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randomfoggytiger · 9 months ago

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The Scully Family In-Depth (Part XV): "Other Fathers", Deleted Scenes, and "Things to Prove"

Never Again is precipitated by Dana Scully’s sidekick complex, a trickle down from her childhood daddy issues. While I’ve discussed her feeling of neglect with regards to Mulder (posts here and here), this analysis will zero in on Scully’s strivings for perfection, feelings of neglect, and subsequent discouragement and rebellion blooming from a failure to secure someone’s pride and attention.

FATHER COMPLEXES

The first time Scully displayed vulnerability in Beyond the Sea was at her father's funeral, pleading with her mother for reassurance: “Was he at all proud of me?” By the end of the episode, she takes Maggie’s “He was your father” to heart, turning down a chance to give her father a final goodbye via the shady conduit Boggs.

After her abduction and return, Scully meets her father once again in the land between Life and Death. Standing at his daughter’s side, Captain Scully pours out his heart in a touching monologue she takes back with her into life.

More importantly, her father was the only person who knew she wouldn’t die--”We’ll be together again, Starbuck. Not now. Soon”-- and Mulder the only person who believed in her strength. Scully came back for Mulder, yes; but she still had to process her family’s hopelessness and her father’s visitation.

An interesting and important note: Scully was aware when her family gave up in One Breath-- “When they found me-- after the doctors and even my family had given up, I experienced something that I never told you about. Even now it’s hard to find the words. But there’s one thing I’m certain: as certain as I am of this life, we have nothing to fear when it’s over.”

Melissa, her voice (post here), was right: Scully was right there; and her spirit did speak back and forth with her sister in limbo. Knowing this, it makes sense why Missy pushed Dana so hard to accept every vital part of herself and her experiences in Season 3-- trying to prevent Scully's self-destruction through purposed ignorance.

The only problem is, Scully wasn't-- and isn’t-- sure how to understand her experience: on the one hand, it gives her a sense of peace when facing death (telling Mulder they have nothing to fear in Dod Kalm); but on the other, embracing that experience would require her to embrace other aspects of herself she is running from-- buried memories of her abduction, the paranormal happenings drawing naturally to her (post here), and her own fear of belief.

In A Christmas Carol, Scully can’t sleep because of her father’s disappointment in her career path; in Pilot, she glibly tells the Assistant Directors her parents considered this change “an act of rebellion” (post here); and in Beyond the Sea, she is thrilled to be on closer terms with Captain Scully (though they struggle to connect with unaddressed issues between them, post here.) Her sense of self-worth is attached to her usefulness, which is measured by the praise or adoration she strives to earn from the people she looks up to.

Avoiding instead of internalizing leads Scully from person to person-- man to man specifically-- looking for the acceptance she will only find in herself (all things.)

She is drawn to men that open her mind to new possibilities-- Daniel Waterston, her teacher; Jack Willis, her instructor; Fox Mulder, the paranormal and little green men expert-- but are also devoted to their work and expect her to come along for the ride. Scully, enthralled, follows their lead; but after time passes and she remains second priority, Scully rebels and leaves.

Scully has stayed with Mulder longer than any other romantic partner, miring herself in danger and intrigue and murder for over three years. And she has seemed-- despite the oddity of their situation-- content to be challenged and thrilled over pursuing the domesticity expected from peers her age. Yet Scully takes a sharp left turn in Never Again, contemplating her circular life path and seeking reassurance from Mulder for her decisions-- equally reaching for and rebelling against the second-place position she assumes he places her in.

I’ve already written at length how Mulder completely misinterpreted his partner’s signals (thinking she was resenting him and the work rather than wanting assurance of her place in his life) and that his resulting actions accidentally confirmed Scully’s worst assumptions and fears (compelling her into the arms of Ed Jerse); but cutting that important angle out of this episode, let’s focus on the residuals of her father’s legacy that sends her into an ouroboros of insanity.

MEASURING UP TO SUCCESS

Captain Scully lived in pursuit of accomplishment. “I’ve went at a proper pace-- many rewards-- until the moment that… I knew, I… understood that I would never see you again. My little girl. Then my life felt as if it had been the length of one breath, one heartbeat.” Although decorated properly in his medals of honor, her father's afterlife appears empty and alone, allotting ample time to count his successes while waiting for his loved ones to join.

We see the echoes of that achievement mindset when Scully reexamines her life: the endless cycle of what she’s lost or the little she’s accomplished. The lesson her father tried to impart to her from the world of the Dead is blocked by her unwillingness to fully believe; and the gnawing of bereft dissatisfaction continues to build in the wake of personal tragedies and her partner’s inability to do or express more in their relationship.

THE BEGINNINGS OF ONCE AGAIN

Scully stands behind her partner, tuning out his interrogation of a witness as dissatisfaction starts to pulse through her. Having already dismissed the case, she wanders off, trying to pinpoint or escape her swelling emotions, coming face-to-face with a wall of venerated names. These people are the embodiment of legacy: what they did mattered, who they were is remembered. Their service is recognized; their sacrifice is honored.

Their names may be what draws her, but not what keeps her. Unlike her father, who wanted his named etched in higher rank or bigger history (Personality Type post here), Scully’s attention and emotions are captured by the personal, heartfelt memorial at the bottom of the glistening pillar: “BROTHER, TWENTY YEARS LATER… I STILL MISS YOU. WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID WAS RIGHT.” She slides down silently as her thoughts begin to solidify.

Touching one of the rose petals, she ruminates on the loss of a life so insignificant to the rest of the world but so important to the ones he loved most-- that not only did he matter, but he mattered because what he did was right.

Scully may be a woman who places herself in second position, but she is also a woman that demands respect and devotion-- proof that she is valued, loved, and cherished (Personality Type post here.) Furthermore, Scully lives her life by her morals and ethics, by what is right-- breaking up with Daniel Waterston before crossing an unbreakable line, holding herself to a standard of decency and honor, and demanding Mulder hear the truth even if it's hard to accept.

As of late, there isn’t enough cherishing to balance out her self-doubts; and now that the scales are out of whack, her life seems unfairly disjointed. Because Scully is fixated on identifying and solving her problem, she misdiagnoses its cause, wondering if her presence would even be missed, nullifying the importance of her decisions and choices. And who does Scully look to first to set everything back into order? “Other fathers”-- or in this case, the Ahab to her Starbuck. (And this Ahab completely misses the memo.)

These doubts plague her hours later: holding Mulder’s plate and sitting behind Mulder’s desk in Mulder’s chair, Scully sees her workspace with new eyes, noting how lacking her presence (seemingly) is, despite the devotion she’s poured into the X-Files. The rose petal’s significance has left its mark.

Mulder poking Scully about abandoning him scratches at the open wound of “WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID WAS RIGHT”, flipping her concealed disillusionment into more outward hostility.

Still, she tempers her annoyance, slipping it under Mulder’s radar… until: “Hm. Have you confirmed the identity of these individuals?”

“That’s your assignment while I’m gone.”

Her back immediately arches at assignment: sharp intake of breath, stiffened posture, and lowered eyes-- more signs of her anger. When she refuses, both of them are left frustrated.

“So, you’re refusing an assignment based on the adventures of ‘Moose and Squirrel’?” Mulder teases, battening down his own anger with humor.

“Refusing an assignment? It makes it sound like you’re my superior,” Scully replies, stepping around his olive branch and digging her heels in.

When Mulder snaps, misreading her mood as disinterest in his work, she sighs, cryptically replying, “And it’s become mine.”

Stung, he softly asks, “You don’t want it to be?”

Scully does her best to explain the chaotic whirlpool of emotions sucking her down-- “This isn’t about you. Or maybe it is indirectly, I don’t know. I feel like I’ve lost sight of myself, Mulder. It’s hard to see, let alone find, in the darkness of covert locations. I mean, I wish I could say we’re going in circles, but we’re not. We’re going in an endless line: two steps forward, and three steps back. While my own life is… standing still”--

--but her response isn’t direct enough for Mulder’s suddenly resurrected abandonment issues.

“Well, maybe it’s good we get away from each other for a while,” he surmises, assuming she’s sick of being around him; which causes her to close up, assuming he’s sick of listening to her problems. Then he flees before she can rethink things further; and she sits and feels her admission has been ignored and minimized.

Mulder is her Ahab; but he doesn’t expect subservience in their equal partnership. Now four years in, he and Scully both expect her to waltz off to the next case in his absence; and she is nettled by their assumptions, and he baffled by her response. Scully cannot see past the tall and commanding figure of her father to notice Mulder-- shrinking from her raised hackles, blaming himself for consuming too much of her time, calling her later because he wants her a part of his life, even in absentia-- reading his withdrawal as disapproval and rebuke.

Scully has a long wait for Fight the Future’s declaration. In the meantime, she is crying out for validation and reciprocation; and stumbles across a form of it in Ed Jerse. And after a brief investigation into the Russians and Mulder’s commanding fumble over the phone, she decides to pursue that path as soon as possible.

THE ALLURE OF DISOBEDIENCE

Ed Jerse is her mother’s cigarettes personified: sinful and satisfying, different and dangerous. The tattoo you deserve.

“I’ve always gone around in this, uh… this circle," she tells him. "It usually starts when an authoritative or controlling figure comes into my life. And part of me likes it-- needs it, wants the approval-- but then at a certain point, along the way I just… y’know.

“My father was a Navy captain. I worshiped… I worship.. the sea that he sailed on. And,” she admits, looking down or up or away to keep her emotions in check, “when I was thirteen or so, I went through this… thing where I would sneak out of my parents' house and smoke my mother’s cigarettes.”

Her monologue in the bar exactly parallels Luthor Lee Boggs’s extracted confession in Beyond the Sea: “There was... that one time when I was fourteen and my parents had gone to bed and I snuck downstairs all alone. Got one of my mom's cigarettes and went out onto the porch in the dark. I was so scared: my heart was beating-- I mean, they would have killed me if they knew. But I was so excited. Not because of the cigarette-- I mean it was gross, but... because I wasn't supposed to.”

Even now, her eyes light up in recollection, a sly smile pulling at the corners of her lips.

“And I did it because I knew that if he found out, he would kill me. And then, ” Scully wraps up, halting as her voice drops in disgust, “There are other… fathers.”

“Sounds a little like… your time has come around again,” Ed posits, smooth and attentive with his unspoken promise of a good time. “I want things more like a straight line,” he adds; and so compelled is Scully that she forgets a straight, endless line is worse to her than an endless cycle.

To commemorate her breakthrough, Scully inks the chains of her life onto her back… in the same place where Mulder frequently steers her around. The tattoo she deserves, after all: trying to turn her self-punishment into liberation; glorying in the pain-- in the wrongness of it all-- in an effort to produce something new and exciting and beautiful. Starbuck, thou art aptly named.

All for naught.

“All this because I,” Mulder questions after it’s all over, “because I didn’t get you a desk?”

Scully is once again caressing the rose petal; but looks up, surprised, that he bothers to ask her about anything other than their next case. Seeing that he’s serious, that he’s willing to listen, she says, “Not everything is about you, Mulder. This is my life.”

Scully has figured out, rather late, that “other fathers” were not at play here: that her search for approval was an effort to conceal her aching loneliness because Mulder-- no matter how good his intentions-- isn’t ready to be a part of “my life.”

And Mulder intuits this, too; and falls silent.

ADDRESSING MEMENTO MORI’S DELETED SCENE

The last mention of Captain Scully in Season 4 pops up in a deleted scene from Memento Mori.

There are many reasons why I dislike (loathe, really) this scene-- the depiction of her brother, mainly-- but those are secondary to the thoughts I want to explore here.

Scully wakes from her round of chemo to a man in uniform by her bed. A flash of her coma visitation shines through; and she calls out, “Dad?” softly, with a smile.

It’s Bill Scully, Jr. that advances out of the light instead, grabbing her hand in anxious confusion. “Dana?”

“Bill?” Scully, aware of her mistake, quickly withdraws her hand and sits up, momentarily humiliated. Laughing at herself, she starts, “I thought you were, uh…”

“You were expecting someone else,” Bill smooths.

In hindsight, this is a rather morbid remark on his behalf: clutching her hand like she’s dying and half-expecting her to be expecting apparitions of the dead. (It turns out this scene is framed around him deciding she's already got a foot in the grave.)

She thanks him for coming, Bill leans in to give her an awkward hug, and the two try to regain their equilibrium in the silence that follows.

“You look good,” he lies; and Scully makes a face, not believing it but thanking him, regardless. “Charles is sorry he couldn’t make it,” he adds, confirming that he and Charlie would have been in contact had this scene remained canon. “Think he’ll call you tonight, if you’re feeling up to it.”

“Sad cause for a family reunion.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, fake chuckling.

The two fall silent before Bill expounds on his new orders-- alluding to the fact she and he might not regularly communicate about much other than work. (Another aspect that might but doesn’t quite fit with their characterization in Gethsemane; but I digress.)

“Oh, did Mom tell you? Got new orders-- NAS Miramar, Dad’s old stomping grounds.”

So, Bill Scully also keeps in contact with Maggie (no surprise), making he and his mother the communication lightning rods of the family-- and likely Melissa, too, since she visited her family and followed up with regular phone calls (The Blessing Way, post here, and A Christmas Carol.)

“Yeah, I was out there not long ago. Lot of old memories,” Scully reminisces, an allusion to her Piper Maru investigation (post here.) Cool call back, actually.

“Yeah…. Lots of ghosts now. Dad… Melissa. Mom’s gettin’ worried there’s no one left to carry on the Scully name. Guess the pressure’s on, huh?”

I, personally, believe Bill would have more tactful in this situation-- and he is, even when confronting his sister in Gethsemane and A Christmas Carol-- and am glad this scene is no longer canon.

“I didn’t choose this, Bill.”

“No-- but you chose to join the FBI. Mom and Dad sending you to med school-- you were going to be the one to save lives.”

Scully gasps, turning away to collect her words. “When Dad died, I asked Mom. She said he’d forgiven my choice.”

We have confirmation here that, while her parents were both disapproving of the FBI, it was her father that was angered by it. This fact is also backed up by her and Melissa’s conversation in A Christmas Carol (again, post here.)

I’m going to gloss over the rest of the scene because Bill is unreasonably cruel, ridiculous, and out-of-character, blaming his sister for Missy’s death when he doesn’t appear to do so in Gethsemane, Redux II, A Christmas Carol, or even Emily.

The takeaway is:

Bill feels angry at Scully’s choices but doesn’t voice them until she calls attention to his subtle pokes.

Bill is moving to his dad’s old stomping grounds, meaning he’s beginning to measure himself against his father’s legacy. Meaning, Scully may have been able to break away from her parents’ expectations, but he has not.

Not only that, but Maggie piles her expectations for grandchildren onto Bill and Tara’s shoulders (despite their struggles with infertility) while somehow forgetting her other grandchild via Charlie Scully (previous post here.)

All in all, this scene badly damages the extended Scully family quite a bit. But the fact that Bill is choosing to follow his father’s journey step-by-step leaves some interesting implications (to be explored in a future post.)

REMEMBER DEATH, PART II

Scully’s father also left an impact during her fight with cancer.

Fearing she wouldn't be strong enough for her Mulder or her mother (again, post here), Scully’s courage begins to crumble in the face of futility and exhaustion: “Mulder, it’s difficult to describe to you the fear of facing an enemy which I can neither conquer nor escape.”

After Mulder runs to her side, afraid she'd been hurt or recaptured, he finds and reads her journal, later confessing: "When I came to find you and you weren't in your room, I got scared something had happened. And I read what you wrote."

She exhales, embarrassed. "Oh. I didn't want you to read that. I decided to throw it out.

"I decided tonight, that, um…,” she continues, pebbling her chin to keep the tears back, “that I’m not gonna let this thing beat me.” Squaring her shoulders resolutely, she adds, “I came into this hospital able to work; and that’s how I’m leaving.” At his encouraging nod, Scully pauses, smiling back.

Mulder finally gives her the reassurance she’s been searching for: “Scully, something was done to you, something that you’re just beginning to remember-- you can’t quite figure it out, but it can be explained and it will be explained. And no matter what you think as a scientist or a doctor, there is a way. And you will find it, to save yourself.” The truth is, he’s always believed in Scully, even when she doesn’t believe in herself.

Scully spells out her new focus-- “Mulder, I can’t kid myself. People live with cancer. They carry on. And so will I. You know, I’ve got things to finish-- to prove, to myself, to my family. But for my own reasons.”

It’s an incredible leap forward for the captain’s daughter; and Mulder knows this, giving her a blooming smile and wrapping her up in his first initiated hug.

Scully beams in his praise and soaks up his comfort-- the right time for both of them, in spite of everything.

Mulder’s “The truth will save you Scully. I think it’ll save both of us” draws out a smile while his tender forehead kiss brings her to the brink of tears.

It’s enough for both, for now; and she pulls away, walking back bravely into battle.

CONCLUSION

Captain Scully’s long shadow stretches from beyond the grave, shading the milestones of his children’s choices and accomplishments. While he tried posthumously to give consolation and encouragement-- like Bill Mulder did for his son, post here-- the effects of his example have left grooves that circle Scully (and her brother) around and around, faster and faster, until she breaks free of those patterns and starts her own journey.

Only then-- not unlike the late Melissa Scully-- can Scully (and Bill) truly be free.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

#txf #meta #The Scully Family In-Depth #“Other Fathers” Deleted Scenes and “Things to Prove”#In-Depth #Part XV #xf meta #Scully #Bill Scully Sr.#Bill Scully Jr.#Mulder #S4 #Never Again #Memento Mori #xfiles #x-files #the x files #mine

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ser4fhim · 1 year ago

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“you’re so awkward!” by your standards and with you, yes, i am. absolutely. by adults standards, i am actually incredibly well spoken and mature.

yes, i am a minor, and yes most of my friends are 2–7 years older than me. yes, i read adult books. yes, i watch mostly 18+ shows and movies.

why do i do this, you may ask? because connecting with kids my age is a literal battle, and no matter what i do, i need to water myself down for them, so they don’t get scared off.

something that is considered scandalous by my peers, is something to be praised about by adults, and kids older than me.

i read books that my peers are just getting started on years ago; i’ve watched all the shows that they’re discovering as we speak; i’ve been fascinated by topics they’re barely beginning to understand for YEARS.

most of my teachers are closer to friends rather than instructors. the fact that i share more interests with a middle aged man or woman, than 90% of kids my age, is something that’s just been common knowledge for my entire life.

i am awkward because i struggle to find common ground, and half the things that i consider interesting are treated like taboo. because somehow i’m “uncultured” and an “old soul” at the same time. because when i try to communicate something to my peers, it’s “weird” or “creepy.”

i literally cannot thank the adults that treat me as an equal enough. they mean so much to me.

#yes i am aware that i sound narcissistic #this was not my intention #please try to understand this #neurodivergent #autistic #autism #autism related #adhd #audhd #adhd related #gifted kid #gifted kid problems #gifted kid things #neurodiverse

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magicalmiraclebear · 2 months ago

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A grown man who fears the light

I sat down on the small table in the gas station coffee shop and began to observe the old man in front of me. This was the fourth time I saw him here. Different tables, different times of the day, but unmistakably the same man.

It was odd that I took interest in him, I knew that restaurants, bars and coffeeshops have regulars, I am one for a few such establishments myself. This man in particular caught my attention for some reason though. Perhaps it was because the man who spends entire days drinking coffee alone was always quite a fascinating character to me. A philosopher, observing the world, without participating in it much. In a sense he was quite like me, only difference lying in his age and wealth which allowed him to spend his whole day sitting on that table.

A few other men greeted him, but didn’t stop to talk. The man himself had a certain elegance in him, though not in a traditional way. He did not look like a man who lived in comfort for most of his life. His clothes were not cheap and he had a particular sense of style. For a moment I thought he looked like a native American for some odd reason, though that would make his regular presence in this particular gas station of a central European town even more intriguing. Intriguing being an odd word since I am the only one intrigued by him as far as I knew.

I took a sip of my coffee. It was too late for one, but I did not have any urgent work in the morning. The man did the same. He can’t be older than 70, maybe even younger, I thought. It struck me that my behaviour was odd, although observing people in public was a right nobody thought to rob me of. In fact I often wish and hope somebody would observe me.

That is also odd. Logically one would want the opposite. There is safety in anonymity, but also loneliness. As a child I often had this constant fear that others were reading my thoughts, which overtime turned into a wish. I constantly wished that those around me would know what I wanted them to know without me needing the courage to say it. That my peers would know how funny I am, my teachers how smart I am and the girls listened to me – how much joy every piece of their attention brought me. When my delusions came closer to reality, I assumed most around me to be gifted with a genius like intelligence which would allow them to read my subtle behaviour and understand my psychology by themselves. Of course neither were most people that smart, nor am I that interesting and attention worthy.

I do believe myself to be fairly clever and I could theoretically hold a conversation on quite a few topics, if I ever knew how to start one. I always feared others would think I am strange or God forbid enjoying their company. Which is why I wore the mask of slightly contemptuous and unpleasant lad, since I find it far less pathetic.

I took another sip of coffee. The old man was looking at the crime drama playing on the TV. He was the only one giving it any attention. Another man was putting his tray a way and exchanged a few words with the young cashier, before looking at me for a few moments. My desire to be observed could be misleading me, I thought, but he held his eyes, before smiling faintly. Could he know what I was doing? Not that he had any reason to care. Besides for him to know, he would need to be quite similar to me. Or maybe he was observing me in the same way I was observing the other man. Maybe I wasn’t as unique as I thought.

I never could know. As said, my desire to be observed was often misleading me, but I often caught people looking at me. I’m not sure if I am good looking or not, though I believe I am somewhat pretty, which might not be optimal. In any case people often let much of my abnormal behaviour go uncommented and undisturbed. I was far less socially ostracized than classmates who behaved in a very similar manner.

The second man got up to leave and looked at me again for a few seconds before giving me something I thought to be a faint smile. Maybe I was being observed, I thought. A ridiculous notion, I knew, though I wished it were true. Attention starved was quite apt of a term for me, though my behaviour would imply the opposite. A grown man afraid of the light, as Plato would call me.

Attention, attention, attention… I rolled the word around in my head for a few moments. All I wanted was this. Whenever it was given to me for free, an addiction grew towards that person. I rarely think of people as such honestly. My goal is to impress them, catch their attention and receive their admiration. So many people who could have been my friends barely remember I exist, because I am certain to my right to live my life without encountering a negative reaction from anybody.

The old man looked away from the Tv and towards me. He smiled softly. ‘’He knows’’ I realized in terror, before finishing my coffee and running heading for the door.

#short story #writing

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starqueensthings · 7 months ago

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Summary: An immediate continuation from the last chapter, as the two were only separated for ease of reading. June’s dreaded task of taking center stage in front of those soldiers has come, and she’s as anxious as she is sunburnt, but the reappearance of one of our TCW faves helps appease some of that trepidation.

Rating/WC: all chapters are rated 16+ for subject matter unless otherwise stated. | 6k ish words.

WARNINGS: social anxiety, mentions of cardiac arrest. Please heed the author's notes below.

A/N: I literally never thought these words would leave my lips, but this chapter contains an astronomical amount of dialogue. It takes us through the entirety of June’s first lecture, and the content she’s tasked with trying to elucidate to the Medic Cadets. It’s lengthy, and full of author-crafted/non-canon medic lore, as I think the only canon tools I included were the MedKit, and MedScanner; the rest were pulled from the chaotic depths of my brain. Also– kind reminder that I am not a doctor. All medical terminology and descriptions in this chapter were based upon information the Google machine was able to provide me. That’s it I think, ok BUHBYE, DRIVER!

PLEASE ENSURE YOU’VE READ THE FOREWORD LINKED BELOW FOR AN IN-DEPTH DESCRIPTION OF WHAT DEGREE OF CONTENT YOU CAN EXPECT THROUGHOUT THIS STORY BEFORE PROCEEDING.

FOREWORD | MASTER | PREV | NEXT | AO3

Tugging distractedly at the hem of her top as she trod cautiously across that stage, June instantly abhorred both the heat and the blinding nature of that dazzling spotlight illuminating only the area tasked with housing her for the next several hours. And by the time she was near enough that austere stand to rest her datapad in place, the remainder of her senses had begun to near-suffocate her; footsteps thundering atop the floor with every step, ears unable to ignore the irksome hum from the projector hung directly over top her position, the metallic scent of electronic grade aluminum as she tipped the microphone closer to her lips. Yet, more oppressive than that imminent sensory overload was the incumbrance of that weighty silence… a hundred sets of eyes peering up at her neath glimmers of both mild confusion and patient expectation as she attempted to force her trembling hands into situating herself.

The heavy lid of that borrowed MedKit thundered like a projectile shot from an old cannon as her clammy fingers lost their grip on that slippery duraplas and sent it crashing to the table top, the odious echo pulling a cringe to her features.

When she’d needlessly fiddled with all that she could, and the promised safety of procrastination had whittled itself down to nothing but obvious intentional delay, she stepped back behind that microphone and cleared her throat.

“Um, hello,” she uttered, gaze lurching toward the first row of students atop a sense of feigned confidence, though the reciprocating gaze of those curious brown eyes had her own actively seeking respite from her datapad again. “Sorry I’m kinda late… worth the wait though… maybe.”

An unheralded chorus of whispers and repressed amusement broke out across those rows of seats, and the fracture of that oppressive silence had her gaze flicking upward again.

Immediately apparent was exactly why Challa had always requested she keep a close eye on the back rows from her typical perch behind the teacher’s desk, as the near-tyrannical light beaming down at center stage rendered anyone standing behind that podium utterly blind to everything beyond about ten feet.

“For those I haven’t properly met yet, I’m Dr. June Kiore, but just call me June,” she spoke, quivering finger reaching to thoughtlessly nudge the bridge of her glasses further up her nose. “I’m a lead attending general surgeon at GRMF, and I’m lucky enough to have the opportunity to meet with tons of combat medics every day. Not only does the lowest level of the medical facility house the widest array of inventory for restocking starship medbays, but medics are often the ones tasked with transporting their wounded brothers to the nearest medical center, as only they can recount the the degree of injuries to the doctors assuming their care.”

A trooper in the first row on the farthest left shifted in his seat only enough to steal her attention, the gleaming silver button on the cuff of that scratchy looking jacket knocking against the desk in front of him as he readjusted his perch atop that rigid duraplas chair, though by the time June’s gaze had darted sideways to identify the accidental interruption, the trooper had resumed his silent, taciturn perch.

“Um… we’re going to go through your kits today,” she continued, quickly prodding a finger against the screen of that datapad to ensure her presentation notes were still actively displaying her plan of attack. “But um, before we actually dive into the equipment, I– well, I told Challa I wanted to waste a few minutes of your time to remind you of the magnitude of your role. I’m sure this is nothing you haven’t already heard, and— honestly, it may not mean much coming from a ‘civvie’, but if this resonates with even one person, then I think it’s worth saying.

“You are soldiers, yes. You, of course, will be fighting. You will be involved in tactical advances. You will have pistols on your hips, and you will be expected to kill with them. But… you are also medics. You will also comfort. You will also save. Only inches from those blasters is a MedKit equipped to recuperate as many lives as you take, if not more.

“Though it’s not just the pack that’s going to weigh on your shoulders– you will each bear the responsibility of balance. You will each have to find the equipoise of saving life and taking it, whether it be an enemy, friend, droid, humanoid, sentient, animal, brother. The burdensome task of deciding when to end life, and when to save it… and when to end it when it can not be saved… is entirely your weight to carry. And it’s that awareness, that demanded composure, that’ll constantly try to crumble your resolve.

“But you’ll find it. You will achieve that awareness and that balance. You will find those abilities and that strength within yourself through experience and camaraderie, and with these MedTools in your hands, you are going to save countless lives. Your friend’s lives, your brother’s lives, your superior’s lives, civilian lives… and you will become the backbone of your new regiment.”

The succeeding pause was laden with a poignancy more deafening than the obnoxious thud of that MedKit lid reverberating around those four walls, for it seemed no one was capable of moving amidst that paralyzing truth; the very air shared by that century of soldiers now wholly saturated in a morbidity of which that stuffy room hadn’t previously housed. Prevarication utterly refused for the sake of candor and authenticity by someone who, rightfully, should not have harnessed the ability to understand them on that level; to both acknowledge and elucidate the harrowing reality that every soldier in that room struggled to reconcile when the stillness of night caught up with them.

She trailed the tip of her tongue across her lips in preparation to launch into the bulk of her lesson, gaze quickly digesting the way those two hundred brown eyes had softened neath her words; that darkened gleam of ego and hunger diminishing to something resembling receptiveness… concentration…

“Like I said, I’m sure this is nothing you haven’t heard befo–”

“Not put like that,” a voice called from somewhere in the back left corner, though his face remained enshadowed by his distance from the stage, there was no denying the scoff following his sentiments wholly lacked the contempt of which such a huff typically wore, instead escaping his lips atop something near astonishment.

“Oh… well,” June continued somewhat lamely, unable to entirely decipher if his comment had been fuelled by an unbridled resentment or sudden stroke of appreciation. “Just remember– you’re important to the war effort, but you’re also important as a person.”

Offering Challa only a fleeting glance to ensure he hadn’t been patiently withholding some sort of objection, she scooped the MedScanner from its swaddle in the kit to her left and held it aloft. “Let’s move on to the equipment…” she told the room at large. “If you haven’t opened your MedKit yet, please do.”

From what she could see within the confines of that oppressive pillar of light, most of them had, though a subtle rustle from the seats nearest the door meant at least a smattering of them failed to accede Challa’s earlier instruction. Offering the negligent group a moment to catch up with the rest, her wandering gaze fell upon a trio of soldiers in the second row on her left side; what appeared to be an irrepressible curiosity had seen them each extract the Scanners from their kits like she had, long brown fingers tipping and twisting the equipment while slightly-narrowed, scrutinizing eyes bathed in the appearance of that high valued tool.

“Much like the brains in your heads,” June started, repressing a smile triggered by that unexpected dose of targeted interest. “The MedScanners in your Kits are vital to all of the other components. This Scanner and your judgement will work in tandem to dictate your treatment protocols. Active battle will ensure you have only seconds to make treatment decisions… but with the help of this tool, seconds are all you’ll need, and time will see this Scanner become an extension of your own hand. While downtime between advances will have your brothers cleaning their blasters and changing their socks, you will be referencing data and recharging power.” She paused for only long enough to cast another furtive glance toward the device still laying atop that podium, ensuring the information now spilling from her lips, now-void of the inhibition from mere minutes ago, remained on schedule with what she’d meticulously planned.

“There is endless information accessible in just this one little device. In class, we’ll go through the most crucial settings and the menus that will allot you the most information with the least effort, but I encourage you to independently learn as much about this particular tool as you can… find the limits of what you can achieve with it.

“So, um… if everyone wants to power theirs on for a moment and just kinda fiddle around, the little button on the left of the screen powers it on and off. Go ahead and start to familiarize yourself with things. Play around with the buttons, spin the dial and watch the screen toggle between menu options, get used to the trigger on the back because that’s what initiates the actual infrared beam…”

June watched those hidden back rows flicker into life like a patchwork quilt as several dozen newly activated scanner screens illuminated the curious expressions of their previously hidden holders. After carefully placing her demonstration tool back into the kit, she witnessed the first fragments of something-near excitement erupt across those crowded seats, as several soldiers turned to point that swanky new tool in the face of their nearest brother, pained gasps echoing around the room as those deep brown eyes were assaulted by the beam aimed at corneas without intent, and another small smile threatened to peel across her lips.

“I’m either doing this wrong, or you’re not alive,” one of the troopers in the second row on the far left laughed to his neighbour, giving his scanner a little shake as if physically agitating the equipment might promise him the result he sought.

“You can keep your scanners on, but put them down for now please. We’re gonna move on,” she called as she reached to collect the next tool from its perch, and the immediate groans of protest reviling her request only intensified the smirk atop those lips. “In your Kits, to the immediate right of the Scanner, are three reserve power cells. Your Scanner’s primary power at full charge and being used constantly, will last for approximately two full rotations.” Hoping those soldiers would identify the vital importance of this information from the severity of her tone, she spoke slowly and deliberately. “Do not have three dead power cells in your Kit. If I ever catch you with a dead Scanner and no reserve power, I will personally sever your toes and sew them to your eyebrows.” In stark contrast to that preceding intensity, a loud refrain of laughter echoed around the room, including from Challa whom June had momentarily forgotten was there. She continued, “The little black cord tucked beneath the power cells is your charging scomp adapter. Whenever you are near a power source, it is absolutely crucial that you plug in and recharge power.

“Any questions? No? Okay, next…” Stowing the back up power cells back into their home, she extracted the subject of her next demonstration. “To the immediate left of your Scanner, you will find what’s called a Universal Serum Injector, or USI. If your Scanner is the brain of your kit, this is the heart. I use these injectors regularly at the hospital, and my life would be infinitely tougher without them because they are truly revolutionary tools for urgent patient care. They pump lifesaving and life-preserving serums through the veins of your patients without having to prep a bolus and insert an IV line. They allot you the power to hydrate your patient, eradicate foreign bacteria and infection, diminish inflammatory responses, reprogram cell activity on a biochemical level, block pain— they can save you, and kill you. USI’s and the serums that go in them will become your bread and butter.” Whilst that crucial prelection spilled from her lips, she reached blindly into the kit and removed four small crystal vials. “Your combat kits are equipped with four types of serum. From the big pouch underneath the lid, everyone please grab one of each. There should be a vial with a blue cap, a green, an orange, and a red.”

Whilst the room erupted in the hiss of activity, June took the opportunity to seek Challa’s gaze from across the stage, though upon immediately meeting that glowing set of violet, she wished she hadn’t. The pride and joy exuding from behind those gleaming globes forced her focus downward and her stomach up into her throat, as that blazing look and encouraging nod had instantly confirmed a notion of which she’d already begun to suspect: their gambled attempt at finding the correct way to engage with his group had found success. Challa’s continued optimism, validated. Her role behind this podium, secured.

Stretching the remnants of the lingering tension from her neck, June redirected her gaze back upward to find a hundred sets of hands clasped around a collection of four multicoloured vials, and an equi-number of alert, brown eyes peering up at her expectantly.

“We’ll go through each serum in significantly more detail at a later date, so just follow along with me for now,” she assured the eager few that had also collected data pads from their bags, balancing them precariously on their knees amid hopes of taking notes and palming the equipment simultaneously. “Now if you look closely, you’ll see that each vial has a needle preloaded neath that coloured cap, and this is done for a multitude of reasons. First, for efficiency; the coloured cap ensures you’re not robbed of valuable time, as pausing to read a label and identify a medication will only usurp those seconds you need to treat the patient in front of you and, in the thralls of battle, time is a luxury. Secondly, for sanitary reasons as maintaining injection sterility whilst in the backwater sectors of Maker-knows-where is a feat near-impossible.

“It’s tough to tell unless you’re habitually using them, but the needles under those caps are different gauges— like a blaster, the gauge refers to the diameter of the opening. The larger the number, the smaller the opening. The orange and red-capped vials are equipped with 14-gauge needles for rapid infusion and should be administered intra-muscularly— most often at the base of the neck or the outer thigh. The green and blue-capped vials are equipped with 18-gauge needles for slightly slower absorption, and are administered subcutaneously. But the size of the needle is nowhere near as important as what flows through it.

“So let’s start with the blue: these are Hydration Vials, and do not underestimate how pivotal they are in acute patient care or how many lives you will save with them. Hydration station will save the nation!” A sudden refrain of that familiar husky laughter rang around the darkness, though June offered it only an apologetic smile before pressing on. “I’m serious! As soldiers, you may never fully know what type of terrain or environment you’ll be facing. If supplies dwindle to the point where nutrients are sparse or unattainable, this serum will be the difference between life and death. It replenishes water, electrolytes, and calories quickly. We’ll cover the basic signs and symptoms of dehydration and malnourishment another day, so let’s move on.

“The orange-capped vials contain what’s called a Nociceptor Blocking Agent or an NBA. In layman’s terms, this is a pain cutting injection. You will use these more than any other and, again, do not underestimate the power of this serum. Because of how the chemical compound prohibits communication between synapses, it is not to be administered flippantly. Chronic overuse can cause motor complications, and chronic idiot use will cause injury.”

Shifting the cargo nestled in her palm from the orange vial to the green, she held it aloft. “Green vials,” she continued, “Contain a general antifungal and antibiotic serum. In your myriad of travels to the galaxy’s farthest corners, you will run into plants and bugs and bites and other weird shit that you could have never dreamed of. A Hema scan will tell you what type and degree of foreign cells have infiltrated the bloodstream, and this serum is used to eradicate any signs of infection quickly.

“Lastly, the red vial contains a cardiac stabilizer. More specifically, a medication called Amiodarone— a highly concentrated synthetic designed to help stabilize the electrical activity in one’s heart when those natural impulses become erratic and uncontrollable. Cardiac arrest will present itself suddenly and with a large array of symptoms. Using your MedScanner and knowing what symptoms to look for are your only chance at combating those sudden episodes, and this serum will grant you those valuable seconds needed to ascertain the biological cause of distress, and prep your next tool for use. But before we move onto that, are there any questions about the vials?”

“Can you drink ‘em?”

The idiocy of the question forced her dark brows together, blue eyes scanning the darkness for the issuer of the query.

“Of course you can’t drink them, Dempsey…” another unseen soldier chimed in before her lips had even parted to respond. “What, are you gonna suckle on the needle like a teat?”

“Well, I don't know!” Dempsey defended from his hidden perch somewhere in the center of the room. “Just thought I’d ask— sheesh.”

“No, you can't ingest the serum,” June clarified. “They’re not formulated for absorption through the GI tract. Any other questions?”

When her narrowed eyes failed to find any elevated hands amongst the only rows she could see, she turned her attention to Challa, watching him crane his neck to peer across the remainder of seats. Once he'd approved her advance with a thumbs up, she stuffed the vials back in their pouch and popped the next two tools from their foam casing.

“Okay,” June mumbled, fiddling with the pair of dome shaped probes clasped somewhat awkwardly in her hands amid the effort to hold them securely enough to display their appearance whilst avoiding injury. “These are called Defibrillation Pods, and they’re a bit more complicated. Everyone grab the set in your kit, and flip them over… but be careful. See the four little probes on the bottom of each pod? They’re sharp as hell, and need those little barbs to keep them from shifting while in use because the electromagnetic bolts that issue from one probe to the other are extremely powerful. I’m assuming everyone knows the function of defibrillation?”

The responding, garbled chorus of yes’s and maybe’s did all but imbue her with the confidence she would have liked, so she permitted herself a small digression. “Defibrillation is a deliberate pause in cardiac electrical activity,” she explained. “It’s essentially forcing your heart to reset its rhythm because its previous cadence was too inconsistent to sustain life. If a patient is experiencing a cardiac episode and the chambers in their heart have become desynchronized, these pods wield the power to reset that vital rhythm to a natural biological beat. To use them, you would first run a Cardiology Scan or an ECG, then you’ll jab these in your patient’s chest, one at the 11 o’clock position and the other at 3 o’clock around the heart, and—”

“Hold on a sec… we’re stabbing these little things into someone's chest?” one of the soldiers sitting in the seats nearest the door voiced, question undeniably bathed in a blend of both incredulity and disgust.

“Of course,” June laughed. “It’s either that or they die. Trust me, they’ll forgive you for the scar when they live to fight another day. We’ll go more in depth into ECG’s and shockable rhythms during a future class, but let’s quickly run through a case study so I can better explain how and when the red-capped vial and the defibrillator pods work in conjunction.

“Say you’re urgently summoned from across the battlefield because there’s an unconscious patient in need of urgent care. A General Scan is immediately conveying that the patient has no pulse, diminishing O2 saturation, and a declining body temperature so one can assume this is a fairly recent cardiac episode and thus severe in urgency, as you have only minutes to restore blood flow to the brain before damage is deemed irreversible. So, the first things you’re going to do are: administer the red vial, likely at the base of the neck where armament gaps, and find a nearby trooper to strip that patient of their chest plate. While they’re doing that, you will be toggling to the Cardiology menu on your MedScanner and taking an ECG to ascertain current electrical activity. Within seconds, you’ll have a series of wave patterns at your disposal to which you’ll use to determine if you can attempt to revive the patient with defibrillation. There are several wave patterns typically associated with cardiac arrest, but only two of them are ‘shockable’ or treatable with this tool.

“Your Scanner will complete wave pattern categorization for you, but you want to make sure you’re looking for wave patterns indicative of Ventricular Tachycardia or Ventricular Fibrillation. These are, generally, the only two shockable rhythms. Once you’ve figured out the nature of what you’re dealing with, jab these little probes into their chest in the position I told you, and activate them. The patient will physically lurch— and yes, it will look as if you’re hurting them but, remember, at this point, they have no pulse. If they’ve lacked a pulse for several minutes, they’re considered already dead. You are trying to undead them. Pain is secondary to life, always.

“A full defib cycle takes eight seconds from beginning to end. Once completed, initiate another scan and check the new ECG’s. If there’s no change in the wave pattern, inject a second a red vial and repeat. You can run up to three full cycles, but if, despite your intervention, electrical activity trends toward Asystole, or what’s commonly called a ‘flat-line’, your patient is going to die.”

June paused and watched truth land its heavy blows on the chests of all the troopers visible inside that circle of spotlight; arms crossing, eyes widening, lips pursing, throats bobbing neath poignant swallows that could only convey they hadn’t yet entertained the thought of that perceived failure. Many turned toward their neighbour to share a significant look, others dropping their gazes toward their laps, others simply tossing those probes back into the kits as if the weight of those tools in their hands personally offended them.

“Look… I know it’s grisly,” June continued sombrely. “Take it from someone who has lost more patients on the table than I could ever stomach counting— this is the reality of medicine and of war. This Kit is an extremely sophisticated, top rated, highly sought after set of equipment. If they can’t save your patient, nothing can. Your role at that point is to mark the date and time of death, and move onto the next because there’ll be a next. There will always be a next. Remember the balance that is demanded of you. Remember that composure.”

“Time check, June.”

Her gaze darted toward her wrist at Challa’s request, shocked to see that hardly an hour of class time remained. Where had that time gone? More shockingly, to what distant corner of her mind had that simmering fear retreated? Why was she able to cast her eyes across that century of soldiers without her upper lip flattening in disgust? When had they crossed the threshold between gaping upon her with lascivious intent, to simply offering her their attention void of mal motive or lurid intention? And, in some cases, even mild veneration?

“Thanks, Challa,” she spoke, confident the microphone would carry her voice to the corner in which he sat, slender face still distorted with a pride she’d never quite seen bestowed upon those features. “Any questions on the defib pods? No? Okay, let’s move on to something a little lighter…”

The next thirty minutes saw them blow quickly through the lesser aspects of that kit. Bacta patches and med patches were of little concern, as the soldiers had become largely familiar with them throughout their upbringing on Kamino. They quickly covered the basics of the effervescent iodine solution provided for rapid disinfection of open wounds, as well as comparing the Electro-magnetic stapler and Cauterizing pen both mentioned in their previous lecture only days ago. After ensuring each medic understood how to adhere and activate the portable oxygen mask, June instructed the room at large to break into sets of three and use the remaining class time to practice using their MedScanners on each other.

“One person, pretend to be a patient and describe your symptoms! Someone else be the medic and figure out what tools you would need for treatment, and the third person grabs it from the Kit and describes how to use it!” she called loudly before a deafening roar of a hundred chairs scraping heavily across that hard floor echoed around the room.

As Challa trod the circumference of the room to flick the lights back into life, June took her time ensuring all pieces of that MedKIt had been powered off and returned to their respective homes inside that borrowed pack. Eyes aching from the duress of maintaining that necessary squint, the reintroduction of broad room illumination had a sigh of relief near pouring from her lips.

“June,” Challa mused as he crossed the stage and neared where she was now latching that MedKit closed, and he wasted no time placing his slender hands on her shoulders and giving her a small celebratory shake. “I knew this would work! I knew you would pull this off!”

“Yeah, well don’t hug me yet,” she laughed, shrugging his hands from her stinging skin and wrapping her fingers around the MedKit handle. “I’m waiting for the one in the back to get ballsy and start suckin’ on the blue vial.”

“Hydration station,” Challa recited atop a snort, gently tapping her hand out of the way so he could assume the burden of carrying that heavy pack back to the teacher’s desk. “Where the kriff did you come up with that?”

“What?” she answered atop an apologetic chuckle, following in his wake. “Who doesn’t love a good rhyme from time to time?”

After quickly checking their pagers to ensure neither had missed any urgent communication from the hospital, the doctoral duo separated to traverse the classroom, offering guidance and pointers to trio’s where needed, and listening to ensure conversation had not strayed too far from the lecture content. A silent lap around the room had June pleasantly surprised with how quickly those students were learning to operate their Scanners, as she had witnessed at least a dozen successfully take basic vitals off of their mock patients. (“We definitely don’t have time for that today,” she chuckled to a soldier who had accidentally toggled to the wrong menu and was unknowingly attempting to take an MRI of his brother’s intracranial activity.)

After quietly roaming the back few rows where those troopers seemed to have a handle on the little roleplaying game she’d implemented, June trod slowly down the tiered steps toward the front of the room, where the trooper she’d nearly chuckled at earlier was scanning one of his group mates.

“I know it’s not really what we’re supposed to be doing right now, but you mentioned there are different wave patterns indicative of cardiac arrest,” he probed upon her check-in. “But only two are shockable? What are the others, and are they going to be externally immediately recognisable?”

The complexity of his question took her by complete surprise, lips quickly compressing to conceal the beginnings of an impressed smile, and the emergence of his informed inquiry only reinstated the suspicion that many of these troopers had been actively listening throughout the span of that lesson.

“They’re not,” she advised him, climbing backward to sit upon the desk top. “Not shockable or externally recognizable, I mean. We rely heavily on ECG’s to identify where the malfunction occurred in the heart and what can be done to rectify it. Sorry, what was your name again?”

“Kix.”

“Here, Kix,” she said, collecting his MedScanner from the table beside her and handing it back to him. “Toggle to the Cardiac menu and scan me. I’ll show you what the ECG’s look like and how to read them.”

Leaning backward slightly, she flanked her hips with her hands atop that desk in an effort to remain as still as possible while that infrared beam danced first up and down her chest, then to and fro. And she watched Kix’s dark brown eyes narrow as he funneled his attention into operating that sophisticated tool, fingertip blanching neath how intently he depressed the trigger on the back.

“That’s an awesome question,” she told him, watching his silent determination. “Since your Scanner self-identifies, you don’t necessarily need an in-depth knowledge of the different wave patterns so we’re only going to cover the basics in class, but I’ll try and break it down once you have my results. Tell me when it’s done…”

“Ready,” he advised only seconds later, a held breath escaping his lips as he climbed onto the desk beside her.

“Perfect,” she said, leaning sideways to peer at the screen in his hands. “So obviously I'm not dead, and you can tell because there are waves present in each of those graphs. But see at the bottom where it says ‘NSR: Normal Sinus Rhythm’, and then lists a series of numbers? That’s where your Scanner will tell you what type of cardiac incident you’re dealing with. Not including some smaller subvariations, there are four main rhythms associated with a CA. The two that are not shockable are called Asystole and PEA. Asys is a complete lack of any electrical activity whatsoever, so those numbers will all be zeroes, and there will be either extremely negligible or no waves present depending on if CPR was performed before you arrived. The second is called Pulseless Electrical Activity, and the waves will be nothing short of chaotic, lacking any sort of pattern, void of any kind of rhythmic peaks or depressions. Essentially the heart still has some electrical energy, but not enough to physically make the heart beat.”

“Wizard,” he mumbled under his breath, eyes absolutely drinking in the information the scanner still offered up. “Which do you think I’m likely to run into most often?”

“That’s a tough guess,” June sighed with a small shrug before jumping down from the desk and brushing the dust from her palms onto her pant legs. “A young healthy person with no known or diagnosed arrhythmia’s is not likely to suffer an episode, but CA’s are sometimes triggered by external factors. Significant blood loss, blunt force trauma directly to the chest, severe cases of dehydration, some potent toxins, amongst other pretty rare circumstances. I applaud your desire for knowledge, it’s… refreshing.”

Kix’s ears reddened to the colour of her scrubs neath her seemingly unexpected praise, that flush triggering a chorus of repressed snickers from the two companions that had watched the entire exchange unfold, and June took their amusement as her cue to leave.

The chaos of her morning seemed like a distant memory now, June reflected as she took a seat behind the teacher’s desk and pulled her holopad from the depths of her bag. The arrival of the event she’d been most dreading since its proposal last week had come and gone with hardly any discomfort despite how intensely she deplored her untimely arrival, and though plagued by a complete lack of caffeine, and the stinging ache relentlessly reminding her that the refusal to apply sunblock had resulted in painful consequences, she was in a remarkably good mood. Many of— if not most of— the students had responded to the shift in educational leadership with much more adaptability than expected, several granting her something-near undivided attention as she fought her own anxieties to provide them a tidbit of the information needed for the successful transition from medic cadet to Clone Trooper Medic.

She’d just begun to let her eyes unfocus upon that completed attendance list when a disturbance caught her attention from the front of the room. The classroom door had slid open unexpectedly, and she’d hardly attuned her attention to the intrusion when a figure appeared atop the threshold.

A very gruff looking soldier perched his hands on his hips, scowling lips compressed into what could only be described as a disapproving grimace as his dark eyes scanned the innards of that classroom. Despite the confidence that she’d never met this particular trooper before, there was no ignoring the nature of his elevated status; several shiny medals pinned to his chest, and a posture so straight it seemed unlikely the man had ever come into contact with a pillow, had June leaping instantly to her feet.

“You’re over your time, Ma’am,” he grunted to her as she greeted him in the doorway. “These cadets were due in RRD fifteen minutes ago, and they still need to armour up.”

June had zero clue what ‘RRD’ was, but the overt severity of his reproval made it wholly apparent that he was not impressed.

“Kriff,” she gasped, clapping a palm to her forehead. “That’s absolutely my error. I’ll pack it in right now. I’m so sorry!”

She did not pause and wait for his reaction, instead hurrying away from that threshold and urgently casting her eyes around the room for any sign of those sand coloured Lekku. “Challa!” she called, cupping her hands around her mouth to supersede the din of chatter.

His gaze found her almost instantly, eyebrows raising to query the look of apparent horror atop her features as she lifted her arm and frantically tapped her watch. Quickly mirroring her gesture, Challa’s shoulders lurched upon the realization of their terrible error, slender legs taking him earnestly down the stairs and up onto the stage.

“Pack up boys, we’re running behind!” he instructed into the microphone. “Don’t leave anything behind!”

June trod quickly across the room, helping various soldiers latch their kits closed and stuff them into those white canvas backpacks. “What’s RRD?” she whispered to Kix as she hastily shut the lid on his equipment.

“Rank and Report Duty,” he grumbled back, failing to repress a roll of his dark eyes. “Also known as: Three Hours of Standing in Line and Getting Berated Into Compliance.”

“Sounds like a blast,” June scoffed, scooping his bag from the floor and holding it open so he could lower that heavy plastoid case into its depths.

“Everyone’s favourite,” Kix sighed, exceeding her sarcasm with his own.

Feigning mild offense as she helped him throw those straps over his broad shoulders, June offered him a small gasp. “Pffft, I thought this class was everyone’s favourite.”

“It is now,” he chuckled. “Oh… and it’s called a cuirass.”

“What?”

“Chestplate. It’s called a cuirass. I can help you with the armour pieces if you want.”

A dapper, boyish smile domed his cheeks as he offered her a small nod and made his way down the last two steps. Hands perched on her hips, June watched as one of the other cadets instantly threw an arm around his neck and pulled him into a painful looking headlock, though it lasted hardly a second before Kix tugged his shoulders from that innocent restraint and shoved his brother through the door ahead of him.

FOREWORD | MASTER | PREV | NEXT | AO3

Tag list: @anxiouspineapple99 @sinfulsalutations @starrylothcat @nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius @secondaryrealm @dystopicjumpsuit @freesia-writes @sev-on-kamino @littlemissmanga @523rdrebel @wings-and-beskar @wolffegirlsunite @drafthorsemath @jediknightjana @starstofillmydream @mooncommlink @wizardofrozz @trixie2023 @clonethirstingisreal @lune-de-miel-au-paradis @mythical-illustrator @arctrooper69 @smw-on-kamino

#starqueenswrittenworks #oc sundays #The Only Exception #captain howzer x fem!OC #fem!OC x captain howzer #howzer x fem!OC #fem!OC x howzer #captain howzer fanfic #OC: June Kiore #longfic

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suspcnd · 9 months ago

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River conducted herself with such confidence that it was impossible not to engage with it. He imagined she must be popular among her peers, though he spent no time getting involved in the politics of students. Though they were all adults, he had a mind to keep to himself. Especially since the entire student body, along with the faculty, knew far too much about his own personal life for his liking.

"Y'know, I don't really use my office. It's more of a cupboard, and I don't like facing the shame of my desk plants that have long since died a death." He laughed. "You can always find me in here." Was that an open invitation? Why hadn't he simply set a time and a date for a tutorial session like he would with any other student? He swallowed back those questions and decided they were inconsequential. She was just another student.

He peered over the questions in her notebook. He kept his thoughts to himself, but he couldn't help but wonder if she really did need help with what she'd written down. She was a bright student and had never needed any extra tuition before, but he couldn't jump to conclusions. Maybe she was going through something and needed the extra support. It was his job after all, wasn't it? And didn't she just say he was an amazing teacher? There was a heat in his cheeks at the compliment. If that's what she thought he was, then he would commit to being it.

"No, that's okay." He muttered at her offer for an email thread. "I'm far more of a technophobe than I am a recluse, so in person is fine." He joked. "This is interesting." He pointed to something she had written down, subconsciously opening his body language up to her and stepping closer. "Creating a sense of movement in the work. What do you need?" He glanced at her, the corner of his eye catching how revealing her shirt was and he ignored the pull to just look. "Artists? Techniques?" There he went, sucked into the passion of his work just like that, though her charm only inspired him more.

"sometimes?" river bit her lip as though not to laugh but the smile was clearly there. "is there a specific time? i'm just looking to have a few questions answered." she swung her backpack around and set it on the table to take out her notebook again, flipping through the pages.

she paused in the middle though, looking genuinely happy at gabriel's words. "im one of your best students? i didn't know that professor flores, that's an honor. well now you have to help me, i think." river chuckled and walked around the desk, not pressing herself to his side but they were close enough. "here are the questions." river put the notebook on the table, hoping that the professor might get a nice view since their height differences.

truth to be told, professor flores wasn't just a pretty face. he really made the subject of art history interesting and engaging. "i think the only reason im doing so well in this class is that you're an amazing teacher, professor. not that im doing bad at the other ones but, it's easy here. usually i have to bury my head in the textbooks after class." river looked into his eyes as she said it, it was mostly the truth but also a little bit of flirting mixed in.

river wanted an answer and she wanted it to be that he'll see her at his office hours, she won't push it if he requests it via email but maybe, just maybe— the professor was only human too. "i can send it via email if you're too busy but i'll really help me to talk about it with you, just an hour." river smiled and shrugged.

#gabriel & river

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pandoa · 3 years ago

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"draw me like one of your french girls"

rook spots you drawing a stunning woman in your sketchbook. now, he has an interesting request for you. will you fulfill it?

~rook hunt x artist!gender neutral reader~ ~based on the iconic line from the movie Titanic~

warnings: reader is a slight tsundere! some suggestive lines but really only because of the reference to that one particular scene in Titanic. other than that, this fic is completely safe for work. thank you~

A woman.

A woman, with a rather sophisticated aura surrounding her, was drawn on the notebook owned by none other than the Ramshackle prefect as they sat underneath a broad apple tree with their good friend Rook observing alongside them. Rook took note of your limitless technique in the arts as he saw how each careful stroke of your pencil served a great purpose to the entirety of your artwork. Simply enchanting, he thought to himself. Though he did wonder who that mysterious lady in your sketchbook was. A friend? Teacher? Family member? Perhaps maybe an idol of yours?

Sensing his questioning look towards your book, you decided to indulge him with his interest in your artwork.

Turning your attention to him, you asked, “Are you familiar with the Mona Lisa? Leonardo da Vinci? Louvre Museum in Paris?”

Silent, the Pomefiore vice housewarden sitting beside you stared at your form in utter confusion. You resumed gliding your pencil across your sketchbook, sighing at the boy’s cluelessness.

“Who am I kidding, of course you wouldn’t know,” you started, “Well, to fill you in with my knowledge, the Mona Lisa is a well-known painting of a woman in my world. Despite being created by an Italian painter, it is now being kept at a French museum called the Louvre. And I am simply trying to draw a rough sketch of it. But it’s not really going well.” The prefect glared at their lead-covered paper, not entirely satisfied with their work.

Ignoring your own criticisms, however, Rook glanced at you with complete admiration shown on his face. What grand knowledge you have on artistic history! As expected, your beauty does not halt on your physical features, but goes on to your intelligent mind and beyond!

Feigning ignorance to his gawking, though, you pretended to focus on a small portion of your paper, slightly flustered under his innocent look.

“So, with that being said, I recommend you say whatever you came here to say before I carry on with my drawing. I want to focus and this may take awhile,” you regrettably muttered.

“I do have one request, if I may do so, ma chérie/mon chéri.” An idea struck Rook as he stepped closer, peering deep into your eyes, entrancing you with his gaze. Curious, you urged the unreadable boy in front of you to continue.

“(Y/n), I want you to draw me like one of your French girls.”

“I told you the Mona Lisa isn’t actually French—”

“Wearing this,” he interrupted, gesturing to the elegant hat resting on his head.

“...Um, alright, I guess,” you hesitantly replied.

“Wearing only thi— OUCH!”

A resonating smack was then heard throughout the courtyard of Night Raven College.

“Ew, no! What do you take me for, a perv?!”

“Ah~ Mon amour! I jest, I jest!” the dramatic hunter cried, but not visibly hurt, holding his pristine cheek, “However, why do you deny me so?” Surely you would not reject his flourishing love for you so easily, oui? Rook then proceeded to theatrically collapse into the prefect’s unaware arms, fanning himself with the palm of his hand as if he was on the brink of losing consciousness.

“While rejection in itself has its own, incomparable beauty, I do not wish to fall for its trap as I have already fallen weak for your affections instead,” the hunter declared. Seeing as you were caught off guard by his flirtatious stunts, Rook then saw it as a chance to adjust his posture and circle his arms around your waist, effectively pulling you closer to his proximity.

“Truly, you see it too, correct?”

“Rook Hunt, I suggest you refrain from your unnecessary comments if you really do wish for me to sketch you. In a modest setting, of course.” Your flushed face turned away, brushing off the hunter’s confession in embarrassment. Rook quickly took notice of the red tint in your cheeks, though. Did you really think you could hide from a huntsman such as himself?

“Oh, so your trained eyes deem my looks as gorgeous enough to capture on paper?” he teased with a subtle smirk to his lips.

“No, I did not say that! Like I would ever compliment you, you overbearing hunter!”

Your words fell deaf to Rook's ears as he chuckled at your dishonest rambling.

“Well, not that I think you're not pretty or whatever— ROOK I SWEAR TO THE GREAT SEVEN, STOP UNTYING YOUR UNIFORM—”

a/n: idk what this is i had an idea and just went with it

#disney twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland #twst #disney twst #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twst wonderland #rook hunt #rook hunt x reader #rook x reader #gender neutral reader #♢the scribe♢

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cherrycola27 · 2 years ago

Text

Snow on the Beach

Paring: Rooster x Reader

Warnings: slight language, some drinking, mostly fluff!!

You took a deep breath and sighed as you exited the Uber. It was New Years Eve and some how, your teacher friends had convinced you to come out to a bar, a Navy bar to celebrate the holiday.

You pulled your cardigan tighter around you as the unusually cold California air blew past you.

"Y/n" babe, you can't expect anyone to see how good you look if you stay wrapped up in a sweater all night." you best friend Ariel said to you as she looped her arm around yours.

"No one is going to pay any attention to me once they see y'all" you quipped back. It was true, in your group of teacher friends, you always felt like the ugly duckling. While Ariel, Melissa, and Joni all had magazine cover ready bodies, perfectly styled hair and perfectly done make up all the time, you were thicker in the hips and thighs, your middle was definitely softer than theirs, and it was a miracle if your hair was styled in anything other than a messy bun. And you hardly ever bothered with makeup. You taught high school science, most of the time you were in safety goggles and a lab coat anyway.

They never made you feel any less than them, and they always included you in their activities and every time you went out with them, the encourage you to put yourself out there, but you weren't like them.

But, not matter your differences, they were still your tribe and you loved them and you knew they loved you.

"Y/n Collins! What have we said about being so negative on yourself?" Mel chasted you.

"I know, I'm sorry, but I'm only here to make sure you guys are safe. I didn't come to get a guy. Obviously!" You state as you gesture to the black dress you had on, sure it was nicer with a thigh high slit on one side and a halter tie detail around the neckline, but it was plain compared to their glittery outfits.

"It's New Years Eve honey! You never know what could happen! Joni encourage as the four of you walked in.

The bar was packed with people. There was a sea of Navy uniforms, and the testosterone and desperation was thick in the air. Your group quickly made their way to the bar and ordered their usual, you were just about to ask for a ginger ale, when a cranberry mule, your favorite drink was thrust into your hands.

"It's New Years and we have an Uber.... live a little!" Ariel yelled over the music.

She was right you should live a litte, so you drank and danced with your friends and were trying to have a good time, until one by one they were hit on and whisked away by a man in uniform.

You sighed and went to the bar for another drink. After getting it, you looked out and spotted an open bar stool, one that you mentally claimed as your post for the rest of the night.

You made a beeline for it but in the mix of the crowd, and unfortunately for you, a rather large, person didn't see you, and they crashed into you, spilling your drink all over them and yourself.

"Oh my god I am so sorry, wasn't paying attention." He apologized while reaching out to steady you on your feet.

You looked up just about to give him hell, but got lost in a set of honey colored eyes that peered down at you over a set of aviator sunglasses.

"Maybe if you weren't wearing sunglasses inside you could have seen where you were going." You said back to him with a smirk.

"You know darlin' you might be right." He replied taking them off and tucking them in the pocket of a Hawiian shirt.

"Or maybe you got distracted trying to see over that 80s pornstache." You joke. He laughs at the comment, not a pity laugh but a hearty genuine laugh.

"You might be right about that too sweetheart." He says taking a step closer. You aren't sure why but your heart flips at the way he says it.

"Are you alright?" He asks concerned. "Yeah I'm fine, thankfully this is black so it won't stain." You tell him.

"Okay, would have hated have messed up such a... beautiful dress." He says as his eyes rake over you.

"No harm done honey." You tell him, patting his shoulder in an attempt to brush past him.

"Wait." He says grabbing your arm "Let me buy you a drink, to replace the other one." He states. You open your mouth to protest but the look on his face tells you he isn't going to take no for an answer.

You nod your head and he leads you to the bar. "Penny, can you please get this beautiful woman here another of whatever she is having and put it on my tab. I may have spilt her last one." He grins as she rings it in and placed a fresh mule infront of you. "Thank you." You say taking it.

"And anything else she drinks put it on me as well." He tells the bartender who laughs and agress

"Oh you don't have to do that really." You protest.

"I know. I want to." He says simply.

"Well thank you again...um..."

"Rooster." He says. "It's my call sign."

"Thank you...Rooster." you smile at him

"You're welcome..."

"Y/n" you finish for him.

He opens his mouth to say something else but before he can Melissa is dragging you away

"Who was that?" She sqeals as you join her near a table.

"Oh, um nobody. He spilled my drink and bought me another is all." You say defeated.

You look around and see that your friends are flanked by gorgeous men.

"So Y/n, this is Hangman... a pilot" Mel says as she points to the blonde Ariel is drapped over.

"This is Coyote." She says nodding to the man Joni is in the lap of.

"And this is Bobby." She says gesturing to the man she is cozied up next to. "Just Bob" He states.

"Boys, this our best friend Y/n, we all teach together." Melissa tells the group.

"Well, I know if my teachers looked as good as you four ladies I would have learned a whole lot more in school." Hangman says. The group throws their head back laughing. You sneak glacing back into the crowd looking for Rooster.

"Y/n!" Joni sqeals. "We should invite your new friend over!"

"Oh no, he was just righting a wrong is all. He is definitely not my... um... friend" You state shifting in your stool.

"Oh c'mon, who was it, we might know him!" Coyote prods.

"He um." But before you can finish the jukebox stops playing and a groan moves through the crowd until a smooth piano melody plays out.

"Rooster." The three men say in unison. You ears perk at the name.

The boys lead your friends, who lead you over to an upright piano where Rooster is sitting. He beings "Great Balls of Fire" and the crowd sings along. You find yourself singing with them, his energy is infectious. You see his eyes peering through the crowd, but they stop when he lands on you.

You cheeks flush a deep maroon, almost the same shade as your lipstick when he winks at you.

Could he really be into you? No, just from looking at him, you could tell Rooster was a prime example of the male species. Biology had been good to him, and you knew his type. Your friends were his type, but not you.

After he finished you disappeared into the crowd to get another drink. But when you went to pay Penny the bartender reminded you that Rooster was taking care of it.

You looked at your phone 11:30, ugh midnight was still half an hour away. The crowd was starting to be too much for you, so you grabbed your things, slipping on your red cardigan before sneaking out the back for some air.

"I thought California was always warm!" You huffed loudly once the night breeze hit you.

"It normally is, global warming happened." A voice said in the darkness. You jumped and turned around only to be met once again by Rooster.

"Sorry I didn't mean to scare you." He states coming closer to you. "At least I didn't spill your drink this time."

"Yeah twice in one night and I would have had to bill you for my dry cleaning" you joke.

"Crowd getting too much for you?" He asks coming to take the seat right next to you.

"Yeah, I can teach high schoolers about cell division all day long, but a room full of drunk adults gets me after a while." You laugh.

"You're a teacher?" He asks. "Yeah, me and all of my friends who came tonight are." You tell him.

"That's so cool. I guess you figured by the call sign I'm a pilot." He says. "Cool. I think my friends are all with some right now. They had some funny names... or call signs sorry. But do you know a Hangman, Coyote, and Bob?" You ask sheepishly.

"Unfortunately." He laughs. "We all work together."

"Huh" you chuckle.. "what are the odd that my coworkers are going to hook up with your coworkers night." You joke

"Pretty good I'm guessing." He replies before taking a sip of his beer.

"So, what about you?" Rooster asks you.

"What about me?" You reply sipping your drink.

"Anyone taking you home tonight?" He asks with a hint of hope in his voice.

"Other than my Uber, no. I'm not like my friendd who have guys falling all over them. I'm like the mom friend who makes sure they don't get murdered and picks them up the next day and witnesses their walk of shame before we get brunch." You state.

"Oh, that's a shame." Rooster says.

You don't respond but instead turn to look at the stars.

"Wow, so beautiful." You murmur looking up at them

"Yeah." You hear Rooster agree, but you don't notice he isn't looking at the sky, but instead looking at you.

"You have anyone special to kiss at midnight?" You ask him out of the blue.

"No ma'am" He responds. "Me neither. My plan is to head in a few minutes before and get a double shot of some top shelf rosé tequila and shoot it. He laughs again throwing his head back. You're sure that it is the most beautiful sound you have ever heard.

Rooster looks down at his watch and back at you. "Stay here." He says before disappearing back in. You look at your phone 11:55... midnight is minutes away... so much for your tequila shot you think. You could go back in, but something about you says you should stay here like Rooster asks you.

At 11:59 he rushes back out, two glasses in hand.

He hands you one and you raise your eyebrown.

"Top shelf rosè tequila, double shot like you said." He tells you.

You both hear the crowd start counting down you look at each other.

"Happy New Year!" You both shout before clicking glasses and downing the liquid. It burns, but warms you from within.

Before you can even process it, Rooster is pulling you towards him and capturing your lips in a searing kiss. You melt into him and a small moan escapes your mouth.

You pull away when the need for air becomes to much.

"Wow." You breath out "Wow indeed" He agrees before kissing you again.

"Y/n I know this sounds crazy, but I feel like we have this connection, and I think my new years resolution is to get to know you better. Would that be alright sweetheart?" He asks still holding onto your hips.

"Yeah Rooster. That would be great." You affirm. "I'd like to do the same."

"Well then maybe you should know my actual name. Bradley Bradshaw... nice to meet you." He grins.

"Y/n Collins... nice to meet you... Bradley" you smile at him.

In that moment Bradley is sure the way hid name falls from your lips is the best sound he has ever heard.

You lean up on your tip toes to kiss him, when something cold and wet hits your face. You break apart and are mesmerized.

"No fucking way." He whispers.

"It's snowing." You state. "Snow on the beach, who would have guessed?" He laughs. You smile at him before taking off the back deck of the bar and running to the sand. He takes of after you and catches up quickly.

Rooster circles his arms around your waist before lifting you and spinning you around.

You two laugh like idiots before a voice cuts into the night.

"Bradshaw!" It yells "Yeah Hangman?!" He calls back

"It's fucking snowing!" Hangman yells... clearly he has had a few.

"I know!" Bradley shoots back.

"Anyways, have fun with your new lady friend." Hangman says before waving "Yeah Y/n you have fun with your new friend too!" Ariel yells before they both leave.

You never would have guessed that when you came out tonight you would be leaving with the handsome Mr. Bradshaw.

Your chance meeting at the Hard Deck turned into a few dates which turned into a serious relationship, which turned into Rooster having you move in with him two months ago, and here you were a now, year after your first meeting, getting ready for the New Years Eve party at the Hard Deck.

Only this time, you know who you are going home with at the end of the night.

You, Rooster, your friends, and their boyfriends Hangman, Bob, and Coyote are having an amazing time.

Midnight is close yet again. You and Rooster step outside, but instead of staying on the deck you head to the sand. It's just as cold this year as it was last year, but Bradley has you wrapped in his arms and you don't care about anything else.

"You know babe, 365 days ago, we met for the first time, and I kissed a stranger at midnight, turned out to be the best decision of my life." Rooster says as you two stop walking and he looks down at you.

He checks his watch. 11:59... perfect.

"But the thing is honey, I don't want to kiss my girlfriend at midnight." He says. You look at him confused before he gets down on one knee.

"I want to kiss my fiancée." Bradley says opening up the ring box.

You're too stunned to speak, all you can do is nod your head yes while tears stream down your face. He slips the ring on your finger and pulls you in for a kiss just as the clock strikes midnight.

And as you stand there with him, for the second time in 365 days, snow falls on the beach in California.

A/N: Hi loves! So if you couldn't tell I have been binging the new TS album and was inspired by the song "Snow on the Beach". Hope you loved it!

Tag List: @dreamingathighaltitude @shanimallina87 @luckyladycreator2 @meggiemoomitchell @mak-32 @katieshook02 @samhapner6 @rosiahills22 @thedroneranger @roosterforme

#top gun maverick #top gun #bradley rooster bradshaw #rooster bradshaw #rooster top gun #bradley bradshaw #rooster x reader #lt. bradley bradshaw #top gun rooster #tgm fic #tgm #top gun 2 #bradley bradshaw x reader

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towriteloveontheirarms · 2 years ago

Note

Can you please do a Rowan x reader in which Reader is fem, and has the ability to see ghosts? Like everyday people see her talking to nothing but she's just talking to ghosts, and talks to Rowan's ghost who is still convinced Wednesday needs to be killed and asks reader to do it because she's the only one who can see him, and reader is kinda snarky cuz she actually is friends (kinda) with Enid and Wednesday?

No rush, love ur work! 💖💖

This is a little shorter than I wanted it to be, but my last posts haven´t been showing up in the tags which is making me kinda depressed. I still hope this reaches you and you can enjoy <3

Talking to Ghosts

pairing: Rowan Laslow x fem!reader

warnings: none

word count: 0.6k

Being able to commune with the dead and doing so on a daily basis was nothing that made you popular. At least that was what you learned. Looked at weirdly or just getting looked down upon by your peers ever since your early days at Nevermore academy you had a hard time fitting in. There was only one person who’s interest got sparked. Watching you talk to seemingly thin air from a save distance. Not daring to interrupt your conversations. It wasn´t an easy power to bear, but after years of mastering it and even making acquaintances with one student or the other you thought you had it all under control. Most of the ghosts were just glad to be seen and left you alone anyway. Until the arrival of Wednesday Addams at the school added one more ghost to talk to. You had never talked much to Rowan when he was alive, with both of you not being the most outgoing of personalities. Towards the end of it some might even had noticed the very obvious feelings you held for each other, if they would have cared enough.

His death added so much to how you were treated before already. He didn´t look at you like the others did. He understood how it felt to be treated so unkindly by people who were supposed to understand what it was like to be different. The both of you saw how even the people closer to you looked at you sometimes. Not maliciously, but weirded out nonetheless. You weren´t mad at them for it. You understood, but something in Rowan changed shortly before Wednesday arrived at the academy.

The ghosts of past students had warned you about the girl the day she arrived and the way Rowan started acting before should have reinforced the want to stay away form her. For some reason you listened to Enid and Xavier enough to be at least neutral about her.

Rowans death followed soon after and it made everything so much worse. People looked at you even weirder now, Teachers approached you wanting to talk, when they saw you arguing with what seemed like yourself on the daily. The only times you truly were left alone by Rowan anymore, when you were getting high with Ajax and Xavier. More often than not though he spend his time following you around. Pointing out everything that didn´t add up about her, talking about his mothers prediction. Trying to convince you he was right in what he tried to do and that it still needed to be done. You tried to be understanding of his situation, because it seemed like it was hard for him to understand what he was now. Tried to. When he asked you to do it, you finally snapped.

“Rowan stop!”, you ignored the looks of everyone in the quad. “I understand why this means so much to you. I get that your mother was very powerful and I saw you a friend, but this goes too far.”

“I…”, you didn´t give him a chance to even start the sentence.

“No. I´m sure it must be hard to hard to wrap your head around everything that happened and sure Wednesday may not be my friend exactly, but Enid is. One of my only friends now too and she trusts Wednesday. So I am not gonna destroy that or get myself into god knows what else kind of trouble. I´m sorry.”

You knew your words were harsh, but they needed to be said. He leaves you alone for a while after that. Avoiding to talk to you until after the fight with Crackstone. Once you do see each other again, he apologized for what he had asked of you.

#rowan laslow #rowan x reader #rowan laslow x reader #rowan laslow oneshot #wednesday netflix #wednesday netflix one shot

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helliontherapscallion · 4 years ago

Text

Safe

Pairing: SBI family x reader (platonic, one shot), BASED OFF FROM CHARACTERS NOT ACTUAL PEOPLE

Warnings: child abuse/neglect, bullying, alcoholism, death of a parent, mentions of panic attacks, injury, mentions of a dog’s death, mentions of eating disorders, mentions of suicide attempts, depression

Word count: 7,730

(A/N): if you’re not feeling safe at home or are being abused, please contact the proper authorities. Here’s the abuse hotline: 1-800-799-7233, my DMs are always open if you want to talk

You met Tommy and Tubbo when you were in third grade. You were a relatively quiet kid, the type to always keep to themselves and abstain from social activity. Mrs. Jansen, being the nice woman that she was, let the entire class choose their own seats.

“Welcome to your first day of third grade, class! I’m Mrs. Jansen and I look forward to getting to know all of you. As you can see, there are enough desks for all of you. You may sit with who you want.”

You shifted around uneasily and gripped your book in your hands as your classmates hurried to get the back seats. After every seat was taken, you walked to the only seat left in the front. You were between a girl and a boy. They introduced themselves as Dorothy and Samuel, and were relatively kind to you.

As the class passed their second week, two boys that sat in the back row made themselves apparent very quickly. They were both rambunctious, always disrupting the class with their giggles and whispers. Mrs. Jansen had warned them multiple times that she was going to separate them, but it seemed that they didn’t think she’d do it. One day, she finally had enough.

“Tommy, Tubbo. I’ve given you plenty of warnings, I’m going to have to separate you. Dorothy, Samuel, can you please switch places with them?”

You could feel dread wash over you. Why was she putting you between them?! What did you do wrong to deserve this? You could swear that you’ve done all your chores, you even made your mom smile at you! She never did that.

They pouted as they sat next to you, Tommy on your right and Tubbo on your left. You already missed Samuel and Dorothy. “Thank you. (Y/n), make sure they behave.”

You shrunk down into your seat as you felt Tommy’s glare burning holes into the side of your head. Tubbo, on the other hand, was watching the lesson with bored eyes and his chin propped up in his hand. You tried to take notes, but you kept getting distracted by Tommy’s heated glare. You were going to fall behind, you couldn’t have that. Mama wouldn’t like that.

After the final bell rang, you hurried out of the classroom to avoid Tommy’s wrath. You could hear him shouting for you to stop, but you never stopped until your hand was grabbed and yanked backwards in the empty playground. You fell back onto the pavement of the basketball court and whimpered at the sting in your palms.

Tommy glared down at you, “you gonna cry? Serves you right. Never tell on Tubbo and I. Got it?”

You tearfully nodded and he grinned maliciously at you, “good. Tubbo, let’s go. Wil and Tech’s probably waiting for us.”

The brunet was staring at Tommy with a shocked expression, unmoving. Tommy rolled his eyes and huffed before he grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the crowd of families. Tubbo looked back at you with an apologetic expression and watched as you looked at your scratched up palms.

You wiped at your tears as you stood up and started to walk home. Your neighbor’s dog behind the wired fence barked at you as you hurried past it. You never liked that dog; it was a drooling, angry, ugly furball. It scared you, but not as much as Mama did when she drank her adult juice. She was scary when she drank it. You tried hiding it from her once but she grounded you from eating dinner and snacks for half a month. You didn’t try to hide it again.

You trudged up the creaky wooden stairs of your porch and tried to open the door only to find it locked. You tried to knock on the door but Mama didn’t answer so you just sat on the front porch waiting for her to open the door. She did so when the sun was setting, surprise and then anger shining through her hazy eyes. She yelled at you before she sent you to your room for the night without dinner.

The next day when you were sitting alone at a lunch table, someone plopped down in the seat next to you. You jumped and scooted away from them, looking up only to see Tubbo. He was smiling at you.

“Hey, I’m really sorry about Tommy, he gets mad easily.”

You eyed him warily and clutched your open book, “...it’s okay.”

He grinned and scooted closer to you, peering over your shoulder at the book. “What’re you reading?”

“‘Harry Potter’.”

“Oh I love that book! My favorite character’s Ron, who’s yours?”

Surprisingly, the conversation was pleasant before he was dragged away by a glaring Tommy. You might actually make a friend after all. Later that day after school, Tommy once again stopped you in the school yard. This time, he shoved you to the ground and started to shout at you.

“You do not talk to him, freak! You’re gonna mess him up, he talks to me and me only. Do you unde-undastunend?”

You gulped and shakily spoke up, “yes, and it’s ‘understand’, not ‘undastunend’.”

His glare intensified before he reared back a fist. You yelped as you curled into a ball with your hands protecting your head. Before he could hit you, you heard the stomping of shoes against the concrete.

“TOMMY STOP.”

You could feel a hand on your back and a gentle voice asking if you were alright. You hesitated before you looked up to see an older boy with a mop of curly brown hair on his head and wire glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. He reminded you of Harry Potter. Looking past him, you saw a tall pink haired boy glaring and lecturing Tommy, holding the struggling boy in place with a firm grip on his elbow. Tubbo was just behind him looking down and shifting on the balls of his feet.

“I am so sorry about Tommy, are you alright? He didn’t hit you did he?”

You shook your head and the boy heaved a sigh of relief, “that’s good. I’m Wilbur and that’s Technoblade, we’re Tommy and Tubbo’s brothers. What’s your name?”

“(Y/n).”

He smiled at you, “that’s a lovely name.”

“Wilbur, let’s go. This one,” Technoblade shook Tommy’s arm, “needs to talk to Dad.”

You watched as Tommy’s movements stopped and he looked up with wide eyes. “No, please don’t tell Dad. Please-”

Wilbur stood and helped you up before grabbing Tubbo’s hand and lead him away, “you aren’t weaseling your way out of this.”

You watched the brothers leave, feeling guilt wash over you. You didn’t want to get him in trouble, punishments were the absolute worst. Even though he shoved you and almost punched you, he didn’t deserve any punishment. With guilt weighing down on your shoulders, you walked home. At least Mama was in a good mood, she made you some mac n cheese for dinner.

The next day, Tommy trudged up to your desk and put a tupperware dish on your desk before sitting down in his seat and ignored you. Tubbo sat in his seat next to you and smiled at you.

“Open it,” he jumped in his seat slightly as he watched your expression change to shock. In the container laid five chocolate chip cookies. You had only had cookies once in your life and that was during a class birthday celebration a year ago. “They’re our Dad’s secret recipe, I helped make them! Um, Tommy wanted to apologize to you.”

You glanced at Tommy. He was glancing at you over his shoulder and blushed a bright red when he saw you looking at him. Tubbo cleared his throat and gestured at Tommy. The blond crossed his arms and looked off to the side. “Sorry,” he mumbled halfheartedly.

After that, they started to sit next to you during lunch. Tommy was a bit cold towards you, but you found yourself beginning to relax around Tubbo’s friendly aura. Soon enough, you started to supply him with more than a few words per sentence. Tommy eventually got bored of eating in silence and would join your conversation. You three became thick as thieves that year, you even met their Dad. He was very different from Mama; he never yelled at you, he was always giving you snacks, and he even smiled at you often.

That house became like a second home to you. Eventually, you ended up spending more time at the Minecraft residence than you spent at home with your mom. Over the years, she got worse with her drinking. She was always passed out on the couch and when she wasn’t, she was swaying on her feet in the kitchen staring at a portrait with dazed, wistful eyes. You can remember when you first realized that she had a problem and always being unhappy and drunk was, in fact, not normal for a parent.

It was a warm spring day in seventh grade. Luckily, you had your health class with Tommy and Tubbo. You were currently learning about alcohol dependency and the effects it had on the body. The teacher listed all the symptoms your mom had; the uncontrollable urge to drink, the aggression, the shakiness and dizziness, everything. When you came to the realization that your mother might have a problem, the teacher started to explain the disorders and diseases that could come from heavy drinking, most of them having the potential to be fatal if the drinking persisted. You felt like you were drenched in icy water as your body seized up in fear for your mother. You stared unseeingly at your notebook at the symptoms of alcoholism and associated disorders. You didn’t want your mom to die. You had to do something before it was too late for her.

“(Y/n)?” You jumped and looked at the person who called your name. Tommy and Tubbo were giving you worried stares. “Are you okay?”

You shakily started to put your supplies away into your backpack. The class had been dismissed and you didn’t even realize it. “Y-yeah. It’s just- I’m worried.”

“Yeah, I’m worried too,” Tommy laughed as you followed the two out of the classroom and to the courtyard. “That essay’s gonna be awful.”

“Oh god we have an essay?”

“Yeah, Mr. Smithers assigned it to us before the bell rang, are you sure you’re okay? You’re usually on top of this stuff.” Tubbo threw a worried glance towards you.

“Yeah, just a bit distracted today. I uh, have to go home. Like right now, my mom wants me home right after school today.”

You sprinted off towards your house. When you reached your neighborhood and ran past the wired fence. The bulldog that lived there was now old and gray. You found out that his name was Buster and he was actually a total sweetheart if you slept next to him on the other side of the fence on more than one occasion. Buster watched from inside his doghouse as you sprinted into the house. Luckily for you, the door was unlocked and your mother was passed out on the couch surrounded by glass bottles. You locked the door behind you as you rushed over to her intensely watching for any sign of movement. She looked dead, her skin was pale, her hair matted, and her mouth gaping open showing off her yellow stained teeth. She wasn’t moving, were you too late?

Just as you started to panic, she snorted and started to breathe. You slumped in relief as you stepped over the beer bottles into the kitchen. The table was sparkly clean with a pristine picture frame resting in the middle, a stark contrast of the beer bottles that littered the floor and the piles of dirty dishes in the sink. It was of a man standing stiffly in a military uniform saluting at the camera with a stern expression. He was an exact copy of you. Well, you were an exact copy of him; that man was your late father.

“Hey Dad, how was your day? Mine was awful, I learned about alcoholism and cirrhosis today and- and I’m worried about Mom. She’s been drinking a lot lately.”

You stared at your dad’s face behind the glass as if expecting a response. You wanted some reassurance from the man. You wanted him to tell you everything was going to be okay and that he’d handle it so you could be a normal kid. Like usual, his steely expression didn’t budge one bit.

You sighed to yourself sadly and trudged to the refrigerator opening the door. The beer bottles stared back at you tauntingly. Your fingers twitched on the fridge door as you contemplated the consequences of throwing away the offending glass bottles. You remembered in second grade when you hid your mother’s alcohol she punished you by withholding food from you. She’d probably do worse this time, but the consequences were worth it if you were going to save your mother’s life.

It took you ten minutes of tossing alcohol into the garbage can until the fridge was left barren of the drink. Without the green bottles, the fridge was completely empty with the exception of milk and a few probably rotten eggs. You struggled to take the trash out to the curb and started to work on homework in your room.

At seven at night, you could hear her roll off the couch and stumble into the kitchen. A series of frantic rustling and banging sounded downstairs before you could hear pounding footsteps storm up the stairs. Your door flung open to reveal your red-faced, livid mother.

“What the fuck did you do?”

“M-mom I hid them because we learned about alcoholism and cirrhosis and-” You cut yourself off when she walked over to you with her arms extended towards your trembling frame. You tried to scoot as far away from her as possible, but she grabbed your shoulders with clammy but firm hands, shaking you roughly.

“Are you saying I have a problem?! You spoiled fucking brat, you’re the problem! Everything was amazing before you came and fucked up my life. You took him away from me. YOU FUCKING KILLED MY HUSBAND.”

You could feel tears start to drip down your cheeks as you remembered that day in first grade when you begged your dad to get you some McDonalds for dinner. When he relented, you cheered and your mom laughed at your excitement. She was so full of life back then; her hair was shiny and bouncy, her skin was unmarked and flawless, her eyes were lively and bright. Her laughter was perhaps your favorite memory of her. Then everything went to shit when your dad never came home and your mom got a phone call saying that your dad was killed in a car wreck on impact. You could remember your mother’s heart wrenching sobs as she collapsed to the floor and pulled you tight against her body. As if she was trying to protect what was left of her husband.

You were snapped back to reality when your mom shoved you back onto your bed. The happy, beautiful woman that you saw was replaced by the shell of a broken woman. Her silky hair turned dull, her smile turned into a grotesque scowl, her loving eyes turned cold. She truly was a husk of her former self.

“Stop crying, you’re not the one who’s life was ruined. I want you out of my house in ten minutes. You’re gonna not step foot anywhere near here for two weeks. If I even see you on my property before those two weeks are up, you’re fucking dead.”

You frantically nodded and watched as she stumbled out of her room. You packed what you would need in your spare backpack and ran out of the house past your mother sobbing and babbling incoherently to your dad. You flinched when you could hear a bang and the sound of glass shattering when she threw a bottle at your retreating figure.

You ran until you couldn’t run anymore. Your legs brought you to the park where you spent most of your childhood. Everywhere you looked, you could see glimpses of your mom and dad pushing you on the swing, Tommy and Tubbo running from you playing tag, Mr. Minecraft putting a bandaid on your scraped knee. Tears streaked down your cheeks as you pushed yourself up and went to your safe place. It was a little nook deep in the vegetation where nobody could see you. You originally found this place when you were playing hide and seek with Tommy and Tubbo. They never knew where you hid.

Tears moistened the soil underneath you as you pulled out a blanket you had hid in a plastic grocery bag and spread it out on the floor. You curled up on it and cried freely into your hands. You didn’t sleep much that night.

That was the first time she had kicked you out for that long. You barely ate in those two weeks, wolfing down any food you could get your hands on at lunch. Lunch for you was the small scraps of food that Tommy and Tubbo shared with you. Mom never packed you lunches or gave you money to buy things anymore. To make matters worse, they had told their dad that they thought you had some form of eating disorder.

About a week into your exile, you finally visited the Minecraft residence after avoiding them for a week. You remembered how the blond man pulled you aside into the kitchen. He gently sat you down and pushed a plate full of chicken and vegetables in front of you. You looked at him confused as he gestured towards the plate.

“Eat that, I heard you haven’t been eating much lately.” When you made no move to eat, he smiled at you. “Go ahead, it’s okay if you don’t eat it all. Just eat some of it.”

That was all you needed to hear, you began to eat quickly like a starving wolf. It’s been a while since you had more than half an apple to eat, let alone an actual homemade meal. When you were done, you looked up to see the older man looking at you worriedly.

“...Are you not getting enough food at home?”

You scrambled to find a lie, “my- my mom is away a lot on business trips. We don’t really eat much.”

His worried expression grew tenfold as he moved to kneel in front of you and put his hands on your shoulders. “You need to eat three meals a day, especially now that you’re growing. You’re always welcome here when your mom’s away, our door’s always open. Is she away now?”

“Yeah, she won’t be home until next week.” You felt bad for lying to the man that put bandaids on your scraped knees and took you to the father daughter dance in fifth grade when he heard that your dad was dead. He was always so kind to you, which you never quite understood. Despite feeling bad for lying to him, you felt incredibly relieved that you didn’t have to be alone anymore.

From then on out whenever she kicked you out, you went to the Minecraft residence. They welcomed you with open arms and treated you like you were a part of the family. You and Techno bonded over your love for reading and mythology, Wilbur made sure you took care of yourself, and Philza (he told you to just call him Phil at that point) treated you like his own child. You didn’t think that it was possible for you, Tommy, and Tubbo to be any closer than you already were, but you three became inseparable. You told them everything one night when you couldn’t sleep. You told them how you felt like you were the cause of your mother’s decline and your dad’s death, how she would usually punish you, her ‘hobby’. They were about to tell Philza, but you begged them not to. After a while of pleading and assuring them that she’d never hit you, they hesitantly agreed and made you promise to call them whenever you felt unsafe in your home.

You kept to that promise, calling them whenever she would get too drunk to know what she was doing. They would calm you down from panic attacks late at night and invite you to their house in the daytime. They felt like your actual brothers and you started to refer to them as such. You three gave each other a shoulder to lean on and gave each other comfort when needed. One night when you were in your freshman year, however, your mother caught you sneaking out to see them after she sent you to your room. That was when she started to hit you.

Just as you were about to sneak out the front door, your mother started to scream at you incoherently. When you flinched away from when she got up in your face, she became even more enraged.

“WHERE WERE YOU GOING? I BET YOU’RE WHORING YOURSELF OUT, AREN’T YOU LITTLE SLUT?”

Without thinking, you yelled back at her, “I would never! Why-” You were cut off by a harsh slap to the cheek sending you to the ground. She quieted down and stared at you and her hand, a glint of shock shining through her dazed eyes. Without a word, she turned around and left to go talk to your dad. You sat there listening to her rant about how she failed as a mother, how she wanted to do better but she didn’t know how, how she wished that he was there with her. You scrambled up and ran to your room. You looked at yourself in the mirror, there was a bright red mark on your cheek in the shape of a hand. There was a small cut where her wedding ring connected with your cheek. A single drop of blood dripped down your cheek and curved down the dip of your chin before dripping onto your shirt. Without doing anything else, you plopped down onto your bed and sobbed into your pillow, crying yourself to sleep.

When you woke up in the morning, you realized that you slept through half of the school day so it was useless to go to school now. You reached up to run a hand down your face only to hiss and pull your hand away. You once again looked at yourself in the mirror.

You looked terrible. Your eyes were bloodshot and swollen like you were crying in your sleep. Hair was sticking up in all directions and matted slightly. The slap mark was gone, but the cut had bruising around the edges with dried blood crusted on your cheek and on your pillow. It was a small cut, but it bled a surprising amount overnight. You couldn’t see Tommy or Tubbo like this, they’d flip out. Luckily for you it was a Friday and you had the weekend to heal.

Your mother gradually started to hit you more and more. It started off as a once-a-week thing whenever she was really angry, but then it divulged into something that would happen daily over the smallest things. You became her punching bag for her to release some steam. Makeup became your best friend at that point; you used what little savings you saved over the years for dollar store makeup.

Soon after it became a struggle to hide the cuts and bruises from Tommy and Tubbo, so you gradually started to avoid them. Your face, once synonymous with the Minecraft residence and Tommy and Tubbo, became a rarity. They tried their hardest to contact you, but you always dodged their calls. After a few months of you dodging Tommy and Tubbo, you finally told them that you didn’t want to be friends with them anymore.

It broke your heart to say it, but it had to be done. They were getting too close to the truth and you couldn’t have that; the government would take you away from your mom and she’d end up dead. You were the only one keeping her alive at this point, she lost all motivation to eat. The only thing she did nowadays was hit you, drink, and hug your dad’s photo to her chest.

The beatings got to the point where you could barely walk without feeling pain. School became something that you’d rarely attend. Tommy and Tubbo stopped trying to talk to and call you. Buster, your previous confidant, had long since died so you were truly alone in the world. The neighbor’s yard looked barren without the dog house and the graying dog. The only person you had left was your mom.

When you had accidentally burnt dinner late at night, she completely snapped. She grabbed your arm and held it on top of the burner. Pain hit you immediately as you screamed and cried apologies to her. When you instinctively hit her with your other hand, she dug her nails into your arm and pushed your arm closer onto the burner. Nerve endings screamed at you to get away from the pain. The pain was becoming too much, so you looked on the countertop next to you for something to defend yourself with. A metal fork was lying close to your other hand.

You grabbed it and, with a distraught apology to your mother, drove the prongs deep into her arm. She screamed in pain and let your arm go. You ripped yourself out of her grasp and started to run for the front door. A force collided with the back of your shoulder making pain explode in the area. You didn’t know what happened at first, but after hearing the shattering of glass, you realized that she threw a beer bottle at you. You could feel the sting of alcohol and glass mingling with your open wounds on your shoulder. The sting was almost as bad as your arm, but you didn’t stop running especially when you glanced behind you to see her running at you with a knife raised and the fork protruding from her arm.

You flung open the door and sprinted out without bothering to close the door behind you. As your bare feet hit the sidewalk, you could hear your mother stop at the end of the stairs and shout at you to come back. You never stopped.

You didn’t stop until your feet took you to the Minecraft residence’s front door. Nobody was on the street as it was about eleven at night. You hesitated to knock on their door, you ignored the family for the past six months, and you weren’t sure if they even wanted you there. After five minutes of thinking, you just sighed as you walked back down the wooden stairs and walked back towards the sidewalk.

“(Y/n), what are you doing here?” You froze up at Tommy’s sleep riddled voice. You stayed frozen as you heard him stomp over to you. He placed a firm hand on your injured shoulder and forced you to turn around. His angry expression faded into a concerned one when he heard you start to sob and flinch away from him.

“Wha- shit are you bleeding?” You nodded slightly and he gently turned you back around to see a patch of darkened cloth on your shirt. You could feel him shaking as he grabbed your arm and pulled you into the house. He plopped you at the dining room table and told you to wait there. With that, he sprinted up the stairs and brought back a serious Philza holding a first aid kit.

When he saw you bruised and battered, you could hear him take in a sharp intake of breath and saw unbridled anger flash across his face. You flinched away from him when he approached you.

“Hey,” he said in a gentle voice, “I won’t hurt you. Can you show me where you’re hurt?”

You eyed him warily like a scared wild animal and reluctantly moved your burned arm away from your chest and showed it to him. This was the first time you saw your forearm; it was an ugly red that expanded up the majority of the underside of your forearm with skin burned off at the edges. Yellow, fluid-filled blisters were starting to form.

You could hear Tommy’s horrified gasp as he turned to run out of the room. You kept your gaze downwards as Philza warned you that he was about to put disinfectant on your wound. He apologized to you when you whimpered in pain at the sting of the alcohol on your exposed nerves. After he was finished wrapping your arm, he asked you to show him where else you’re injured. You turned around so he could see the growing patch of blood staining your now ripped shirt. You could feel him gently move your shirt to the side and heard him wince.

“Shit, there’s glass in here. I’m going to have to get some tweezers to get it out. Stay here, I’ll be right back.” You were then alone in the kitchen for a moment before he came back with a worried Wilbur and Techno in tow. The brunet pulled up a chair next to you and asked if it was alright to hold your hand. After you hesitantly nodded, he grabbed your hand and started to run his thumb over your knuckles. Techno held a light close to your shoulder as Philza started to tweeze out the green tinted glass from your shoulder.

Every time you would suck in air through your teeth and muffle your yelps with your other hand, Wilbur would whisper reassurances to you and hold your hand tighter. After the glass was out, the wound was disinfected, and wrapped in gauze, Philza told the boys to leave the room. He grabbed both of your hands and gave you the best reassuring smile that he could.

“Tell me what happened.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat as you felt tears well up in your eyes, “I tried Phil, I really did. She never got better no matter what I did.”

“What do you mean, are you talking about your mom?” You could hear the angry undertone of his voice. You tensed up and nodded.

“She… she needs help. She was never the same after Dad died, she started drinking. It started off with only one beer a day, but after seventh grade she was going through an entire case in a day. She’d punish me if I said or did anything about it. No dinner for a week was a popular one until she started to ban me from the house for weeks on end. She never went on business trips, Phil. She got a knife today. I-I thought she was actually gonna kill me this time, I was so scared.”

Without another word, he pulled you into a tight hug, letting you sob freely into his shoulder. “It was my fault, I couldn’t help her! She- she needed me and I couldn’t help her.” You said between sobs. He hugged you tighter and started to rub your back, making sure to avoid your shoulder. “None of this is your fault, you can’t help someone if they don’t want help. Sometimes you can’t fix someone who’s too far gone.”

“Am I too far gone?”

“No, you aren’t. We’ll help you through this, we won’t let anybody hurt you ever again. You’re gonna go on to live a good life.” You passed out in his arms after a while of crying.

When you woke up, you were in Tommy and Tubbo’s room. The two boys jumped to your side and pulled you into a tight group hug. After you tried to apologize to them for how you treated them in the past six months, they shushed you and just sat there in silence hugging you.

Later that day you found out that your mother was found by your neighbor on the front porch with her wrists slit and empty beer bottles surrounding her. She was breathing, but just barely. Currently she was in an unstable condition in the hospital. You had a full breakdown when you found out that she almost killed herself because of you. You had run out of the house and to your safe place in the park. You hadn’t been there in a few years, so you hoped that it was still there.

Sure enough, it was still there albeit a bit overgrown. The blanket in the plastic bag was in the same place where you left it. You had no idea how long you were sitting there crying and having a panic attack, but when you came to your senses it was dark outside. You could hear crickets chirping and the rustling of leaves in the entrance of your hideout.

A brunet head poked itself in and smiled when he saw you. Tubbo fully came into the nook and gestured for someone to follow. Tommy’s blond hair made itself apparent before he joined you two inside.

“Nice little place you have here. It’s… homey.” Tubbo rubbed his hands together and blew warm air on them. You threw one side of the blanket at him and pulled your knees up to your chest. “Thanks, I used to sleep here sometimes… How’d you find me?”

“We could hear you,” Tommy pulled out his phone and typed something on it before pocketing it and sitting next to you. He covered himself with the blanket as Tubbo followed suit. You sat in silence before Tommy broke it.

“How long has she been hittin you?”

“Tommy!” Tubbo scolded him.

“She started about six months ago.”

“Six months ago… that was when you cancelled plans! I knew something was wrong Tubbo.”

Tubbo said nothing as he looked at you with a helpless expression. Just as he was about to open his mouth, you interrupted him. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Everything’s my fault. I’m the reason my mom’s in the hospital right now fighting for her life. I wasn’t there for her.” You would’ve started crying if it weren’t for the fact that you just felt so drained and numb.

“The fuck do you mean? She was about to kill you! You told us that she was about to stab you, what else were you supposed to do, just let her kill you?!” Tommy exclaimed.

You shrugged, “maybe. If she did she’d be happy, I was just a burden to her. I- I just wanted her to be happy and I would never be able to do that as long as I’m alive. If she killed me she wouldn’t be in the hospital right now.”

“What the fuck (y/n),” Tubbo shouted, startling you. He never shouts, let alone swears. “How could you even say that? I don’t know what I’d do without you, everything would be so boring and nothing would be the same without you. Fuck her happiness, she’s a wretched woman if the only way she can be happy is when you’re dead. Fuck her.”

You and Tommy stared at the seething boy in shock. He never shouted when he was angry, he only did that once when he found out that Tommy was being bullied. Whenever he sweared, that’s when you knew his emotions were hitting him at full force. Tommy quickly recovered from his shock to join him, “yeah fuck her, man! She can go suck a dick.” He was interrupted by his phone buzzing.

“Dad’s here, c’mon he’s worried sick about you.” After they helped you out of your safe place, they both wrapped an arm around your shoulders and walked you to the parking lot. You could see the headlights of the lone car in the lot turn off before the door swung open and a figure rushed towards you. You pushed yourself behind Tommy and Tubbo and hid behind them fearfully. They both turned around and put a hand on your shoulders. “It’s okay, it’s our dad.”

You peeked over their shoulders and saw a mop of disheveled, long blond hair. Philza looked like he was just told that there was an antidote for a fatal poison he just ingested, despite the flash of hurt that showed on his face. His blue eyes were accentuated by the redness of his sclera and you can see the relief painted in them. A gentle smile was on his face as he moved his arms up. Without another word, you launched yourself at him and pulled him into the tightest hug you could manage with your shoulder.

“Are your accusations true, Mx. (L/n)?”

Your gaze flickered over to your mother sitting on the other side of the courtroom. She looked at you with no expression on her face. Her wrists were wrapped tightly in a white bandage that was a stark contrast to the bright orange prison uniform and the silver of the handcuffs. She wasn’t the woman you knew when your dad was alive. The life was sucked out of her the second she picked up that phone call.

You looked back at the lawyer, “yes sir.”

“I have no further questions, your honor.”

“You may return to your seat, Mx. (L/N).”

You stood up and walked as confidently as you could past the dull eyes of your mother and back to your seat between Tommy and Tubbo. You held their hands tightly as the trial moved onwards. Buster’s owner even stepped up to the witness stand to give his testimony. Apparently he knew about the abuse from your late night conversations with Buster. He had contacted CPS and the police multiple times but the case was always dropped for some reason that you couldn’t bring yourself to ponder. A few of your previous teachers even showed up to give their testimonies. Their words, though true and slightly sweet, rubbed you the wrong way. If they ‘knew something was happening at home with you’, then why didn’t they do anything when it was happening? You tried to focus on the rest of the trial.

Your mother’s only witness was herself, and she did a piss poor job at it. She was basically digging her own grave with every word that came out of her mouth. The entire time, she was staring at you with her infamous dull eyes.

“Do you have any further points you would like to add, Mrs. (L/n)?”

“Yes, I have always loved my child. They were my husband’s pride and joy, the splitting image of him. Their rightful place is safe with their real parent at our home.”

You could feel Tommy attempt to stand up, but you pulled him back down; now was not the time for him to start yelling in anger. Tubbo squeezed your hand in reassurance and glanced at you. You were staring at the woman you called your mother with pain and hate filled eyes. You wished her words were sincere, but you knew fully well that they weren’t. The words that left her mouth would’ve been one hundred percent true and genuine when your dad was still alive, but he’s buried six feet under in a military cemetary now and he has been for years. You would’ve given anything, even your own life, for those words to be true a month ago, but you knew better now. Mothers don’t treat their kids like this, they’re supposed to give their children their unconditional love and take care of them. As far as you were concerned, she was no longer your mother. She forfeited that title the second she turned to the bottle. Philza is and will always be more of a parental figure than she’ll ever be.

After the jury left to discuss, the court was in a recess. You slipped out of the room and speed walked to the bathroom. You looked at yourself in the mirror. You could see heavy eye bags under your dull eyes. The dullness of your eyes, to your horror, reminded you of your mother, so you splashed your face with water. That fixed it, your eyes were slightly brighter. You could still see the faint outline of the scar on your cheek from when she first hit you. Small scars littered your face from the more recent wounds she gave you before you ran.

A knock sounded at the door, “(y/n), the recess is almost over.” It was Techno.

You patted your face dry and went to leave the bathroom. The pink haired boy that you now saw as your older brother was waiting patiently for you on the other side. He put a gentle hand on your shoulder and led you back to the courtroom. There, the rest of the Minec- no, your family was waiting for you. Just as you reached them, the judge announced that the jurors would be arriving back. The entire courtroom stood as they walked in.

“Have you reached a verdict?” The judge asked.

“We have.”

“Mrs. (L/n) and Mr. Langsburg, would you stand and face the jury? You may read the verdict.”

“We the jury of the state court find the defendant guilty under the charges of child abuse and child neglect.”

Tommy clapped a hand on your shoulder as Tubbo squeezed your hand. They both smiled widely at you. You, however, didn’t acknowledge them. You were only staring at the empty eyes of your mother as she was looking at the jury. Her reaction was akin to her breaking a pencil, like it didn’t matter to her. Like all the years abuse that she put you through didn’t matter was as trivial as breaking a pencil.

“So say you all?”

“Yes, your honor.”

“I hereby sentence Mrs. (L/n) to twelve years in the state penitentiary with no opportunity of parole. Mr. Philza Minecraft shall be bestowed the custody of Mx. (Y/n) (l/n) as they do not have any next of kin. Court is adjourned.” With that, she banged the gavel and the courtroom exploded in the bustling of people. You never took your eyes off from your mo- no, the monster with the dull eyes as she picked at something in her nails boredly. Just as she looked up to meet your gaze, Tommy pulled you into a tight hug, lifting you off the ground slightly. You were passed around the family in the courtroom for their individual hugs. Philza’s was comforting, Tubbo’s was congratulatory, Wilbur’s was warm, and Techno’s was slightly awkward, yet soft.

At home, you spent most of your time in the spare room Philza had given you. He had offered to help you decorate it, but you had no idea where to start. You were never allowed to have decorations in your old room. You kept the room simplistic and your possessions light.

You often stared at your dad’s portrait on your nightstand wondering what your life could’ve been like if you never asked him for McDonalds that day. Your family probably would’ve been stationed in who knows where and moved around often, as is customary in most military families. You probably would’ve never met Tommy and Tubbo in third grade. You probably would’ve never met your now older brothers and new father. You didn’t want to imagine a life without them.

After a few days of you being locked up in your room, Tommy and Tubbo came into your room with mischievous grins. You knew them like the back of your hand, so you knew the second you saw their faces that they were about to do something. You sat up and looked at them suspiciously.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re not doing anything, (y/n). Right Tubbo?”

“Right Tommy.” Tubbo nodded curtly. They still had grins on their faces. They walked over to your bed before they picked you up and walked you out of the room. You didn’t have the energy to fight them, so you laid limp in their arms. They eventually took you down to the living room and plopped you down onto the couch between them. Techno tossed them a blanket when they then used to wrap you tightly into a blanket burrito. The home screen of Disney Plus was pulled up on the TV and the curtains were drawn. Philza and Wilbur exited the kitchen with glasses of water and two big bowls of popcorn.

They smiled widely when they saw you squashed between your brothers, putting a bowl of popcorn in your lap and three glasses of water nearby. The two next to you dug into the popcorn as the rest of the family made themselves comfortable on the couch.

“What are we doing?”

“Movie night! We’re gonna binge the Marvel movies, your favorite!” Tubbo grinned at you, practically bouncing in his seat.

“Just double checking, the order is Captain America, Captain Marvel, Iron Mans One and Two, Incredible Hulk, Avengers, Thor-”

You cut Wilbur off with a mumbled “first Thor, then the first Avengers movie.”

“Glad I asked then! The timeline would’ve been thrown off.”

As the movies progressed, you started to finally feel like you belonged as a part of the family. Laughter came easier to you, mingling effortlessly with the family’s laughter. Every time you laughed at a scene, they would give you a smile and laugh alongside you. Eventually after about halfway through Captain America: The Winter Soldier, everyone had fallen asleep on the couch. Soft snores and the quiet sounds of the occasional fight scene filled the room as your eyelids started to close involuntarily. You looked around the room at the rest of your family. They all looked peaceful in their slumber. Tommy and Tubbo’s protective hold of their arms around your shoulders made you feel safe. It was in that moment that you realized that they would never let anyone hurt you ever again. You were a part of an actual, loving family. With that, you let yourself fall asleep into a peaceful slumber surrounded by the people that loved you the most.

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@crybabyjabby @izzybobizzy13 @goldenstarofthunderclan @bunnyz-pxstel @averytiredfanfictionwriter @dcml04 @sparkling-gayyyy @bbigbbrainn @thaticecreambish @kiinokochii @satansphatass @bxkubitch @bxmentchildxx @roxy3457 @montygator17 @feverish-dove @the-fictionwriters-hairdo @jichuuchaeng

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tokiloki · 3 years ago

Text

@inky-page Tumblr ate your ask I'm sorry but here you go. ❤️

💮 TR BOYS WITH A GIRLFRIEND WHO SPEAKS 4 LANGUAGES

🌸Characters : Rindou Haitani, Baji and Sanzu Haruchiyo.

🏵️Warnings/note : Fem reader/Second point of view (you, your) /Slight cursing. /Brief mention of drugs in Sanzu's part/ fluff/ slight crack/generally astonished boyfriends./ An au where all the manga pain doesn't exist/Canon divergence.

HARUCHIYO SANZU/ AKASHI::

-Your boyfriend was shocked when he found out. And honestly, he didn't find out in the best of ways.

- He was just lounging on the sofa while you took a shower, lazily flicking from channel to channel while waiting for you to come out.Thats when he heard what was one of the most terrible noises in his life, coming from the shower.

- He ran in panic as he heard you screech an impressive number of curses, some he didn't recognise as his language. He barged into the bathroom calling out your name, only to see you struggling with the shampoo stuck in your eyes. Screaming at everyone and everything.

"Y/N ARE YOU ALRIGHT?"

"HARU? DO I LOOK ALRIGHT?"

-He stood there for a hot minute, shocked at the number of different notes that flew from your mouth.

- Ignoring the situation, he simply leaned on the doorframe and asked about how many languages you spoke.

-You were going to kill him, no seriously because the shampoo in your eyes was doing wonders to your raging temper, only adding to the fuel.

"OOOH how interesting! How many languages do you speak Y/N darling? Do you attend classes or something?"

"HARUCHIYO SANZU, DOES THIS LOOK LIKE THE RIGHT TIME? IS IT THE RIGHT TIME HARUCHIYO?"

"You're right, you're right, stop staring at me like that calm down."

-Since that day onward, he asked you the most random questions to date.

"Y/N sweetheart, what do you call cocaine in (language)?"

"Babe I swear I never researched drug or gun names in my language courses, let me sleep it's 2 am."

------

"Y/N did the duolingo owl ever terrorise you into studying? Is that why you studied so many languages?"

"Haru shut the hell up before I go to sleep on the couch"

"You wouldn't"

"Keep talking and we'll see"

RINDOU HAITANI ::

-Honestly, you’re the one who told Rindou about your unique specialty , you admittedly actually hoped for some kind of astonishment, or amazement from your stoic boyfriend.

-Instead all you got from him was a cool shrug and a question of what languages you spoke, after that he just went back to scrolling absentmindedly on his phone.

-You knew Rindou wasn’t one for words, but still, it would’ve been nice if he showed a little enthusiasm -its not everyday someone speaking 4 languages appears. The thought crossed your mind before you could stop it.

Did he even care?

-It must’ve shown on your face because Rindou sighed, dropping his phone to the side and pulling you closer to his body, mumbling apologetic words, you squirmed, insisting you knew and that it didn’t hurt.

“Y/N I promise I care, you know how I am”

“Rin! No it’s alright, I know, don’t worry!”

-Your reaction didn’t satisfy him, even though you thought it did. In fact, you almost forgot the entirety of the tense incident, until a number of weeks later when it made it’s way back into your conversations.

-You two had been sitting on the couch, your head rested above his chest with his arm around your waist as you watched a boring movie. You were slowly slipping off into small bouts of sleep, eyes tired and head drowsy when you heard a quiet voice mumble.

“Y/N?

“What’s wrong Rin”

*in foreign language* “I love you Y/N, you know that right?”

“I love you too Rin-”

-Your eyes flew open in shock, tilting your head up to meet his dimmed violet eyes staring at you. He rarely ever commented on his love for you, but that wasn’t what shocked you, this time, he had commented in one of the languages you had thought he wouldn’t even recall.

“Hold on”

-You rubbed the sleep out of your eyes, peering up at him again, his face was dusted with a light blush, one you could barely see in the dark room. He averted his gaze away, blush darkening as you stared up at him in shock. Finally you spoke.

“Since when...did you even learn...that?”

“A while ago dumbass”

“A while ago?”

“From when...from when you told me you could speak a bunch of languages, I just thought to take one up.”

-Rindou wouldn’t say anything else regarding it after that, resorting to intense focus on the movie onscreen, he wouldn’t tell you but the look of hurt that had flashed on your face when you told him had him sinking in guilt.

-He recalled the deep anxiety he found himself sinking into, thinking that you thought the worst of him. He wanted to show you that the 'I love you's' he murmured were truly heartfelt.

-Ran said he was being over dramatic, but Rindou had honestly found no other way to prove to himself and you that he cared for everything you did and said. The warmth that bloomed through his chest at your excited smile was worth every minute he had spent trying to learn a language to connect to you.

That night, Rindou was free of his worries, which had all been soothed by your smile.

BAJI KEISUKE ::

-Listen, he is proud of you. He thinks that you're deservedly the smart one in the relationship, maybe the one smart person he will sit and listen to all day.

-When he heard from a friend of yours that you spoke four languages he was genuinely amazed, exclaming to you later on just how amazing and impressive that was.

-You even slowly began to realise that he was picking up on common phrases you used, his eyes would gleam over with pride whenever you said a single word, instantly bookmarking it for another day.

-To someone else it might have seemed like Baji was the multilingual one, but no he was just hyping you up every minute he could.

-It actually ended up being helpful as you helped him with language studies, he thought your methods were better than the teachers anyways.

-Baji was always motivated to do better by you and his desire to keep his mother happy, so motivated he found himself studying voluntarily, shocking the Toman members so badly to the point that you actually received a frantic call from Mikey asking if you had drugged Baji.

-You regularly answered multiple random questions from him, most of them were things like 'alright how do you say you're beautiful?' only to repeat your words with a cheerful grin, making you laugh at his cheesy techniques.

-Baji, despite all his wholesome actions, was also the first person to ask you for every possible curse in every language you spoke, grinning enthusiastically as you nervously recited words you wished you didn't know.

-Actually Baji even learnt curses you didn't know existed, saying that he was "merely deepening his knowledge"

-But all in all, Baji loves you and all your 'random mumbo jumbo' as he calls it. He's never been so proud to love a girl before, and he apologises for all the random questions he cursed you with.

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

A/N : im sorry for how long this turned out. I got to Rindou and kinda got carried away, anyways first fic I hope you liked it! Reblogs and likes much appreciated 💖

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shorkbrian · 4 years ago

Note

yandere Aizawa x male reader, reader has a wet dream and doesn't know what it is so he asks Aizawa {overstimulation dry humping}

(What to expect - Incest (please I am begging you, if that’s not your cup of tea, scroll past), NSFW, Dubcon, dry humping, groping, Aizawa in teacher mode.)

Aizawa wakes up as you trundle past his room, all of your blankets and sheets wrapped up in your arms, some of them dragging against the floor.

The man’s curiosity is piqued, and of course he wants to make sure his son is okay, so he leaves his bed, follows the noises of someone awake until he finds you in the laundry room.

You’re in nothing but your boxers, back bare as you’re facing away from him, legs spread for balance as you stuff your bedding into the washing machine, struggling with it.

“Everything alright?”

You freeze, a little gasp falling past your lips as you hear your dad behind you, voice rough and scratchy with sleep. “Uhm, yeah! I’m fine.”

But that doesn’t explain why you’re up in the middle of the night, washing your sheets.

Aizawa steps closer, peers at you curiously. “What happened?” His gaze is focused on your rear, how it looks as you shift in place, unscrewing the laundry soap and adding it to the load.

“I.... Well....uhm-” Reluctant, you avoid the question.

“Are you okay?” Dad asks, stepping ever closer, and you nod your head, cheeks burning with shame.

“IthinkIwetthebed.”

“What?”

You bend, rest your head against the washing machine as you groan in shame, forced to repeat yourself. You know how much dad hates mumbling. But it’s so embarrassing! “I... I wet the bed.... I think...”

Aizawa’s mind churns. You’re too old for that, haven’t wet the bed since you were a child. There’s moonlight coming through the laundry room window, and Aizawa can see the way your thighs rub together, the slight flush on your skin, can hear the breathy tremble in your voice.

“Mm, I don’t think that’s it.” He steps closer, and now he’s almost pressed to your back, heat radiating from his bare chest. “Were you dreaming?”

A hot blush rises to your cheeks as you straighten suddenly, press closer to the washing machine to avoid the press of your father’s body. “U-uhm, yeah-yeah.”

“About what?” Aizawa touches your shoulder, soft, warm. His other hand grazes against your hip.

“Just-just stuff, y’know.” You try, but you can almost hear dad’s frown.

“What were you dreaming about?” His hands slide against your back, tease at your shoulder blades, ease up and over until they’re eating against your clavicle.

“Izuku.” You rush out, tears rising in your eyes. This is embarrassing, wetting the sheets and getting interrogated after.

“I see.” Dad slides his hands down further, down your chest, skims over your nipples. “What was he doing?”

You always try to be truthful, shy away from lies of half-truths, but right now, you really wish you could find a way to stop the truth from tumbling out of your mouth. “He... was touching me.”

Aizawa leans closer, until he’s pressed against your back. Your whispered reply has him humming as his hands play with your chest, smooth over the skin, squeeze at the barely-there fat. “Was he touching you here? Or-”

One hand drops to your crotch, easily finds your half-hard dick, gropes it through your boxers and you squirm, gasping out a plea. “-Here?”

“There, there.” You confirm, both aching to back away from the touch and buck up into it. Dad’s hands are so big, and he knows how to touch just right, squeezing gently at your shaft.

Aizawa smiles a bit, rocks his hips against yours, and you feel his length press against your rear at the same time that his hips press you more firmly against his hand. “You like Midoriya? He’s a handsome man.”

“I.......uh.....” You can’t think anymore, not with dad plucking at your nipples with one. hand, teasing and stroking you over your boxers with the others. He’s so hot against your ass, and you can feel his length, bigger than your own, trying to slide between your cheeks.

“You didn’t wet the bed, you had a wet dream. There’s a difference.” Aizawa explains, slowly finding a comfortable rhythm of humping against your ass, which drives you forward against his hand where he rubs at your cock.

“A wet dream is when you ejaculate during your sleep. It’s more common during puberty, but not unheard of in adulthood.” He’s in teaching mode, but you’re barely listening, instead gasping and bucking your hips forward, rocking your ass back. You can’t decide which feels better.

“Sometimes the dream contains erotic material, sometimes not. It seems you had some particularly pleasant imagery of Midoriya, and that caused you to ejaculate. There’s no shame in that. It means you’re a healthy young man.”

You nod your head, trying to convey that you’re trying your best to listen, but there’s a pleasant feeling building up in your stomach, and you know you’re about to cum.

Then dad leans even closer, grabs your bulge, uses his hold there to drag you back against his body where he rubs his clothed erection against your ass. “Do you ever dream of daddy?”

You don’t know what to say, can only manage a squeaky “Uhm-” before Aizawa cuts you off

“Daddy dreams of you.”

The thought has you spurting in your boxers, wetting dad’s hand, messing your clean boxers. The man keeps massaging you through it, and it feels so good, you can’t stop rocking your hips again and again and again.

You collapse against the washing machine, exhausted, cheek resting against the cool metal as you heave out breaths. Your crotch is sticky, and dad moves his hand away, to your thighs to rub the skin there soothingly.

“Dad-wha-what?”

Then you’re being pinned against the machine, Aizawa curling over your body as his hips never stop, working smoothly against your ass. It grinds your softened cock against the edge of the machine, and you can’t catch a breath, can’t formulate thoughts. You just came, you need a minute, you need-you need-

“I have dreams where I’m fucking you. You’d look so good all spread out, letting me fuck you nice and slow. I’d keep going, even after you cum. You’re young, your refractory period is much shorter than mine. You can probably get it up again in a few minutes.”

Your hands are scrabbling against the machine, back against your dad’s body. It’s too much, this is all too much, you can’t-

“”Dad please! ah-ahh! ‘M sens-sensitive!” You whimper, and only then does Aizawa chuckle, pull away from your body.

“You can sleep in my room tonight, yeah? We’ll get your bedding in the morning.”

You’re dazed, pliant and sleepy after your second orgasm of the night. You barely protest as dad leads you to his bedroom.

You’re going to have a lot more material for wet dreams now.

#aizawa #shouta aizawa #bnha aizawa #aizawa shouta #aizawa smut #aizawa sensei #aizawa x y/n #shoto aizawa #my hero academia aizawa #mha aizawa #aizawa x reader #tw.incest #tw.dubcon

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snackhobi · 4 years ago

Text

pairing: taehyung x reader / word count: 13.3k / genre: fluff, friends to lovers, smut (NSFW, 18+)

summary: you’re used to being in love with taehyung. you’ve had a lot of time to get good at it, after all—by this point you’re the world’s expert at keeping your less-than-platonic feelings hidden from him, what with the amount of practice you’ve had.

but then he signs up for a massage therapy course, because apparently you can never catch a break.

or: the one where taehyung gives you a full body massage and then some.

warnings: sexually explicit content, massage with a happy ending (literally 🤧), cursing, edible massage oil/lube, fingering (f), unprotected sex (be safe when you have sex please), multiple orgasms (f), oral sex (m), cum swallowing, pet names, body worship?, brief mention of shower sex

a/n: I swear this was meant to be pwp. this was literally meant to just be pwp with some massage shenanigans. and then I blinked and it had become a soft 13k fic which honestly… kicked my ass quite a bit. but I hope you enjoy it!! thank you as always to @hobi-gif for beta reading this and encouraging me and putting up with me changing this multiple times, what would I do without your support miss hope?

Taehyung goes through a lot of different phases.

He just finds so many things interesting. Photography, art, art history, music, fashion, thrift shopping; heck, there was even the time he got weirdly into making tea and became some sort of connoisseur, going through the whole rigmarole of buying the loose leaves and weighing them out, checking the temperature of the water, brewing for a precisely measured amount of time.

You still remember the look on his face when you said it all tasted like hot leaf water to you.

Because, of course, as one of Taehyung’s best friends and his roommate, you’re inevitably swept up in everything he does. You’re used to the weirdly acrid smell of photo development fluid and how cold dark rooms can get. You use phrases like chiaroscuro and sfumato to describe the simplest things after listening to Taehyung do the same for so long. You’ve lost count of the amount of times you’ve tripped over his saxophone case when he leaves it lying around the apartment. You regularly wear the baggy t-shirt with the face that Taehyung had painted on it—even if you still refer to it as the Squidward-House-Shirt despite the fact you know he was inspired by Basquiet and Schiele and not the Easter Island themed stone head that Squidward lives in.

You don’t mind getting dragged along with whatever he does, honestly; you don’t have time to attend every class, but go with him when you can. It’s always good to expand your horizons. You also love watching Tae’s face whenever he learns something new, the various expressions that flit across his features—from wide eyed excitement and eyebrow raising astonishment to the more solemn side that appears whenever he’s taking something in and thinking deeply about it, turning it over in his mind, mulling on it.

(You love watching Tae’s face all the time, actually, but that’s a whole other can of worms you’d rather keep shut.)

However, the latest course he’s signed up for is not one you’d been expecting.

“Massage therapy?” Your face twists in equal parts confusion and surprise.

Taehyung’s dropped this latest nugget of information while you’re cooking, trying to fry some rice while also peering at the phone screen that’s been thrust into your face. You’re not bad at multitasking, per se, but Taehyung’s iPhone is drifting so close that you’re almost cross-eyed and it’s blocking you from seeing what’s going on in the pan.

“I had a coupon,” he says, as if that explains everything. (It doesn’t.)

“Scooch,” you say, and he immediately moves so you can turn the gas off.

“Jiminie and Jungkookie say that my massages help with dance, and that's just from Youtube tutorials.” Taehyung continues to talk as you bustle around the tiny kitchen. He’s already set the table so now he’s free to watch you finish doing the rest of the work. “And Joon-hyung says I have the perfect hands for it.”

You fumble with the pan as you’re scooping the steaming rice into a large bowl, only just managing to save food from scattering everywhere. You’ve thought about Taehyung’s hands a lot, about how large and long fingered and beautiful they are, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Really? Huh. That’s nice.” You stare at the pan, fixated on getting every grain of rice so you can avoid looking at Taehyung’s face. And hands. Which are still cupped around his phone. Which looks so small in his big, pretty grip.

Jesus Christ.

“It means I can give you massages if you ever start to get tense.” Taehyung sounds pleased, lovely grin on his face at the prospect of being able to rub his hands over you. As if that isn’t going to make every single one of your muscles lock up and turn you into some sort of coiled rope of a human being, which is the complete opposite of what a massage is supposed to achieve.

“Great.” Despite your inner turmoil, your voice is level and steady as you meticulously scrape the last grain of rice into the bowl, chasing the tiny fleck of white around the huge pan. Scrape, scrape, scrape. “Sounds fabulous. Can’t wait.”

Of course Taehyung would sign up to learn something that he could use to help his friends. He’s so big-hearted and loving. Big-hearted and loving and kind and funny and affectionate and beautiful and deep-voiced and so entirely overwhelming in every single way imaginable.

You do what you always do when confronted yet again with your all-consuming crush—you bottle that shit the fuck up until he’s not in the room.

And then you have a miniature breakdown at Pickles.

“I am going to die,” you whisper-scream. “He’s going to offer to massage me and he’s going to get a bottle of massage oil out and he’s going drizzle it onto his massive hands and I am going to fucking die.”

The bearded dragon cocks his head as he stares at you. Taehyung had come home with the reptile one day, tank and all, saying that someone on Facebook had been giving him away because they were moving house and could they just look after him for a little while, please, pretty please? Until they found a good home for him? Please?

That was over a year ago. (You’ve always been bad at saying no to Taehyung.)

“I hate my life,” you lament to the lizard, but then you hear the noisy flush of the toilet and know that Taehyung is going to emerge from the bathroom soon, so you have to wrap this miniature meltdown up pronto. “I wish I was a bearded dragon too, you know. All you do is get fed and sit under the heat bulb. Your life is so easy. You don’t even know what capitalism is.”

The silence you get from Pickles is far more support than you get from your human friends once you tell them. Yoongi just raises his eyebrows while Seokjin and Hoseok laugh outright in your face, just like they always do when you cry to them about Taehyung.

You need new friends. These ones are defective. (If only you’d kept the receipt so you could return them.)

“We learned how to do neck and shoulder massages today!” Taehyung says brightly after the first session.

You hum in response. You’re rewatching Pacific Rim together, cuddled up against Taehyung’s side, and you don’t have to turn your head to know what expression is on his face. There’ll be that little upturn to his lips, happiness at learning something new. That warmth in his eyes at being able to share it with you, even if you couldn't be there with him. Those little freckles on his face, under his eye, his nose, his lip; the one you’ve imagined kissing more times than you can count.

“My teacher says I have a natural talent with my hands,” he adds, and you’re so grateful that you can blame your sudden intake of breath on the scene that’s playing on the screen, as high stakes as it is.

“That’s nice,” you say, and mentally pat yourself on the back at keeping the strain out of your voice. You've had a lot of practice at this. “I’m not surprised, though. You’ve always been good at doing things with them.”

That’s not a euphemism. Taehyung’s always so careful when he makes things; you’d learned how to fold different origami patterns together, matching crane for crane, lotus for lotus, and he’d always been so delicate with his fingers. He’s always so careful and considerate with you, too, fingers splayed wide across your shoulder as he squeezes you closer to his side, leaving you breathless.

“I wish you could come too.” Taehyung sounds disappointed. “We always have so much fun together.”

For the first time in your life you’re grateful that your manager at Olive Chicken is such a hardass and won’t let you swap shifts, so you’d had to miss signing up for the massage course with Taehyung—because you know there’s no way you’d be able to keep it together if there was some sort of tandem practice in class or whatever. Your crush on him is filled with equal parts of tenderness and lust and you’re well aware of that. You’d rest your hands on the soft skin of Taehyung’s shoulders and back, the lust would overwhelm you, and you’d immediately burst into flames like some sort of demon stepping over the threshold of a church.

Why oh why did God have to make Kim Taehyung so hot?

Why oh why did God have to make you so… not?

You know Taehyung doesn’t see you in a romantic light at all. You’re grateful for this deep, platonic relationship you have, and you love him to pieces, but holy hell is it hard to walk around with Kim Taehyung looking the way he does and wanting to jump his bones while simultaneously being aware that it’s never going to happen. Whenever he smiles at you, or touches you, or holds you, it’s in exactly the same way as he treats any of his friends—and as happy as you are to be one of those friends, it also kind of kills you inside.

(Because you know you don’t have a chance, have never had a chance, and will never have a chance.)

The idea of offering to massage Taehyung is one that makes you want to melt into a puddle of horny goo. But when he offers to massage you, it’s because you’re a convenient practice partner who he’s comfortable with. It’s no big deal. You could strip naked and slather yourself up in oil and stand in front of him with your bosoms heaving and say ‘Have at me, big boy’ and Taehyung would say: ‘Sweet! A chance to practice deep tissue massage! Gee, thanks for being such a great pal!’

The kind of deep tissue you want Taehyung to massage is very different to whatever he’s talking about.

… Anyway.

You manage to avoid Taehyung using his apparently magic fingers on you for a surprising amount of time, though you’re kept up to date with his progress, because he shares everything with you and tells you about everything and you always, always listen. Because, more than being your crush, he’s one of your best friends and you love him.

Which is why you try your best to be gentle, graciously refusing his offer of a shoulder massage after he sees you wincing, even if with anyone else you’d just tell them to back off with zero hesitation.

“It’s fine,” you say, flapping a hand at him. “I just slept on it funny.”

“A massage would help! It won’t take long, I promise. Five minutes? Please?”

Taehyung’s looking at you with those big puppy eyes of his, pleading. You waver. You’re torn between being steadfast and avoiding a situation you’ve literally had nightmares about (Taehyung had offered to massage you, and you’d said yes, but then you’d fallen over as you were walking to him and suddenly a lasagne had appeared in your hands and you’d spilled it all down your shirt and he’d pointed and laughed and laughed and you’d felt so embarrassed that you’d woken up, cheeks burning), but then he pouts and you give in like the spineless and lovesick fool that you are.

“Five minutes,” you say, and Taehyung nods emphatically, looking pleased.

(You have the backbone of a chocolate éclair.)

You send quiet thanks to whatever God is listening when he doesn’t ask you to take your top off and doesn’t break out a bottle of scented oil. Instead he just asks for you to straddle a chair, clutching a plushie against your chest to cushion where it leans against the backrest, and tells you to get comfy.

“Just relax,” he says, as you desperately try to remember how your body works and coax it to relax like Taehyung wants you to. You fail miserably. You feel like a ball of rubber bands, each muscle a layer of tighter and tighter elastic that’s circled around you. “Lean forwards a little?”

At least Taehyung can’t see your face from this angle. You have no idea what sort of expression is twisting your features; consternation and horrified anticipation, probably. You're basically throttling your plushie, taking out your tension and frustration on the poor thing, Rilakkuma's placid face morphing into a twisted expression of sympathy under your grasping fingers.

“Perfect,” Taehyung says. The sound of praise in his deep voice has your insides turning into overheated syrup, hot and thick, dripping down and pooling between your legs. You hate yourself. Getting turned on by the most innocuous words from your best friend, really? Get it together.

The second you feel Taehyung's warm hands touch the back of your neck, your shoulders hunch up faster than a whiplash, a turtle sucking its head into its shell. Your friend laughs.

“This is the opposite of relaxing,” he says, voice warm with amusement.

“You surprised me.” You dig your nails into Rilakkuma's soft brown fur. Taehyung just thinks you're not used to being massaged, not that you're being weird because it's him that's touching you. Because he touches you a lot. He’s just never done it like this. “Sorry.”

“It's fine,” he replies, unruffled and oblivious. “Let me try again?”

You bite your lip, desperately trying to quell the mix of arousal and tension that’s churning in your stomach, begging your muscles to unwind. You’ve kept your crush a secret from him for this long, you can keep that energy up. (You have to keep that energy up.) “Um. Okay.”

You’re still tense when Taehyung puts his hands on you again. The touch is warm through your clothes, firm but careful, digging into the sharp line of tension laid across your shoulders; despite the way your heart is threatening to launch itself out of your chest, you start to loosen up, because holy shit that feels nice, actually.

You melt against Rilakkuma and smother the bear's face in your chest. “Your teacher wasn’t kidding when they said that you’re good with your hands,” you mumble.

You’ve never gotten a proper massage before but it feels so damn good that you can’t help but unwind, turning to jelly at the confident presses of Taehyung’s fingers and palms into the soft skin between your neck and shoulder. A little sigh spills past your lips when Taehyung starts to work at the part that’s been twinging after you lay crookedly on it, limbs akimbo in your sleep after a long night at work. “Oh, right there, Tae.”

Taehyung goes still for just a second before continuing, trailing his fingers over your shirt. “Here?”

Your eyes have drifted shut so you can focus on the sensation of that tension being pulled out of your body. “Yeah, right there,” you repeat, massaged into a state of lazy euphoria. The breath you let out is long and deep, catching in the back of your throat at a particularly firm rub of Taehyung’s hands; if you weren’t so blissed out you might be embarrassed at how much the noise you make is like a moan, but as it is, you don’t even notice. You just let out a little sound of discontent when Taehyung’s fingers stutter in their motions, displeased that he’s stopped even for a second.

By the time the massage is over, you’re so relaxed that you feel like you could melt into the floor, a wobbly puddle of unwound muscles and loose limbs. It’s official. You’re a massage convert.

“Holy shit.” Your eyes flutter open as you lean away from Rilakkuma so you can turn around. They’re the first coherent words you’ve spoken for a while; small sighs and sounds have been dripping from your lips and it’s only now that you’re able to regain your breath. “Tae, that was amazin—”

You’re met with the sight of Taehyung’s back as he power walks away, steps rapid, a little shaky, awkward. Before you can ask what’s wrong, he’s stepping into the bathroom.

“I need to wash my hands,” he says without looking at you, before the door slams shut.

You don’t remember Tae telling you about how quickly you have to wash your hands after finishing a massage. But, thinking about it, you suppose it makes sense—you know, with massaging multiple clients or whatever—even if it’s surprising exactly how fast he’d hoofed it away from you. It sounds like he’s switched both taps on full blast as well, noisy even through the wooden door, and judging from how long he’s in there, he’s being very thorough. Hand washing must be a lot more important than you’d realised.

Once Taehyung emerges, his face is a little flushed, cheeks a soft red. You wonder if the hot water tap is playing up again and filling your dinky bathroom with hot steam, and make a mental note to look into it. You smile at Taehyung from your perch on the sofa, Rilakkuma plopped on your lap, smile spread across your features; one that Taehyung returns, as pink-faced as he is.

“How’s your shoulder feeling?”

“So much better, honestly,” you admit. It’s incredible. He hasn’t even finished the course yet and he's already this good. He really does have magic hands.

“I’ll have to give you massages more often,” Taehyung says, though the end of the sentence trembles a little. He must be light-headed after all the steam in the bathroom.

The thought of more massages doesn’t fill you with as much mind-numbing trepidation as it might have earlier, utterly languid as you flop across the sofa, muscles uncoiled after the lovely touch of Taehyung’s even lovelier hands. No wonder people rave about spa days if they leave you feeling like this. Maybe if you’d been staring at Taehyung in the eye when he’d been touching you, then you’d feel a lot more awkward—as it is, it’s no worse than usual. Your crush is still all-encompassing but you also got a massage out of it, so.

“Sounds great.” This time you don’t even have to fake your excitement. “Now come sit your butt down so we can order some takeout and decide what to watch.”

When you bend down to speak to Pickles later, the bearded dragon is lolling on his favourite branch. “There’s still a high chance that I’m going to die,” you say in a low voice, before you flick the lights off so the lizard can sleep. “But he hasn’t broken out the oils yet, so I think I’ll be okay for now.”

Your luck doesn’t last.

“Strawberry and champagne, lychee martini, mint mojito, white chocolate, or tropical coconut?”

You look up from where you’re painting your toenails. “Huh?”

Taehyung bundles into the room and throws himself onto your bed, flopping on his belly and ignoring the way the mattress is jostled. You, of course, are used to his antics, which is why you’d swept your open bottle of nail polish up before he could spill it everywhere.

“What do you think sounds best?”

“Well, that depends,” you say, squinting at your toes and carefully sweeping the polish over the freshly buffed nails. “For candles, I think they sound pretty nice. For sauces to pour over a steak, I’d say I’d give them all a hard pass. What’s it for?”

“Massage oils,” Taehyung says blithely, too busy staring at his phone to see you muffle a curse when your hand slips and you paint your entire little toe blue. “I was wondering which you think sounds best.”

“Oh. Uh.” You fumble to clean your toe and salvage the now-terrible pedicure you’re trying to give yourself. It was only a matter of time before massage oils were going to become part of your life. Taehyung never goes into things half-hearted, so of course he’s going to invest in oils, too. God’s sake. You can never catch a break, can you? “Why these ones in particular?”

Taehyung pauses for a suspiciously long time, but it gives you the chance to furiously rub at your toe while he’s distracted. “We get a free bottle from the course,” he says eventually.

Huh. Okay. “That’s pretty neat. What was the last one? Coconut? Stick with the basics, can’t go wrong with that, right?”

“Coconut is always tasty,” Taehyung comments absently, and you glance up from your Smurf toe.

“Agreed, but it’s not like you’re about to eat massage oil, are you?”

Taehyung pauses, and then buries his face into his phone screen—suddenly very intent on rereading the list of ingredients in each bottle, it seems. “No, of course not, you’re right,” he mumbles.

He’s almost finished the course. He’s not going to be an accredited masseuse or anything, but you definitely think he could be, if he wanted to—you’ve never had less tension in your shoulders and neck in your life. Taehyung always eases his way into your personal space anyway, casual and effortless after years of friendship, but now you’re used to his fingers sliding over the back of your neck, a gliding touch, sending tense little goosebumps over your skin while simultaneously making you melt.

“It’s pretty cool that you get free stuff, though.” Your toe is clean, thankfully, no longer blue. “And not just, like, a generic bottle of oil or something. They all sound really fancy. I didn’t realise that you could get massage oils that were scented like that?”

Taehyung makes a non-committal noise, which is uncharacteristic of him, but you’re too focused on repainting your final nail to pay it too much mind, letting out a loud huff of triumph when you’re done.

“Get me a bag of shrimp crackers, please?” You have a sudden craving but you don’t want to penguin waddle to the kitchen and risk getting anything on your wet nails. “Ya girl is hungry.”

“Got it.” Taehyung rolls off the bed without protest. You’re used to his antics, and he’s used to yours, indulging you whenever you feel lazy or want him to do something for you. “You need me to feed you?”

“I wasn’t going to use my toes to feed myself,” you laugh, but Taehyung ends up feeding them to you anyway.

When you recount the list to Seokjin later, his face crumples in a way that’s equal parts offended and disgusted. “They all sound terrible,” he says. “White chocolate should stay in chocolate form and not be turned into an oil. Why does massage oil even have to smell like anything?”

You’re both holed up in the tiny smoking nook behind Olive Chicken; neither of you smoke, but it’s a good excuse to go outside and get fresh air during longer shifts.

“Hey, don’t ask me, I’m not the one who’s taking the course. I think lychee martini sounds interesting, though.”

“Agree to disagree.” Seokjin unwraps one of the complimentary chocolates the restaurant gives to diners with their bill, swallowing it whole. “Besides, we all know Taehyung could approach you with dirty, used fryer oil and you’d let him dip you in it.”

You slap the next chocolate out of his hand before it reaches his mouth. He’s unmoved and simply plucks another from his pocket, which is apparently bulging with them.

“Yoongichi,” Jin says, calling to the delivery boy, who’s just appeared from the dark like some tired-eyed spectre of fried chicken. “Tell me this. If I were to ask you what smell of massage oil you’d prefer, what—”

“I would say that I really could not care less.” Yoongi flops down on one of the rickety fold-out chairs before silently accepting a chocolate from Seokjin’s stash. “And then I’d ask why you’re asking me in the first place, seeing as you’re the one using it, not me. If Taehyung’s asking what massage oil you’d prefer, Y/n, it’s because he wants to rub it all over you specifically.” Yoongi munches on the chocolate, already filling in the blanks without needing to be told the context. You really are that transparent, huh. “Please, we’ve been over this.”

Jin pouts. “You ruined my set up. I had a whole speech prepared.”

“Oh no.” Yoongi remains blank-faced. “How terrible.”

“I hate both of you,” you say. “I’m going to tell Pickles how mean you are.”

“I bet if that lizard could talk, he’d tell you how tired he was of you two dancing around each other, just like the rest of us,” Yoongi says.

There’s no dancing around, though, no matter what your friends say. Well. Not on Taehyung’s end anyway. You’re out here doing the fandango, castanets and all, while Taehyung just stands stock still, oblivious.

You let out an incredibly long sigh. Seokjin hands you a sympathetic chocolate.

The massage oil doesn’t make an appearance in your life for a little while, though. The end of the course comes and goes, Taehyung proudly flapping the laminated certificate at you, wobble-wobble-wobble, filling the apartment with the sound of rippling plastic. But no coconut oil.

The scent of ‘tropical coconut’ has started to haunt your dreams, in a way that’s both good and bad; when you wake up in a sweat, heart pounding, it’s not because you’re having nightmares, let’s just put it like that. It’s like there’s an invisible countdown that you can’t trace and it’s only a matter of time before it ticks over and the shoulder massages (that you’ve gotten very comfortable with) edge into something different. Taehyung’s going to innocently offer to give you a backrub and uncap that bottle of scented oil and you’re going to explode into a mess of putty under his hands.

Well… then again… you had been worried about that with all the shoulder rubs. Now look at you. You weather those like a champ. Sure, your skin tingles and you run hot and you think about the sensation of Taehyung’s hands gliding over you whenever you’re alone, but you’re basically fine. Your friend who just so happens to also be the great love of your life remains none the wiser.

You bet a full back rub would feel great after a long week.

Which is why when Taehyung steps into the apartment with a look on his face that you immediately recognise as tiredness, you sort of wish you knew how to massage people, too.

He falls into your arms with little fanfare. It’s been one of those days, one of those ones that everyone gets, even Taehyung—he’s usually so Switched On and Exuberant and Alive, and people don’t seem to realise that even he feels exhausted, sometimes.

“You alright, bubs?” You can’t massage him but you can rub his back soothingly, let him snuffle against your neck. Sometimes you think about that little space between your chin and collarbones as Taehyung’s, a hollow that’s perfect for him to press his face into, hair tickling your chin as he curls up into you. His and his alone. “Did something happen?”

He just shakes his head.

“Okay,” you say.

(Close proximity and skin on skin with Taehyung doesn’t always have your pulse rising and your heart racing. Sometimes it’s just this: quiet and soft, your heart bright with fierce affection for this boy, the only thought in your mind that you want him to be happy, forever.)

The long silence is broken by the sound of Taehyung heaving in a breath before letting out a long, exhausted sigh.

“Thank you.” His voice is quiet and low, far less energetic than his usual self.

“Nothing to thank me for, Tae,” you reply. “Always here for you. You know that, right?”

He doesn’t respond straight away. He just burrows closer, draped over you, until he murmurs, barely audible. “Why?”

Your face twists. “Why, what? Why am I always here for you?”

“Yeah.” Taehyung squeezes himself impossibly closer, skin warm against yours, forehead pressed to the skin of your neck. You can’t see his expression from this angle.

“Because you’re one of my best friends and I love you,” you answer, immediately. You don’t even have to think about it. “Because you’re important to me and if there’s anything I can do for you, I will. I’ll celebrate the good things in your life with you, and I’ll be at your side during the bad times, just like you are with me. Please don’t ever forget how much I love you, okay?”

There’s a pause, and then it feels like all the tension leaves Taehyung’s body, slumping his whole body weight against you. “Okay,” he murmurs. “I love you too. Thank you,” he says again. You just reply by squeezing his shoulders.

He’s a little quieter for a few days after that. You’re not sure why, because he’d perked up after a lazy evening of lying around and eating too many snacks, flopped against you like an oversized, clinging starfish—but you’re gentle with him nonetheless.

(Well. You’re always gentle with him. It just takes you half a second to fold in the face of his whims, rather than a whole, full second.)

So when the dreaded bottle of oil finally appears, you’re far less ready to fight off Taehyung’s insistence on a full body massage, caught off guard after days of indulging him. Fuck.

“You’ve had a long week!” Taehyung insists as you scrabble your way over the sofa’s backrest so you can hide behind it, clutching a cushion to your chest. “You need to relax!”

Without looking you fling the cushion over the sofa. Judging from the fact that Taehyung doesn’t make a sound, you’ve missed. “I was feeling perfectly relaxed until you started yelling at me about it! Why are you so obsessed with the idea of me being relaxed?”

Taehyung doesn’t respond. Oh, crap. Maybe you did hit him with the cushion?

You pop up from behind the sofa. Nope. It's an embarrassing distance away from Taehyung, who’s got that surprisingly large bottle of oil held loosely in his hands. There’s an expression on his face that you can’t decipher; a little crestfallen, a little unsure, but there’s something else there, too, something you can’t put a name to.

“Taehyung?”

“I just… wanted to help,” he says. “You’re always there for me when I’m not feeling great, and you calm me down, and I wanted to do the same for you.”

You immediately feel like the worst human being alive. Take the feeling you get whenever you accidentally step on an animal’s tail, multiply it by infinity, and that’s only just a drop in the ocean of awful, awful guilt that you’re drowning in.

“Oh, Tae,” you say. Your voice comes out so much softer and sweeter than you mean it to, but you can't help it. “I’m sorry. I was just joking. It’s really nice of you to be so concerned. You just surprised me. You do help me relax and your massages are great.” (You tell him that often enough that he should know it, but it never hurts to repeat a compliment.)

His face lifts. It’s like the sun bursting forth from the clouds after heavy rain, and you have to resist the urge to shield your eyes, blinded by the brightness and beauty. Kim Taehyung is so unfairly gorgeous (but what else is new?). “So I can give you a massage?”

Despite the fact the prospect makes you want to fling yourself into space, when you’re faced with Taehyung’s dark eyes and wide smile and large, warm hands, you cave, because of course you do. If, way back when you’d first been frying up that kimchi rice and letting Taehyung thrust his phone into your face, you’d been told you’d end up in this position, you would have laughed outright. Haha, yeah, sure, like you’d be stupid enough to let yourself be wrangled into such a vulnerable state in front of Taehyung, nowhere to run, helpless under his fingers. Not.

But here you are. Whipped for Kim Taehyung, forever and always.

The pastel blue towels under your stomach and chest are soft as they shield you from the cold, hard floor. You’re incredibly aware of how chilly the apartment feels, air prickling against your bare skin; you shift to try and get comfortable, glancing over your shoulder to fiddle with the towel that’s draped over your hips and ass, making sure it’s covering everything. Taehyung insists on authenticity (as if you’re not lying on the floor of your apartment rather than on a massage table) and he says that it’s normal to be completely naked for a full-body massage, even underneath any towels that are covering you up.

Authenticity is also why he’s in the other room, warming up the massage oil, because that’s apparently a thing?

(You’re going to die.)

It doesn’t matter that Taehyung will only be able to see the back of your head, your shoulder blades, the small of your back, a slip of your thighs, your calves. None of these things are especially scandalous; all the parts of your body that someone might find more interesting are out of sight, pressed against the floor or hidden under a layer of Egyptian cotton microfibres.

And yet you can’t help but be hyperaware of how you’re entirely unclothed. Even if it doesn’t bother Taehyung—what with, you know, the fact he’s not interested in you like that and doesn’t find you attractive at all (sigh)—embarrassment creeps hot and uncomfortable under your skin.

It just feels so crazy intimate to be laid out like this, even if people do this all the time, happily strip down to let professionals rub the tension out of their body.

(Then again, most people aren’t best friends with their masseuses and haven’t harboured long, one-sided crushes on them, either.)

Just breathe. You can do this. You love the shoulder massages that Taehyung’s been giving you; just think of this as a shoulder massage.

… A shoulder massage that involves warm oil, near-nakedness, and Taehyung’s hands sliding all over you.

… You are going to have a very long venting session with Pickles after all this.

You’re so distracted by your own self pity and distress that you don’t register the sound of Taehyung entering the room; the little pause when he steps over the threshold, feet stuttering, just for a moment. It’s only when he’s kneeling down that you notice his presence, body jolting from surprise before you let out a slip of high laughter.

“Jesus, Tae,” you say. In any other circumstance, you’d be clutching your chest. “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” He sounds genuinely apologetic.

Your cheek is pillowed on your arms. When you turn to look at your best friend you immediately regret it; he’s settled back on his ankles, knees spread wide, and you come eye-to-eye with his crotch.

In an effort to look away from his clothed dick, your gaze flies up to his face, which might be even worse. He has this intense look in his eyes, and wow, alright, you’ve never been able to see Taehyung’s face as he’s been massaging you, but you never realised exactly how seriously he seems to take it, judging from his expression.

(Do all massage therapists look like that when they work?)

“That’s alright.” You’re a little breathless, but you’re going to blame that on how your boobs are smooshed into the floor, and not on anything else, nuh uh. Shoulder massage. It’s a shoulder massage. It’s just like a full bodied shoulder massage. (Maybe if you repeat it to yourself often enough then you’ll actually start to believe it.) “Uh. Do you need me to… do anything? Or do I just lie here?”

Taehyung’s expression lightens a little at the uncertainty in your tone, smile curling up the corners of his mouth. “You’re perfect right where you are,” he says, and then he reaches for the bottle of oil.

You turn your head away again, cheeks burning. There’s no way you’ll be able to handle the visual of him slicking his fingers and palms up. “Cool,” you say, voice only a little strained. “Coolcoolcoolcool.”

(It’s not cool.)

You don’t have a visual, but you do get the auditory experience thanks to the relative silence in the apartment. Goosebumps ripple down the back of your neck and trail down your spine at the sound of Tae’s hands sliding against each other, thoroughly coated in the warmed oil, and you’re so glad that you can blame it on the chill in the air.

At first, it’s okay. Taehyung starts at the parts of your body that are used to receiving his attention, though it’s different without the barrier of clothing in the way, not to mention how easily his palms glide over you, the air full of the light scent of coconut. It’s different, but manageable, and you think you just might be okay; as always, his touches are firm but careful, and your body is used to this by now, relaxing.

But. The second you feel Taehyung’s touch between your shoulder blades, you stiffen with a shiver. The oil is the perfect temperature against your skin, but you’ve always had a sensitive back; you can’t help but clench your fists, digging your fingers into your palms. Relax. Just breathe.

“You’ve got a lot of tension here.” Taehyung’s voice is low as he digs the heel of his palm into the dip of your spine.

It’s because you’re touching me there, you think to yourself, but just let out a non-committal hum of agreement instead.

You feel Taehyung's hands, a repeated sliding motion between your shoulder blades; the tension starts to leak out of you again, but your breath hitches in your throat at how you're pressed downwards and into the cotton towels beneath you, nipples hardening against them.

Thank God you're on your front so Tae can't see what effect he's having on you.

“Better?”

Taehyung's voice is always deep, but you'd swear it was even deeper in this moment, pitched low. Maybe that’s because the sound of blood pumping is filling your ears so it’s hard to discern. At this point, who even knows? Not you, that’s for sure.

“Yep.” Why are you so breathless? You haven’t moved at all, but you sound like you’ve just run the 100m sprint, winded and weak. “So much better.”

You regret agreeing to this. You are so out of your depth and there’s no way you’re going to be able to hide exactly how much this is affecting you and you want to collapse in on yourself and shrivel up like a sundried tomato, tiny and wrinkly and underwhelming.

Taehyung shifts to reach more of you and you squeeze your eyes shut so you don’t come face first with his crotch again, shielding yourself from the view of his loose linen trousers stretched almost taut with how wide his knees are. It’s both a blessing and a curse—a blessing because you’re saved from aforementioned view, but a curse because your sensation of touch is heightened, and all you’re aware of is his hands sliding down your sides. You’d swear those fingers were so long he could circle your waist with ease.

(Massages are meant to relax you and yet you’ve never felt so tense in your life.)

Taehyung clicks his tongue against the back of his teeth. “I can’t get a good angle like this,” he mutters.

Before you can think anything or say anything, you become aware of the sound of moving and shifting and—

Your eyes fly open. Taehyung’s straddling your thighs, heavy and warm, and you suck in a breath so sharp and fast you can feel your chest expand, brain full of the screaming clang of warning bells. There’s no way this is a normal masseuse thing. There’s no way. It’s intimate and entirely too physical and there’s absolutely no way that this is something Taehyung learned in class.

(What is he doing?)

But then any coherent thought in your brain slips when his hands settle on you again.

They so, so lightly brush the hem of the towel that preserves your modesty, and you can’t help the full-body shiver that wracks through you. You suck your lips into your mouth, swallowing down the noise that threatens to bubble up in your throat. There’s the sensation of fingers trailing up the line of your spine, feather light, smoothed by the slide of oil, and you feel like molten lava, burning hot and bright.

“Taehyung.” Your voice is high and faint.

His fingers splay down your ribcage and run down your sides, confident and smooth, warm with that coconut-scented oil, and you’re dying, you’re living; you want to disappear, you never want this to end.

“Taehyung,” you repeat. Your voice shakes.

He hums, low and indulgent. “Yes?”

“M-my thighs,” you stammer, unable to articulate yourself. Why are you on my thighs, oh God, you’re so warm and heavy on top of me, oh God oh God oh God.

Taehyung completely misunderstands you. “Oh? Of course.” He sounds nonchalant. “I’ll massage those next.”

You can feel the drag of his linen trousers against your skin as he moves down to rest on your calves, and hear the bottle open as Taehyung drizzles more oil over his hands, far more than he could possibly need. His palms feel so broad and warm against the smoothness of your thighs, touches firm and confident as he digs his fingers into the muscle, and, oh, fuck, this is, this is too much—

Your legs jump when Taehyung hitches the towel up, just a little, baring more of your body.

“Fuck.” You can't keep quiet any longer. “Tae, I’m fine, I’m feeling way less tense now.”

He’s still, for a moment, before his hands slide up the back of your thighs. “Are you sure? You want me to stop?”

It’s only then that you realise how deeply Taehyung is breathing, fast and low, voice rough and gravelled. His fingers rest in wait, warm and slick with oil; you’re so close to losing any modicum of modesty, only one motion away from that towel being rucked high enough that there’s nothing protecting you from Taehyung’s touch and eyes.

“I haven’t finished yet, though,” he continues, digging his thumbs into your skin as he pulls his hands down your thighs, mindlessly following the motions he’s been taught. “There’s still more to go.”

You could twist around to look at him but you’re almost afraid to look at his face, afraid of what you’d find there. He sounds as affected as you are, but there’s absolutely no way. There’s no way.

“You don’t need to do the whole massage if I’m feeling relaxed, right?”

(Because you’re feeling so relaxed right now, of course, and not like you’re about to go supernova and burst into heat and light. Absolutely.)

(But.)

(But. Taehyung’s hands settle at the back of your knees, swiping the sensitive skin with his thumbs. You can’t see his face, but you can feel something in that touch, something more than skin deep, like it’s sinking into you, through skin and muscle and bone, in in in, settling inside you, a flicker of—of—)

“Want to do this perfectly for you,” he murmurs. You clench your hands at the husky note in his voice, nails digging so hard into your palms it hurts. “You deserve the best. I want you to feel good.”

He must be able to see your back rise and fall as you breathe in sharply.

“Taehyung.” Almost pleading.

“Yes, love?”

You suck in another sharp breath. The pet name sounds so soft and sweet in his mouth, somehow, even with the heated edge to his voice. One that’s definitely there. You’re not imagining it.

(You’re not.)

“Do you want me to make you feel good?” he continues.

Before you can think, you nod.

“Yes,” you whisper. “Please.”

You’re trembling. Taehyung’s still heavy and warm across the back of your calves, sliding one hand to the inside of a knee and up the soft skin of your inner thighs. You instinctively shift them apart, as far as you can with Taehyung trapping your legs, and, oh, his hand is going higher, oh—

His hand is so big, cupping your overheated sex. It’s hard to tell where the oil ends and your own arousal begins, flushed wet and hot; when he dips his middle finger between your lower lips, long and gentle and firm, you let out a noise you didn’t realise you were capable of. The angle is off, a little awkward, the motions of Taehyung’s fingers stifled by how you’re lying flush to the ground, but God, you’re so turned on it barely matters.

You’re hyperaware of everything. The soft touch of air on the cooling oil across your skin. The fall of the towel, bunched around your waist, slowly slipping to one side. Taehyung’s hand, his fingertips easing through the heat of you, sliding over your clit, over your entrance, slow and soft and amazing.

“Again,” you plead. “Again, Tae, please.”

“Feels good?” He asks, and you squeeze your eyes shut as you nod, cheek still pillowed against your arm.

“So good,” you say. “But I want more, please, Tae.”

“Anything you want,” he murmurs.

Taehyung’s hand shifts between your legs again, so hot, so big, so reverent. The slide is smooth as his fingers press into your folds, practically gliding. You twist beneath him, letting out a noise of displeasure when he draws his hand away, but then he lifts off your calves. You let him thrust your legs apart before he resettles between them.

Just as you’re distracted with the towel being tugged away from your hips, baring you entirely, Taehyung slides a finger into your weeping cunt.

You whine. It's so long. Now that your calves aren’t trapped, there’s nothing to stop you from rutting back against his fingers. He splays his other hand over the soft flesh of your ass, encouraging the rolling motion of your hips, and you’re gasping, wanton in your noises of desire and pleasure. One finger becomes two, and then three, Taehyung’s voice a low undercurrent to your stuttered moans as he presses them as deep as he can.

“Just like that, angel,” he breathes. “Want you to feel good, keep making those pretty noises, let me know how good it is—”

“Taehyung,” you whine, dragging the syllables of his name out when he curls his fingers inside you, so amazing, hitting you in all the right places.

“Baby.” He sounds wrecked, words sliding together, and you haven’t even touched him yet. “You’re so hot n’ wet, fuck. So perfect. Just like that, keep moving like that.”

You can hear the slick sounds of his thrusts into you. He’s already learned what you like, twisting his fingers in a way that leaves you breathless; they’re so fucking long, sliding into your greedy cunt with ease, reaching so much deeper than your own can. His pretty lovely hands are on you, inside you, and you’re heady at the thought.

“There, Tae, don’t stop, please, p-please.” The coil twists tighter in between your legs, a taut thread that’s ready to snap. He listens, repeating the motion that’s pulling you closer to the edge, eyes wide, staring at the way you’re writhing underneath him; the way the oil on your back and legs shimmers in the light, the evidence of his touch all over you, shining. “Tae, oh, God, right there, yes, yes, yes—”

Your entire body goes tense and then you’re cumming around Taehyung’s fingers, clenching your thighs together, trapping him inside as you buck your hips. You grind back against his hand, a loud moan falling from your lips, drowning out the noise of awe that Taehyung makes when he feels your walls pulsate around him. You're warm and tight and wet, arousal flooding thick against his skin, and he lets out a stuttered groan, fingers buried knuckle deep inside you, feeling every wave of pleasure that rocks through your core.

You’re panting by the time you settle back down and barely make a sound when Taehyung drags his fingers out of you. When he leans down the oil on your skin feels tacky against his clothes, material sticking to you, chest to back, hips to ass. You can feel the hot curve of him through his trousers, his cock heavy, getting harder—and it feels sososo good.

Taehyung’s face is so close, now, chin hooked over your shoulder. Even though you can feel the hardness of his cock pressed against you, the smile on his face is so gentle. Your heart thrums in your chest.

“So cute n' pretty,” he says, and presses his nose to the soft curve of your cheek. Rather than coconut, all you can smell is his shampoo, familiar and homely and heady. “All over. God, I can’t believe you’d let me touch you like this. I’m so lucky. Was that good, baby?”

“Yes,” you say, and then, because you’re still floating in a light haze of disbelief: “I’m the lucky one.”

Taehyung laughs, low and quiet. It’s a honeyed moment, dripping slow and sweet, even sweeter when he tilts his head forward. His lips are soft against your cheekbone, your jaw, and when you turn towards him, they’re even softer against your mouth. You can feel the shape of his smile, and it tastes so bright, small kisses that turn open mouthed, so perfect. Because you’re kissing Kim Taehyung, your Taehyung, something you’ve been dreaming about for so long, now—even if this entire situation is pretty unbelievable, honestly.

When you pull back, his eyes spark with unadulterated joy. He’s warm and heavy, pinning you down against the towels that are soft against your front; arching your spine, you lean back against the weight of Taehyung’s body, his cock fattening up through the layers of clothes that separate you. He lets out a breath of surprise before he grinds down, pressing that hard heat against you, and your cunt clenches.

“Can I finish the massage?” He asks, sounding almost eager, even with the rasp of lust in his voice. You can’t help but laugh, an affectionate giggle that has you knocking your foreheads together.

“Of course,” you say, and he catches your lips again, swallowing the last of your laughter, sweeping his tongue over your lips, inside your mouth, wet and hot and a little messy, but good.

“You need to be on your back,” Taehyung continues, slow after the kiss is broken, and, oh, okay, that has you shivering. “If you want to?”

Of course you want to.

“Okay,” you whisper. “Let me move.”

He shifts to give you room, but not before pressing a kiss to the back of your neck, the bump of the top of your spine, lips sliding against the oil that he’d rubbed there earlier, goosebumps erupting over your skin.

“So good to me,” he whispers. You don’t think he even means for you to hear it.

(It’s said without thought; not thoughtless, no, but a soft little thing that says so much. A thought that’s slipped across his mind and fallen from his lips, warm and tender. Like you’re always good to him, and he sees it, he knows it, he feels it, he thinks it, and he’s almost in disbelief about it, because you’re so good to him.)

You feel warm and languid after cumming, loose-limbed as you flop onto your back. There’s no going back now. There’s no going back from this moment, naked and vulnerable under Taehyung, nothing hidden away any more—the soft fall of your breasts, your stomach, the lines of your hips, your fingers tightening in the towels spread beneath you as Taehyung’s eyes drink you in, wide and overawed at the sight of your flushed cunt, ripe and slick and ready for him.

(There's no more hiding how much you want Taehyung to have you, body and heart alike.)

You can see the shape of your body silhouetted on his clothes, where the oil has seeped into the material from how close he’d been pressed against you. You can see just how affected he is, cock straining against the loose linen of his white trousers, and you bite your lip to try and stifle the sound you make.

“Look at you,” Taehyung breathes, kneeling between your legs. “You’re so perfect.”

Your cheeks burn. “Taehyung, please,” you say, embarrassed. You really aren’t, especially in comparison to model-gorgeous Kim Taehyung, eyes dark and full of heated lust, hair falling in his eyes, effortlessly beautiful, always.

“You are,” he insists. “You have no idea how perfect you are.”

Before he reaches for the massage oil, he sucks the taste of you off his fingers, sloppy and messy. Your pussy throbs at the sight. And—you were also right about the visual being too much to handle, breath catching in your throat as you watch it drip into his broad hands. His palms shine as he rubs them together, interlacing his fingers, so graceful in their motions. You’re so wet from your orgasm, only getting wetter as you stare back at Taehyung, whose gaze has been heavy on you the whole time.

He starts at your collarbones. It’s even slower than before, and you ease underneath him, revelling in the softness of his touch. He sweeps his hands over your shoulders, down your arms, circling his long fingers around your wrists before lifting one of your hands. Your eyelashes flutter as he presses a kiss to your palm, a motion so full of adoration and tenderness it steals your breath away, and you squirm, shy.

“Tae,” you whine. “You can’t just do that.”

Of course he doubles down, lifting your other hand and repeating the motion, letting his lips linger between your head line and your heart line. “I can,” he says, words warm in your cupped palm.

“I hope you didn’t do this in class.” Your voice is too weak for it to come out as the joke you mean it to be.

Taehyung just shakes his head, mouth brushing over the tips of your fingers. “Only for you,” he says. “Did the whole class for you. I wanted—wanted an excuse to touch you more,” he admits, and your heart feels like it’s going to launch itself out of your throat.

“Then touch me,” you say, trying to sound confident even if your cheeks burn.

And he does. He lets your hands drop, gliding his touch back up your arms, down your body, over your legs; he massages your thighs and calves, digs his thumbs into the arches of your feet, circling his fingers around your ankles, shackles you don’t want to escape from. You feel so relaxed and lax, somehow, even if every touch has you biting your lip, anticipation roiling in your stomach for what’s to come, Taehyung laying your legs down softly before he shifts back up, hands held out towards you—

—then he cups your breasts in his big, big hands and your back arches, fingers sliding over your nipples, glistening with coconut oil, circling them with the pads of his thumbs. You let out an embarrassing whine.

“Oh, Tae,” you beg. “More, please.”

“Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

You smile at another soft, unexpected pet name, flustered, but then your eyes slide shut when Taehyung bends down to kiss your neck as he continues to run his hands over the swell of your breasts. He trails his lips over your oiled skin, shifts down, drawing a line from your neck to the valley of your chest, the hard line at the center of your ribcage.

“Tae,” you murmur, and then, feeling bold under the heat of Taehyung’s dark eyes— “Baby.”

He hums before laying another sloppy kiss against your sensitive skin. You can feel the curve of his smile in the kiss. “Yes, love?”

“Is it really okay for you to… you know… get that oil in your mouth? I don’t want you to get sick,” you say, concerned, even through the haze of your arousal. His lips shine with it, at how he’s been trailing his mouth over all the parts of your body that he’s touched.

There’s a short beat, and then Taehyung buries his head against your neck—in that little hollow that’s his, in a motion he’s done dozens of times. Except this time you’re naked and he still has fingers splayed across the soft skin of your chest, nipples dragging underneath his palms.

“You’re always so considerate.” His words are muffled against your skin. “It’s fine. It’s edible.”

“You got edible massage oil from your course?”

Taehyung hesitates. “No,” he admits. “I bought it. It’s edible and, uh. Safe for intimate use.”

You’re silent, just for a moment, and then you can’t help it. You start to laugh.

“Kim Taehyung,” you say, body shaking with amusement. “Did you buy edible massage oil that you can also use as lube?”

Taehyung pulls his face away from your neck and glances up. You’re giggling at him, and he feels so full of love and affection; he can’t help but join in, both laughing at him, loud and carefree.

“It’s why I asked which one you liked,” he confesses, once he can catch his breath.

“I can’t believe you lied to me,” you say, but you don’t mind, really, and he knows it. You lift a hand to push hair out of his face, running your fingers down his scalp. He leans into your touch with a smile, bright and lovely, before he abruptly shifts one of his hands down so he can lick a hot, wet stripe across the skin of your breast.

That stops your laughter pretty fast, surprised hiccup shifting into a broken moan when he engulfs your nipple in the heat of his mouth. “O-oh,” you gasp. “Oh, Taehyung—”

“Been thinking about this for so long.” Taehyung’s eyes are lidded and dark as he leans back, watching the way you react to his touch, arching up towards him. “Wanted to touch you like this so much.”

“Wanted it too,” you breathe. “Wanted—oh, God, Tae, fuck—”

It’s overwhelming. Not just the way Taehyung is flicking his tongue over each of your nipples, pressing his lips against your skin, no—but the idea that he’s been hoping for this, too. Each wet motion of his tongue over your pebbled skin drags pulls out of you; Taehyung’s cock twitches at a loud keen that’s drawn from your lips, a wet patch of precum seeping through his boxers and trousers, darkening the fabric, even though you haven’t touched him yet.

When you reach out to grasp him through his clothes, his hips jolt forward and he bites off a surprised gasp, cutting through the sound with his teeth. He feels long and heavy as you stroke him, thumbing over the wet patch at his tip, hot, even through all those layers between your skin and his.

“I want to feel you, Tae,” you say, staring at him. “Inside me. Please.”

His breath hitches when you tighten your fingers around his shaft and drag your hand upwards, slow and intent.

“The oil isn’t condom friendly,” he admits, abashed.

“Then you can cum in my mouth,” you reply. No hesitation.

Taehyung’s eyes are so wide, but then he smiles, eyes squeezing into crescents, mouth turning up into that lovely, broad grin of his. He looks so sweet and sincere, and you feel like you could explode, stuffed overfull with love for him.

“You really are perfect,” he says.

“Only for you,” you reply, your smile just as bright.

He lays one final kiss to your chest, above your beating heart, before he starts to strip. The oil has obviously soaked through his shirt and onto his skin because it sticks when he peels it off and carelessly throws it aside.

Just like his heart, Taehyung’s body is soft and lovely. You sit up so you can touch him properly, catching him off guard when you pull him in for a kiss—one he eagerly leans into, and without the shirt in the way you can feel the way your skin slides against his, softened with oil.

There really is no one as beautiful as Kim Taehyung. You drag your hands over him, so warm and wonderful under your palms; his chest, his cute tummy, his waist, his hips, the soft skin above his red, neglected cock. He’s radiant in his nakedness, every easing line of his body so perfect as he kneels in front of you, the flush of his skin, the heavy weight of his arousal, head shining with precum, so wet it’s practically dripping.

You lean in to kiss his neck and nip at his Adam's apple as his hands slide over your shoulder blades and down your back, the parts that make you shudder.

“Want you, Tae.” You whisper into his mouth, a soft secret that isn’t really a secret at all, not any more. “All of you.”

“Going to give you everything you want.” The words flow out of him with ease. “Everything you want.”

His chest and stomach shine with the massage oil that’s rubbed off from your own skin. You run your hands across him, and when you finally grasp his cock without the barrier of cloth in the way, he’s almost burning under your grasp, thick, his entire body shuddering when you pump his length. So sensitive to your touch.

“I’m goin’ to make you cum again,” he promises, and you love it, the way he talks when he’s losing himself. “Bet you’ll feel so good around my cock, so perfect.”

A shiver skates through your body. Taehyung’s fingers dig into your skin when he feels you trembling under his hands, and all you can think about is how you want him in you.

“Please,” you say. “Please, wanna make you feel good too—”

“Hands and knees, angel,” he rasps, and, God, yes, those words cut straight through you, sharp and electric.

Maybe you should feel embarrassed at how quickly you obey. The towels underneath you, so carefully placed at the start, perfectly flat, become rumpled as you shift into position; you arch your back, wanting to look as good as possible, and glance over your shoulder to see if it works.

Judging from the look on Taehyung’s face, it does. He looks like he’s never seen anything more awe-inspiring, eyes wide and mouth a little slack, dumbstruck. But then his jaw snaps shut and he splays his hands over the soft skin of your hips, your waist, your ass, shuffling closer to you; you feel the curve of his cock slide against your skin and you bite back a noise of need.

“Fuck, so beautiful.” He ruts forward, and you can feel the wetness of his precum slicking against you, a beaded line drawn across the sheen of massage oil. “My beautiful, perfect girl.”

“Tae,” you plead, already overwhelmed with need, heart squeezing at his words.

“Just one more thing, angel, I promise.”

It’s a good thing that the bottle of massage oil is so big, considering how liberal Taehyung is with it. You gasp when he uses one hand to spread your ass and before you can react there’s a drizzle of oil falling onto your skin, down-down-down, over your cunt, dripping over your inner thighs; Taehyung catches the excess with his palms before he slicks himself up, spreading that sweet coconut over his throbbing cock.

(You wonder what it’ll taste like when you lick it off him.)

When you feel the blunt head of his cock nudging at your pussy, your entire body lights up in anticipation, nerve endings on fire, every inch of your body singing under Taehyung’s touch—and when he finally sinks in, it’s almost effortless. He’s thick and long but everything slides so easy; you gasp and he moans, both lost in how your body opens up for him, hot and wet. By the time he’s bottomed out you're a quivering mess, collapsed onto your elbows. You’re so full. You feel split open in all the best ways, wanting to draw him in impossibly deeper even so.

Taehyung is gripping your sides, hands unmoving even with the slick oil underneath them, fingers digging into your skin. He’s breathing so loud, and when you experimentally shift your hips, he bites back a noise that cuts through that breath.

“How’s it feel, love?” His words slur together in arousal, but the hand that strokes your back is slow, thoughtful. “Feel good?”

“Fuck me, Tae, baby, please,” you beg. It’s so, so so much, so good, amazing, hotter and bigger and harder than anything you’d let yourself imagine, your entire body taking Taehyung and holding him in, in, in. “Please, I need it, it feels good but I want more, please.”

When he pulls away it’s slow and torturous and he goes so far he almost slips out, cock nearly sliding out of your folds. You whine, a little shameless, mostly needy, but then—

The snap of his hips drives you forwards, towels shifting underneath as you scrabble for a hold on something. Each sharp motion of Taehyung’s body has you choking for air and letting out whimpers and gasps, drowned out by the slap of skin on skin; his hipbones meet the soft flesh of your ass, again and again, but all you can focus on is the thick heat of his cock inside you, in-out-in-out, the press of his balls against your clit, everything so wet and smooth and slick.

You can feel how you’re losing yourself to that heady place that’s golden bright with feeling, lust and sex, the rest of the world gone, unimportant. There’s nothing but this—Taehyung touching you, filling your body so well, so perfect, helping you chase that high that’s growing faster and faster, that precipice of pleasure that he’s going to throw you over again, intent on it.

One of his hands trails up your back, between that sensitive dip of your shoulder blades and into your hair, locks tangling with coconut oil before he urges you up. He doesn’t yank or pull but his hold is firm and you end up back on your hands, arms trembling as you try to keep your balance, back bowed, overwhelmed.

“Baby,” he rasps. “Oh, you’re so tight n’ hot, so pretty, fuck. You feel so good, do you feel good?”

Your answer is almost a wail, so overcome with pleasure, sensation, the glide of his hands over your shining skin, the mix of oil and arousal that drips out of you, only getting wetter with each thrust of his hips into you. “So good, o-oh God, Tae, baby, fuck, oh, theretherethere—”

“Here?”

He punctuates this with a roll of his hips, using the hand still on your hip to pull you back onto his cock as he fills you up once more, throbbing heat. He bends over you, and this time, there’s nothing stopping the skin on skin contact, the slide of his chest against your back as he kisses the soft skin behind your ear, nipping at your lobe, and that’s it, you’re gone. Your eyes slide shut and your mouth falls open as another orgasm crashes through you, legs shaking as you cum around Taehyung’s cock, grinding back against him to drag out that pleasure; the only thing holding you up is the hand still in your hair, the lips trailing up the side of your bared neck, the hard cock inside you, keeping you against him, so many points of connection with Taehyung.

(His chest pressed against your back, heart beating so hard you can feel it, your own heart moving in tandem, matching him.)

He’s been whispering filth to you, heated praise and love, how good you feel, how beautiful you are, what it’s like to see you like this, touch you like this, have you like this. Lovely, pretty, perfect, gorgeous, hot n’ wet n’ tight, fuck, love, oh.

You’re still shivering, the final pulses of your orgasm curling through you with each unintentional shift of Taehyung’s hips, the drag of his length inside your inner walls. You can feel something dripping out of you; oil, cum, you don't know, but fuck, it feels so so good.

“Oh, God,” you say. Breathless. “Oh, Taehyung, oh.”

“Pretty darling,” he murmurs. He swivels his hips, grinding against you, and your entire body jolts with oversensitivity, clit swollen where his balls press against it. You tighten around him and groan at how hot and big he still feels inside, even as you still shiver from the come down of your second orgasm. “Gonna roll you over so I can see that perfect face.”

And when you’re on your back again, fucked out and mussed and wrecked, he just stares at you. You’ve watched his face for so long, seen so many expressions flit across his features, but never something like this—it’s a mix of amazement and awe and tenderness and lust and love, a lift to his brows and a spark in his eyes and a set to his lips.

And when he leans down to kiss you, that look doesn’t leave. It melts and softens around the edges as you catch each other's mouths, as you kiss and kiss, small tender things interspersed with longer, deeper touches, lips and teeth and tongue—his eyes darken and his mouth flushes darker pink, kiss swollen and so beautiful, but that expression stays. It stays for you.

Kim Taehyung is beautiful and lovely and unique. Kim Taehyung is so far out of your reach it’s kind of stunning, actually. And yet, here you are, existence of his touch over every part of you, in every part of you, lust driven, love full; the carefully balanced weight of his body splayed over you, pinning you down, keeping you close.

“I wanna see you cum, Tae,” you say. “Please?”

And just like he always does, Taehyung indulges you, just like you indulge him. He presses back inside you, cunt opening up for him so easy, so smooth, like his touch has already been etched into the memory of your body, perfect for him. He stays pressed close, face so near as he rolls into each thrust, sweat and coconut oil painted across your skin as your bodies shift together.

He’s been covering you in his words, both heated and sweet, and now you return the favour. You tell him how good he feels, how beautiful he is, so good, so perfect, so considerate, how much you’ve wanted this. So good, so long and thick, oh, Tae, feels so good, ah-ah-ah, baby, you’re unreal, fuck.

You can see the exact moment he starts to reach his high, the way he sucks in air, the way he lifts his chin, starts to thrust a little harder, a little faster, chasing that thread of pleasure that’s spiralling through him, and you urge him on. You lift your hips and clench so tight it has him gasping, hips stuttering, and you press your nose against his jaw, saying give it to me give it to me give it to me, wanting him to feel the same pleasure he’s given you.

When he pulls out, you’re too busy moving to pay attention to how empty you feel, settling between his legs and swallowing down his shining cock almost desperately. There’s no coconut. You can only taste yourself and when you lave your tongue across his slit it’s all Taehyung-Taehyung-Taehyung, hot and salt and bitter; he gasps and his hips jump and you take it all, lowering your head as far as you can, the head of his cock at the back of your throat before you pull up, dragging your tongue over the pulsing vein at the underside, messy and wet. You drink down the wetness of his cock, your own arousal, mixed with his, the precum that beads at his head, staring up at him, your hands sliding over the sheen of his stomach, his thighs, cupping his balls, everything slick with oil and sweat.

“Oh, God.” Taehyung’s eyes are blown and his hair is a mess and his mouth is wide open as he pants for air, watching. “Baby, baby, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum.”

You suck hard, dragging your lips up from the base of the cock to the rounded tip, swirling your tongue, bobbing your head faster—

“Oh, fuck—”

—and you swallow down each wave of cum, swallow down the way his cock twitches as he spills the evidence of pleasure into your mouth, swallow down the lovely noises that shudder out of him, watching him the whole time, never wanting to look away.

When you take your mouth off his softening cock, you draw a line of kisses with your mouth, up the soft skin of his body, stomach to chest to neck to mouth. He licks the taste of coconut oil off your lips, the taste of himself off your tongue; you curl up in his lap, settled against him, the apartment’s cool air even sharper against your skin, magnified by the oil that still lingers.

(Even without the oil painted across him, Taehyung would still shine, even under the weak light from the cheap lightbulb that hangs above you.)

You feel soft and warm and small in the circle of Taehyung’s arms, pulled close, and you can hear the words in his chest as he speaks, a resonance that touches against your skin.

“‘M sorry,” he murmurs.

You pause.

“Baby, love, darling.” The endearments are sugar sweet in your mouth, soft against his skin before you pull back to look at him, confused, concerned. “Sorry for what?”

“I really—I really was just planning to do a massage, but you’re so…”

You let out a slip of laughter. The room smells of coconut and sex, but when you lay your head against Taehyung’s collarbone all you can smell is the light tinge of his sweat. You breathe in, deep, like you can hold onto that ephemeral part of him. “Oh, Tae. I’m so what?”

“You’re so good,” he says. “So good and kind and lovely and—and so beautiful. I was going to do the massage to make you happy and then… tell you. About how happy you make me.”

You burrow your head into the hollow of his neck, the way he does to you, shy. “I’m not as beautiful as you,” you reply. “Tae, you are literally the most beautiful person alive, and—God, I’ve. I’ve been. So head over heels for you.”

There’s a pause. “Really?”

When you pull back to fix Taehyung with all the surprise in your gaze, you can see that he’s surprised, too. His hair hangs into his eyes, and he looks a little unsure, like he believes you, but finds it impossible to fathom.

You leave massage oil on his cheeks when you cup his face in your hands, staring at him with wide eyes. “Kim Taehyung, I have had daily breakdowns about the intensity of my love for you to Pickles ever since we got him. You’re the first person I think about each morning—usually because we wake each other up—and the last thing I think about at night—well, usually because you end up climbing into my bed more often than not, but, it still counts,” you say. You’re both tangled together in so many ways already. “You’ve had my heart for a long time, you know. I just never thought I had a chance?”

When Taehyung kisses you, it’s brief, a hard press of his lips before he rests his forehead against yours. “You really, really have no idea how perfect you are,” he murmurs. “I’ve wanted—I want to do everything for you to show you how grateful I am for everything you do for me.”

“You don’t have to,” you protest, but he just smiles.

“I don’t have to, but I want to,” he says. “Like you don’t have to look after me, but you do.”

“That’s because I love you,” you say. “Like, capital L love you.”

You’ve been so afraid of confessing, so convinced that it was an unattainable dream; that Kim Taehyung would never, could never, has never seen you as more than a friend. But the way he’s looking at you now, the way he’s touched you, the way your body still echoes with the feeling of him inside you: you’re not scared, any more. You don’t need to be.

Taehyung’s eyes are so dark and warm when he replies, easy and effortless. “I love you, too.”

Your relationship has always been a give and take, is the thing. When you climb in the shower together, he washes the oil from your back while you massage shampoo into his scalp, laughing when he makes devil horns in his hair. He catches you by surprise when he presses you against the tiles, swallowing your moans when he coaxes one final orgasm from your tired body, rubbing tight circles over your clit as you buck against his hand and water cascades over you both. His cock hardens in your hands, sliding between your legs when you press them together, tight-tight-tight, his length rubbing against your cunt as he fucks your thighs until he’s moaning and shaking and cumming again.

(The water’s cold by the time you finally climb out, but that’s okay. You giggle and kiss as you dry yourselves, each other, excuses to keep touching and feeling, driven by affection, not lust.)

When you’re both clean, and dry, Taehyung’s leg thrown over your hip as he tugs you in, flush with his body under the covers, you press your lips against the line of his jaw.

“Taehyung?”

“Yes, angel?”

You smile and hunch up even closer to him, scrunching yourself up as small as you can to plaster yourself against his side. “Thank you for the wonderful massage. Definitely the best massage I’ve ever been given, ten out of ten, would do again.”

Taehyung laughs, pressing his rectangular smile into the kiss he lays against your lips, and you think that nothing tastes better than the happiness curling his mouth.

“Love you,” he murmurs. Always romantic. “I love you love you love you.”

“Tae-honey-hyung.” And it feels so nice to not have to filter your words, to bite back that second layer of meaning, to try and keep things platonic and chaste when you speak. “I love you.”

And it feels so nice to have your Taehyung beside you, your body still aching with the press of him inside you, a good ache, a nice ache. A physical ache from good love, rather than a heartache from a love you didn’t think was reciprocated. But it is, somehow, each of you so bowled over by each other.

(“Hey, Pickles.”

The bearded dragon looks up at you, placid as he lounges in his tank.

“Well, you’ll be happy to hear that you won’t have to put up with me ranting at you any more,” you say. “Taehyung did break out the massage oil but it’s all good. I didn’t spontaneously combust or anything, like I thought I would.”

Pickles’ tongue flicks out as he shifts, and you smile.

“Okay, that’s it, I’m done,” you finish. “Thanks, Pickles. You’re a real pal.”

Taehyung nuzzles into your neck. His arms are a tight circle around your waist, chin resting on your shoulder as he looks down at the reptile, too. He’s warm and solid against your back, and you lean into him, happiness tingling through you.

“I wonder how much longer we would have taken if you didn’t get that coupon for a massage therapy course,” you muse, and Taehyung chuckles, warm and lovely.

“We would have gotten there eventually. And we would have had each other until we did, anyway. Right, angel?”

Pickles stays quiet as you both kiss, but you can tell he approves.)

taglist: @beyoncesdragon

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