the exchange with curious eyes, pulling a feigned pained expression. "Yeah... you and Y/N."

Carlos rolled his eyes at the man who had become one of his closest friends. "Yes, Lando, we're together. We've... we've been taking it slow. So I don't fuck it up."

Lando smiled at Carlos' words. He slapped his hand on the Spaniard's shoulder. "Good," He chirped, before dropping his smile. "You better not. That's basically my best friend right there. You hurt her, you better keep an eye out for Lily and I, and Alex by association."

Carlos chuckled. "Imagine if Fewtrell heard that."

"What Max doesn't know won't hurt him," Lando shrugged.

Carlos smiled in amusement, finding you walking towards him with the previously mentioned couple. "What are you two trying to get my lovely lady to do?" He asked with narrowed eyes when you appeared with a suspiciously wide smile. A beautiful smile, but suspicious nonetheless.

You flushed at his words, taking in a deep breath. "I may have been convinced to do a bit of... ugh, golf."

Golf. Your most dreaded sport. From the moment you knew what it was, you could not think of a more boring sport to save your life. No offence to Lily, but it was an old man's sport. And every F1 driver playing it did not help. But Lily being the amazing girl she was had changed your mind.

Lando cheered and Carlos' eyes widened slightly. "How did you manage to convince her? Even I couldn't get her to join me. Me out of all people."

You rolled your eyes at his theatrics. "I think your win from me golfing is a little different from Lily's. Lily wants me to learn."

"Yeah? And what do I want that is so different?" Carlos asked, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you closer to me.

You stood on your toes a bit, reaching his ear. "Quieres verme con esa diminuta ropa de golf," You whispered in Spanish, pulling away from his ear. "Esa es la diferencia." You want to see me in those teeny little golf clothes. That's the difference.

You felt a familiar tingle creep up your spine as you met Carlos' darkened eyes and tightened grip on your waist. His tongue darted out, swiping his bottom lip while he eyed you carefully. You were a vixen. A final smug smile rested on his face. "You're right, cariño. That's exactly what I want."

Lily looked at you two blankly. "Anyone catch that?" She asked Alex and Lando, who both shook their heads. She sighed, "Leave it to us to not know one of the most popular languages in the world. See you tomorrow, lovebirds. Try keep your hands off each other, there's kids."

Lando gaped at Lily's side glance towards him. "Well I never!"

Carlos grinned at Lando's words, keeping an eye on you. "I'll try."

You drew a sharp breath. What kind of mess had you exactly set up for yourself?

━━━━━━━━━━━

To be honest, Carlos wasn't exactly sure what he was expecting when you had told him that your manager had sorted out a golf outfit since it was not like you were playing an official tournament. But when you arrived to meet Carlos, Lando, Lily, and Alex at the golf course, Carlos let out the most strained sigh he had ever released.

You were a model, sorry, a supermodel, you looked good in everything already. But you dressed up for his favourite pass time was killing him.

You stood in front of him in the sun visor that hid your long hair, wearing the absolute tightest sleeveless polo shirt known to mankind tucked into small little pink skirt that rested at the middle of your thighs.

God, you were leaving very little for Carlos to imagine. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do to you first: 'accidentally' splash that white shirt with water because he just knew by those nipples that you weren't wearing a bra or excuse the both of you to the bathroom where he could bend you over and fuck you senselessly.

Lily let out a low whistle when she saw you. "Y/N, the woman you are..." She clicked her tongue while shaking her head.

You laughed lightly as Alex look at her incredulously. "I'm right here, you know."

"Alex, are you a woman named Y/N?" Lily asked genuinely.

"I– no," Alex stuttered with furrowed brows while Lando grinned.

"That’s what I thought!" Lilly gave a smug smile, pressing a kiss to her boyfriend’s cheek before linking her arm with yours.

Alex stood with Carlos, blinking blankly at your retreating figures. “I don’t get it,” Alex told the Spaniard.

Lando chuckled while Carlos placed a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “You don’t need to. It’s Y/N. Now come on. From what I know, you have a lot to learn from Lily.”

━━━━━━━━━━━

Carlos was already bracing himself for whatever antics you were going to put up. He was expecting your full on ass up against him, teasing him to the point where he did end up taking you in the bathroom.

But you had decided to go the hard way.

When Carlos was teaching you how to hit the ball and what angle to use the golf club, he severely used the opportunity to put his hands on your hips. He thought you were going to fall back into his chest and press up on him. But instead you decided to listen to his instructions all so intently.

Then he saw it.

Your tongue darting out past those perfect lips of yours, wetting all those crevices with a natural sheen before you sunk your teeth to concentrate on hitting the ball.

And after he had seen it, Carlos couldn’t see anything else normally. Or he would argue that you wouldn’t let him.

No way was the slip of the golf ball accidental. Not when he watched you slowly bend down to get it, revealing your delicious cleavage in the so very unfortunate cut of your polo. Not when he watched your pink skirt cling to your thighs tightly as your lips jutted out to blow away the dirt from the ball.

It was a golf ball, for God’s sake. Of course it was going to have dirt on it.

And as you stood up, you turned so your ass faced him, skirt hugging your ass tight enough so he could see a sliver of your bare pussy.

Carlos could swear that he had never clutched a golf club as hard as he had in his life.

To make matters worse, all you did was strut away with a smirk while you shamelessly checked him out all throughout the games, leaving him with a semi-hard he tried his best to hide behind the thin handle of the club.

You were torturing him without even touching him. And he hated it.

Carlos couldn’t even excuse himself nor you to the bathroom after you purposefully decide to cling to Lily, who was suggesting different methods to play.

The dreadful day had finally come to an end as everyone began to feel the kick of playing golf for so long. You and Carlos bid goodbye to Lily, Alex, and Lando, after your boyfriend definitely did not inform you that you were going back home with him instead of your manager.

After packing your things away in Carlos’ red Ferrari, you happily took a seat in the front, letting out a small yawn as you stretched your arms.

Carlos quietly eyed you as he reversed out of the parking lot. “Tired?” He asked.

You nodded with slightly heavy eyelids. “It takes a lot of energy.”

“I agree,” Carlos nodded. “Teasing takes a lot of energy, hmm?”

Your eyes were fully awake now. You peered at the side of Carlos’ face. His jaw was taut and hands tightly gripped the wheel. You tried to hide your teetering smile but it was difficult. You just loved riling up Carlos. Especially sexually.

“A lot,” You agreed, also nodding before you moved your eyes out your window to prevent you from fully grinning.

Carlos internally sighed. You were a menace.

As he drove to his hotel, an idea popped into Carlos’ head. He knew the way to hotel and golf course like the back of his hand. He also knew that in two left turns, there was the most sketchy but quiet road in town.

Carlos pushed down the indicator, watching the left arrow blink rapidly at him while he turned the wheel. He could see your head turn to him in curiosity.

“What are you doing?” You asked.

Carlos smiled softly, shaking his head as if it was nothing while taking the last left turn.

You raised a brow. You feigned a gasp. “Is this where you kill me? Is this how I die? On some road in Miami?”

Carlos rolled his eyes. “Yes. How did you know?” He deadpanned.

Carlos parked the car in between some trees, ensuring that all the windows were fairly covered because no matter what, at the end of the day, he cared for both for your images.

Carlos turned to find your eyes already on him, waiting for an explanation. “You know the last time we met in Miami?”

You blinked blankly at him. “How could I forget?” You retorted sarcastically, covering up any last few traces of pain associated with that trip.

Carlos pursed his lips, smiling apologetically. He took your hands into his, rubbing them gently. “Well, when we were in the car, I had this vision—well I always have this vision but it was strong then, anyways—I had this vision of fucking you in this car, on the highway, ass on the wheel, making a mess on me, and making you cum so hard that you cover that Ferrari logo.”

You sucked in a sharp breath, eyes dilated in pleasure. Suddenly you felt tingly all over your body and a strong heat pulsating in between your thighs. You pressed your thighs together at the thought.

“So I thought,” Carlos confused, smirking at your action, “although you’ve been a tease, I would still like to fuck the life out of you, cariño. Isn’t that so nice of me?” He asked as he tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear.

You wish you had the urge to roll your eyes. You really wish you did. But your breath was caught in your throat and you just felt a dribble of arousal leak past your aching core.

Instead you moved over to Carlos, putting a leg on either side of him and brought your lips to his.

Carlos immediately responded, hands flying towards your hips, gripping on your skin while he intensely kissed you back. He kissed you not just as a starved man, but a parched man. As if your lips were water and all he could do was drink you.

Your stomach churned with a familiar fire of pleasure. Your skin raised with goosebumps as Carlos’ thumbs circled your skin through the fairly thin fabric of your polo. A muffled moan was lodged in your throat the sound of Carlos’ grunts.

Carlos’ hands moved from your hips to the hem of your skirt. His hands dipped under the pink material that had been enticing him all day, feeling the ample flesh of your bare ass. An audible moan came from his throat as you had moved your lips to his neck to stop drinking those beautiful sounds.

“You’re such a tease, you know that? No fucking underwear so I could see those juicy lips of yours? Were you just waiting for me to take you from behind? What if Lando saw? Hmm?” Carlos queried, groping your ass while his fiery puppy browns pierced into your eyes.

You let out a small whine against his heated neck, bucking your hips against his cock.

“You like that, cariño? The idea of getting caught?” Carlos asked even though he clearly knew the answer if he looked down at the dark stain beginning to form on the front of your skirt.

Carlos smiled softly at your impatient eyes, pressed your hips onto his groin. “Grind on me, cariño. Make a mess on me,” He whispered, taking your lips with his once again.

You moaned as you rocked your hips back and forth in his bulge. The wave of arousal you craved slowly creeped up on you. The hard textured material of his shirt felt like a sin against your pussy. Carlos’ hands helping you keep your pace and making sure you felt every part of hard-on set you on fire.

Smoothly, Carlos used one of his hands to sneak up your thigh, the rough pads of his fingers leaving you in a blaze as he grazed your skin. “That’s it, cariño, that’s it,” He murmured against your lips. His fingers confused past the apex of your thigh, nearing your burning core.

Fuck, were you turned on. The heat radiating off your pussy was dangerous. His thumb edged towards your clit, rubbing the bundle of nerves ever so slowly.

“Shit,” you swore, arching your back against the steering wheel. Your pussy ground up against his fingers while trying to press further on his cock; entertaining both levels of pleasure.

Carlos felt his cock tighten painfully against his hands when he moved his eyes from you and down to where your pussy met him. God, you had made a mess. His eyes flickered back up, watching you obscenely cover the Prancing Horse. “Merde,” He cussed.

This was how he wanted you. Fuck. Making a claim on everything that belonged to him with your body. Just the way he wanted.

You could feel Carlos dip his head forward, giving a long lick to your right nipple. You were sure your white polo was now see through, letting your pebbled mounds become available for Carlos’ disposal. You moaned, feeling your pussy become sticky with pleasure as Carlos pulled down the cut of your polo, freeing your breasts from those teasing confines, watching them bounce in admiration before he wrapped his lips around your nipple.

You arched your back even further, pushing your breast into his mouth while the other hand resting on your hip moved to fondle your lonely nipple, leaving you to do the rest of the work. "Carlos," You cried out breathlessly, speeding the pace of your hips as a familiar coil began to unwind at the pit of your stomach.

Carlos knew that tone better than he knew his circuits. Unlatching his swollen lips from your nipple, he looked up at you, making you moan even further. It was hard to disagree that Carlos was a good looking man, but right now, you were seeing him like no other: puffy lips, sweat-ridden tousled brown hair, cheeks freckled with pinks and reds, dark lust-hazed eyes... all for you.

"Don't cum just yet, cariño. I need to be inside you," Carlos panted, his tongue swiping his lips drenched.

You shuddered at the action before looking at him in dismay. "Carlos. Papi, no. Por favor." Please.

Just when Carlos thought his cock couldn't harden any further, you had proven the impossible. He held your chin in his hand, forcing you to hold his gaze. "Don't do that, cariño. Don't papi me. I'm already being so nice, hmm? Be a good girl and listen to be, okay baby?"

You sighed in frustration but you hips eased it's speed, succumbing to Carlos without a second thought.

Carlos pressed a kiss to the side of your head, continuing to rub your clit excruciatingly slow. "That's my girl," He praised, pressing you right against the steering wheel as he lifted his hips up.

Naturally your hands fell to his shorts, eagerly pushing down the pair of clothing as far as you could in this space. Your mouth salivated at the large bulge in his grey boxers. It was like his cock was greeting you; aching to me to you. In awe, you put your hand over his hard cock, softly brushing over the pulsating bulge.

"Fuck," Carlos sighed, eyes closed, feeling like he was on an obscene high already. He felt you gently trace over his thick cock, going even slower when you reached his tip, painstakingly grazing his slit through his boxers. He shot out his hand, holding yours in place.

Carlos swallowed all the saliva that he had gathered after seeing your wide, almost innocent, eyes beaming at him while a sickly sweet smile sprawled across your face. Jesus. How did he ever let you go? Now that he had you, he most certainly couldn't.

You grinned, knowing exactly how to awake the monster within him. You pushed down his boxers, letting him fully settle into the seat of the Ferrari and his cock stand against his toned stomach with a shade that almost made it look like it was angry with you for taking this long.

Gathering all the saliva in your mouth, you let the hot clear fluid slowly fall from your lips and onto his cock. Carlos sighed at the feeling, thumb reaching out to gather the last few drops from your lips before you brought it into your mouth. Your tongue swirled around the pad of his thumb, giving him a pre-show before you released him.

Carlos watched as you bent down towards his cock, using your hand to rub your saliva down his throbbing cock. You could feel him pulsing in your hands, dying to be inside you. You lifted yourself back up, signalling Carlos you were ready.

Carlos' hands skated up your skirt, grabbing your bare hips as he guided you over his cock. All this time he had been teasing you as awfully as you had teased him today, so when you felt his cock against your wet folds, you let out a gasp while you hips bucked against involuntarily.

"Jesus fucking Christ," You swore, shuddering at the intoxicating high swarming through your body.

Carlos' cock throbbed against your pussy. He loved your sensitivity, so he pushed himself through your folds again, tip rubbing against your stimulated clit. He grunted against you. He could watch your body defy you over and over again.

But as much as he loved it, Carlos had been waiting to be in you liked a starved man.

Carlos' eyes flittered up to yours while he slowly pushed his cock into you. He memorised you carefully. Every twitch, every quiver. Your parter lips, the frequency of your moan. The contortion of your eyebrows while pleasure laced your eyes. He could remember you like this forever; his beautiful girl.

"Carlos," You panted, "more, please."

"Your wish is my command, princesa," Carlos whispered against your skin, pushing his hips further into you. His hands tightened around your waist, the warm grip of your folds pulling him in like a drug.

You knew it then and you knew it know. Carols had bewitched you. You would never be able to get enough of this feeling. The feeling of his cock jerking into your pussy because he just can't control himself. Nor the feeling of sucking him in like a vice because you want him all to yourself.

Carlos moaned, thrusting his aching cock while he muttered obscenities as if he was under some sort of spell. For what it was worth, he was. Every day, you entranced him. But right now, the sight of you against the Prancing Horse that was waiting to be covered in your cum... your saliva-covered breasts bouncing, your arched back against the wheel... it was driving him crazy. You were driving him crazy.

Your hands travelled to his hair, lips grazing past the bridge of his nose while you groaned. Your fingers wrapped his dishevelled brown waves around them, giving his locks a slight tug that coursed down his body.

Your hips ground against Carlos harshly, attempting to take any extra sliver of euphoria. His cock drove in and out of you at a rate that left no innocence in this car. It was lewd; the slapping of your sticky skin against one another, your breathless pants mingling together, and the fogged windows occurring from your feverish skin. Fuck, the both of you were in overdrive.

You let out a small whimper when you felt your body start to shake. You looked down at Carlos, who was peppering your bare shoulder with long sloppy kisses as he continued to thrust. Your eyes softened and the coil in your stomach began to tighten. "Carlos, I–"

Carlos smiled at the urgency in your voice. He began to pick up his pace, let out a few breathless pants. "Cum for me, mi amor."

You shook your head. "No, fuck, fuck, I–" You closed your eyes at the nearing high but forced them to open again, finding those puppy browns staring you down with confusion and maybe, just maybe, a bit of trauma from the last time. But you just had to say it. "I love you, Carlos. I love you so fucking much, mi amor. And I'll love you forever," You sobbed out.

Carlos gazed at you with wide eyes, his pace faltering slightly. As much as it turned him on, his heart was probably ten times happier. He felt warm; complete. He softened his gaze, bringing one hand to your cheek. His heart swelled at your natural lean in. Brushing his thumb gently, "I love you so much, Y/N. So much. And I'll never forget to remind you until my very last breath. You're my entire universe, querida (darling)."

Your eyes watered with a sickening amount of love as your body was hit with wave after wave. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," You cursed, clenching your eyes, a few tears slowly falling. Your hips bucked up against him, reaching for the high as Carlos rubbed your clit in fast circles.

"That's it, mi amor. Cum for me. Cover the the entire fucking wheel. Make a mess," Carlos encouraged, pushing you against the wheel, making your body convulse even further at the new texture.

"Fuck!" You swore, pussy throbbing and hips involuntarily jerking, reaching your climax.

Carlos groaned at the tight clench around his cock.

"Cum for me, Carlos. Look at the mess I made. All because of you. All for you," You coaxed, riding your sensitive pussy over him slowly.

His eyes flickered to the black Prancing Horse covered in your arousal; each little crevice of the wheel soaking up your cum. God, the monster you made him... He grunted, speeding up his pace as the coil in his stomach began to unwind quickly.

"Fuck, fuck," Carlos moaned loudly, holding you tightly to him. "Y/N, Y/N, Y/N," He muttered like a mantra, hips stuttering against you. He twitched inside you, feeling the hot salty strings of his cum spill into you.

"Oh, fuck," He sighed again, head falling on your chest while you moaned at the feeling of his cum inside you, clenching just one more time. His cock throbbed with another small high, pumping the last few ropes of his cum into you.

You let out a slow exhale, lifting Carlos' head by tilting his chin to face you. You rubbed his face gently, leaving a trail of kisses on his face as you both calmed down. You eyed the fogged windows and turned to see the Prancing Horse that had started this whole thing in the first place. You laughed softly.

"Well that was a stylish vision you had there," You remarked with a grin.

Carlos grinned right back at you. "Oh, cariño, we are doing that at least once every week."

"Oh, really?" You teased, putting your hands around his neck. "Well this type of car sex is definitely my style," You agreed after some feigned thinking.

Carlos smiled, tucking your sweaty hair behind your ears. He placed a long kiss on your lips. "It's our style."

© 𝐌𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐘𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐔𝐌𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑

[zara-renata]

The right hand, the left hand, the heart of Sylus Qin | ao3 | fanfic masterlist

Summary: Sylus meets with his legal counsel while the twins give you a tour of the base, you wake up from a dream, Sylus wastes some eggs, you attempt to get to know Sylus better, and you have your first 'date' with Sylus Qin. Part 16 of the Sylus series.

Notes: Sylus x gn reader, Sylus x mc, second person POV, some Sylus POV They/them pronouns used to describe reader, meant as a placeholder for your preferred pronouns slow-burn friends-to-lovers This story contains: a lot of fluff and patient, tender Sylus, despite the following: MC questioning their sanity, MC with self-esteem issues, MC in the death-throes of fear-driven denial regarding the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Sylus has been interested in them this entire fucking time, Aidan antics, twin antics, a little self-induced MC angst, mentions of violence, profanity, alcohol use, discussions of gray morality

Sylus lets his bedroom door shut behind him, leaving you to dress, preparing to leave you in Luke and Kieran’s hands. His heart—so long an empty cavern, echoing the rapid-fire rhythm of its beat—clenches, jams. You’re just on the other side of the door, and you’re already too far.

The twins are leaning against the hallway wall on either side of the door. As he steps out, their heads snap up.

He pauses. “Show kitten around the base, wherever they want to go. Finish the tour with the guest wing.”

Kieran straightens. “Why the guest wing? Is your hunter not staying in your room?” He’s still hoarse from the previous night, and Sylus makes a mental note to get him some throat lozenges. It was your feral kitten who hurt him, after all, although it’s arguably also Kieran and Luke’s own fault for approaching a seasoned warrior in a notoriously dangerous area like a couple of serial killers. Which the twins are, but not in the typical sense of the term.

“Kitten hasn’t decided where to stay yet,” Sylus answers, secure in the knowledge that you will choose him. But he is serious about wanting to at least offer you the choice—of rooms. Because even if you choose another room to stay in, he intends to find his way there at the end of every day. You sleep much better when he’s around, after all. Even then, you’ll still have a choice—you can always try to kick him off the bed again. He’ll just sleep on the floor.

“Do you want us to fix that?” Luke asks hopefully. “We can flood that floor if you want. Whoops, all the rooms are out of order!” he feigns surprise, poorly. 

Sylus snorts. “I have a feeling that if you tried to flood only the one floor, the whole base will end up underwater.”

“Is that a no?” Luke looks disappointed.

“That’s a no,” Kieran answers for Sylus. “Understood. We’ll show them all the entertainment options we have to incentivize a long stay, before we show them the guest rooms.”

Sylus nods. “Call me, if it looks like kitten is getting overwhelmed. Their last stay here… had unintended consequences.” 

“Oh you mean when you starved them and forced them to resonate with you and threatened to leave them to die?” Luke asks, counting on his fingers and tilting his head.

Sylus sighs. “Yes, Luke. That’s what I mean.”

“Okay, then we’ll tell them all about how awesome you are so that they forget that you can also be a massive asshole,” Luke perks up.

Sylus just looks at him for a moment. Even with his aether core, it took him a while to get used to Luke’s particular brand of practical, blunt straightforwardness. So few people speak to Sylus with such raw honesty and fearlessness that spending time with Luke is always a refreshing palate cleanser after enduring meeting after meeting with intimidated, simpering fools who would turn around and slit Sylus’s throat if given half a chance. He tells himself that’s the only reason he tolerates such insubordination from this half of his right-hand man.

“Oh, that’s a sound plan Luke, well thought!” Kieran agrees, pleased with his other half. 

“Just give them the tour and keep them company until I’m done.” Sylus learned long ago that attempting to corral the twins’ machinations is usually fruitless, but clear instructions tend to keep the fallout from being too disastrous.

The young men nod in unison. Sylus considers continuing to take his sweet time to get to his office, just to further infuriate the undoubtedly seething Aidan who is waiting for him. But then he remembers the last time he had to wade through a bunch of barking human beings at one of Aidan’s munches. He sniffs. He’d much rather get business over with and get back to you as quickly as possible. If Sylus wasn’t already keenly aware of how much your presence in his life is already changing him, he’d realize it now as he swallows his pettiness and teleports to his office, instead of making Aidan wait out of principle.

As he re-materializes in his office, Aidan turns from looking at the wall where a majority of Aidan’s fountain pens have ended up embedded, forming the image of a large happy face.

“How surprising that you didn’t throw them in the pattern of a skull emoji—” Aidan begins, until black-red tendrils materialize around his ankles and sweep him off his feet. They hold him dangling, headfirst. He lets out a little delighted squeal that makes Sylus wince.

“If you’re trying to discourage my insubordination in front of your paramour that you’re undoubtedly about to ream me for, I’m afraid it’s having the opposite effect,” his legal counsel grins happily, wriggling against the evol restraints.

Sylus comes to a stop in front of him so that they’re face to upside-down face, his thumbs hooked casually in his sleep pants pockets.

“Oh, I am aware,”  he says in disgust. “But despite your interrupting a very pleasant moment with kitten, I feel that I owe you an apology for making you miss knitting club. So enjoy my mercy before we get down to business.”  

“And people say you’re a monster,” Aidan continues grinning dopily at him. 

“People are fools,” Sylus tsks. “Oh, before I forget. Speaking of interrupting my moment with kitten… they say that if you ever call them kitten again, they’ll tear out your tongue and make you eat it.”

Aidan’s eyebrows shoot up… or down, depending on your perspective. “They said that?”

Sylus considers lying, but he doesn’t want to mischaracterize you or your words to anyone. “Not the part about forcing you to eat it,” he admits. “But if kitten doesn’t, I’ll make you.”

Aidan just laughs. “I don’t believe your empty threats. My tongue’s too expensive for you to waste like that. Still… removing my tongue, huh,” he continues thoughtfully. “No wonder you’re so obsessed.”

Sylus turns, leisurely making his way to his desk as the evol tendrils bind Aidan’s wrists behind his back, jerk him upright, and then toss him onto one of the black leather couches in the office’s sitting area. They dissipate as Aidan snickers a little breathlessly.

“First the happy face. Now giving me a little treat instead of a lecture. I’ve never seen you in such a good mood.” Instead of sitting up like a proper employee showing deference to his employer, Aidan just stretches languidly across the couch and props his head up on a fist. “Although I’m still pissed that this is how you treat my pens,” he frowns, jerking his head back toward the impaled wall.

“I pay you enough to purchase all the pens you could ever want, plus the factory that makes them.” Sylus sits down at his desk, slouching behind the paperwork still strewn haphazardly over it that he abandoned after receiving the call from Luke informing him that you were running from him again.

“But what you do not pay me enough for is missing knitting club. The grandmas are going to give me hell the next time I go,” Aidan grumbles. 

“I’m sure you can handle it,” Sylus drawls. “Now, if you’re done whining, let’s get through this so that I can get back to kitten.”

Aidan lets out a dramatic sigh and sits up, as if the effort is utterly exhausting. “Have you had a chance to look at the latest draft?”

Sylus flicks the messy stack of papers with his fingers and they go sailing with his evol to Aidan’s lap. Aidan lifts one page, a look of disdain on his face as he holds it so that he can look at Sylus through the neat hole punctured in it as a result of Sylus’s boredom with the pen.

“That’s what I think of the latest draft,” Sylus says.

Aidan tsks. “Good, that was my feeling as well. But you didn’t have to mutilate the damn thing.” He gathers the pages, trying to put them in order. “After I’m finished reprinting it,” he sighs dramatically again. “I’ll redline it and get it to them this week.”

Sylus just nods, staring out into the night through his office’s wall of windows. It’s not too foggy, so the N109 Zone’s skyline glitters menacingly, an undersea predator luring prey in the dark.

“Next order of business: FJB group’s CEO is hounding me again to arrange a face-to-face with you. He’s getting… aggressive.”

“Hardly surprising, considering the type of entitled scumbag he is,” Sylus scoffs. “I’m not interested in his offer. Keep ignoring him.”

“Sylus, I don’t think he’s the type of guy who will simply get the hint and slink back to his hole. Doing nothing will only embolden him.”

“Embolden him to do what? If he doesn’t get the message and tries to approach you directly, just eliminate him. I do not have the patience right now to play games with him.” He has much more interesting things to focus on, now that you’re in his bed, in his home, just down the hall. And this time he’s certain you’re right down the hall, and not sprinting through the night like a panicked deer. A deer capable of taking down wolves, but still, a deer all the same.

“That’s a bad call, and you know it,” Aidan argues. “He is strong enough to have an exclusive grip on the flesh trade. If you remove him, ten other would-be heads of the hydra will sprout and it will destabilize the Zone.That means more collateral damage.”

“An exclusive grip that he has only because I allow it,” Sylus snorts. “And what, more collateral damage than the people he traffics?”

Aidan gapes at him. “What has gotten into you? This is the reality of humanity. People are not going to stop exploiting each other, no matter how much of an iron fist you wield. The only thing you can do is ensure that you think strategically enough to minimize the inevitable harm.”

Sylus frowns. That is indeed what he has always thought. The depravity of humanity is such that eradication of human suffering is impossible, and no one person can save the world. People can  hardly save themselves. Sylus himself has learned that lesson the hard way, over and over. It’s not his responsibility to save everyone. That is something that this version of you simply does not understand, and you’re vulnerable because of it. Someday, if Sylus doesn’t stop you, you’re going to get yourself killed because of your misguided sense of duty to strangers whose fate is being born to suffer. But knowing this version of you… thinking about how hard you take every loss, the way your already broken heart is chiseled further with every person you can’t save… his own assault rifle heart jams again. 

The CEO of the FJB Group is just the type of person Sylus thinks you’d like to bathe your feet in the blood of, even if you hate admitting that to yourself. Sylus would happily string him up, field dress him like the pathetic prey he is, and let his corpse drain for your bathing pleasure.

But since you’re still having a hard time admitting that yourself, he’s worried that if he does, you might get mad. And Aidan’s right. If he kills this fuck, ten others will try to claw their way up to take the empty throne.

“Noted. Just keep ignoring him. If he still won’t take no for an answer, let me know.” Aidan looks relieved, until he continues. “But I’m going to rely on you more for the next few weeks. Handle everything you can without bothering me, unless you want to contact me in a personal capacity. Things are settled enough after cleaning house—I want to focus on personal matters for the foreseeable future.”

Aidan jerks to his feet but takes a deep breath. He begins to pace, hands folded behind his back. Sylus appreciates his self control, as he knows that his litigator’s instinct is to immediately counter-argue his disagreement.

He stops, turns to Sylus, huffs.

“Speak,” Sylus orders, lifting an eyebrow. Seeing Aidan flustered is always amusing, but Sylus is impatient to get back to you. Maybe he’ll be done quick enough to take over the tour himself.

“Are you sure this is a good idea? The risks…” Aidan begins, uncharacteristically hesitant. 

“Whether it’s a good idea or not, it’s happening. The whole reason I’m here is finally in my bed. Everything else is secondary.”

Aidan looks pained. “I still don’t understand your single-minded fixation on this one person. This one person who happens to be a Deepspace Hunter, whose job mandate is to hunt you, in particular, and bring you down. There are literally thousands of other people in the world who would probably be thrilled to be in your bed. Why limit yourself to one, and to one who poses such a risk to everything you’ve built? To your very life?”

“Not all of us have such a low threshold for amusement that just anyone in their bed will do, like you,” Sylus clicks his tongue.

“It’s not about a low threshold of amusement. It’s being open to the possibility that each person you meet is a gift, containing an entire world, and the pleasure is opening the box to see what’s inside,” Aidan retorts, “You’re just a snob, and refuse to acknowledge that other people have rich inner lives, just like you do.”

“Save me your idealistic speeches about free love and the beauty of the human spirit. How you can come from where you’re from, handle the shit you handle in your line of work, openly acknowledge that humans are scum, and yet still enjoy them like little snowflake gift boxes, is simply beyond me.”

“I’m full of imagination,” Aidan sniffs.

‘You’re full of bullshit. You’re just easily bored and like to fuck,” Sylus baits him, knowing that Aidan is actually sincere.

“Excuse you!” Aidan does not disappoint. “How dare you—and what an accusation, coming from you, the man who can get bored in the middle of murdering someone. How do you even know that your obsession can retain your interest in the long run?” Aidan lobs back.

Sylus just smiles, with teeth. His fascination with you was already gigantic before he laid eyes on you again. It has only grown, the longer he gets to spend time with you. Your mix of strength and fragility. The unpredictability of your pleasure and your anxiety. Your blood thirst and your compassion. How can he ever get bored, when he has no idea what the next expression on your face will be? When he has no idea how you’ll manage to misinterpret the obviousness of his devotion to you, his endless patience, his worship?

“Oh god, never make that face again. I’m going to be sick. You’re so in love and I hate it,” Aidan gags exaggeratedly, like a cat hacking up a hairball.

“Then don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to,” Sylus advises.

Aidan hangs his head for a moment, hands on his hips. When he lifts it, he looks more serious than Sylus has seen him in awhile. “Joking aside, Sylus. How do you know that if things go south between you, the hunter won’t turn on you? This is a huge risk not only to you, but everyone you care about in this organization if you’re taken out.”

Sylus sits heavily back in his chair. He spins it a little, from side to side, as he thinks of how best to answer in a way that Aidan can understand. “I won’t let things go south between us. I will do whatever it takes to make my kitten happy, so that they’re never tempted to turn on me.”

“Even you can’t guarantee that. Love is messy, and it’s so close to hate. Especially when you begin that love with torturing them and using your evol on them without their permission,” Aidan says, wincing, as if he’s regretful about being so brutally honest.

“I have plans in place to protect the people who need protecting, in case I fuck up so badly that my beloved is driven to taking me out. And if it comes to that, I’ll deserve it,” Sylus sighs. He appreciates Aidan’s concern, but every minute he spends expressing that care is another minute that Sylus is kept from being near you. “Let me worry about the risks. Your job is to keep the empire running while I fortify the foundation that will prevent your worries from coming to pass.”

Aidan looks like he wants to say something else, but after a moment, his shoulders slump. “We just got you back. Don’t get yourself in trouble again. And of course. You don’t have to worry about the rest.” He straightens. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some puppy tails to pull.” He flicks a little wave in Sylus’s direction. “I’ll see myself out. Toodaloo!”

Just as he’s reaching the door, Sylus remembers the last thing he wanted to ask of his left hand man.

“Aidan.” Aidan jerks to a halt, and turns around, eyes narrowed, as if he can sense that whatever Sylus is about to ask will be a huge headache. “Set up a meeting with my architect, and get me a list of names.”

Aidan just stares at him for a beat. “Do I even want to know what type of names?”

“Experts in wildlife conservation. Particularly of the sealife variety.”

“You want a meeting with your architect and a sealife conservationist.” Aidan says flatly.

Sylus just stares at him.

“May I ask why?”

Sylus shows his teeth again. “I’ve been informed that the base needs an aquarium for orphaned and injured fish.”

Aidan gapes, but then rolls his eyes so hard that Sylus is worried they’ll get stuck. “I’m thrilled that your hunter makes you so happy. Really. Just thrilled. But I’m starting to get the feeling that they’ll also be the death of me, whether they take my tongue or not.” 

“Spare me your editorializing and just get it done,” Sylus forestalls further whining. He’s getting increasingly impatient to get back to you.

Aidan groans, because he views it as a moral imperative to always make sure that everyone within a five kilometer radius understands the terrible sacrifices he must make as Sylus’s lawyer. “Fine . You’ll have your list by the end of the week. But I’m leaving before you can transmit any more demands from your kitten.” He sweeps out of the room in a huff and the door slams behind him.

Sylus sits for a moment as the door swings shut. He takes Aidan’s concern seriously, but even his furiously spinning mind has a hard time planning for a scenario where you turn on him. Not in this life, at least. He doesn’t want to dwell on the past when the current you, so utterly sweet, so pliant in his arms, all of your spikes withdrawn for him and him alone, is walking around in his lair, with no plans to leave for the foreseeable future. He wants to rest too, while you’re here. He doesn’t want to think about the past, or a future he has yet to secure. He simply wants to be with you.

He doesn’t want to waste another minute. He stands and heads to the door.

* * *

You wake up.

All at once, on a gasp. Your heart is pounding. You’re aching, aching, because you just woke up from a dream you can’t remember and the only things that remain are the feeling of pleasure, of security, of desire reciprocated.

You lie there, eyes still closed, hoping that you’ll be able to re-access the dream—maybe if you can fall back asleep quickly enough, you can pick up the severed thread again, return to whatever was giving you that feeling of a feast when you’re famished, a waterfall when you thirst, the weight of another’s body on you, in you, filling you so completely it eclipses that constant emptiness you carry with you through all of your days.

But despite all of your yearning, all of your effort, you can’t return to whatever you were dreaming about. Only that feeling remains—safety. The certainty that you’re utterly cherished. That all of your worries from last night were simply little nightmares, extinguished upon your waking.

You remember where you are. Who you’re staying with. Who you were anguished about as you imagined him taking another to his bed. It all seems so silly now—you talking yourself into being sad, with no reason at all to believe that he would do so, when you’re the one he has invited into his home, you’re the one he wraps himself around at every opportunity, you’re the one who he insists he wants in his bed.

What a strange sense of double vision, or cognitive dissonance. Wishful thinking. Delusional fantasy. You know that there was a reason you were worried that Sylus would be seeing other people while you stay with him. But you’re now utterly convinced that such a worry is completely unfounded, so absurd as to make you laugh out loud. But you have no idea why you have this certainty now. It feels like someone reached inside your brain and flipped a switch, and though there was a logical reason to worry, you can no longer bring yourself to believe that Sylus would ever want another in his bed.

You feel insane.

You open your eyes, expecting to see the white canopy of the swinging garden fuck-bed above you, but you see the black, ornately carved ceiling of Sylus’s bedroom instead. You are certain you fell asleep in the greenhouse. How the hell did you wind up back in Sylus’s bed? The feeling of unreality intensifies.

You turn your head and feel an immediate sense of calm wash over you as you see Sylus sitting next to you, his glorious chest no longer bare, but clothed in a simple black sweater, his gold-rimmed reading glasses perched on his sexy hooked nose. He has his tablet in one hand. He looks down at you, one corner of his mouth lifted, and you have the most intense sensation that you know what his lips feel like. That you could map his tongue, recognize it by the feel of it in your mouth if you were blindfolded, its heft and insistence between your lips.

You feel insane.

“Finally awake, kitten?” he asks, nonchalantly. He reaches down and brushes his fingertips along your cheek.

“How did I get here?” you ask, trying desperately to push the feeling of being pressed beneath his beautiful body into something soft out of your mind. Of soft silver fur under your hands. His voice— Yes, Beloved?

“The better question is why weren’t you here to begin with?” he snorts softly.

“What?”

He continues to look at you with that amused, barely-there smile. “Not fully awake, huh. Why did you go to the greenhouse when you were tired, when you had assured me that you would stay in my bedroom while you're here?”

You look away, back to his ceiling. The elaborate moulding is as extra as the rest of his place, but it’s so beautiful, you can hardly fault him for his preference for lovely things. If you can afford it, why not surround yourself with beauty? You just wish it wasn’t such an oppressive black. But it belongs to Sylus—he chose it, so you think you could tolerate it forever, given the whisper of a chance.

You don’t want to answer his question. But that sense of security, assurance, safety , remains with you, even as you fail to comprehend where the fuck it could have come from. You feel brave enough to ask the question that was torturing you before you fell asleep. “Can you give me plenty of advance warning if you’re going to invite someone over for…” you hesitate, trying to think of a more mature way of saying “sexy fucking fun times.” Nothing comes. “For fucking? I don’t want to get in the way,” you finish, lamely. But the thought of him actually wanting to fuck anyone else strikes you as so absurd that it doesn’t even hurt to say it out loud. You don’t think you even need to ask this question anymore, because you already know the answer.

But that’s insane. And you’re a lot of fucking things, but you think you’re pretty well-grounded in reality. You’re hyper-aware of reality—the reality of being you, with all of your flaws, your broken pieces barely held together, which is part of your whole goddamn problem. If you were oblivious to your own weaknesses, to the reality of living in such a cruel world while being a walking open wound, you could strut around like a mediocre white man and feel entitled to everything, including Sylus’s exclusive affection.

“Is that why you snuck off to the greenhouse, instead of coming to nap in my bed like we agreed?” He sets his tablet aside. 

“I never agreed,” you mumble, thinking about how he had said that if you found a room you liked better, you had a choice of where to stay. That conversation was left open-ended. There was never a deal.

“A technicality,” he dismisses your protest. “Unless you found a room that you like better?” he asks archly, setting his glasses on top of the tablet and leaning down, running his nose along your cheek. 

Nothing has changed. No room, not even the greenhouse with its life and relief from the oppressive marble halls of his base, is more appealing than any room where Sylus is. You shake your head, and his lips brush the edge of your mouth.

“But you were worried about me bringing other people to my bed, even though I have everything I want right here already,” he murmurs.

You close your eyes against the onslaught of sensations—his warmth, his scent, the feel of his skin on yours. You don’t want to admit it, but now that your bizarre certainty has been confirmed, it feels silly to pretend otherwise. “Yeah. I didn’t want to… I didn’t want to get in the way.”

“So that’s the reason you ran, again?” he asks, sinking lower, getting comfortable on his side facing you.

You just nod instead of answering, and it’s not because you want to feel his lips on your skin again.

“Come to me next time, when you’re worried about something like that,” he demands, but it feels like a plea.

That sense of safety is filling you, making you brave. You want to bottle it so that you can drink it every time you feel insecure in the future, despite how nuts it’s making you feel. “Okay,” you agree quietly.

“Thank you, darling,” he smiles fully, and it’s so soft, you could die.

But hearing him say “darling” is like a gunshot next to your ear while you’re sleeping—you’re slammed into another reality, the sensation of Sylus’s hands on you, gripping your waist—his heavy body pressing yours into warm sand, sucking on his tongue, reveling in the feeling of a part of him filling you up—

You can’t. You can’t. You’re delusional, no matter how real the memory feels.

“Darling,” you choke, trying so hard to sound unaffected. “That’s new.”

“Do you dislike it?” he asks, brushing some hair from your cheek, resting his hand on the side of your head, thumb drifting along the line of your jaw.

You love it. You want him to repeat it, over and over, until you forget your own name. “I suppose it’s better than ‘kitten,’” you grumble.

“But I thought that you were okay with being called kitten, as long as it was me doing the calling,” he teases. 

You scowl at him.

“Then, darling,” he pauses dramatically, like the big drama queen he is. “Was the only reason you ran, again, because you were worried I wouldn’t warn you if I had a guest? Nothing else was distressing you?”

No matter how safe you feel, no matter how assured you are now that for as long as you’re in his home, he doesn’t want anyone else around but you—you can’t bring yourself to admit this to him. You can hardly admit it to yourself. Not wanting him to be with others implies a sense of ownership, and you know that he is not yours. In any way, shape, or form. How can you be possessive of something that doesn’t and never will belong to you? It does not matter how much even thinking that he doesn’t belong to you sends a feeling of wrongness through you that is almost physically painful.

You shake your head.

“No, nothing else was bothering you? Or no, I lose this round of the guessing game?” He watches you for a few moments, the movement of his thumb so soft against your skin. 

“I win,” you say, feeling wobbly, feeling safe, feeling unhinged, feeling invincible. He doesn’t belong to you, he wants you and only you, As if I would ever want anyone else in my bed, now that you’ve been in it. You can hear his voice in your head, saying things that you don’t dare dream of him saying. 

“Not ready yet, then,” he says, and it almost sounds sad. But his face doesn’t change. “Well, there will be other rounds of our game,” he says lightly, a clear transition. He’s letting it go, and you are relieved. “In that case, are you hungry?”

Hell, if you’re in the process of losing your mind, you might as well do it on a full stomach.

“I could eat a horse,” you answer, trying to match his light tone. 

“That can be arranged. But I’m rather attached to the ones in my stables, so we’ll have to outsource your request,” he says, one sharp canine peeking from behind his top lip.

“Sylus!” You’re horrified. “It’s just an expression.”

“I told you that you could have anything. You have only to ask,” he shrugs.

Now you’re horrified and curious. “Have you eaten horse before?” 

The canine gleams in the dim light of the lamp on his nightstand. “There are few things that I haven’t eaten, darling.” His hand moves from the side of your head, down, until he slips one long finger between your throat and his tie still secured there. He tugs, gently. You remember that you don’t have any of your own clothes, and you’re still wearing his. “There are places where eating horse is as customary as eating beef. But I never really cared for it.”

“That’s a relief, somehow,” you say, even though it’s ridiculous to mourn the horses that fed him, when you ate the steak he served you earlier with such enjoyment. It’s all cruel, in the end—the necessity of survival which depends on another’s suffering. Your heart hurts, so you reach up and rub it. His blood-bright eyes follow the movement of your hand.

“My tender-hearted kitten,” he whispers, with that same strange sad tone in his voice. “Sometimes we must do things to survive that deprive another of life. Do you also mourn the wanderers you have to kill?”

You look down at his strong throat, the pale, soft skin there. So thin, fragile, with his fast pulse beating beneath. “Sometimes, when they’re particularly beautiful. When it’s so obvious that they’re only following their nature, and that their violence isn’t a result of cruelty, like people. They’re just made that way.”

“So you don’t regret the people you have to kill?” 

You would like to lie, and say that you regret it deeply. That you’re as generous toward your fellow humans as you are toward wild beasts, to the beef on your plate. But you promised Sylus you’d be honest with him, if to no one else. You shake your head.

“Sometimes, the sense of satisfaction I get when I’m forced to put down someone I know who has done horrible things—” you whisper, closing your eyes. “It’s frightening.”

“Kindred spirits,” Sylus’s deep voice, the warmth of his breath, envelop you. 

Are you and he really so alike? You had snarled at him, when you first met him, that you and he were not the same, that you would never be the same. You had snarled it at yourself, as much as at him. You open your eyes, and his eyes are all you can see. He looks so happy, hearing you admit the worst of yourself. You realize that you hardly know anything about this man. His past. His family. What he was like as a child. His hobbies, if he even has any. All you know is that he is a killer, a businessman. And that he touches you with the tenderness of a man handling something priceless. That’s all. Yet here you are, his hands on you, still gently tugging on a tie wrapped around your throat. Here you are, so attached to him already that the thought of him bedding another feels like your aether core mutilated heart is shredding itself. How did this happen?

You want to know everything about him. You tell yourself that it’s not because you’re ravenous to unravel his mystery, to be sated from the knowing, and cherish him the more for it. You tell yourself that maybe, the more you learn, the more your heart will ease, and familiarity will breed contempt. Maybe you’ll be able to let him go when this is over, if you know all the ugly parts of him, all of his annoying traits like everyone has. You decide to ask him about when the fake dating will start, so that you’ll have an excuse to ask him to share as much as he’s willing about himself with you, as he practices sharing himself with his beloved.

As if I would ever want anyone else in my bed, now that you’ve been in it.

You shake your head. You’re not his beloved. Why wouldn’t he just tell you, if you were?

Would you have believed me, if I had told you that I wasn’t behind your family’s murder?

You close your eyes again. You feel insane.

I expect you to remember what you just said, when this is over.

You can’t. You can’t. If you’re wrong—

You open your eyes again. You’re here now. You’re here now, and he has the tail of the tie clasped softly in his palm, and he’s gently pulling it so that it tightens on your throat, a hair’s breadth, and then releases. It feels good. You want him to pull harder. You want to know everything about him, and forget everything else. You’re in a dream, and you don’t have to wake up yet. You’re not insane. It’s just the certainty one sometimes has in a dream—you know something to be true, even though you don’t know how you know. Sylus wants you, and only you with him right now. You’re going to indulge.

“To be clear, I don’t want you to serve me horse,” you tell him, pulling back a little so that the tie tightens against your throat again. He inhales sharply, but the corner of his mouth lifts.

“As you wish. Let’s go to the kitchen. You can choose something that you do want me to serve you.” He pulls a little harder on the tie and you let out a soft gasp.

You want him to curl it around his fist, pull you to him, devour you in a way you feel like you know, with a strange certainty, that he would. But you can’t tell him that. Not yet. If you’re wrong—

You open your eyes. Sylus’s face is flushed, his bright eyes narrowed on the tie, on your throat.

“I want to go to the kitchen, but I don’t have any of my own clothes,” you say softly, needing desperately to break this spell before you do something that you can’t take back. 

Sylus looks confused for a moment. “Do you need your own clothes?”

“Do you want me to walk around in your oversized clothes the whole time I’m here?”

“I wouldn’t mind at all, but I don’t need it. Did you not find anything to your liking from the selection of clothes in your size in the dressing room?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow. “I know you’re spoiled, but I didn’t realize to this extent,” he says, not sounding displeased at all.

“What clothes?”

Something in Sylus’s face changes. “Did you not… explore the dressing room?”

You shake your head. “Mephisto was watching me, and I didn’t want to upset him by touching anything I shouldn’t,” you shrug. “So I just grabbed what I could see.”

Sylus laughs softly. “Why would Mephisto get upset by you touching anything in this house?”

“Because it’s your house, and I’m an interloper, and he squawked at me when he saw me touching your ties.”

“And yet you’re wearing one.” His eyes flick down to your neck again.

“Okay, so I was being petty after he squawked.”

Sylus pinches the bridge of his nose. “So you thought I didn’t arrange for you to have clothes you’d be comfortable in. And you thought that Mephisto was… surveilling you.”

You’re confused. “Um, is that not the case? And then you sent the twins to show me around to make sure I don’t go anywhere I’m not supposed to.” At his pained look, you rush on. “I get it. You probably have a lot of valuable stuff in here, and just the intel about the layout of your base is probably even more valuable.”

Sylus sighs and drops his hand. “Do you trust me?”

You stare at him. Do you trust him? You let your eyes drift from his beautiful eyes, to his regal nose. His soft silver hair sweeping messily over his forehead. Would you be here, lying in his bed in his criminal headquarters at the pinnacle of the N109 Zone, if you didn’t trust him? He apologized for hurting you when you first met, and promised never to do so again. He’s been nothing but kind to you since those first long days with him. He’s promised never to use his evol on you without your permission. He said that once given, he never breaks a promise. And you believe him. Of course you trust him.

“Yeah, Sylus, I trust you,” you say softly.

“Okay,” he says, sitting up, pulling the tie gently with him so that you come too. You sit, legs tucked under yourself, as Sylus sits on his own knees, and very gently begins to untie the tie. The silk whispers along your skin as it falls away from your throat. He then lifts it slowly, watching your reaction. But you just sit still, letting him sweep it across your eyes as he blindfolds you, securing it at the back of your head. It’s comfortable.

You feel him take your wrist and tug softly, and you go with him. Your feet hit the soft rug, and you follow where he leads, enjoying the warmth of his calloused hand on your wrist, enjoying the mystery of where he’s leading you.

After an unexpectedly short amount of time, he stops. You feel cold as the warmth of his body disappears, and you hear what sounds like doors opening, or cabinets. He returns to you, and his delicious scent fills your senses. He undoes the knot, and the tie falls away.

You’re in his dressing room, towards the back where you didn’t venture earlier. Door after closet door is open, and you see rack after rack, shelf after shelf—clothes that look like the ones you have at home. Athletic wear. Hoodies. Comfortable clothes you would wear on your days off. But also clothing that you don’t have in your own closet—formal wear. Club clothes. Expensive fabrics. Pair after pair of a variety of sneakers, boots, dress shoes.

“New rule. The next time you are faced with two possibilities—when you think that what you perceive could be negative, but could also be positive, try to consider that the positive is true,” he says gently, placing his big hands on your shoulders and leaning down a little to meet your gaze. “I had Luke and Kieran fetch some things from your home that I thought would make you feel at ease here. The earring. The plushie you hug the most often. Your phone charger. Your laptop is in my office. But I didn’t want them to go through all of your things, and they have no interest in invading your privacy. I was hoping you can make do with new clothing that I thought you’d like, as well as your own care products while you’re here. If you’re missing anything, just tell me, and I’ll arrange for it to be sent.”

As he speaks, you feel your eyes getting hot—in dawning horror, you realize that you’ve started to cry. Why the fuck are you crying? You don’t want him to see, but you’re helpless under his big hands keeping you grounded. You take a big, shuddering breath. All of this kindness hurts. But Sylus isn’t done hurting you.

“And Mephisto isn’t following you to surveil you. He’s programmed to greet you, and to follow you in case you need backup and company. If you don’t have your phone on you, you can still reach me, wherever you are in the house, through him. There’s also an app on your phone for you to change his settings if you want. If you don’t like his voice module, you can make him meow.” Sylus slowly pulls you to him, looking down into your face. He thumbs the tears from your cheeks, brings them to his mouth, and rubs the moisture across his bottom lip. He then pulls you closer, hugging you tightly to his chest. “And I sent Luke and Kieran with you to see the house because the last time you were here, you were really scared. Since I had to meet with Aidan, I didn't want you to be alone, but also didn’t want to force you to sit caged in my room until I could show you around.”

You press your face into his chest, breathing against his rapid heartbeat, feeling all the anxiety and sadness of the tour and return to the greenhouse draining out of your body.

He leans down and presses a kiss to your bowed head. “If you’re unsure of my intentions, even after all this—if you consider the positive possibility and can’t quite believe it, then just ask me,”  he says softly into your hair. “There’s no need to torture yourself with me.” He lifts your chin, and his barely there smile lifts his mouth. “That’s my job. And there will be no doubt when I actually intend to torment you.”

You smile through your stupid embarrassing tears, laugh a little wetly. “It’s true. Subtlety isn’t your strong suit.”

“You know that much, at least.”

“How could I miss it?” you ask.

“Good fucking question. How could you possibly miss so much?” he nudges your forehead with his forefinger.

You scowl at him. You feel light. And with the relief, comes the hunger. “Didn’t you promise to feed me? I’m starving,” you gripe, refusing to think about what else you’re missing. 

I can promise you that whomever you’re thinking my 'crush' is, it’s not the person you're thinking of.

The only way he could have promised that is if he knew that you’d never consider yourself a possibility.

And Sylus says he always keeps his promises.

“Well, I can’t let my spoiled kitten get any more hungry,” he interrupts your thoughts.

You shake your head. “It would be terrible if I end up having to eat you because I’m so hungry,” you tease, but he just lifts his eyebrows as if intrigued.

“Would it be so terrible though?” he asks. You pull back and gently push him toward the door.

“Go, make me something delicious while I get dressed,” you order him with a laugh.

“I see how it is— just a little reassurance, and suddenly you’re bold enough to give me orders." He tucks his thumbs into the pockets of his black, worn looking jeans. “Finally,” he says, looking incredibly satisfied, before disappearing in a whoosh of air, scarlet-ink mist, and feathers that float gently toward you before falling to the floor.

You turn, sighing happily at the sight of all of these new clothes stretching before you. You don’t deserve this. You’ve never been a big shopper. Budget too tight, too much ammo and manga to buy instead, when you practically live in your hunter uniform. But you spotted some yoga wear from a brand that is wildly expensive but makes the softest, best fitting shit you’ve ever put on your body. You shake yourself. Indulge. Indulge. Indulge. 

After you’ve checked your bandages and cleaned up a bit in the bathroom, you drift through the base and find Sylus in the kitchen, as promised. Soft lighting from floor lamps and recessed fixtures hold back the N109 Zone’s night stretching beyond the kitchen’s large windows. Soft classical music accompanies the sound of Sylus digging around in the huge fridges, the clatter of a pan placed on the gas burning stove.

“So you’ll be cooking personally for me today? Not your chef?”

“Not my chef,” Sylus confirms. “I’m the the chef today,” he smiles slightly. “Sit.” He points to the bar stool on the other side of the massive kitchen island.

“I can cook,” you protest. At Sylus’s doubtful look, you defend yourself. “It’s true. I can cook. Xavier loves it when I have the time and energy to make something and invite him over, because it’s fucking hard to cook for only one person,” you say mournfully, suddenly worried about how Xavier will feed himself while you’re not there to ensure he eats vegetables along with his ramen. But he survived long before he became your partner. He’s a big boy, you tell yourself. 

“Oh, I bet he does,” Sylus says under his breath. “And I am cooking because I thought you would want to give your abused feet a break.”

You squint at him. “They hurt, but they’re still functioning.”

“Again, just because they’re functioning doesn’t mean you have to use them more than necessary. And I believe you when you say you can cook. But do you actually like to cook? Or do you feel like you have to, because it’s cheaper than delivery?” Sylus asks, breaking an egg into a bowl. “While you’re here, I don’t want you to do anything that you don’t actively enjoy doing. You’re not here to survive. You’re here to recover.”

You’re so touched by his words that it takes a moment for you to get your mouth to answer him. Something’s wrong with your eyes again, and your throat is suddenly tight. You clear it. “Definitely the latter,” you admit, thinking of a million other things that you’d rather be doing than cooking yet another meal. You often wish you could just slurp all your nutrition from a pouch and be done with it. “But I do like baking. That doesn’t count as cooking, because the result is fun.” 

Sylus laughs softly. “Then when you feel up to it, you can teach me how to bake your favorite things, because that’s something I never really do. In the meantime, when chef isn’t here and whatever she’s left behind in the fridge for heating up isn’t to your taste, I’ll cook for you. Deal?”

You watch Sylus’s big hands gently crack more eggs, grind some salt and pepper in the mixture, fling a little bit of butter onto the now hot pan. You could get used to this beautiful creature preparing meals for you. And you could get used to baking delicious things, and feeding each bite to him by hand. You’re here now. You’re going to indulge. “Deal,” you smile. “But while you’re doing that, I need coffee. Can you point me in the direction of your coffee shit, coffee maker, and mugs?”

Sylus pauses. “I don’t have a coffee maker.”

You stare at him. “What do you mean you don’t have a coffee maker.”

“I mean, I have a french press. But I don’t have a drip coffee maker.”

You squint at him. “You have a fucking ice rink in your villain HQ, and you don’t have a coffee maker? You make your coffee, by hand, every morning? Do you also insist on hand grinding the beans with a mortar and pestle every time you want a cup? Are you as much of a coffee snob as a wine snob?”

“Aren’t you sharp-tongued for a kitten who is depending on me for its caffeine fix.” Sylus sounds infinitely amused.

“I’m just consistently in awe of all of this means you have at your disposal, and yet you do nothing with it. And I’m assuming that since you don’t have a normal coffee maker, you’re also too much of a snob to have one of those fancy as fuck espresso machines that can make whipped foam, along with an entire fleet of flavor syrups on tap.” As you talk, you become more distressed. “Oh my god, Sylus. You’re a hipster billionaire. You’re like, the worst of everything wrong with our capitalist society,” you say forlornly. Why can’t you be nuts about a normal man? What’s wrong with a guy with a tidy little flat and a drip coffee maker? A nice accountant whose only crime is jaywalking, maybe a little tax evasion, for a treat, every year when filing. But no, you want to have the stuck up edgelord who can explode people with his mind and who thinks even professional espresso machines are too plebeian for his refined taste buds.

Sylus is just staring at you, an eyebrow lifted. “What I hear you saying is that you want a fancy as fuck espresso machine. Is that correct?”

You sigh in resignation. Your heart wants what it wants. “What you hear me saying is, okay, Sylus, where is the french press, the coffee beans, the grinder I’ll no doubt have to grind them with, and your mugs?”

“The espresso machine will be here when you wake up tomorrow. As for the french press, beans, grinder, and mugs…” he smirks at you as he points to one of the cupboards over the long, black marble kitchen counter.

You slip from the stool and go to open the indicated cabinet, finding the promised french press and tasteful glass jar of whole coffee beans. Of course even his storage containers are fancy and pretty. But you stop short, as you notice Caleb’s gift and the CUNT mug sitting on the shelf next to the coffee supplies.

You blink. You blink, and turn to look at Sylus, who is now busy scrambling the eggs. “You brought Caleb’s mug,” you breathe.

“I told you, I wanted you to have the things here that make you comfortable,” Sylus shrugs, not turning away from the eggs.

You could cry again. The thoughtfulness of this asshole takes you by surprise, every single time. But you don’t want to cry. You want to enjoy. You whip around and march over to Sylus, who is still serenely stirring the eggs. You peek around to catch his eye, ensuring that he knows you’re there. His red gaze flicks to you for a moment, returns to the eggs. You then step behind him and wrap your arms around his waist, resting your head against his broad back.

Your warning must have been successful. He doesn’t throw you to the floor, or even stiffen—his shoulders seem to relax, and he leans back a little, as if trying to sink into your hug. He puts the hand not stirring the eggs on your forearm, as if to hold you there.

“Thank you,” you whisper, squeezing tighter. 

“It’s nothing,” he says, as the scent of butter and eggs, the soft sound of cellos, the dark night and warm lamplight surround the two of you.

“It’s everything,” you counter.

“You deserve to be harder to please,” Sylus grumbles, turning off the burner. He turns, and you try to step away, but he keeps his hold on your forearm until he’s fully facing you. He leans down and scoops you into his arms, encouraging you to wrap your legs around his waist. He then just stands there, hugging you tightly to him. You hug him back, resting your chin on his shoulder, eyes closed to better soak in the feeling of just holding him, of being held.

“Your eggs will get cold,” he says after a while, regretfully.

You just squeeze him harder. You’ve eaten worse. 

You feel him laugh softly, your chest vibrating with his amusement. “As you wish."

Suddenly, the moment is shattered with a ruckus like a herd of elephants pounding down the hallway, along with a crash, gleeful laughter and yelps.

“Cheater, tripping is cheating, cheater cheater cheater!” Luke roars.

“The first rule of race club is there are no rules in race club,” Kieran bellows, voice closer to the doorway, until suddenly it’s filled with two grown, grappling men, big biceps straining as they each try to prevent the other from entering the kitchen first.

“No… you… don’t!” Luke pants, wrapping his arm around Kieran’s neck in a chokehold and trying to drag him back into the hallway.

“Oww, my throat, Luke, my throat still hurts,” Kieran whines. Luke looks stricken and immediately lets go, only to find himself shoved back further into the hallway as Kieran cackles and comes careening into the kitchen, socked feet sliding along the smooth, marble floor until he crashes into the kitchen island. He lets out a loud whoop, throwing his arms in the air. “Kitchen-race champion, kitchen-race champion,” he chants as Kieran scowls at him from the doorway.

“That was a dirty trick,” he seethes. “You know I wouldn’t ever want to really hurt you.”

“I keep telling you that you’re too gullible,” Kieran smiles at him fondly. “You know all is fair in love and the kitchen race game.”

“Some love,” Luke snorts, and then his eyes widen as he seems to notice you and Sylus behind the kitchen island for the first time. You turn to look at Sylus, but his eyes are on your face, as if he hasn’t stopped looking at you the entire time you’ve taken in the twins’ skirmish, as if what just occurred is daily life at Onychinus HQ and not even worth looking at. You glance back at the twins.

Kieran turns his head to follow Luke’s gaze and then straightens as if at attention. “Oh, apologies boss! We didn’t know you were…” he takes in how you’re attached to Sylus like a koala. “You were preoccupied in here.”

You look back at Sylus, but he just stares at you. Okay, if he’s not going to say anything, you will. “We’re not preoccupied. Sylus was just making eggs.” You cough a little. “Sylus, you can put me down now.”

He just hugs you tighter.

“Eggs? Oh, can we have some? I’m starving after my big stupid cheater of a brother scared the shit out of me by acting hurt,” Luke grumbles, sending Kieran a dirty look. Kieran holds out his hand, and despite his indignation, Luke slides into the kitchen on his socks like an ice skater and takes Kieran’s hand, who then wraps his brother’s arm around his own shoulders. 

“Let that be a lesson. How to fake out your opponent, and how not to be so gullible, even with me.” Kieran reaches over and rubs his fist into Luke’s bouncing curls. Luke ducks his head and sweeps Kieran into a chokehold again, who just laughs. “That’s it,” he crows, and the two tussle like a couple of puppies.

“I can’t make coffee if you won’t let me go,” you say softly to Sylus amidst the racket the twins are making.

“Do you really want to make coffee now?” he asks, turning, setting you on the counter and simply standing between your legs. You’re getting the feeling that he likes this position, because it puts your face a little closer to his if the surface you’re sitting on is high enough.

“Why wouldn’t I?” you ask curiously.

“It’s getting late again. Between the tour and your nap, it’s closer to the time I go to bed now. You’ll be up all night if you have caffeine now.”

“Then why didn’t you say so when I first asked about the coffee?” You tilt your head.

Sylus just looks bored. You’re learning that he does this when he isn’t interested in answering you, when you’re most interested in the answer. Suddenly it dawns on you. “You wanted me to see the mugs.”

He just lifts his hand and fiddles with the hem of the soft long sleeved shirt you’re wearing. “Now you know where they are, in case I’m not around,” he shrugs.

You lean forward, placing both of your palms on his cheeks. He sucks in a breath, but stays still. “Thank you,” you say.

“You’ve already said that, and I’ve already said it’s nothing,” he answers, his stubble shifting under your hands.

“If we’re not going to have coffee, and it’s almost time to go to bed again, what did you have in mind for after we eat?” you ask, running your thumbs under his lovely eyes, indulging, indulging, not worrying about anyone else, not worrying about tomorrow or the day after. There is only today, every day, until this is over.

“What do you want to do?” he asks, leaning in, letting you pet him.

You think about it. You’re still so tired. You think you’ll probably be tired for weeks, until you’ve slept enough to make up for your enormous sleep deficit of the past year, however long that takes. Your feet hurt. You just want to be near Sylus. He’s asking you what you want to do like he intends to do it with you. So instead of worrying if that’s the case, if you’re misunderstanding something, you say what you want.

“I want to start fake dating you,” you say. His eyes widen a little, and then he frowns.

“Fake dating?” Kieran’s voice cuts through your thoughts, and you realize that the twins had stopped roughhousing enough to overhear your conversation.

“What do you mean, fake dating?” Luke asks, looking between the two of you.

“Oh, your boss just asked me to help him practice dating so that he can successfully woo the person he’s in love with,” you say, the picture of cheerful helpfulness. This is already enough. You’re happy to help. And you’re going to indulge the fuck out of pretending that he’s looking at you, instead of imagining the other person he’d like to have in his bed more than you. Because you can’t imagine it’s you. You can’t. Because if you’re wrong—

Kieran and Luke’s mouths drop open. They look at each other, and then look at Sylus.

“What the fuck, boss—” Luke begins, as Kieran says “For someone so intelligent, you can be so stupid—” before Sylus cuts them both off.

“Take some of the prepped meals that chef left in the fridge and then leave us.”

For a second, they both look like they want to argue, but then they dutifully snap their mouths shut in unison, and you get that strange feeling of uncanniness again, like they’re just one person who happens to have two bodies. They efficiently go to the fridge, grab some containers of what must be the prepped meals, and leave you and Sylus alone in the kitchen, now with only classical violin filling the silence.

“Was that a secret?” you ask, feeling bad if you just made Sylus lose face with his employees.

“I have nothing to hide when it comes to you,” he says. “But they don’t need to know every detail of my personal life, even if they may disagree with that statement.”

“Okay,” you say, still feeling bad for some reason. 

He touches your chin, lifts it. “What did you have in mind when you said you want to start fake dating?”

“When we talked about me helping you, you seemed to be okay with the idea of practicing sharing parts of your life with your crush. I was thinking maybe while I’m staying with you, you can already start.” You smile at him, hoping he can’t tell how much you want him to say yes.

“Am I not already doing that?” he asks.

You tilt your head. Okay, so he has invited you into his home, showed you around. But you still know so little about him. “I guess so,” you say. You feel a bit silly now. Maybe you were hoping for too much. Maybe he’d rather get on with his normal routine, and isn’t interested in any usefulness you have to offer at the moment.

You’re suddenly really tired again. You want him to back up, to stop looking so closely at your face. “The eggs are cold now,” you say, trying to keep your hand still, trying to resist the urge to dig your nails into your thigh. He’s right there. He asked you to hurt him instead. You can’t hurt him, so you can’t hurt yourself.

“Then I’ll make new ones,” he says, still watching you like a hawk eyeing a mouse about to bolt from hiding.

You’re not hungry anymore. You hate the yo-yo of your emotions. You want to be as unruffled as the man in front of you. You’re hoping that the more rest you get, the longer you have to recover, you’ll regain some semblance of equilibrium, some resistance to the rawness of the feelings hemorrhaging from your heart. But you know if you won’t eat, your blood sugar will crash and you’ll be left feeling faint.

“No worries. Do you have string cheese or something? Just something to keep me from feeling lightheaded?”

“I'm not feeding you logs of trash cheese while you're a guest in my home," Sylus tsks, probably affronted at the mere suggestion that he would have string cheese in his house. "What else do you want me to share with you about my life?”

“What?” You were just talking about cheese. Now you're being interrogated.

“You said you wanted to start dating. That you were interested in me sharing parts of my life with you. What else do you want me to share with you about my life?” he says slowly.

“Oh. It’s really nothing. You’re right, you are already sharing a lot by having me here.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Huh?”

“I didn’t say I’m already sharing a lot, as if you were asking for too much. I said, ‘Am I not already doing that?’” because I thought I was sharing my life with you by inviting you here and hoping to spend time with you. So now I want to know what else you want me to share.”

“You want to spend time with me?” you ask.

“Why else would I ask you what you would like to do until it’s time for bed?” he asks, gently flicking your forehead.

“Maybe you wanted to occupy me so that you would be free to do whatever you really want to do,” you say, wincing a little.

Sylus hangs his head. Huffs a little laugh. “Your mind is incredible.”

You scowl at the top of his stupid, pretty head. “Okay, if you’re going to mock me—”

“I mean it. Your imagination is impressive if there is any ambiguity in a statement. We've been over this, and you promised to try to choose the positive interpretation over the negative."

You look away, feeling shitty for already breaking your promise. Sylus lifts his head and guides your gaze back to him with his forefinger on your jaw. "Habits are hard to break, I know. So let me rephrase. I would like to spend time with you until bed. How would you like to spend that time?” He places his palms on your thighs and smooths them soothingly up, and down.

The soothing gesture works. You feel the impending withdrawal into yourself, into your protective, sad little shell, reverse at his words, at his touch. You think about all the things you were shown today, and what the two of you could do for a little while together. You’re too tired to read, so the idea of visiting his library is out. You don’t want to work out, obviously, so the gym, the ice skating rink, even the pool—no good. 

“You have a home theater. Do you like movies?”

He perks up. “Yeah, I do.”

“Wanna show me what movies you like? Maybe we can watch one?” You’re casual. The absolute definition of chill.

He eyes you for a moment. “When you say practicing to ‘share my life,’ is this your way of asking to know more about me?”

You shrug like it’s no big deal. Like you’re not terribly eager to know every single thing about him. “If you want.”

“If you wanted to know more about me, you could have just said so. No need to frame it in fake dating.”

“But we made a deal. You wanted to practice—”

He interrupts you. “All right, we can date. But just ask if you have questions. And just assume that I want to spend time with you.”

“Our deal was fake dating,” you try again, because he keeps dropping the ‘fake’ part and it’s doing things to your heart.

“Whatever you need to tell yourself, darling,” he lifts one corner of his mouth.

“But that’s the deal—”

“Uh huh,” he says absently, lifting you from the counter with one arm, turning to the fridge, and rifling through it with his free hand. He manages to agilely balance a stack of containers. “There’s a bar in the theater room, so we can get something to drink there,” he happily informs you.

“Of course you have a bar in there, you alcoholic.”

“Now, now, no need to call names,” he says serenely, carrying you and the food into the hall and heading towards the theater room.

Once there, he tosses you gently on one of the super soft, overstuffed in contrast to other furniture in the house, and of course ubiquitously black, leather couches that sits in front of a huge screen on the far wall. The couch is so soft you hardly bounce, just sinking into the cushion with a laugh. He sets the food containers on the low table positioned in front of the couch, between its two chaise lounge sections that stretch out on either side.

He sits down next to you, so close that his big thigh is squished against yours. “The dvds are in the cabinet over there,” he says as he opens one of the container lids. “You wanted to know what movies I like? Knock yourself out.”

You don’t have to be told twice. You excitedly make your way to where he pointed and throw open a dark paneled cabinet door. Shelf after shelf, going all the way up to the high ceiling where you’re certain Sylus can’t even reach, full of dvd after dvd. You run your fingers along their edges, reading titles silently as you go. 

It appears that Sylus is a fan of classic films. You see titles that you’ve never watched, but have heard in passing from cultural references or watching annual movie awards when you’re lucky enough to not be working through them during a particular year. Black and white films. Foreign films with directors you’ve never heard of. As your gaze drifts over his collection, sounds of cabinet doors opening on the other side of the room serve as background noise. The clink of plates, of glasses, liquid being poured.

You don’t think you see one film from the last decade in his collection. But maybe they’re higher up.

“How do you get up to the top? I don’t see one of those fancy library ladders on a wheeled track anywhere. Does the great Sylus Qin resort to using a step stool?” You ask absently, still scanning the titles. He appears to be a big fan of horror movies. You’re also a huge fan of horror, but you can recognize that you’re a bit of a barbarian in that you’ve never watched the true classics. Maybe you can expand your cultural horizons while you’re here. Knowing more about classic film could come in handy while working undercover at pretentious wealthy bastard functions.

Your thought is interrupted as you yelp, having been lifted into the air by scarlet-ink tendrils and carried swiftly toward the ceiling, where you’re now hovering, eye level with the upper shelves of Sylus’s dvd collection. You look back down at him, where he isn’t even looking at you as he is artfully arranging your movie snacks in little bowls and plates.

“A little warning would be nice,” you say drily. 

“Where’s the fun in that?” he teases. “Can’t have you getting bored with me.”

You snort. “That’s my line.”

One moment you’re floating leisurely near what looks like his Russian film section of his collection, and the next you’re being deposited onto his lap as he sinks back into the soft couch.

“The presumption of people insinuating that even the possibility exists that I could ever be bored with you is astonishing,” he grumbles, and your heart hurts a little. Even other people can see how ill-suited you are for this mercurial, privileged man—a man who could have anything and anyone he wants, and has the propensity for boredom that goes along with it. “I don’t like it.”

You just smile at him, because what can you do? “People are wise.”

Sylus scowls like he just sucked on a lemon. “One other person, and he is a silly deviant and has been corrected, just as I’m correcting you.” He places his hands on your shoulders, thumbs smoothing over the skin of your throat. “In no universe could I ever be bored with you.”

“You don’t even really know me,” you say gently, letting your head fall forward under his soft touch. He slides one hand around and palms the back of your neck, squeezing gently.

“Don’t I?” he asks.

“You may know the ugliest parts of me because of your aether core. But you don’t know my daily habits. My annoying quirks. How I brush my teeth. My favorite foods. My fondest memories. My pet peeves when it comes to lovers.” You lean your head back now, baring your throat to him, letting his big hand keep you upright. “And I don’t know yours, either.”

“I know the most essential parts of you to be assured that I’ll never tire of learning about the details,” Sylus answers, shaking you gently.

You open your eyes, lift your head. “But I don’t know the essential parts of you, let alone the details.”

His wine dark eyes look so soft as they meet your gaze. “Don’t you?”

You remember the feeling when you first met him. The voice in your head, urging you to devour him. Insisting with a violence that scared you that he was yours, to consume, to swallow, to feast. The recognition in you when you resonated the first and only time, when you couldn’t tell where you ended and he began. You might not have an aether core in your eye, but maybe you do know the essentials of him. His cruelty. His violence. His single-minded pursuit of his goals. His steadfastness as he chases you, over and over again, as you run, over and over again.

I expect you to remember what you just said, when this is over.

You do remember what you said at Amnesia. And you remember a kiss that never happened, the taste of his tongue on yours that you can’t possibly know. You feel insane.

“Do I?” you echo him.

“Mmm,” he murmurs his confirmation. “And now we have all the time in the world for you to satisfy your kitten’s curiosity regarding the details.”

Maybe it’s okay to be a little insane in a dream. 

“What movie do you want to watch?” you ask, leaning forward, running your nose along his, inhaling the scent of his skin.

He exhales, his warm breath soft and carrying the scent of some smoky liquor. “Why don’t you choose?”

“What if you’ve seen it before?”

He turns his head a little, so that his lips brush the edges of your mouth. “I’ve seen all of the films I own.”

“Won’t you get bored rewatching?” You resist the urge to turn your own head, to meet his mouth— you can’t, you can’t, not yet. What if you’re wrong—

 “I won’t get bored. I’ll be watching through your eyes this time.”

“You have so many, how can I choose?”

He smiles faintly against your skin. “What kind of movies do you like?”

You think for a moment. “I like all kinds of genres. Horror is probably my favorite, but only when I’m in the mood. I think the movies I like the best tend to be character driven. When I care about what is happening to the people, what choices they’re making—when I want them to prevail over the conflict. Not just gritty and dark for the sake of being edgy. And I like happy endings unless it’s a horror film. Life is hard enough, without spending it watching depressing Russian films,” you smile against his cheek in turn before sinking into him, resting your chest against his, tucking your face into his neck. His hands drift up and slowly caress your back.

“So you like fairy tales,” he says, but not dismissively. An observation.

“No, you’re the one who likes fairy tales—the original versions. Grim, unlikable characters being taught a lesson. Sad stories where no one wins, to confirm your cynical outlook of an unsalvageable world.” You’re teasing him, a little. But you also think it’s true.

He huffs a laugh. “Judging my taste in films, just as you judge my taste in coffee, wine, home decor, occupation—the list goes on. I’m the one who should be worried that my darling will grow bored with me.” He pauses. “You actually know quite a few details about me already, don’t you think?”

Your mind drifts to all the time you’ve shared with him, all the things you already know about him. Maybe he’s right, and you know more than you think. He has been showing you himself, every minute you’re together. Maybe if you manage to stop navel gazing and wallowing in insecurity, you’ll learn even more.

“In no universe could I ever be bored with you,” you echo him again.

“I'll hold you to that promise,” he sighs, wrapping his arms around you, hugging you tightly. You’re getting so sleepy. If you don’t start the movie, you’ll be asleep before the opening credits are over.

“So pick your favorite movie, Sy. I want to watch it through your eyes.”

His arms tighten even further, forcing a puff of breath from your lips. “In a minute, darling. Stay like this, for a little longer.”

You nod, feeling his rapid-fire heartbeat under your own, slower heart. It’s soothing, in a way that firing a real gun no longer is for you. 

“If you don’t start it now, I’m going to fall asleep,” you mumble, sinking further.

“Then sleep,” he says. So you do.

Sylus holds you in his arms, and for once, his mind is quiet—no churning plans, no tweaking the spiderwebs of action and reaction, force and counterforce, push and pull, either for his business or to draw you ever closer to him. He’s just a man, sitting with his heart in his hands—safe and calm. He misses you, as he always does, when you’re so close but asleep. He considers joining you in your dreams again, just to make sure that they’re as peaceful as you deserve, but decides against it. He skirted the edges of his promise to you by doing it once, even though he remains convinced that it was necessary. You were willing to share your fears with him after you woke up—he just mixed up the order a little bit by reassuring you first and then asking questions second. But he’s unwilling to risk it again.

This is enough, for now. He feels the steady beat of your heart against his own submachine gun rhythm, and his pulse slows, slows, until for once, he feels like he can breathe fully without having to check behind himself, check the exits, check contingencies and backups, check the pulse in your throat to make sure you’re still here, you’re still real, you’re still letting him so close he can taste your skin when he inhales the scent of your neck. You’re in his home, and you just had your almost-first, definitely not fake despite what you tell yourself, date. Watching a movie together, the most cliche, boring date of all, and you fell asleep before it even started. You called him something other than his full name for the first time, and not in a teasing way like crow man or good boy—an endearment, something no one else will ever have the privilege of calling him. It takes him a little while to figure out the feeling that has been spreading through him since you hugged him from behind in thanks for the lousy gift of a couple of mugs you already owned—a feeling like how he has always imagined sunshine would feel on a mild summer day for a normal person.

Oh. He laughs a little breathlessly. He’s happy.

If he wasn’t aware of how much you’re already changing him, he’d realize it now, as he hugs you as tightly as he dares without waking you, feeling as foolish as Aidan waxing poetic about every new person being a gift with a surprise inside. Sylus doesn’t need any other people to maintain his attention—you are the gift, a nesting doll puzzle box, a gift within a gift within a gift, and he’s so fucking happy you’re letting him open each of your secrets, one by one, that he’s dizzy with it. The ratatat of his heart fires, and fires, and fires. For the first time that he can remember, he’s looking forward to tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.

end note: My dear readers, once again I have failed to deliver big toys and action, but the plot has inched along very slightly with Sylus's conversation with Aidan, and hopefully the next part will contain MC having the run of Sylus's place and getting into some trouble with the twins and Noah if I recover from real world events and don't just crawl into a hole and hide for the next four years.

[a-small-writer-in-a-big-world]

Epilogue

Pairing: Simon “Ghost” Riley x f!reader

Warnings: tiny bit of angst, mentions of past trauma, fluff, smut mdni (18+), unprotected p in v, fingering, praising, dad jokes

Words:

Synopsis: Years later, you and Simon are still together but as more than roommates….

You are currently reading the last part to The Roommate Series

Few years later…

You were bored. 

So bored that you were worried you might start nodding off, like a few of the others who sat in the seats next to you. You should’ve been more excited about the fact that you were finally graduating, but it was difficult to feel anything other than the slight need of sleep when one of the professors conducting the speech wouldn’t stop talking.

How long had he been talking for? You’re zoned out a while ago, wishing you could pull out your phone to scroll through social media or check your messages just to pass the time until he was finally done. Instead, you had to sit there and listen to him ramble about something until it was time for you to walk.

You’d much rather be checking your messages now that you thought about it. Simon was supposed to text you this morning before you went to the ceremony since he was still on a mission, but you had gotten nothing the last time you checked.

Your feelings were a little hurt, but it worried you more than anything. If he couldn’t text you he was working and that meant it was possible he could be hurt-

You let out a deep breath, letting the thought drift away before it started to fester. 

Simon was fine. He spoke to you last night so he was probably just busy. You could text him when the ceremony was over, maybe even call him if he had enough time to spare. It would be nice to hear him and tell him all about the time you wasted listening to the professor who was one strong breeze from turning into dust.

You perked up when the professor stepped down and clapped a little more enthusiastically than you meant to. You watched as another professor came up to the podium and announced with the same kind of excitement that it was time to hand out diplomas.

You watched the first row of grads walk towards the podium to be announced. As they walked across the stage you couldn’t help but feel a little bittersweet about the situation.

Simon had planned to be here to celebrate with you. You both had come up with a plan to go out to eat at a fancy restaurant and maybe get a couple drinks after everything was over. 

He had been excited about it, not only because he got to spend time with you but he was happy that you were graduating. He was taking it seriously, making reservations and finding the best outfit to go with yours, making sure everything was planned how you wanted it…

And then duty called. 

You were upset, not knowing whether or not he’d be back in time, but eventually you came to terms with it. Judging by the texts Simon had sent you since then, he hadn’t come to terms with it, declaring that he would be there no matter what, even when you assured him it was okay.

You determined from his silence that he was still there. 

It hurt but that was the price to pay. Sometimes he’d miss out on important stuff with you because of work, that was life when you loved someone in his profession, but it made it all worth it because it was Simon.

He had left just two months ago and you assumed he wouldn’t be back for a few more.

Your row got up and you walked towards the stage. It almost didn’t feel real that you were graduating, that after all the hardships you had with your classes that it was finally over and that you were more prepared for life than before.

You could at least share it with Simon when he got back.

Your name was announced and as you stepped up to get your diploma you heard loud cheering which made you jump. You and everyone looked around for the source, everyone else clapped and gave maybe small whoops, but this was cheering you’d hear at a football game.

Tears welled up in your eyes and a grin stretched across your face when you saw them.

All of them, Simon, Price, John and Kyle were in the crowd. Simon held a bouquet of flowers and waved to you as if you couldn’t pick him out within the crowd of families who were mostly quiet. 

But that didn’t stop you from waving back to him, showing him your diploma with a chest full of pride that made you beam brightly at him. You felt even happier when he raised his fist, cheering louder for you.

It took everything in you to not run over to him. You still had to go through the ceremony and weren’t sure if the professors would be too happy if you ran out before it was over. That didn’t stop you from constantly peeking over your shoulder at him with anticipation, just waiting for the moment that you were allowed to go.

When it was over, you practically sprinted to them. You barely gave Simon enough to make sure you didn’t crush the flowers before you threw yourself on top of him, holding onto him with a tight grip as you blinked back tears.

Simon held you back just as tight. He let out a heavy sigh of relief and he nearly melted into your arms. He chuckled lowly and gave you a quick squeeze before  you slipped out of his grasp to look at him.

“You’re here!” You pulled back and drank him in.

He was wearing a mask to cover the lower half of his face but you didn’t catch any bruises or scrapes anywhere on the uncovered spots of his face. He stood perfectly fine like the rest of them and watched you with soft eyes so full of love that your smile grew bigger when he leaned closer to you.

He was alive and well, and now he was back here with you.

“Wouldn’t have missed it for anything.” Simon said softly while he offered you the flowers and your heart swelled as you took them.

You let out a soft thank, so overwhelmed with emotions you weren’t sure how to process or handle them. All you could do was hold the flowers, try not to tear up and stare at Simon with every ounce of pure love you had within you. You had half the mind to pull him down for a kiss or to not let go of him, but you had to tell yourself that you were in public.

You settled on holding his hand which he seemed to gratefully take because you held onto it with a firm grip.

It could wait until you both got back to your shared apartment.

“We should celebrate.” Price spoke up and you nodded. “I’ll pay.”

Kyle and John cheered while you laughed. You tried to tell him he didn’t have to but he wasn’t hearing it, quickly dismissing any of your worries that it would be too much or that he didn’t have to since there was no reason for it. 

When you looked at Simon for help he only shrugged before he leaned in close to your ear.

“I’ll pay for us.” 

“That’s not any better!”

He chuckled and squeezed your hand. His eyes twinkled when you gave him an exasperated look before he pressed a quick kiss to your temple through the mask. He pulled you close and kept your hand in his while you all walked to the parking lot where you’d decide to go to dinner.

You spent the entirety of dinner catching up, but mostly just staring at Simon who seemed to stare back at you just as much. 

It hadn’t been long, not nearly as long as the many other times he had left for work, yet it was just the same as always. Every moment with him gone hurt but once he got back you felt so much better knowing that not only was he alive but that he had come back. It made every second worth it.

You could tell that he was feeling the same. His hand barely left yours and when it did he rested it on your thigh, his eyes never once losing their look of pride when he looked over at you. He seemed to have fallen head over heels for you again and you sure he would tell you just that if you said something.

You’d be lying if you said that you also hadn’t fallen in love with him again. 

You did it every day.

You all parted ways after dinner, but not without the promise of drinks sometime later in the week and possibly other times where you all got to hang out. 

“How do you feel?” Simon wondered as the two of you walked to your car.

“It honestly hasn’t set in yet.” You told him truthfully. You hadn’t really accepted that you had graduated and didn’t need to go to classes anymore. You were back to the way things were before you enrolled in the university, older and a little more wise, but not much different. At least you knew how to transition into a full time job. “I don’t feel any different.”

“Good or bad?”

You glanced at him, noticing the slight worry in his eyes. You gave him a small smile however and leaned your head against his shoulder.

“Good.”

Simon helped you in the car and playfully took the keys from you. On the drive back to the apartment, he kept his hand on your knee and you kept your hand on top of his.

“You know,” You caught his attention as you gave him a knowing look. “My job doesn’t start for another couple weeks or so.”

“Yeah?” He mumbled and squeezed your leg.

You hummed and a smug smile pulled at your lips. You slid his hand a little further up your leg and watched as his grip tightened on the wheel. You had to suppress a laugh when he let out a short huff, knowing full well what you were doing.

“Yeah…and I don’t have anything planned. Which means I’m all yours.”

Simon grunted and you bit your lip. Anyone else would’ve thought he was being dismissive, but you knew him too well. You could see the light blush on the tips of his ears and judging by the way he shifted in his seat you knew he was starting to get hard.

If he wasn’t flustered you were sure he’d lightly scold you for making him that way.

The drive back to the apartment was quicker than normal and the two of you rushed to get inside.

Your new apartment was smaller than the last but no less homey. You and Simon could be found everywhere and in every corner, the place completely lived in and inviting. There was only one bedroom and the bathroom was too small for both of you to be in there at the same time but it was home.

The door didn’t even close behind the two of you before Simon had his hands on your hips. He ripped the mask off and kissed you tenderly, capturing your lips in his as he pulled you into his chest. He didn’t give you a chance to breathe while his hands roamed your body, feeling you as if he were mapping out your body for the first time.

You kissed him back just as fervently, clutching onto him and letting out soft moans that made him kiss you harder. You barely had enough time to set the flowers down without harming them before he was peeling your outfit off you.

He left hot kisses across your neck down to your chest, kissing the dog tags he gave you. You let out a gasp when he sucked a mark on your breast before he very gently pushed you down on the couch. He hovered above you, pinning you down onto the cushions and let you tug him forward into another kiss.

“Been too long. I missed you.” He breathed into your mouth desperately and you hummed.

“I missed you too.” You gasped again when he pushed his finger past your wet folds. 

Simon swallowed your moans as he rubbed circles into your clit. The rough pads of his fingertips were almost too much after not being touched by him for weeks but the electric waves of pleasure that ran through you stopped any chance for you to protest, as if you would anyway.

His other hand held your face and he kissed you tenderly. He continued to steal the air out of your lungs, making you feel like you were floaty. When he began to pump two fingers inside, you let out a loud whine.

“I thought about you everyday.” He kissed underneath your jaw and curled his fingers, brushing them against the spot that had your entire body twitching. “Thought about what I’d do when I saw you again, how proud I’d be.”

“Simon!” You moaned when he began to play with your clit again.

His fingers moved in and out of you quickly while he kept a steady pace on your sensitive bud. 

You held onto his arms as you felt yourself clench around his fingers, the band in your stomach pulling tighter while your toes curled. It was impossible for you to breathe while whimpers and moans escaped your lips, small pleas for him to keep going falling off your tongue. 

The band snapped unexpectedly and your eyes fluttered shut while you clenched around his fingers. You whimpered as he kept going, unable to catch your breath while he kissed your neck.

“Need you.” You whined while you still twitched from your orgasm.

“M’right here, love.” He said breathlessly as he pulled his fingers out of you.

Simon wasted no time unbuckling his jeans, pushing them down far enough to let his cock out. He pumped it a few times, the red and dripping precume before he lined it up with your wet cunt.

You gasped and moaned when he slowly pushed in. The stretch of taking his length always made you clench and flutter around him, the slight pain eventually melting into pleasure enough for you to come on his cock before he even got it in fully.

He moaned from feeling you and his eyes going heavy as he watched him stretch you out. He went slow, just like he always did, and played with your clit to make you whine just a little more.

Before long he was fully seated inside you but didn’t move. 

You could barely breathe as you adjusted to his size, never fully able to, while he kept his thumb on your clit. You whimpered and placed a hand on his chest, noticing that he came home without a scratch and dug your nails into his flesh.

“Simon…” You begged softly, wiggling your hips to get him to move.

“Wanna make you feel good, love.” He said but grabbed your wrist and began to thrust.

You cried out when the head of his cock nudged the spot inside you that had you seeing stars. You keened and arched your back into him as he rolled his hips against yours to keep a steady rhythm. 

Every thrust made your eyes heavy and he added pressure to your clit. He deepened his thrusts and you moaned his name loudly which only fueled the fire in his stomach.

You could feel yourself getting close again, already unable to keep away from the edge as he nearly bruised your cervix. You pulled him down and kissed him hard, holding his hand as you clenched around him again.

He sped up ever so slightly and you couldn’t breathe.

Your entire body tingling and you couldn’t speak. You rested your legs on his hips and he thrust into you until your eyes rolled back and your entire body shook. You could barely hear him moan as you fluttered around his cock before he began to thrust sloppily.

“My pretty girl.” He said proudly into your mouth. “My smart girl, ‘m so proud of you.” 

Simon grabbed the back of your knees and pushed your legs towards your chest. He groaned and you writhed underneath him, the pleasure too much as you still rode the waves of your second orgasm. 

You came again unexpectedly and he cummed inside of you with a strained moan. You whimpered as you felt his cock twitch inside you, filling you up and spreading warmth across your lower abdomen.

He thrust inside you a few more times before he nearly collapsed on top of you. He rested his head against your forehead and you wrapped your arms around his neck, keeping him close to you.

The two of you laid there to catch your breath, leaving small kisses across each other’s skin while you played with the hair on his neck that had gotten a tad longer than when he left.

When he pulled away you beamed up at him and got a smile in return. The hormones were slowly slipping away but that didn’t stop the elation in your heart as you stared up at him as if this was the first time you were seeing him today.

“Welcome home.” You traced his nose and he kissed your hand. “I’ll make you breakfast tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to-”

“I have to keep up with the tradition!”

He scoffed but conceded and rested his forehead on yours, pulling you into an embrace that you gratefully accepted.

You spent the rest of the evening catching up and sharing soft touches, slowly riling each other up a couple more times before it was time to go to bed. While he took a shower, after you since he insisted, you went through your nightly routine of making sure the apartment was secured.

It was a habit you formed not long after moving here, one both you and Simon kept up because of what happened. You went first, going around to all of the windows to make sure they were locked and closed, shutting the curtains to them, before you checked the lock on the door, always doubling locking it. Then Simon would check after you, not because he didn’t have faith in you, but for his own sake. 

Just as you were about to shut off the TV, the news caught your attention.

“International threat and now former commander of the Konni Group Vladamir Makarov has been reported killed today. The Ultranationalist was responsible for multiple terrorist attacks across multiple countries and now his body is being recovered by the US government…”

You watched the news put up a picture of the man. You remembered well of the few attacks that had taken place far from you but that caused an uproar on the international scale two months ago. You remembered the sinking feeling in your stomach, knowing in the back of your mind that Ghost had been there risking his life again to catch him.

You thought about how he might be dead, how he might’ve gotten injured. How many close calls he had and if he ever thought that he wouldn’t be able to see you again.

Now he was dead…

“Love.” Simon caught your attention and you looked over at him.

He had a serious look on his face as he glanced at the TV for a moment. An almost silent conversation occurred between the two of you when he looked back at you, his dark eyes saying enough about the situation, before he gestured towards the bedroom.

“Let’s go to bed.”

You turned the TV off and walked towards him, bringing him into a short embrace where you placed a quick peck on his cheek.

“I’m glad you’re home.” 

You’re not sure what time it was when your eyes snapped open. It was still dark out and the silence outside told you it had to be in the middle of the night. It took you a moment to come to your senses, your heart racing just a little faster as you came down from the nightmare you just had, to realize that you were in your shared bedroom.

You took a deep breath and that was when you noticed the comforting circles being drawn on your arm.

You turned over and met Simon’s eyes in the darkness. You weren’t sure if you had woken him up with your nightmare or if he had one of his own, but neither of you said anything.

You rolled over and he immediately opened his arms to you. Before long you were cuddled into his side, your head on top of his chest while he wrapped a protective arm around you, starting his ministrations again once you were settled. 

The two of you laid in silence for a while. You drank up each other’s presence in the stillness, slowly waiting for the tense feelings to dissipate into peacefulness before either of you decided to go back to sleep. 

Your eyes were on the door, on the heavy laundry basket you put in front of it to keep anyone from coming in. 

The fear of the man coming back was mostly gone, he had been dealt with a long time ago, but it didn’t feel right to keep the door unblocked. You were grateful that Simon let you do it even though there were some nights when you didn’t need it at all. 

You shut your eyes and listened to his steady heart beat, feeling you slowly rise up and down from his breathing. 

“What do you call a fish wearing a bowtie?” 

“...What?”

“Sofishticated.”

You giggled, hiding your face in his chest as he let out a chuckle. He hugged you closer and you felt him press a soft kiss to your temple on the spot where your scar was. 

When your giggling fit was over you looked up at him.

“Did you memorize the book again?” You mumbled, not wanting to break the silence.

“Yes.” He mumbled back with a small smile. “You gave me a new one, had to.”

You shook your head with disbelief, a smile spread across your face as you snuggled closer into him, pressing a kiss to his chest as you did so. Your hand found the scar on his torso and you ran your fingers across it, causing him to tense up underneath your touch.

Another scar added to the others. More pain he had gone through and yet he was still here. 

Simon traced the scar on your temple with his thumb and you wondered if he thought the same thing. If he thought about the pain that you now carried but  that you were still here.

The pain would only lessen, it would never go away but that didn’t scare you. So much had changed in such a short amount of time, and you knew things would continue to change, but the one constant was that he was always by your side and you were always by his. 

Suddenly the tension was gone.

“We’re still alive.” You thought out loud after another moment of silence.

“Yeah.” He breathed out. “We are.”

You sat up and he did as well.

You took his face into your hands, holding him gently as you caressed his cheek with your thumb, touching the scar close to his eye as you stared into him with a hopeless amount of love that seemed to consume your entire being. 

He placed his hands on your hips and stared at you with soft eyes full of the same deep all consuming love that you felt. 

“I love you.” He said barely above a whisper.

“I love you too.” You replied back just as softly.

In the darkness you kissed. It was slow and gentle, warm and comforting. All of the fear you had poured out and turned into nothing as you held each other. There was nothing there but the two of you, no threats and no one to bother you as you laid in the sanctuary of each other's arms.

Like every night you two went to sleep knowing that the other would be there, ready to start a new day.

The End

link to masterlist

A/n: don’t worry, their story isn’t over yet but we’ll let them rest for now ❤️ (i hope this wasn't too disappointing of an ending I tried to make it emotional and i got emotional writing but idk if that translated well anyway hope you guys liked it first time finishing a series like this haha)

tags: @kat-nee @alexwashere82 @suicidal-marshmellow @shuttlelauncher81 @poohkie90 @reiya-djarin @k4marina @mionacaped @igotmajordaddyissues @xxghostyx @pasta-m1lk @imstargazingx @jacksonpleasestopkillingme @kgive @konig-is-bbygrl @lialacleaf @frazie99 @gremlin-ghuleh @spencerreidisbae123 @writingmysanity @lillianastuff @alastorhazbin @reid490 @lockleywife @sheepselecric @dead-noodles @marshmallowtraver @sinclairbrosbathmat @sofasoap @crazyfandomist @iwmtfm @oiiviagrande @genesis1363 @revyjerry @guttabutta00 @greenkiki @d4z01 @quietlyignoringyou @mysticalgalaxysalad @almightywdm @mavieemav @lycheedr3ams @multitargaryen @fruitymoonbeams-blog @lilpothoscuttings @eatingtheworldsoffanfiction @adriennepoison

[golden-cherry]

deal - cl16 (9/?)

Pairing: Charles Leclerc x Reader

Series Summary: Your whole life has gone to shit. Your boyfriend broke up with you, you just lost your job and the Monegasque, who suddenly stands in your doorway, claims that it’s his apartment.

Chapter Summary: Finding an outfit is harder that it seams. Especially when your roommate can't really help you, because he's at his other apartment.

Warnings: fluff, angst (whoops), mentions of cheating (not Charles), mentions of smut (oral, fingering, p in v), angry Charles, text messages

Word Count: 3.6k

series masterlist

previous part

A/N: here it is friends. did my absolute best and honestly, I'm sweating so hard. I chose the name for Charles ex bc it’s the name of the girl my best friend absolutely despises. and this is not a Charlotte hate acc. hope you like it still. feedback is appreciated!

The weather app on your phone is of relatively little help. 

Charles had said that you were going out to dinner around eight o'clock in the evening, and according to the app, it should still be fifteen degrees then, even though it's December. While he had said that "it doesn't matter what you wear," but if you were going to be spending more time with him soon, and by extension his friends, you would want to make a good first impression. 

Not that your first impression on Charles was particularly good. 

Since you promised Charles that he could sleep in his bed tonight, you try to keep the mess of clothes to a minimum. Instead of pulling each piece of clothing out of the closet and then tossing it into the nearest corner because it doesn't match what you had in mind, you put things neatly folded back in their place. 

After your roommate left the apartment, you started cleaning up your room so it wouldn't be too embarrassing if Charles stayed there tonight. After all, he doesn't need to see your underwear or the little stuffed animal turtle that sleeps in bed with you. Generally things that maybe old friends know about you, but definitely not the roommate you've been living with for two days.

The roommate who is no help to you when it comes to choosing clothes for tonight. Since he hasn't told you which restaurant it is, you don't know exactly what the dress code looks like, which is why you're now standing in front of the closet at a loss. 

In Monaco, when it comes to restaurant choice, anything is possible. You could dine at Le Louis XV, the most expensive restaurant in Monte-Carlo, or Jack Monaco, which is significantly cheaper, but you have a direct view of the harbor with the oversized and expensive yachts.

Secretly, you hope it won't be too expensive tonight. Joris would pay you back the rent soon, but you're still unemployed and unfortunately can't live quite as carefree Charles, who apparently has enough money at his disposal to have not one, but two apartments in Monaco. 

A fact that you would never blame him for. 

When you can't find anything that would theoretically go with any restaurant visit, you drop onto the bed, annoyed. It can't be that hard to find something, right? You fish your cell phone out of the pocket of your sweater and start typing. 

Briefly, you consider actually sending the message, but alas, you're so desperate that you feel you have no choice. You hit send and are about to throw the phone across the room as if you've just confessed to your school crush that you like him. 

But Charles isn't your school crush. He's your roommate and first and foremost your friend, which is why you just drop the phone on the bed next to you. 

You sit up and narrow your eyes as you go through the clothes in the open closet. Somewhere in there is a pair of dark gray, straight-cut jeans that match the white blouse you carefully hung back on the hanger a few minutes ago. 

And sure enough. After a few minutes of rummaging around in the clothes, you find the jeans and as you hold them up next to the blouse, you're relatively pleased with the choice. There should also be shoes floating around somewhere that should go with them. But at least this is a good start. 

Satisfied, you clean up the rest of the room. Since Charles has not invited you to dinner, but also to a club, you will certainly be home late, so you decide to make up Charles' bed. Your bedding disappears into the hall closet after you take Charles' things out. As you bring them into the bedroom and spread them out on the bed, you find yourself briefly considering pressing your face into the pillow. For sure, Charles smells attached to it. 

But before you can do that, your cell phone vibrates. It's a message from Charles. 

Your heart skips a beat. Do friends give each other compliments like that? You glance from your phone to Charles' pillow, then to your outfit for tonight. You bite the inside of your cheek and start typing. 

You plug your phone into the charging cord as you head toward the bathroom to shower and get ready for the evening, so you don't see the two messages Charles sends you.

-

The Ferrari feels different somehow. After Charles sat in your old Renault yesterday, the expensive Ferrari feels strange under him. Not wrong, but different. Like something is missing. 

He feels the stares on him as he steers the car through the streets of Monaco. The gray Ferrari attracts attention, with its red and white stripes and the number 16 on the side. But not just because the 488 Pista Spider is a beautiful car. 

But because people know who owns the car.

The fact that you don't know that Charles is the Charles Leclerc is refreshing for him, but the guilty conscience gnaws at him. He should tell you that he drives in Formula 1, because after all, you would be dragged into the limelight by him, should people find out that you are friends and, above all, that you live together. Before that happens, he should at least give you the opportunity to get out of it. 

But Charles is too selfish for that. 

Even though you've only known each other for a short time, Charles enjoys your company too much to mess it up. You're so normal, so kind, without asking for anything in return like most want him to do. You're just you. And by God, he's never felt better than in his short time with you. 

He expertly steers the Ferrari into a parking garage entrance, where he has to type a pin into the designated keypad next to him before the barrier. The barrier opens so that he can drive a few meters further, where a metal gate awaits him, where he also has to enter a pin - a different one. Only then does he reach the parking lot that rightfully belongs to him. 

It has been some time since he has been here. After driving the last race of the season in Abu Dhabi about three weeks ago and becoming vice world champion, he had stayed on site for a short time to soak up some sun and recover from the stress before flying back to Maranello with his team for a final briefing and to discuss the upcoming season. But even that only lasted a few days. He could have been back in Monaco by now. 

But he didn't want to. 

He knew exactly what was waiting for him here. A conversation he wanted to delay as long as possible. He didn't stay away from Monaco for so long for no reason, and he wondered if he hadn't returned too soon. But he can't, first, avoid this conversation, and second, stay away from his home. He loves it here too much for that. Just like other things he'd rather not think about right now. 

In the elevator, he puts his key in the designated hole and then presses the button with the number of the floor where his apartment is located. Just a few weeks ago, he thought that if he entered this building again, his heart would be beating wildly in his chest or his palms would be sweaty, but he is not even nervous. 

He knows what's waiting for him behind the elevator door. And he's ready to wrap things up.

Charles enters the apartment as he has thousands of times before. And just like hundreds of times before, he hears the sound of footsteps on the floor moving quickly in his direction. But never before has he felt this indifference to those footsteps. 

"Charles?" A woman comes out of the room where the living room is located and rushes toward him with her arms outstretched. When she reaches him, she wraps her arms around his torso to hold him close, but Charles puts his hands on her shoulders and gently but firmly pushes her away. "Charles, I'm so sorry. What I did is inexcusable and I will-"

"'You won't do anything,'" he interrupts her, wishing he could jump in the shower to wash her touch off him. "I'm just here to get some things. And to ask you to stop calling." He walks past her down the hall and into the room where his clothes are. 

"And I told you I would do everything I could to make this right between us," the woman says as she follows him. She places herself in the doorway with her arms crossed as he packs some of his clothes into a large gym bag. "I'm not ready to give up on us yet, Charles. I love you."

Charles can't stop the laughter that escapes him. After stuffing several pairs of socks into his side pocket, he turns to her and puts a hand on his hip. "You gave us up when you fucked that guy, Annika. And dare you to talk about love. You don't even know what that is."

As his phone vibrates in his pocket, he fishes it out. A message from Y/N. He doesn't even notice that a small smile creeps onto his face at that. 

But she does. "Who's that? Do you have a new one already?" 

Charles quickly types a reply and presses send before turning back to his clothes. "No," he says coldly. "And even if it were, it wouldn't be any of your business."

"Of course it's my business!" Annika almost screeches as she takes a few steps toward him. "I'm your girlfriend, after all!"

"You," Charles zips up the bag and stands in front of her, "are the absolute last person I want anything to do with." He pushes past her into the hallway, where he drops the bag on the floor to go into the bedroom, where some odds and ends are waiting for him to take as well.

Annika follows him like a dog follows its master. "And why do you let me stay here then?"

"Because I'm nice."

"You're not that nice. We both know that."

Charles looks at the picture frames sitting on the windowsill. Among them is a picture of him and his father when Charles was little and went karting. It's a fond memory that he certainly doesn't want to leave here with her. "I've changed."

In disbelief, Annika laughs. "Never. In the two years we were together, I asked you so many times for things that should have been natural for a relationship, but what came from you? Nothing." Now it's her turn to put her hands on her hips. "You're so focused on your job that you don't notice what's going on around you! If you had paid more attention to me, then-"

"Then what? Then you wouldn't have slept with that idiot? Then we would have been happy forever? Peace and happiness?" Charles takes some pictures out of the frames and carefully lays them on top of each other so they don't scratch. He would leave the frames here, after all, they were gifts from Annika. And he definitely doesn't want to keep them. "Grow up, Annika. You knew what you were getting into from the start."

"But not that I have to share you with the whole world." Slowly, she walks toward him and as she stands in front of him, she places her perfectly manicured hands against his chest. "You're all I've ever wanted, Charles. But you were never there. And even when you were there, your mind was always at work or somewhere else, but never with me."

She's not exactly wrong about that. The season had cost him quite a few nerves and he definitely hadn't been a good boyfriend, and maybe none of this would have happened if he had paid more attention to her. But that's definitely not a justification for what she did. Charles knows his worth. And that's exactly why he clasps Annika's wrists with his thumbs and forefingers to take her hands off him. 

"For not being a good boyfriend, I am truly sorry." He drops her hands. "But that's no reason to cheat. You and I are done." Charles leaves the bedroom and grabs his bag in the hallway before heading for the elevator door. 

"You're leaving? Just like that? Throwing away two years like they never happened?"

Again, his phone vibrates in his pocket. Another message from Y/N, making his heart skip a beat. He grins to himself and types a response that, under different circumstances, he might have thought twice about. But the quicker he replies, the quicker he's out of this place and back to you. 

"I'm not throwing it away, you already did." Charles puts his phone back in his pocket and presses the button to make the elevator come. "I'm letting you stay here because I know how bad I've been to you and that this year hasn't been so easy for you either. But if I need this place one day, for whatever reason, you're out of here. And I don't care where you end up. Find someplace to live. Move back in with your parents. But this," he points to the space between you, "is over. Forever."

Annika runs a hand through her hair, then crosses her arms in front of her chest. "Then I hope for your sake that you treat them better than you treat me."

The elevator door opens, but Charles doesn't move a bit. Instead, he looks at his ex-girlfriend, who stands before him with raised eyebrows. "Who do you mean?" 

"Do you think I'm that stupid? Or blind?" She points her finger at his pants pocket. "The person you just answered immediately."

"And what's so special about that?" he asks, confused. 

Annika takes a step toward him. "You always make everyone wait for you. You make your fans wait for good results, your friends wait for calls. You even make your mother wait for you, because I'm pretty sure she doesn't know you're home yet." Annika stops in front of him. "But whoever that is - that person has all your attention. She doesn't have to wait for you. Let me give you a hint along the way, Charlie."

"Don't call me that. And I don't need your help."

"And even if you did." Annika stretches her arm out, past him, so the elevator door doesn't close. "The fact that she doesn't have to wait for you is good. Don't make her wait for you, too. It's not fair to her. And not to you, either."

As he sits back in the Ferrari - the sports bag and pictures safely stowed in the trunk - he doesn't know what to do with himself. 

Charles made it clear to Annika that their relationship was over, and it had been overdue for at least a month. But what she said at the end stuck. 

He actually keeps everyone waiting, which is why he keeps blaming himself. He could have told his mother he was back in Monaco a long time ago, but somehow he didn't. He could have told you that he's not just Charles, but he didn't, and so he keeps you waiting for the truth that you know nothing about. 

Would you even want to be friends with him anymore if you knew who he was? Or would you want to be friends with him all the more? 

Never, he thinks to himself. That's not who you are. And he can say that even though you've only known each other for a short time. 

And even though you've only known each other for two days, you're all he can think about. He thinks about how you sat together on the grass and talked about his father. He thinks about how you cried at Cars. He thinks about how you flirted with him even though, in your opinion, it wasn't flirting (it was to him, of course; he wanted to know how to win you over for a reason). He thinks about how you told him about your ex-boyfriend and how he would love to beat him up. He thinks of you standing next to each other in the kitchen washing the dishes. 

He thinks of you standing in front of him dressed only in a towel. With bare shoulders and bare legs and that - if he would get the opportunity again - he would not hesitate to pull you into the bedroom and fuck you with his tongue, his fingers or his cock in such a way that he would ruin all other men for you.

Charles closes his eyes briefly to get the image of you on his mind, and then drives off. He would love to drive to the lookout and talk to his father about the situation, but somehow it doesn't feel right without you there. 

But he can't talk to you about it either, because it involves you, and although it would certainly be best, he doesn't have the heart to tell you the truth. Not because he doesn't trust you, but because he's afraid of losing you. 

He slaps his hand against his forehead. "Get a grip, damn it," he says to himself. The two of you haven't even touched, and he's thinking about how he'd take you on every surface in the small apartment. That's just not normal. 

And most of all, it's not fair. You confided in him about your ex-boyfriend because Charles is your friend. And your roommate. And that's what he needs to be to you. 

It wouldn't be fair for him to get into a relationship with you because one, you don't know who exactly he is, and two, he can never be what you need him to be. You need someone who is there for you, who takes time for you. Someone you can laugh and cry with. Not someone who is away most weeks of the year and can't even manage to call his own mother. 

You would always be waiting for him. And even though he doesn't want to agree with Annika, he has to. The whole thing is not fair to you. 

And so he deletes the last two messages he sent you, which you apparently haven't read yet, as he parks his Ferrari in an underground garage and walks the last few meters to your apartment. 

He decides that he is your friend. Only your friend. Because he has to be, and because he can't be anything else. Because you need a real friend, and not a relationship. 

Charles unlocks the apartment door and drops the gym bag to the floor beside him. 

"Charles?" Unlike Annika's voice, his heart starts to beat faster at yours and his palms start to sweat, so he quickly wipes them on his jeans. You come out of the bathroom dressed in dark gray jeans and a white blouse that accentuates your curves. As you stand in front of him, you turn once so he can check you out from all sides. In all his life, he's never seen anyone look so divine. "I'm sorry, I wasn't sure what to wear. I hope that's all right."

His smile is gentle and he hopes you don't notice how hard he has to swallow, and he would have loved to wrap you in his arms and never let you go. But his ex-girlfriend is still clinging to him, and before you touch each other properly for the first time, he wants her washed off.

It's not fair.

"It's okay," he says with a smile and goes to the fridge for a glass of orange juice. You stop by the apartment door next to the gym bag, but don't ask where the stuff is from. And for that, he's very grateful. "I'm just going to jump in the shower and then we can go, okay?"

He doesn't wait for your answer as he pulls new clothes out of his suitcase, walks into the bathroom, undresses, and stands under the hot stream of water. Even now, he keeps you waiting, which further solidifies his decision to keep your relationship purely platonic. While he's shampooing his hair, he makes a deal with himself that he'll do whatever it takes to make this friendship work. Even if that means suppressing his feelings. 

As he leaves the bathroom freshly showered and ready to go, you sit on the couch. He's looking at you, thinking about what Annika said, what he'd like to do with you, and all the things he could lose. And all of that just isn't fair. 

"I'm sorry you had to wait for me," he says softly, reaching for your car key that's on the dining room table. It feels better in his hand than the one from the Ferrari. So familiar. Like the key will fulfill everything he's ever wanted. 

"It's okay," you reply, getting up from the couch. You take a few steps toward him and smile at him, and his heart melts. "I'm fine with waiting."

the messages Charles deleted -

next part

[kitasuno]

3AM ; ex!wriothesley x fem!reader

(´• ω •`) | modern au where wriothesley is drunk. and your ex. so why is he at your dorm at 3AM?

skincare, cuddles, fluff, angst if you squint

clorinde 2:56 AM: back together with wriothesley already?

clorinde 2:56 AM: that was fast

you 2:57 AM: WDYM???!??!?!?!? im so over him

you 2:57 AM: why? 

clorinde is typing… 

you 2:58 AM: don’t tell me… he’s at the door again?

clorinde 3:00 AM: yep. said he’s here for his girlfriend

you 3:01 AM: DONT LET HIM IN

clorinde reacted with Whoops!

you 3:02 AM: tell him im almost home…

wriothesley is drunk. he’s slumped on your pink fuzzy toilet cover, eyes fluttering closed as you lean in the bathroom doorway. 

“didn’t we break up?” you ask, laughing at the way he perks up at your voice, his hands encircling your waist as you step in between his legs. 

“somethin’ like that,” he slurs, fingers curling around your waist, “but you always do my skincare before bed.”

you brush his hair out of his eyes, pinning his bangs back with a sparkly kuromi clip, ignoring the way he melts into your touch. you bite your lip and sigh as you wipe his face with a damp washcloth. his pretty blue eyes bore into yours as he scans your features. 

“haven’t seen you in a week. why didn’t you respond to my texts?” he asks, cocking his head.

“hold still, wriothesl-”

“wrio.” he interrupts, grip tightening around your waist. “it’s wrio to you.”

you laugh, tilting his chin up, nails grazing against his neck as he complains about ‘those damn acrylics’. 

“okay, wrio,” you smile, rubbing essence into his t-zone. “isn’t that a nickname reserved for girlfriends only?” 

a beat of silence. he looks confused. “you are my girlfriend?”

you tap his bottom lip and he puckers them obediently, eyebrows furrowed as you apply a thin coat of cherry chapstick. “nope,” you say, patting his cheeks. “you broke up with me last week.”

“why would i ever break up with you?” he asks incredulously, wincing as you apply cool lotion on his eye bags. they look darker than usual, you note, gentle with your touch as your fingers linger. 

“something about me distracting you from school,” you say. “you said you were too in love with me.” 

“i would never-” 

“listen, wrio,” you sigh, a finger on his lips as you silence him. “i don’t know. maybe you need some time away from me.”

wriothesley bites at your finger in retaliation and you yelp in surprise. 

“ow! motherfucker,” you mutter, flicking his chin. “some ex you are.” 

wriothesley ignores you, standing up from his position on your pink toilet. he’s sobered up now. “boyfriend,” he corrects, towering over you as you squint up at him. 

“you broke up with me.”

he bends down to press his forehead to the crevice of your neck, mumbling into your chest. “then will you be my girlfriend?” 

“you’re drunk.” you reply, hands reaching up to play with his hair. “we’ll talk about this tomorrow, wriothesley.”

“it’s wrio,” he whines again. “be my girlfriend.” 

“tomorrow,” you sigh, shuffling the two of you over to your twin bed. “we’ll talk tomorrow.” 

“will you say yes tomorrow?” he asks, curling into your side as you crawl under the blankets. 

“maybe.” you mutter. 

“not sleeping until you say yes.” 

you laugh, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “okay. sure. yes.” 

he’s out like a light, snores light as you sigh into his hair. it’s not long until your eyes flutter shut as well. 

clorinde 10:08 AM : One Attachment

clorinde 10:09 AM : cute

clorinde 10:09 AM: back together?

you 10:10 AM: yep…

[keikikait]

ꜱᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀꜱ (ɢᴏᴊᴏ x ꜰ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ)

pairing: gojo x f!reader (not au, gojo is 29, reader is early-mid 20’s)

word count: 2.6k

summary: you always wanted to be a teacher, even after discovering the jujutsu world. after graduating from kyoto jujutsu high, you decided to make your dreams a reality and teach at the sister school, tokyo jujutsu high. the only downside (and secret upside), is your teaching mentor, satoru gojo. what started as a few flirtatious glances turned into a full-blown relationship situationship. you were his, and he was yours, until he goes on a date.

warnings: (FOR THIS PART) angst?, plot with basically no porn (i’m sorry), gojo is kind of an asshole & a tease, implied dom!gojo and sub!reader, nickname use [baby, pretty girl], no use of y/n  

a note: been sitting on this bad boy for a while and decided to finish it. more parts to come (eventually). also, the comment about flirty baristas is just for fluff, baristas don’t flirt with customers (source: i am one). also also, they say tokyo jujutsu high is on the outskirts of tokyo, but i wanted everything to be inside of tokyo so i just kinda guessed, whoops.

please reblog and like, it means a lot! let me know what you think!

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You were just his teaching assistant. Nothing more.

At least, that’s what everyone else thinks.

Secretly, you were his. After long hours, he would find solace in your arms as you lay in bed together. 

You weren’t dating by any means, although you wanted to. You understood why, it wouldn’t be a good look for you or Gojo if the higher-ups found out about you, but you both had an understanding. You were exclusive, just not publicly. You followed his rules, turning down dates and avoiding the flirtatious gazes of baristas or waiters.

You thought he would follow his own rules, too.

It was supposed to be a fun trip; a peaceful eight days of relaxing in Nikko before returning to school after the winter break ended. In reality, it was a week and some change stuck in a log cabin hunched over a desk grading papers, freezing from the cold. The gender-segregated cabins didn’t help. It was too cold to venture into Nikko during the day, a thick layer of snow covering the ground at all times no matter how much was shoveled. It was also, as Gojo had pointed out the day before making the trip, suspicious for the two of you to venture into the city alone. It was twice as hard to be away from him at night, you had gotten so accustomed to sleeping in his arms and hearing his soft snores in your ear. You were lonely.

You could see him, though. The men’s cabin was bigger and had a massive irori in the middle that heated the entire place. You sat with him as you graded and planned lessons, and his teasing touches left you aching. You were going on 8 days without his dick, and you were dying.

As you sit hunched over the desk, trying to make out what Yuji had written on his worksheet, Shoko bounds up to the table, sliding into a chair opposite Gojo. 

“Hey, Gojo,” she says. “Are you going to the winter festival when we get back?”

You tried not to react. You had begged him to go with you, but he always gave you the same excuse; it was suspicious.

He stretches his legs out a bit and smirks. “I was planning on stopping by. Why?”

Shoko smiles. “I have this friend, Himiko. She’s new to the city and was looking for a date for the festival. I’ve been telling her all about you, I honestly think you would be an amazing match. What do you say?”

You feel your heart drop to your stomach. Although you and Gojo had agreed to stay exclusive, you couldn’t ignore that he was Satoru Gojo. Everyone wanted him.

Gojo chuckles a little, adjusting his mask. “Sure. I don’t see why not. Is she cute?”

Shoko leans over the table and shows him Himiko’s social media while you keep your head down, staring at the pile of worksheets in front of you.

You keep grading, trying to focus on your work and not the feeling of your heart tearing in two. Gojo continues laughing and talking to Shoko, their conversation drowned out by your heartbeat pounding in your ears. You wish you could ignore your jealousy, but it’s hard to ignore the anxiety creeping up your spine at the thought of Gojo finding someone else, especially if he could go public with them.

You know his reputation; the ladies' man, the bachelor. The guy no one can catch. But you know the real Gojo, the one that stays over at your small apartment even though he has his own, bigger place. The one that cuddles you every morning and whines when you try to get up and get ready.

You don’t know this Gojo. You felt like strangers.

For the rest of the day, you kept to yourself, grading papers and reading books to try to drown out the thoughts. He isn’t even looking at you when you leave the men’s cabin and head back to your own. You and the rest of the staff leave Nikko tonight, and you have one more day of freedom back in Tokyo before the new term begins.

You pack up your stuff and wait outside the bus, shoving your suitcase into the undercarriage. A headcount is done before you all start piling onto the bus. You sit in the back, pressed up against the frost-covered window. Headphones in and music blaring, you only look up from your phone when you feel someone warm sit next to you.

You’re a little surprised when you look up to see Gojo getting comfortable next to you. He didn’t sit next to you on the ride to Nikko, he sat up at the front with Shoko and Akari, claiming it would be suspicious if you sat together. He leans closer, so close that you can almost feel his breath on your neck. Then he grabs your arm, moving your headphones out of your ear.

“Don’t wear these in public,” he says in a low voice, “Someone might grab you from behind and pull you into the crowd.” He leans into you and whispers, “I almost missed you sitting back here.”

You should be mad, but you can’t be. His smell fills your nostrils and you feel yourself succumbing to him. You smile softly. “You didn’t, though.”

"I didn't." He leans back and sighs, resting his hands behind his head and stretching his arms out. You enjoy the warmth coming from him, the way it spreads through you. "What do you want to do when we get back home? We can head out to a bar and grab a drink. Or we could go get some ramen from that place you like. Or we can just go back to your place and we can spend some…quality time together.”

You bite your lip a little. You’re normally a little feral when it comes to Gojo, but going without his touch for eight days has almost sent you into a frenzy. “I like the sound of that last one…”

Gojo laughs and squeezes your hand, running his thumb along your knuckles. "And how bad do you want it?" He leans in closer until his face is inches away from yours. You can feel the heat radiating from his body, the tension in the air. "How badly do you miss me, baby?"

You can hardly think straight. Your mind is telling you to push him off, to stay upset with him for accepting that date with Shoko’s friend, whatever her name was. But your heart, and more importantly your pussy, is telling you differently.

Your mouth feels like cotton, but you manage to say, “So badly, Gojo. I’ve been aching without you. These past eight days have been driving me crazy.”

Gojo chuckles and traces your chin with his fingers, leaning even closer as his face towers over yours. "You missed me, huh? My pretty girl didn’t do so good without me, did she?" He strokes your cheek gently, smiling as you lean into his touch, feeling goosebumps rise on your skin. "Say it. Tell me what you've been wanting to tell me for the last eight days, what you didn't want to say in front of everyone."

The bus suddenly lurches and you remember where you are, on a cramped bus surrounded by your coworkers. You look around, nervous, hoping nobody caught you guys.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Gojo asks. He grabs your chin and turns you to face him. “Look at me.”

You do, nodding softly. You can’t see his eyes, but you can still feel him staring into your soul. “I am looking.”

“Then answer my question.” He says, dragging his thumb across your lips. You can hardly think straight already being this close to him, but the feeling of his thumb on your mouth is mind-numbing. 

“I missed you,” you whimper. It’s been a long eight days since you last felt his touch, since you last felt his breath on your skin. As he continues to stroke your lip with his thumb, you feel your mind melt away into a puddle. His touch is like a drug, and you’re desperate to not end this feeling.

“I know you have.” He coos, moving his hand down as someone up by the front gets up from their seat to change positions. He waits until they sit down before speaking again, “I’ve missed you too.”

You sink further into the seat, hoping no one looks towards the back. The bus ride isn’t super long, only about two and a half hours. Maybe no one would think to check on you two until you made it back to Tokyo.

He reaches over and turns your face towards him again. “But that’s not all, is it?” His thumb glides across your neck, his eyes under his mask flicking between your own and your lips. You can’t look away. You don’t want to. “What else have you been thinking about?”

You gulp, your mouth dry. "It's been so hard without you. It's hard to fall asleep...and I've barely gotten any sleep here because I stay up all night thinking about you."

"You have?" His eyes search your face as his thumb strokes the length of your neck. "I haven't had the best sleep either. I kept thinking about you, about how much I missed you. Thinking about all of the things I wanted to do to you when I got back." He takes a deep breath, his eyes flicking to your lips, his breath coming out in hot puffs of air. "You make it so hard for me to have self-control. Do you know how hard it is to jerk off with Masamichi and Kiyotaka nearby?"

You nod, understanding him completely. You had tried to touch yourself, too, hoping that your fingers would feel the same but it felt weird to do it with Shoko and Akari in the same cabin. “I know. I haven’t cum since we left Tokyo.”

He hears the soft whine in your voice and grins. "You’re so tempting," His breath washes over you as he whispers those words in your ear. His hands trail from your neck to your cheek, his thumb brushing along your jawline. "Do you know what I want to do with you when we get to your place? What I'm thinking about doing to you right now?"

The bus takes a sharp turn going down the mountain and it snaps both of you back to reality for a second. 

You notice his hands still on you. Gojo notices too and grins, removing his hands with a sigh. He leans back into the seat. "Sorry," he says, running his hands through his hair. "I was a little carried away there." He chuckles. "We have a while before the bus arrives. I think maybe I should go to the front before I do anything stupid."

You go to protest but he’s already gone, striding to the front of the bus effortlessly as it rocks side to side, plopping himself next to Akari. You sit there, your body still feeling the heat of his hands, his words still ringing in your ears. You sink deeper into the seat as you try to calm down. You watch him for a while, seeing how he talks and laughs with Akari and Shoko and the way he never glances back toward you. 

You feel like a stranger to him, yet he’s the one who’s supposed to be yours. You were supposed to be together, even though your situation is less than ideal. The bus rocks back and forth, its engines humming quietly. You lean your head back against the seat, letting out a deep sigh. Your mind races, wondering how Gojo acts when you're not around. Did he only accept this date with Himiko to make Shoko happy? Why wasn't it ever you that made him happy?

You sniffle, blinking away the tears as you pull down the food tray and prop your phone up. You put on your favourite movie, hoping the familiar faces of the characters will distract you until you reach Tokyo. Occasionally you look up at him, hoping you’ll catch his eye before he goes back to his conversation but you don’t. He doesn’t look at you once.

The movie sucks you in like it has many times before. You don’t notice how fast time is moving, silver-tipped mountains giving way to serene towns and stretched farmland. It’s late, almost 1 am, and as soon as you feel yourself starting to fall asleep you feel the bus stop and hear the driver announce your arrival, right in front of Tokyo Jujutsu High.

You look over to see him already heading off of the bus with Shoko and Akari, heading in the direction of Kabukicho, laughing about an inside joke you’ll never be a part of. You grab your bag from the undercarriage and head to the train to head back to your apartment in Taito-Ku.

The train is packed full of tired salarymen and high school students, none of whom bother you. Your thoughts drift to Gojo as the train shakes and shudders its way back home. When the train finally reaches Taito-Ku’s station, you exit the train and head down the stairs, stepping out into the frozen city. You walk to your apartment and head inside, shutting the door to your small, solitary room.

You lie awake, hoping he’ll call you, or even show up at your front door drunk. It wouldn’t be the first time. The minutes turn into hours, your eyes shifting rapidly as you glance between your phone and the door. You start to wonder if he’s thinking about you as much as you’re thinking about him right now. And what he’s thinking. You glance at your clock. 2:57 AM.

You shouldn’t feel disappointed, but you do. He could’ve at least texted you and told you he would be out with his friends for the night instead of being curled up with you watching a cooking show. You’re his, but you’re not his girlfriend. He has no obligation to do anything with you, really, but you wish he would. You wish he cared enough to want to.

Your eyes glance back toward your phone and you hesitate. You mumble a curt fuck before picking it up and calling him. The phone is ice cold against your cheek as it rings. You wonder what your contact name is on his phone. Your name? Your name and a heart? Or is it just your number, unsaved?

He answers and you can hear faint music in the background. “Hey, baby.”

You smile a little, biting your lip. “Hi. I just wanted to see if you were coming over tonight.”

You hear him groan a little, but you don’t know if it’s out of annoyance with you or how late it is. “Yeah, I was planning on it. But uh, Shoko brought her friend tonight, Himiko. The one I’m going to the festival with.”

You nearly choke on your spit. The way he was so casual about his date with Himiko made you feel sick. “Oh, did she?”

“Yeah, baby. How are you though-” His words are interrupted by a female voice in the background begging for him to come back inside. “Uh, listen, I gotta go. I’ll be home soon, okay?”

“Okay, I-” The call ends, your phone beeping at you as he hangs up. You set your phone aside, face down, as you lay back on your bed. 

You feel ashamed as you cry. Gojo isn’t your boyfriend, and he has a reputation to uphold with his colleagues. You should be fine with it, but you aren’t, and it kills you. You bury your face in your pillow as you sob, hoping one day you and Gojo can stop being strangers.

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part two is here

[beiibeiii]

i'm stuck in loops of your mind

husband!arlecchino x wife!reader angst

tw - character death mentioned, angst, sad arle, grieving, two endings?, fluff, soft arle, arles bday special, icl this is really shit 💀, kinda late whoops, not really that sad now that im finished with this 💀 not proofread at all

the day starts early in the morning, with the feeling of her arms wrapped around you. you two are both in your bed. her warm body was pressed against yours, her pyro vision heating you up throughout the night. the sun was barely in the sky. just raising across the clear horizon. the feeling of peacefulness flowing through the atmosphere. arlecchino's hand gently stroking through the soft locks of your hair. her softened eyes lazily gaze over your sleeping form. your soft little breaths and the way you just looked in her arms had her hooked, absolutely mesmerised. you had her wrapped around your finger without even knowing it. you looked so perfect, even with your messy bed hair. you were endearing. she felt her heart swell in love. she wanted to wake up to this sight every day.

the sun starts to peek through the curtains now. you feel yourself stir awake. you feel her arms enveloped around you, her hand idly playing with your hair, carefully massaging your scalp. taking time to not accidentally scratch you with her nails. your eyes flutter open, adjusting to the light.

"good morning.. arle.." you groaned out softly. arlecchino looks down at you, your sleepy gaze meeting hers. you already knew today was arlecchino's birthday. you wanted to shower her with so much love today. you had already secretly been planning so much for today.

"good morning, my dear." arlecchino mumbles, lowly, back. you smile, your eyes curling up in happiness as you cup her face, a hint of sloppiness evident in your movements. she leans into your touch as if it was muscle memory to her. your eyes flutter closed as your lips fall onto hers. the kiss was sweet. you can feel her lips curl up against your mouth. she loved the feeling of your soft lips against hers. it was addicting.

arlecchino lets out low hum of content. pulling away, your eyes flutter open to her loving gaze. "happy birthday, peruere. i love you." your voice is laced with love. a soft, sleepy smile adorns your face. your thumb is gently rubbing her pale skin. arlecchino feels her heart fill with compassion. there it was, her real name. she feels as if time slowed down. the way the sunlight beamed on your face. how her name rolled off your tongue so easily. it broke down her cold walls she had boxed herself in with. her expressions softens a little more.

she feels the tips of her ears heating up already, the day hadn't even begun yet. she wanted to stay in this moment with you, forever. her lips curl up. you were just so perfect. "how did i get so lucky? i love you so much, my dear." arlecchino mumbles under her breath lovingly.

the two of you bask in each others warmth a while longer. whispering sweet things into each others ears as the sun fully rises. there was no need to get up so early today. you was excited as you had spent all week planning her surprise with the children. you just couldn't wait to see her reaction. how her lips would purse and how her eyes would narrow, trying to hold back a smile in front of the children. you just loved her so much, and so did she.

and so, when you do get up at around 10am. arlecchino walks off into her office to go finish reading a report. she tells you she'll be done quickly. good this is perfect! you manage to slip away from arlecchino's gaze and meet up outside with the children. as you greet them all. lyney starts helping by tasking everyone what to do. you making sure everything looks alright and in place in time. you were all going to surprise arlecchino with a barbecue dinner. not long after, as arlecchino finishes her papers, you and the children had just finished up. you give your thanks to lyney, lynette, freminet and the rest of the house of the hearth.

you quickly walk back inside, going to look for her, trying to hold back that massive smile on your face. you felt like a giddy teenager, you were so excited! as you were walking up to her office arlecchino walks out. greeting you with a small hum, noticing your happy expression. her eyebrows furrow in confusion. what had you done?

"you look happy, did something happen?" she muses, an eyebrow of hers raising in curiosity. the corner of your eyes crinkle as you smile, grabbing her by the wrist lightly and tugging her lightly.

"i have a surprise for you! come on!" you looked so happy, your smile brightening her whole world. without an other word, arlecchino lets herself be dragged outside by you. you lightly tug her pass the hallways and to the grand doors leaning outside. your hand lets go of her, going to her side as you lean your body onto hers, flashing her a cheeky smile as you look up at her. "open the door!" you ask her excitedly.

though she was skeptical, arlecchino chuckles to herself lightly. her gaze softening seeing your enthusiastic in your bright eyes was everything to her. "alright, my dear. here i go now." her voice is soft as her hand lightly ruffles your hair. her hand now on the doorknob, twisting it unlocked and walking out.

arlecchino is met by an attack of party poppers. a loud shout of "happy birthday!" is heard. the colourful, bright confetti getting all over the both of us. her lips part as her gaze momentarily softens. she was not expecting this at all.. you laugh softly at her surprised reaction. the children has paper, party hats on their heads arlecchino sees balloons around the place. a barbecue, her favourite of course, and a 3 layered cake saying "happy birthday father." on it. the candles are lit, it looks like it had been made by the children with a little help from you. arlecchino stands there, covered in confetti almost speechless. even if she didn't show it, you could tell she was happy.

you turn to her with a gentle smile on your face. you hands in her hair to pull some confetti of out it. "do you like it?" you question, your head tilting to the side, your eyes turning into half moons. arlecchino lets out a small sigh, smiling ever so slightly.

"i love it. thank you my dear." she replies, gazing at your gentle look. her heart swelled with love. feeling cared for and appreciated. the fact you and everyone had put in so much effort for her, meant so much more to her than you'd ever imagine. the children cheer happily. giggling and laughing with each other lyney walks up to arlecchino with the birthday cake in hand. lynette and freminet stood behind him. the trio had light smiles.

"happy birthday father. you should make a wish." lyney says with a kind smile. arlecchino lets out a low hum, looking down at the cake. the cake was definitely not perfect, but she knew it was baked from pure love. there was no cake sweeter than one made from love. arlecchino glances at you momentarily, slightly hesitant? you flash her a smile, urging her on.

she nodded, closing her eyes as she made a wish. a wish that meant everything to her. she blows the candles out, and the party starts.

the party goes on for a few hours. it was lively, fun occasion. the children playing with each other. the delicious smell of the barbecue fills the air. the smoke going up in the clear blue skies. you all enjoy a lovely barbecue dinner. she received gifts and cards from the children. you just could see arlecchino's content expression. she was so beautiful like this. your hand finds its way into hers. your wedding rings together. her hand firmly squeezing yours.

"this means the world to me. thank you, my dear." she mumbles lowly to you. her words full of warmth and love.

the day ends, arlecchino finds herself outside with you near a river. the two of you watch the sunset together. the beautiful golden rays reflect onto the river. taking in the serene view in front of the both of you. the setting sun painted the sky in a glorious blend of orange, red, and purple hues, casting long shadows across yourselves. tranquility in the air. the setting sun sets across the horizon in a picturesque view. the water ripples ever gently, almost as if it was dancing to the setting sun. trees rustling gently in the calm summer breeze. her facial expression was soft.

"i love you, my dear. thank you for today." she tells you softly. she turns to face to you. her gaze full of love.

fic can end here for fluff ending stop reading if u dont want angst ending

there was no reply to her sweet words. of course. arlecchino's gaze falls upon the roses and small slice of birthday cake in front of your grave. she freezes at the loud silence. her eyes narrowing, the reality dawning upon her, crawling up her spine and into her heart just to split it open. the whole day had gone the same. just without you. you wasn't real. you were dead.

her mind was stuck in denial. the visions of you etched into her mind, burning into her memories. the memories of you stuck on repeat, in loops of her mind. she only feels, seeing your face. the feeling of grief implodes her mind. "i hope you enjoy the cake. the children baked it themself." she continues hesitantly. what a bitter feeling.

she lets out a uneven sigh of despair. "the children were good today. they surprised me." she muses, a small bittersweet smile. trying to reassure you more than herself. the small crack in her voice evident. the silence was so deafening. "you know, they miss you too.." her voice is followed by a tremble. she feels stupid trying to talk to you. her heart feels restricted. her hand grips onto her blouse. fuck her chest felt so tight. the irony of the situation falling into her she feels so weak for once. why couldn't she of saves you, she should of saved you.

"i miss you." she whispers lowly. her voice on the verge of breaking now. the cruel truth caving in on her, leaving no way out. it had already been a few months. she couldn't accept it. it was too much. it affected her more then she wanted to admit. she feels the despair bubbling up and into her head wanting to release, to let it all out.

she closes her eyes, carefully leaning her head on your grave. her heart heavy, plummeting down to depths arlecchino didn't even know existed. she feels a cold tear run down her cheek. the darkness of the night and the harsh reality of life would start casting over her. she would stay there. talking to you until the sun would rise. her voice was full of bittersweetness.

god she missed you so much.

"i love you, so, so much, my dear."