#you are here to learn to do that yourself

[science-hoes]

You Are In Love

Jack Abbot x Reader

Warnings: canon-typical medical descriptions, a dad joke, VERY FLUFFY

Description: Jack needs the reader to help him with a VIP patient, but she soon learns about his chosen family.

——

Jack Abbot was the reason you wanted to go into emergency medicine. Watching him under pressure was like watching an Olympian in their medal-winning sport. He handled every case with control and diligence, and that lured you into the specialty even more. It only took one medical school rotation with him to know that you wanted to play the game.

So now, in your third month of your internship, you spent nearly every moment with Jack Abbot on the night shift. You rarely had a different attending. The scheduling gods seemed to be in your favor. Of course, you had gotten to know everyone else on staff. You had made friends with the other residents and attendings. Dana had become your favorite charge nurse. Even the social workers were happy to see you walk through the doors.

You arrived an hour early for your night shift, hoping to practice some more suturing in the skills lab before shift change. Just as you were about to escape the doctors lounge and head to the lab, a voice called out behind you.

“Hey, kid, I could use your help.”

You turned to see Jack pulling a pair of gloves off and tossing them in the trash. “Oh, hi.” You replied as you walked toward him. “What are you doing here this early?”

Jack raised an eyebrow, that smug asshole smile on his face. “I could ask you the same.”

You shrugged. “I was gonna go to the skills lab and suture. But not if you need me.”

He nodded and pressed a hand on your back as he lead you to one of the Central rooms. “We have a VIP.” He explained.

He swung the curtain open to reveal a little girl with long, dark hair and big brown eyes. You’d seen those eyes before…

“Uncle Jack!” The five year old exclaimed at the sight of your attending.

It was like magic, the way Jack’s usual stoic demeanor turned into one that would rival a Disney hero. “Hey, princess!” He returned her enthusiasm, a wide grin on his face. He dropped to his knees in front of the child and grabbed her tiny hands in his. “What are you doing here, huh?” He took a quick glance at the mother, who was holding a small blue bundle in her arms.

“I’m hurt.” The child replied, albeit vaguely.

The young woman let out a strained sigh. “We were at the park, and Eliza jumped out of the swing when she saw some older kids do it. Landed on her arm.” She explained.

Jack nodded, giving a don’t-blame-yourself look to her. Then his eyes flicked back to Eliza. “Can I see your arm, please?” He asked, a voice so gentle that it had to have been someone else’s. A moment of hesitation from the child. Then a head-tilt from the silver-haired man. “Uncle Jack is gonna make it all better.” He promised.

That seemed to convince her because she slowly, feebly presented her swollen arm. Jack delicately held the arm in his hands and examined it.

“Bump her up to next in line on X-ray. We’ll get her some IV morphine to help her relax. Could need realignment and screws.” He said to you.

Just as you were about to walk out of the room, you bumped into someone rushing into the room. A mumbled apology was the only thing you heard before a shrill “Daddy!”

You turned to see Michael Robinavitch kneeling to the ground in front of the little girl. “Hey, sweetheart!” He greeted.

Oooh. VIP. This was Robby’s family. The patient was Robby’s daughter. You left while the family reunited to order the X-Ray. When you turned to enter the room again, Dana was leading Robby’s wife, who held a tiny baby, to the cafeteria.

“X-Ray order is in. Next in line.” You announced to the attendings.

Jack gave you a thumbs up. He was sorting out the materials needed for IV morphine. He pulled the butterfly needle out of the packaging, and like clockwork, Eliza began to cry. Robby knelt to meet his daughter’s eyes, the ones that were a perfect mirror of his. “Sweetheart, look at me. Look at me.” He whispered. “We have to get you the medicine so your arm will stop hurting, okay? Just a quick poke.”

Eliza shook her head, more tears streaming down her face. “Daddy, please, don’t do it.” She begged. “Don’t hurt me.”

And if you’d never seen a man’s heart break in real time, the look on Robby’s face would be ingrained in your memory forever. His body seemed to go limp at his daughter’s words, unable to insert the needle if he tried. Jack quickly intervened, kneeling next to Robby. “Daddy isn’t gonna hurt you.” He assured the child. “He’s gonna hold you while Uncle Jack gives you the medicine. Does that sound okay?”

Eliza still continued to cry. You remember being her age and having a paralyzing fear of needles. So, you stepped forward to distract from the two pathetic men on the ground. “Hey, baby. I’m gonna show you how it works, okay?” You said.

You grabbed the blue elastic tie from the tray and wrapped it around your forearm. “First, Uncle Jack is gonna wrap this around your arm. It’s gonna give you a big hug for a few minutes!”

You picked up the alcohol swab package and opened it. “Then, he is just going to give your hand a little bath to get it all clean. Like this.” You said, swiping the wipe across the back of your hand. “See? All clean!”

You tossed the wipe and grabbed the J-tip, pressing it on the cleaned part of your hand. “Then, he’s going to give you a stamp that makes your hand tingle. What’s your favorite soda?” You continued.

Eliza followed your every move with an intense curiosity. “Sprite.” She sniffled.

You smiled. “When Uncle Jack gives you the stamp, it’s going to sound like you’re opening a Sprite can. It’s just air.” You explained.

Eliza nodded, rubbing chubby fingers across her wet eyes. You reached for the butterfly needle after placing the J-tip back on the tray. “Last, he’s going to let this little butterfly give you a kiss where the stamp was.” You finished, inserting the needle into one of your own veins. “See? It doesn’t hurt!” You lied through your teeth. It always hurt more to get an IV on the back of your hand, but that was Eliza’s best bet.

You yanked the blue tie off your arm, then removed the butterfly needle. “Think you can let Uncle Jack try now?” You asked.

Eliza didn’t answer, but she didn’t protest either. You smiled, motivated mostly by pride, and looked to your senior attendings. Both men stared back at you. Robby with a look of relief, mostly because you got his daughter to calm down. But Jack…you couldn’t read the look on his face. He broke your gaze to pat Robby on the back, standing up with him.

“Alright, princess, let’s get you that medicine.” He said, grabbing a fresh butterfly needle.

Robby sat on the bed, crossing his legs, and pulled Eliza carefully into his lap. He cradled the little girl in his arms, using his free hand to smooth her dark hair as she whimpered. “Shh…Daddy’s got you.” He soothed.

Eliza melted into her father’s embrace, blinking slowly when he brushed stray tears from her reddened cheeks. Jack tenderly grabbed her uninjured arm and wrapped the blue tie around her forearm still loose. “Alright, Eliza. You’re about to feel that big hug, okay?” He explained, then pulled the blue tie snug.

A small sound of discomfort escaped the child, but she remained docile in her father’s arms. Jack traced the tiny veins on the back of her hand and found his target. When he turned around to reach for an alcohol swab, you already had it ready for him with an outstretched hand. For a brief moment, Jack was caught off guard, but he took the swab from your palm, fingers brushing against the sensitive skin for a beat longer than normal.

“Now, let’s give your hand that cold bath.” He said.

Jack rubbed the wipe across his tiny workspace, and Eliza let out the smallest, softest giggle. Robby smiled, probably for the first time since he stepped foot into the room. “That tickle? Yeah?” He teased. Eliza nodded, just a little bit.

“You ready for that Sprite can sound?” Jack asked, once again reaching, and you already met him halfway with the J-tip.

“Yeah.” Eliza whispered, her face half nuzzled into Robby’s chest, but still enough to keep an eye on Jack’s movements.

Jack placed the J-tip over the vein he wanted, and just like you said, it sounded like a can of Sprite opening, minus the sugary fizz that followed. Eliza jerked her hand pack at the odd sensation of carbon dioxide shooting across her skin. Robby reached his finger under her palm for her to grasp, and she did, just like she always had since she was born.

“See? That wasn’t so bad.” He said softly.

Jack rubbed the spot on the back of her hand. “Once it starts working, we’re gonna let that butterfly land on it, okay?” He explained.

“And it will give me a kiss?” Eliza asked, looking to you, her source of information.

Jack and Robby both chuckled, and the latter pressed a kiss to her hair. “Yeah, just like that.” He replied.

Eliza giggled, but in her joy, she shifted and moved her broken arm. The laughs quickly turned to screams of pain again, and Jack winced.

“Oh, you gotta be still, princess. We’re almost ready for the medicine.” He said. Then, he leaned in, like he was trying to keep his voice from Robby’s earshot. “You know, if you keep being a brave girl, once you’re all healed up, you can come to my house and go swimming.” His voice was playfully sly.

The cries reduced, just a little. “I can?” She blubbered.

Jack nodded. “Sure. As long as your mommy and daddy say it’s okay.” He replied, glancing up at Robby, hoping he didn’t just make a promise outside of his power.

Robby smiled and nodded. “Of course. You need to show Uncle Jack how you can swim without floaties now.” He said.

Jack’s eyes blew comically wide. “Without floaties? Only big girls can swim without floaties.”

Eliza nodded, her bottom lip still quivering, but a glint of pride was in her eyes. The same one you’d seen in Robby’s eyes many times. “Can Abby come, too?” She asked.

Jack nodded, a smile playing at his lips. “Absolutely. We’ll have a pool party.” He reached back for the butterfly needle, and once again, the brush of your fingers against his. He kept it out of Eliza’s view, continuing to hold her hand. “Your daddy and I will grill some hamburgers and hot dogs. You can teach Abby how to swim. We’ll invite Nana, too.”

Eliza didn’t even flinch when Jack inserted the butterfly needle. You carefully concealed your morphine syringe and connected it to the line. But just as you could see her entire body relax in Robby’s arms from the push of meds, she looked to you with those big brown eyes. “Are you gonna come to the pool party?” She asked.

You froze, unsure of how to answer. Does an invitation from a five-year-old have enough warrant to show up at your boss’ house? Jack placed a hand on your back, lower than he probably meant to. “Yes, she’ll be there, too.” He confirmed for you.

You snapped your head to his direction. Those hazel eyes bore into you, and you couldn’t find the words to respond. In that silence, he winked at you, a smug smile on his face.

“Uncle Jack, she’s pretty.” The little voice broke your small moment.

Your eyes widened, heat crawling up your neck. Robby let out an involuntary sound, a mixture of a laugh and a choke. But Jack never looked away from you. In fact, he doubled down with, “I know.”

Before you could melt away in a puddle of embarrassment and giddiness, the curtain swung open, revealing Dana and Robby’s wife, still cradling a tiny bundle.

“Nana!” Eliza sluggishly squealed.

Dana leaned over and gently tickled Eliza’s shoulders. “There’s my girl!” She exclaimed.

You tilted your head, confused by the connection. “Nana?” You questioned.

Robby chuckled. “Eliza couldn’t say ‘Dana’ when she was little, so she kept calling her Nana.” He explained.

Dana gave you a stern but playful look. “Keep in mind that I am not old enough to be a real Nana.” She stated.

Jack raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. “I know plenty of people your age who are grandmothers.” He said.

Dana pointed a finger at him and jabbed his chest. “How would you like to lose another foot?” She threatened.

Your jaw dropped at the comment. That wasn’t allowed, right? Surely, that crossed some kind of line. But Jack just chuckled and swiped her hand away.

“I’d love to. I’ll be one step closer to becoming a robot.” He replied. “Literally.”

Robby’s wife groaned at the unfortunate pun. “Please, stop. I already have to listen to Robby and his dad jokes.” She begged.

Robby grinned proudly. “Yeah, leave it to the professionals.” He teased, but his eyes moved to the bundle his wife was holding. “How’s my little man doing?” He asked.

She smiled and moved to sit on the bed next to Robby and Eliza. “He’s been a sleepy boy all day. Better than testing out his lungs though.” She leaned her head on her husband’s shoulder as she spoke. “How’s my big girl?”

Eliza grinned sheepishly when her mom reached to gently pinch her rosy cheeks. “Uncle Jack said we can have a pool party at his house.” She stated, beginning to slur her words in sleepiness. “He said Nana can come. And he said Abby can come.”

Dana chuckled. “Still calling him Abby, huh?” She asked.

Robby smiled, shifting so that Eliza could rest horizontally as she began to doze off. “We’re working on it.” He answered. “Somewhere she learned that nickname. Can’t imagine from who.” He joked.

Jack huffed and moved to where Robby’s wife sat, offering his pinky to the baby boy’s tiny hand, activating his palmar grasp reflex. “Have they been desecrating our name, buddy?” He asked, a lilt in his voice. “Us Abbots are fighters. We don’t take shit from anybody.”

Dana’s swat at Jack’s shoulder for cursing in front of Eliza and his following defense of “She’s asleep!” didn’t distract you from your new piece of information.

“He’s an Abbot?” You questioned, a feeling of warmth in your chest.

Robby’s wife smiled. “Michael Abbot Robinavitch. We stuck with Michael for about a week, but…” She trailed off, looking to her husband.

Robby’s shoulders hunched a bit. “She calls me Michael when I’m in trouble. I got a little scared every time she said his name.” He admitted, but his smile remained. “So we settled on Abbot.”

Jack carefully cradled Abbot as Robby’s wife passed him over. His tanned biceps that strained against the sleeves of his scrub top made the baby look incredibly small. He slowly walked over to you, his right foot stepping heavier as usual, his eyes focused on the baby. A deep smile graced his lips. And just on the edges framing the smile were huge dimples. You wanted to save that image forever. You brushed a finger against the baby’s tiny hand, smiling when he moved in response.

Meanwhile, Robby was elbowed by his wife, who exchanged an excited but knowing glance with Dana at the sight of you and Jack sharing that unintentionally tender moment. All he did was nod in response, eyebrows raised in a silent confirmation.

“Why Abbot? Is Jack that important?” You teased.

Dana threw her hands up in exasperation. “Thank you!” She said. “That’s what I said. I’m still waiting for a little Dana.”

“Working on it.” Robby said with a wink, quickly receiving an elbow in the ribs from his wife.

“Michael!” His wife hissed.

Robby cowered slightly at his birth name. Jack nodded his head towards them. “See? That’s why this is Abbot.” He said.

You giggled and gently ran a hand over the baby’s soft hair near his forehead, afraid to venture too far back towards the fontanelle. “Well, Abbot is very cute.” You complimented.

A simultaneous “Thank you” filled the room. One genuine, from Robby’s wife. The other facetious, from Jack. Laughter filled the room, and you felt oddly a part of a family. Their family.

Perlah entered the room with a pediatric wheelchair. “X-ray is ready for Eliza.” She said, smiling at the sight before her.

Robby stood carefully, holding his daughter snug against his chest. “I’ll go with her. We can walk.” He said and followed Perlah out of the room.

As if it were a snap back to reality, Jack walked back over to Robby’s wife and carefully transferred Abbot back to her arms. “I’m gonna go check on that DUI kid in Central Four.” He said before looking over to you. “Go ahead and get the cast materials ready. She’s gonna want pink.”

Jack left the room, holding onto the ends of his stethoscope as he walked. You found yourself frozen for a moment, processing everything that had happened in the last thirty minutes or so. Someone cleared their throat, and you snapped your head in that direction, embarrassment coursing through your veins.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” You said, moving to the drawers of the room quickly to grab the liner and plaster.

Robby’s wife looked to Dana with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. Dana nodded, intercepting her question in the air.

“So, what do you think of Abbot?” She asked.

You smiled, bringing the supplies back to the tray near the bed. “He looks just like Robby.” You answered.

Dana rolled her eyes. “No, not Dana Jr.” She deadpanned, then nodded her head toward the Pitt. “The Lieutenant Colonel.”

Your hands froze where they were, sorting out the supplies. Slowly you looked up, and you were met with both women staring intently at you. “Oh, Doctor Abbot…” You corrected yourself. “He’s nice.”

“Do you think he’s cute?” Robby’s wife immediately responded.

Dana gave her a look of way-to-blow-our-cover. You let out a nervous laugh. “I mean, yeah. But he’s way older than me. And we work together.” You answered, using your answers to ground yourself as to why your crush was a dead end.

Robby’s wife shrugged. “So? Robby is almost 20 years older than me. And we work together.” She countered.

You tilted your head. “Wait, you work here? In emergency?” You asked.

She smiled and nodded. “Yeah. I’ve been on maternity leave.” She explained.

“Ohhhh.” You drew out, finally connecting the dots.

Dana smiled. “See? So what are your other excuses?” She pried.

You laughed slightly and shrugged. “I guess I don’t know if he’s interested.” You replied.

The two women shared another glance, debating on revealing any other information. “But you are?” Robby’s wife asked.

You smiled slightly, looking down at your hands. “Who wouldn’t be?”

The conversation ended there when Robby reentered the room with a slightly awake Eliza. “Distal radius fracture. No surgery.” He announced.

His wife let out a sigh of relief and smiled when her husband sat next to her again, still cradling the little girl. “That means we can all go home tonight.” She said, pressing her forehead to Robby’s shoulder.

—

After you followed Jack’s careful instruction while shaping the cast on Eliza’s arm, the little girl begged everyone to sign it. By the time she left with her family, there was a “Mommy”, “Daddy”, “Nana”, and your name with a smiley face on the hot pink wrapping. And as soon as you finished writing your name, Jack had snatched the sharpie from your hand, scrawling “Uncle Jack” right next to your signature.

As you watched the Robinavitches leave the Pitt, you found yourself smiling. You wanted that. The devoted parents, the precious children, the caring friends who became family.

You knew Jack was approaching by the uneven foot pattern, but you didn’t turn around. “You think I’m pretty?” You asked.

He stood by your side, brushing his thick shoulder against your frame, looking down at you with a trace of a smile. “I’d be a fool to think otherwise.” He answered honestly.

You looked up to meet his gaze. Those bourbon eyes were intoxicating, but you fought to maintain eye contact. “You’re really great with kids.” You complimented. “Eliza loves you.”

His smile deepened to a sincere one you weren’t used to seeing. “Thank you.”

The stare off continued. “Do you want kids?” You blurted out, and you nearly clamped your hand over your mouth at the word vomit.

Jack tilted his head, smile unfaltering. “If I find the right person to have them with.” He replied, leaning down closer to you just slightly. “Before I turn to dust.”

You laughed and nudged him with your shoulder. He laughed with you and crossed his arms, the muscles rippling across his skin. You didn’t notice when he leaned down, his lips dangerously close to your ear.

“What you did in there with Eliza. Walking her through the process. Got her to stop crying. Good job.” He whispered lowly.

The hair on your neck stood at attention at the praise, and you could feel his hot breath on your skin. You tried to brush off the feeling. “Thanks, Doctor Abbot.” You replied.

His face twitched when you called him by his last name, like he forgot you were his intern and not his. “Jack.” He corrected you.

You looked up to him again, taking in another drink of his eyes. There was vulnerability this time. “Jack.” You repeated in a whisper. “I didn’t know you had dimples.”

It was Jack’s turn to get flustered. “What do you mean?” He asked, and you could see the red creeping up his freckled neck.

You gently poked at his cheeks where the divots had appeared earlier. “You have dimples when you smile. It’s really cute.” You teased.

You could see the muscles in his face actively working to hold back a smile. He shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t smile.” He answered as seriously as he could.

You wrapped your hands around his bicep and rested your head on his shoulder. “It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone. It’ll be our secret.”

And the smile Jack held back flooded onto his face. Dimples and all. He placed a hand over yours and pressed a gentle kiss to your hair. Nobody said another word. You didn’t have to. You could hear it in the silence.

——

A/N: this is probably gonna get a Part 2 featuring the pool party because I can’t help myself. Also this can technically be a Robby x Reader fic because I intentionally didn’t give his wife a name so you can have the best of both worlds here 💙

[cosmic-dust-poltergeist]

Pt3 of the Danny is the 99th attempted clone Tim made of Kon. Kon learns about Danny.

Relevant info: Kon was dead closer to a year and a half in this au, and this happens a few months after his revival.

[Pt2: here]

So Tim has admittedly been putting off meeting up with the Titans. Everyone has settled back into the new normal. Too much has happened for it to look anything like before, but the other 3 Titans have been hanging out semi-regularly, and Tim turns down their invites 3 of 4 times. He knows it's starting to hurt their feelings, and he hates that.

But... he's scared to admit he's a father now. A father to a clone of one of them. He's not sure how to bring it up. Cassie never asked if he was successful, probably just assumed he failed because there isn't a third Superboy flying around. Jokes on her. Danny isn't going to be a Superboy. He's not allowed to even think about being a hero or vigilante until he's 14 at the earliest, and Tim is going to help him find his own name if he chooses that path. He won't be a Robin or Superboy. He won't live in the shadow of those legacies if Tim can help it.

None of that is relevant for the here and now, though. Tim got Jason to babysit Danny and finally agreed to a hang out with the Titans. He asked Danny for his opinion first before making his decision and got the go ahead. So, Tim is finally going to come clean.

Tim barely makes it into the tower when he's tackled by his friends.

"Tim! You're here!" Bart cheers.

"Yeah, it's good to see you guys too. Sorry I haven't been very present." Tim fidgets. "I've been busy... I also haven't been honest..."

"Tim?" Cassie sounds concerned. And Tim just can't. He extracts himself from the puppy pile. He can't make himself give eye contact. He's sure his guilt and shame are written all over his body language.

"Tim, you can tell us anything." Kon sounds super genuine. Tim takes a deep grounding breath.

"Okay, let's do this like a bandaid." Tim finally looks at them, focusing mostly on Kon. "I have a son. He's technically Kon's, too."

He gets the dubious pleasure of watching his three idiots look at his abdomen, as if he gave birth.

"Why-? Kon, we never fucked!? What the fuck guys??" He sputters, waving his hands in front of him.

"Then how-" Cassie realizes. "Oh!"

"Oh?? What do you mean??" Bart is looking between them and vibrating in confusion. Kon is just looking like a confused and concerned puppy.

"Okay, so, I may have had a breakdown with everyone dying or going missing." Tim grimaces. "And while I was fully aware that even if I succeeded, it wouldn't be Kon, I still tried to clone him. And, um, I did manage to succeed in the end."

"Fuck, Tim.." Kon starts.

"Look, I was in a really fucking dark place and needed even just a piece of good I lost." Tim hugs himself, self loathing burning him from the inside out. "Everyone was turning their back on me, I just needed something, anything, to keep going."

"Fuck, I should have helped..." Cassie bites her lip, chewing on her guilty conscious.

"It's fine. No one was listening. Don't beat yourself up over it. You were in a bad spot, too." Tim gives a humorless laugh. "Danny was my 99th attempt. And my last attempt, if I'm honest. I could feel myself breaking more with each failure. On a fucking whim, I decided to make the 99th attempt a baby instead of trying for a teenager, and it worked. I fucked up a bit, I forgot to adjust the knowledge download to that of a 1 year old, but he was alive. He's the best thing to ever happen to me. I was scared to tell you. I'm sorry-"

"Tim.." Kon cuts him off, and Tim snaps his mouth shut. "I.. I'm honestly not sure how to feel about you cloning me, but I'd like to meet him. What's his name?"

Tim rapidly blinks back tears. "Aedan Drake, he prefers being called Danny. I.. I didn't add Kent because I don't trust Clark with him or give him an El name, I wanted him to understand kryptonian language and culture first. I... I also wanted Danny to be old enough to make the decision over his name himself. I don't want him to be treated like you were. The house of El were so awful to you."

"I understand, Tim." Kon steps towards Tim, "Can.. Can I hug you?"

Tim nods and is swept into a tight hug. He feels something give emotionally, and he sobs into his shoulder. "I fucking love him so much."

"Tell me about him." Kon says softly. He can feel Bart and Cassie hoving, unsure what to do, but unwilling to leave.

"He's physically around 3 now. He loves ghosts and space and named the wolf plushy I bought him on his first day alive Wulf." There's some chuckles over that. "He's sassy and petty, but insanely sweet and tries to help out with any and all tasks. I see so much of both of us in him. Nature vs Nurture is a messy bitch. You remember what I said my start as Robin was like?"

"How you had to babysit a grown ass man and force him into better habits?" Cassie snarks.

"Karma's a funny bitch. Danny started doing the same shit to me as soon as he figured out how to walk." Tim giggles. "Anytime we weren't in danger, he'd force me to take care of injuries and to eat and sleep. And I'd do it because what kind of monster denies a baby trying to be helpful... plus he gets really stressed and depressed if he can't help."

Tim grips the back of Kon's shirt. "I don't understand how he developed my people pleaser tendencies so early on. We were stuck on LoA bases when he first started doing everything in his power to help me. I was purposely being a little shit to our "hosts" at the time. So it wasn't a surprise that he developed a Robin's need to troll, but he only saw me be nice to him."

"The LoA??" Kon asks in alarm.

"It was a rough year..." Tim scowls. "And if I see Ra's again, I'm gutting him. B's rules be damned."

"What happened?" Cassie asks, suddenly a lot closer.

"He's a creep, a pedo, and a child abuser." Kon rubs Tim's suddenly very stiff back and shoulders. "I could handle him being creepy towards me. While gross and awful to have a disgusting 300 or something year old man trying to wife me-"

"Excuse me???"

"He WHAT?"

"-I'm more pissed I couldn't protect Danny. I don't know what that piece of shit did when I couldn't take Danny with me, but Danny is linked to the pit now. He luckily doesn't have pit rage like Jason, but he can calm Jason's pit and apparently glows according to Duke." Tim sobs. "I should have killed the man when I had a chance. I don't know what he did to Danny!"

"It's not your fault, Tim." Kon hugs Tim tightly, it's almost painful. "You were in a tough spot and doing your best to keep you both alive."

"Just focus on healing and moving on." Bart says while running a hand through Tim's hair. Cassie rubs both Tim and Kon's backs as Tim gets himself under control.

"Can.. can I meet him?" Kon whispers.

"I'd love for you to meet him." Tim sniffles. "He was nervous you'd hate him for existing. I apparently passed on my stupid anxiety. I couldn't quite get him to believe me when I told him he wouldn't be who you'd be mad at if you got mad. He wants to meet you, but I accidentally made the most jaded baby in the world."

"A Super raised by a Bat is going to be terrifying." Bart giggles. "We'll have to make sure he doesn't become a supervillain."

"Meh. He's too cute. If he goes evil, all he has to do is pout and he'll instantly win." Tim jokes, wiggling out of the hug. "Want to see pictures?"

There's a very strong positive response. The next 3 hours finds Tim showing off pictures and explaining the stories behind them, his team melting at how cute his son is. Tim feels the lightest he's felt in a while. He does have to promise Bart and Cassie to bring Danny over once Kon and Danny meet one on one first.

What Tim doesn't know is Kon is absolutely obsessed with and slightly horny over this parental side of Tim. He's fully daydreaming of the 3 of them living together and being disgustingly domestic the whole time Tim is showing off Danny. Cassie can tell what Kon is thinking about and is amused.

Once Tim leaves, the Titans go to the training room and fuck up some bots because of the rage they feel on Tim and Danny's behalf. They all agree to be as petty as possible to any LoA members they come across and to murder Ra's the moment there's an opportunity to do so without the JL knowing. Tim isn't the only unhinged one on this team. That's why they work so well together.

[kimberlychapman]

For anyone who thinks 600 words in an essay is actually difficult, here are some pro tips:

Make your conclusion basically a mirror of your intro. In your intro, state what the essay is going to be about and why in whatever style you've been taught (it's changed over the years and can vary by country so do what you've been told to do, this isn't creative writing time, it's please-the-teacher time). "Throughout the vastness of time and space, humans have always done this shit, here is an example of the shit, and another example. Possibly a third example because Star Trek citation reasons. In this essay I shall examine how historical shit has influenced present shit and is likely to influence future shit." Got it? Then you do that backwards for your conclusion. "As shown by my many citations in this essay, it is clear that humans did that historical shit, continue to do the shit, and show no signs of stopping the shit. I once again refer to my previously stated examples or other versions thereof. Thus, I am able to conclude that shit is shit throughout time and space, etc etc etc."

The above is already 196 words.

Include a lot of properly cited quotations. FFS in this age of internet gobshittery double check that your citations and quotations are valid. But then make 'em plentiful and big. Honestly, this is a lot harder when you get a word _limit_ and you want to show off the legit research you did and you can't fit all of those grandiose, florid quotations in. Don't get in trouble for plagiarising, but cite cite cite with quotation marks! It screams, "LOOK AT ME, I DID THE REQUIRED READINGS!" Bonus points: do the required readings and then go pull some quotations from related sources.

The above is now at 306 words and I haven't actually even included a quotation yet.

According to mollypaup in their March 28, 2025 publication on the popular internet social media platform Tumblr, "im still losing it over the "how did high schoolers write 600 word essays before chatgpt" post. 600 words. that is nothing. that is so few words what do you mean you can't write 600 words. 600 words. this post right here is 45 words."

We're at 386 now. Over halfway there. Each sentence gets you a wee bit closer. This isn't hard. Wait, I mean to say this is not hard. Do that: expand your contractions. Do the opposite of tweeting or what those of us who went through journalism school had to learn: make every word, every phrase, every sentence as long as you can. Do not say, "Make every word, phrase, and sentence long." Do what I did above. Also, repeat yourself in the form of making a point. That is, to say, make every single word, make every single phrase, and make every single sentence as long as you can.

496 now. Home stretch. Now add embellishments. Are you engaged with a well-known fandom? What does your favourite character say about your topic? Does your fandom come with any long-winded authors you can quote? Lord of the Rings fans, I have good news for you! Or does your teacher/professor have a known fandom? As long as you can reference it competently, do it! For nearly any historical, political, philosophical, or literary essay I guarantee you there's a Picard quote that will serve. Weave it in there somewhere to help make a point, as in, "In the immortal words of Jean-Luc Picard, Captain of the USS Enterprise 1701-D, "Things are only impossible until they are not.""

612. Booyeah. You've got this.

im still losing it over the "how did high schoolers write 600 word essays before chatgpt" post. 600 words. that is nothing. that is so few words what do you mean you can't write 600 words. 600 words. this post right here is 45 words.

[wordsofwhimsy]

𝑴𝒂𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒀𝒆𝒂𝒓

Pairing: Sinister!Mark Grayson x f!Reader

Warnings: Literally straight up nasty, dirty, raunchy smut.

Tags: Overstimulation, dubcon, power imbalance, rough sex, degradation, choking, slapping, porn with no plot – literally you name it, it’s probably in here.

Word Count: 3,043

Inspiration: “Man of the Year” – ScHoolboy Q

Synopsis: You worked as a dancer at a club, now you’re just for him.

a/n: this is the nastiest shit i’ve ever written – y’all are such bad influences on me lmaoo

The music was a slow, pulsing throb of bass and synth, but your heartbeat was louder.

You could feel his eyes on you—burning, heavy, golden. Mark was lounged back in the velvet chair like a king on his throne, legs spread wide, chin resting against his fingers as he watched you. Watched you dance like your life depended on it.

Because it did.

You didn’t know what you were doing when you caught his attention that night. He hadn’t even looked like anything special at first. Just another cocky guy in a club full of them. But then he moved. And everything about him shifted from forgettable to terrifying in an instant.

Now you danced for him alone. In his penthouse. No audience. No tips. No escape.

Just him—and you.

The sheer curtains blew faintly in the wind from the shattered windows he never bothered to fix. A reminder of the last time you disappointed him. You didn’t plan on repeating the mistake.

So you moved. Slow, sensual, calculated. Every sway of your hips choreographed with survival. Every drop to your knees a prayer to a god who wore his smile like a threat.

You let your eyes flick up to him—dangerous, you knew—but you needed to see.

Mark was watching, unmoving, his expression unreadable except for the faintest tilt of his mouth. Like he was amused. Or hungry.

"You’re getting better," he murmured, voice like honey laced with poison. "Scared looks good on you."

Your breath caught, but you didn’t stop. If anything, you moved harder. Lower. Your hands slid up your thighs, over your ribs, into your hair as you arched back for him. You could feel heat flooding your cheeks, a mix of humiliation and something darker, something you didn’t dare name.

You hated that part of you—the part that wondered what it would feel like if he touched you. If he let you closer. If you stopped being his pet and became… something else.

Mark uncrossed his legs slowly, sitting forward.

The air in the room shifted.

"Come here," he said, soft and lethal. Your pulse jumped, but you obeyed. Because good girls follow orders.

And bad girls don’t get second chances.

You approached slowly, barefoot across the marble, the soft rhythm of the music still playing behind you. Mark’s eyes dragged down your body, lingering like a hand that hadn’t been given permission—but didn’t need it.

He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees now, fingers steepled. Still watching. Still waiting. "Turn around," he said, voice quiet but final.

You turned.

"Hands on the floor."

You hesitated for a breath. Not long. Not long enough to get punished. Then you bent forward, palms to the floor, the curve of your ass high in the air—offered.

You heard it. That low sound he made in his throat, not quite a laugh. Not quite a growl.

"Good girl."

Heat flared behind your cheeks again, but there was no hiding here. You started to move—slow, deep rolls of your hips. Bouncing. Controlled. Fluid. You knew exactly what he liked by now. How he liked you to lose your dignity gracefully.

You let yourself move deeper into it—hips popping, thighs trembling, back arching as you worked to draw him in like prey playing seductress.

Mark’s POV

God, you were learning.

Not just how to move—he expected that—but how to please.

He could see the fear still clinging to your spine, the trembling in your arms as you held the pose. But there was something else blooming in you now. He could smell it. Want, soft and hidden, pressed deep beneath the performance.

It made him hungrier.

He rose from the chair in one smooth motion, no sound, no effort. One second he was sitting. The next, behind you. "You know what I like," he murmured, kneeling. You froze—but didn’t stop.

His hands moved over your thighs, slow and hot, until he gripped your hips. Firm. Possessive. "You’ve been good tonight," he said, leaning in to drag his mouth along the line of your lower back, voice low and rough. "Say thank you."

Your breath hitched. But you said it. "Thank you, Mark."

He chuckled. And in the next second, his hand slid between your thighs, fingers teasing, testing the heat he already knew was there.

"God," he breathed, voice heavy with amusement. "You're filthy." Your stomach clenched. "You like this," he whispered against your ear. "Don't lie to me, sweetheart. Your body tells the truth."

You hated how your hips pressed back into his hand without thinking. Hated how good it felt when his fingers finally pushed between your folds, stroking slow.

He groaned behind you. "All for me," he said, more to himself than to you.

And then he was pushing inside—two fingers, deep, curling with practiced cruelty. He started slow, deliberate, like he had all the time in the world to ruin you. Your moans broke past your lips before you could stop them.

His fingers pumped into you slow, steady, cruel—each curl inside you knocking the air from your lungs. You braced against the floor, head bowed, spine curved in a humiliating arch as you felt your body betray you, hips rocking to meet his rhythm without meaning to.

You needed to break this. Or control it. Or… something. So you moved. You slid forward, away from his hand. Felt the stretch as his fingers slipped out, wet and warm. And before he could say a word, you rose halfway—still bent, still facing away—and started to move again.

But not like before. Not with grace. Now it was raw. Bouncing. Bold. Your ass clapped against the backs of your thighs with every harsh motion. Filthy. Desperate. The kind of move you never used at the club. Not for the regulars. Not even for the high rollers.

Only for him.

You didn’t look back. You didn’t have to. You felt the shift in the air when he stilled. Felt his breath catch. And then—his laugh. Low. Dark. Dangerous.

Mark’s POV

Oh.

You wanted to play now?

The way your ass bounced—each movement reverberating with shameless rhythm—it was obscene. Disrespectful. Brilliant.

You thought you were taking the reins. Thought you could distract him. Tempt him. Twist this moment into something that gave you a sliver of control.

You had no idea you were digging your own grave.

He sat back on his haunches for a beat, just watching. Letting you think you had his attention like you wanted it. Then he was on you.

In one brutal motion, he grabbed you by the hips and slammed you back against his body, bare skin burning against him, his cock grinding between your ass cheeks through his pants. You gasped—more from shock than fear—and tried to catch yourself, but he didn’t give you time.

“You think I’m that easy to impress?” he murmured into your ear, breath hot on your neck. “That you can just shake this pretty ass and I’ll forget who owns you?”

You whimpered when he ground harder, his clothed length dragging firm and thick between your cheeks, teasing where you wanted him the most—but never giving in. “No,” he said, low and sharp. “You earn my cock.”

And with that, he shoved your torso down again, one hand on your upper back, pinning you. His other hand unzipped his pants, slow and deliberate.

"You wanted to put on a show?" he said, lining himself up, pressing the swollen head of his cock between your folds. "Then show me how well you can take it." And then—he pushed inside. In one brutal, unforgiving thrust.

Your scream echoed off the high windows, swallowed by the music still playing in the background like a heartbeat. He didn’t give you time to adjust.

Mark fucked like he fought—relentless, powerful, precise. Each thrust was a punishment. Each grip on your hips a promise that you belonged to him. And only him.

"Look at you," he groaned. "Taking me so well. You like this."

You hated how much it was true. You screamed.

The stretch was obscene. He was big, thick and punishing, sliding in without warning, without kindness. The shock of it knocked everything else out of your head. You scrambled to brace yourself, fingers clawing at the marble floor, your thighs shaking as he bottomed out inside you.

You didn’t even have time to adjust. Mark pulled back—and slammed into you again.

And again.

And again.

You sobbed out broken moans with every thrust, your body clapping against his with a sound that filled the massive, echoing space. It wasn’t just rough—it was devastating. He fucked like he was claiming territory.

“Listen to that,” he groaned. “You hear it? That sloppy, wet little pussy begging for me.” Your face burned, shame and arousal crashing together like waves.

He grabbed your hair, yanked your head back. “Say it,” he snarled against your ear. “Tell me who you belong to.” You shook your head, defiant, desperate to hold onto something of yourself.

His response was simple. He slapped your ass so hard the sound cracked through the room. You cried out, body jolting from the impact, tears finally spilling down your cheeks.

“Say it.”

“…You.”

“Louder.”

“You, Mark,” you choked, voice ragged. “I belong to you.”

His groan was feral.

He drove into you harder—faster now, rutting, filthy, animal. His fingers dug into your hips, sure to leave bruises, and you couldn’t tell anymore where pain ended and pleasure began. You felt like you were unraveling, every thrust knocking your thoughts further from your head.

You were close. Too close. And he knew it. “That’s it, baby,” he purred darkly. “Cum for me. Let me feel you break.” You tried to fight it. Tried to hold it back. But his hand slipped between your thighs again, fingers circling your clit in wicked, perfect pressure.

You came with a scream—loud, messy, involuntary. Your body clamped around him, spasming as your climax hit, stars exploding behind your eyes.

But Mark didn’t stop.

He growled, low and brutal, and pulled out just long enough to flip you over onto your back. Your legs were jelly. Your body too weak to resist. He shoved back inside, now face-to-face, pinning you down like prey.

“You think that was it?” he whispered. “You don’t get to finish until I say you’re done.”

And he kept going. You cried, begged, clawed at his shoulders—but he didn’t stop.

And the worst part? You didn’t want him to.

You were gasping, wrecked, limp beneath him—body trembling, thighs twitching, the aftershocks of your orgasm still sparking through your spine.

But Mark didn’t slow down. Didn’t give you time to breathe. He slammed into you again, cock still hard, still thick, still insatiable. The stretch made you sob—raw, overwhelmed—but he ate it up like it turned him on even more.

“You thought that was the end?” he growled, his hips slamming into yours, deep and punishing. “No, no, baby. I’m not done using this pussy. Not even close.”

You whimpered beneath him, arms useless, body shaking. But you didn’t tell him to stop. Not even once.

“Look at you,” he spat, grabbing your jaw, forcing your gaze to lock with his. “Eyes all glassy, lips swollen, moaning like a whore.”

You clenched around him at the word.

“Oh, you liked that, didn’t you?” He laughed—low, sharp, cruel. “My little slut,” he said, grinding in deep, so deep it felt like he was in your throat. “All you’re good for now is taking my cock. Being mine. Letting me ruin you.”

You couldn’t answer. Your brain was gone. Burned out. All you could do was cry out as he picked up the pace, pounding into you now with raw, brutal rhythm, your body jolting with each thrust.

“You were nothing before I took you,” he snarled. “Just a dancer on a stage, begging for scraps. Now look at you. Getting fucked like you were made for me.”

You arched under him when he hit that spot again. That maddening, addictive place that made your eyes roll back and your toes curl.

“Ohhh, there it is,” he hissed. “Right there, huh? That’s your spot, baby?” He slammed into it. Once. Twice. Again. You were unraveling.

He leaned in close, his lips brushing your ear, voice like silk wrapped around steel. “You gonna cum for me again?” he whispered. “Gonna soak my cock while I ruin your pussy? Be a good little toy and cream on me?”

Your moan cracked in your throat, high and desperate.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” His thrusts grew frantic, rough, the sound of skin slapping against skin filling the room. You felt your climax building again—too soon, too much, but you couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop him.

And he knew it.

“That’s it. Cum for me again, you greedy little fuckdoll. Cum on this cock. Let me feel it.” You screamed. Your body locked up, then shattered. Orgasm tore through you like fire, and Mark groaned—loud, guttural—his rhythm faltering.

“Fuck, you feel too good—so tight—” he growled, hips stuttering. “Gonna fill you up, baby. Gonna stuff this pretty cunt with my cum. You want it, don’t you?”

You barely managed to nod, sobbing through the overstimulation. And then he came. Hard.

He slammed into you one final time and stayed there, cock pulsing, thick ropes of cum flooding deep inside you. His groan turned into a growl, fingers bruising your hips, holding you in place like he could fuse you to him.

Mark’s POV

God.

Watching you fall apart—twice—beneath him, your body twitching, wrecked, soaked in sweat and his cum… it was art.

He pulled out slow, watching your slick leak onto the floor beneath you. He reached down, dragging his fingers through the mess between your legs, then pushed them back in.

You jerked.

“Still twitching?” he smirked. “Cute.” He leaned in, licking his fingers clean. Then, softly—mockingly—he dragged the tip of his cock along your swollen folds again.

“You better rest up, sweetheart,” he said, voice dark and lazy. “Because we’re not done.”

You didn’t know how long you laid there, but it wasn’t anywhere near long enough.

Every muscle in your body was trembling, your breath shallow, your skin sticky with sweat, spit, and cum. You were spread open—used. Wrecked. You couldn’t move. You couldn’t.

But Mark wasn’t finished.

You felt it. The weight of him settling between your thighs again. Felt the drag of his cock, already hard again, sliding through the slick mess between your folds like he hadn’t just emptied himself inside you minutes ago.

He grinned when your whole body flinched.

“Sensitive?” he asked, mock-sweet. “Too bad.” And then he pushed in. No warning. No mercy. No space to breathe.

You screamed—raw and ragged—your body trying to jerk away, but he held you down, hands on your wrists now, pinning you to the cold marble like a ragdoll.

“I told you,” he growled into your neck. “You don’t stop until I say you’re done.”

Your nails scraped at the floor, legs kicking weakly as he bottomed out inside you again, the overstimulation blinding. It was too much—way too much. You were already sore, already bruised and dripping and wrecked.

But he didn’t care.

He started fucking you again—harder than before. Vicious. Vile. His hips slamming into yours like he was trying to leave a permanent mark inside you.

"Take it," he hissed. "Fucking take it."

Your moans were broken now. Nothing coherent. Just gasps and cries and loud, pathetic whimpers as your body gave up the fight and started to tremble in pleasure again—betraying you all over.

“You feel that, don’t you?” he snarled, voice feral. “Your pussy’s sucking me back in—gripping me like you need it.”

You were crying. You didn’t know when it started. But it didn’t matter. Because his mouth was at your ear again, hot breath curling down your neck. “You don’t exist outside of this room,” he whispered. “You don’t exist without me.”

You choked on a sob, but he didn’t stop. His pace grew violent—cruel, punishing thrusts pounding your body into the floor as he used you like his personal fucktoy.

“You want this,” he growled. “You want to be mine. You want to be ruined. Say it.” You shook your head, weakly.

Wrong move.

He gripped your throat—tight, but not enough to cut off air. Just enough to remind you: he owned it. Owned you.

"Say. It."

“I—” your voice cracked, barely audible. “I want it.” He growled.

“Louder.”

“I want it!” you cried. “I want to be yours—Mark, I want it—please, I want it—!”

That was all it took.

His hand slipped between your legs again, fingers brutal on your clit, and your body broke. The orgasm hit hard and fast, electric and devastating, your back arching off the floor as your walls clamped around him.

Mark lost it. He drove into you with a vicious snarl, fingers bruising your thighs as he came again—deep, thick ropes of cum flooding your cunt for the second time, so much it spilled down your thighs as he groaned into your neck like an animal.

But he didn’t move. He stayed inside. Stayed pressed to you. Panting. Possessive. Wild. And then, softly—too softly—he spoke. “I’m going to keep you like this,” he murmured. “Fucked open. Filled up. So when anyone looks at you, they know—you’re mine.”

Mark’s POV

You were broken now. Exactly how he wanted you. And god, you’d never looked more perfect. Eyes glassy. Legs spread. Mouth parted in a silent moan. Your whole body twitching as aftershocks wracked your nerves. His cum leaking from you, mixing with your own mess on the floor.

He ran a hand over your cheek—almost gentle.

“You were born for this,” he whispered. “To dance for me. To come for me. To belong to me.”

And the worst part? You didn’t deny it.

[lieslab]

When there's monsters on your ceiling, I'll keep you safe

���♡━━━━━♡꘎ ꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎

Pairing: og8 x gn reader

Summary: Your first live stream without the guys and management turns into a disaster.

Genre: 9th member AU

Word Count: 2.6k

Trigger warning: Mentions of suicide, dieting culture, skipping meals, and bullying.

Depression and eating disorder resources

A/N: I'm really on a roll with requests. Remember to be nice to idols (unless they're twats) Requestee, you really hit the mark with this one

_ _ _

“You think so?” You laughed at one of the comments someone sent through the Instagram live stream you hosted. “I was thinking the same exact thing, it’d be hilarious.”

You were used to doing live streams when needed. Every so often, your schedule announced you were up to bat. Today, management was lenient with you. Your first official solo stream took place in one of the empty JYP meeting rooms. 

You slipped the company phone in the camera holder before pressing the button to start the live. Today, you didn’t have a specific plan. You had beads, a roll of leather lace, and a dream. Once you started, you couldn’t stop. 

For the past half hour, you’d been making friendship bracelets for the guys. With the help of fans, you were determining what colors to make each person’s bracelet. Not only did it feel like a chance to relax, but you enjoyed speaking to the fans one-on-one without your manager silently trying to get you to avoid a topic in the background. 

“So what do you think of Minho’s bracelet?” You held it up to the camera and placed your palm behind it. Pushing it closer to the camera, you held it steady so fans could see. “What do we think?” 

You pulled back after a few seconds, reading a few live stream comments off your phone. You clicked on your own stream and muted the phone to read responses. A smile appeared as you responded to a few comments. 

“Okay, so now I have to make Han’s, obviously. What do we think?” You glanced back up at the camera. “I was thinking about maybe orange, or red? What about both? It reminds me of his song, Volcano.” 

You went back to the comments. “You should make it red and green for Volcano and Alien.” You pulled back and laughed. “I mean, it’s a good idea, but those two colors together remind me of Christmas. I can do red and orange!” 

Seeing that most comments agreed, you reached out for the string to start to measure how much you needed. You were about to cut it when the comment came through. The moment you read it, your heart fell to your chest. 

‘Hey, here’s an idea. How about you leave all the guys alone and leave the group? You’re the weakest member and ruin everything.’ 

You knew you should have sat there and ignored it, but you couldn’t. Anger swelled up and you blinked rapidly, trying to force it down. “Leave the group, huh? Maybe I should. It’s people like you that make idols give up on all their dreams and kill themselves due to all the pressure.” 

You shouldn’t have said the words, but they came out like a free-flowing spout. What does it mean to be an idol? Really. What does it mean? 

It means giving up bodily autonomy to a company. Skipping meals is expected when the scale’s numbers start to go up. When an interview catches you at an unflattering angle, expect a lecture and a new diet spreadsheet. 

Going through dances over and over and over again. Sweating until you’re breathless and assume you’re going to topple over at any moment. Shaking knees and unsteady steps as you try to push yourself up to find the strength to do it all over again. 

Spend hours learning formations and completing sound checks, trying not to give in and read the hate online. When you’re an idol, everything is placed beneath a microscope. Your flaws, your short-comings, your inability to act the right way, or say the correct thing. It’s all televised for the masses to see. 

And god, are they hungry. The razor-sharp teeth of fan-folk on twitter. The faceless comments and nameless profiles that equip themselves with emojis. They beg for new content, but it’s never enough. Treat their favorites with respect, but if they can get away with bashing another group to bring their favorites up, they’ll do it. 

The dark side of the k-pop industry has always been there. They never try to hide it. The collapsing at concerts. The hidden injuries. Companies bowing down to fan requests, even when the idol’s livelihood is at stake and they’ll do it, too. Because in the heart of the idol world, money is the only god being worshipped and there is no bigger god than greed. 

Comments shot your way, trying to understand what happened. Not everyone caught the comment you did, but they heard the words. They caught your empty-eyed gaze into the screen. A brief glimpse into the actual reality. Maybe you really weren’t okay. 

Maybe you were tired of putting on the mask and playing pretend. Some say to get over it. It’s what you signed up for. You deserve it. Get over it. Toughen up and ignore the haters. Not everyone has a shield of armor protecting them. Not everyone is equipped to handle the hate trains and the protest trucks. The black oceans, the scorns and scoffs, the hashtags praying on your downfall. The flop era. 

Maybe you were tired and said the wrong thing or maybe you were tired of living it all. A pretty and perfect illusion that crumbled before the eyes of the fans. Everyone knew it, but nobody had the guts to say it. 

The companies surely didn’t. Trying to stay neutral, they’d ignore it all. Ignore the fans surrounding the hotels and screaming the names of the favorites at the top of their lungs, wrecking the idols’ sleep schedules, and souring the taste of regular guest’s hotel stays. 

Ignore the purple bags and exhaustion sticking to idols that follow them like ghosts. Give them chicken and rice diets. Drink more water. Cut more calories. Restrict more. Look at yourself and be ashamed.

Ignore the hate trucks. Blame the idols and don’t hold the fans accountable. Sacrifice them to the wolves and know that your company’s reputation will bounce back, but not always the ongoing mental struggle of the idol. 

How many times did you cry because you missed your family? The sibling you couldn’t watch grow up. The stretching crow’s feet in the corner of your mother’s eyes. The deepening wrinkles on your father’s face. A kitchen chair sat waiting for you in your childhood home, longing for your warmth, but you rarely showed up anymore. 

The industry breaks you and reshapes you. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. You’re dragged through the mud all the time. Dreams are supposed to be hard, but why are some of them so self-destructive? How do you really go about becoming a k-pop idol the right way?

You still remember the shock as you combed your hair one time and found your hair falling out in an alarming amount of strands. Too much stress. Not enough food. Not enough sleep. 

Sometimes your members, they weren’t just your members, but souls tortured just the same as yours. You saw it in the way Chan rambled on bubble, so desperately trying to fix internal fan wars that were never his fault. Always blaming himself, trying to do better. The weight of a fandom was never supposed to fall onto the weight of one man. 

You saw it when Felix drank water and began to heavily restrict before an upcoming photoshoot because he wanted to look perfect. You were forced to confront it after his stomach growled a third time. Hunger lingered in his eyes when he looked your way while you ate your dinner. 

Devastation seeped out of a few members at certain events. They never seemed to get the recognition they deserved. It wasn’t their fault. It was never their fault. It’d never be their fault. 

You blinked rapidly as the tears began to fall. “I’m sorry, I’ve gotta go.” Fan comments rolled in, but you reached forward and hit the end live-stream button. 

Tomorrow, a lecture waited for you with management, but for now, you just wanted to mourn. 

~ ~ ~ 

“Oh…” Felix’s voice trailed off. He sat staring at the blank screen with a frown. Your live was going great until you shut down towards the end. You said nothing, but you also said everything all at once after that last comment. 

Beside him, Han, Minho, and Hyunjin sat just as stunned. They were enjoying your live stream, looking forward to the bracelets they’d be getting afterwards. As one of the younger members of the group, you were cherished a lot. 

“We need to go find them,” Minho pushed himself from the dance practice floor. “Does anyone know which conference room they’re in?” 

Heads shook and Han pushed himself up to follow him. “Let’s go look. Can someone grab the rest of the guys? I think they went out for lunch, but they should be back at any moment. I think we’re really needed right now.” 

“I’ve got it. If you find them first, call me and let me know.” Hyunjin reached the door first and disappeared. 

Felix rushed after Han and Minho. “This is really bad. I didn’t know they felt this way. Should we be worried?” 

“I think we all feel this way sometimes, but we’ve never said it out loud,” Minho mumbled. 

“Hey, I found them!” 

Across the way, the remaining four members looked just as worried. A unit of eight, Changbin led the charge towards the end of the hall. Hyunjin picked up the end and placed a hand on a staggering Jeongin’s shoulder. 

“We should have noticed this sooner,” he uttered softly. 

“How were we supposed to know, Innie? They always keep to themselves. They’re very good at trying to ignore the things bothering them.” 

“I feel like an awful person for not noticing.” 

“It’s okay, we’re going to fix it together.” 

~ ~ ~ 

In the conference room, your head sat in your hands. The colorful beads and leather string sitting around didn’t bring you the joy that it once had. Instead, you silently cried into your hands. 

All you wanted was one nice live without a troll. Instead, you gave them exactly what they wanted. They wanted your tears and your anger. It fueled them for whatever reason.

You didn’t look up when the door burst open. You tensed up, waiting for a member of management to yell at you, but it never came. Instead, multiple footsteps headed your way. A gentle hand fell upon your shoulder and Changbin softly called your name. 

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” you mumbled. 

“Well, that’s just too damn bad,” Seungmin said. His arms crossed over his chest. “I left my biscottis behind and we all gathered here.” 

Minho shot him a glare, but it didn’t bother him. Chan gave him a follow-up warning look and sighed. “Listen, we just wanna make sure you’re alright. The way you ended that live, it was-” 

“Horrible? Unprofessional and irresponsible?” 

“I was going to say bold, but incredibly true. You spoke about the things some idols stay far away from.” 

“I’m tired!” You pulled your hands away from your face. Tears lined your bloodshot eyes. “It’s always something and I’m trying my fucking best! I’m trying to be a good person and a perfect idol and it’s not happening! I can’t do it! I-I-” You sucked in a shaky breath and a whimper fell out. 

You tried so hard to keep it together, but when Felix appeared and squirmed closer to wrap his arms around you, you cracked. Your head buried into his chest as sobs fell from you. 

How much of your life had you given up being judged in the name of your dreams? There would always be people who hated your guts for one reason or another. You’d always have people that disliked you, but in the k-pop world? People would do anything to bring down the idols they hated. 

Spreading rumors, sending hate trucks, and stirring the pot. Taunting, teasing, and straight up bullying. Stalking, harassment, and belittling. It was always something. 

You couldn’t breathe without doing it wrong. Every time you touch a member for too long, you’re being childish and clingy. When you don't say much during a video, you’re dubbed a stuck-up snob. Too close to the opposite gender of another group? You’re probably dating them.

There is never and will never be any winning in the industry until people change. Companies have to stop dragging their feet. It only stops when the industry calls out bullshit as they see fit. Taking the steps for legal action. Knowing an idol is a privilege, not a right. 

Han wiggled his way to the other side of you, squeezing between Changbin and Felix, letting a hand fall to your head. Another hand and then another. As you cried, they all grieved. Tears sprouted from all of them because they all knew. When one of them hurts, they all hurt, and your reasoning? It all sat within them during their down time.

The industry had been built off of breaking people and trying to build them back better. People are not that durable. When you break someone’s soul, there is no going back. Idols learn to hate their imperfections. Change them. Shape them. 

Slave away in the mirror to develop a perfect routine, so no pores are visible. Some trade away their real personalities, not because they want to, but because companies want to market them a certain way. 

Everything is pre-planned to the extreme. Compete against your favorite friends in the charts because they belong to different companies. Slaughter the competition. Sell more albums. Do the embarrassing requests on fan calls. Have no boundaries because the company said so and unless you want to be blacklisted, do it, or fall victim to the endless abyss of wannabe idols that didn’t make the cut.  

“Ah, this is embarrassing,” Jeongin mumbled after a while. “I’m not supposed to be crying in front of everyone. All these hyungs and I’m- 

“Suck it up,” you mumbled, trying to pull back from Felix’s shirt. “Now you know how I feel.” 

“You have pretty cute tears,” Changbin observed. 

“Hey! Don’t cheat on me! You can’t call them pret-” 

“Shut up, wifey.”

Seungmin’s face scrunched in disgust and Han rolled his eyes. Chan glanced down at you and gently squeezed your shoulder. “Are you feeling a little better?” 

You nodded, reached up, and wiped your eyes. “Thank you for letting me cry. I’m sorry that I-” 

Minho’s hand went over your mouth. “Do not ever apologize for struggling with real emotions.” 

Your nose wrinkled and you pulled away. “Ew. How am I supposed to know where your hand has been? That’s so-” 

“Probably around Jisu-” 

“AH!” Jeongin’s hands went over his face and he shook his head. “Stop! Stop! I don’t want to hear it! Enough!” 

“You’re so cute, Innie. Come here! I wanna pinch your cheeks.” Hyunjin walked around you and hurried to Jeongin. Felix cheered for him as Jeongin began to hurry around the other side of the table. 

“Don’t touch me!” 

“I wanna touch my wife!” Changbin hurried after Hyunjin. 

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Felix grinned and rushed afterwards. “Changbinnie, I wanna touch your muscles!” 

“That’s my cat.” 

“Hey, wait!” Han rushed after Minho. 

“That’s my first-born.” 

“Yeah and I wanna kick the elder’s ass,” Seungmin grumbled, following Chan. He spun around to glance at you. “Are you coming? Don’t you want to throat punch me like usual or something?” 

“How’d you know?” 

“You say it’s always a good day to throat punch me.”

“Sometimes it is.” 

“It’s every day.” 

“Well, stop being a pain in my ass and it won't happen anymore.” 

“You cunt.” 

“Jackass.” 

He huffed and hurried after Chan. You grabbed your phone and hurried up to follow him. In the k-pop world, it was riddled with a lot of issues, but when moments like this naturally happened… 

It was hard to stay upset for long, knowing that the industry brought the eight of these idiots right into your heart; you had a feeling they’d stay there for a long, long time. 

| ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ | ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ | ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ |

Taglist: @lia-linny @seungnishi @stellasays45 @emilyywhyy @rockstarkkami @flightlessackerman @inlovewithstraykids @velvetmoonlght @chrizrizz @ari-hwanggg

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Ko-fi

[dreamersparacosm]

jeon jungkook - the price of desire (part seven)

warnings ; they’re speaking through sex again :’( slight choking, slapping (it’s one time!), they talk through the entire sexual encounter except she’s just being a bitch and so is he, unprotected sex

prompt ; in which you learn that your dignity has a price, and unfortunately, it looks a lot like Jeon Jungkook in Calvin Klein boxers.

note ; three things. 1) i may have taken it too far. 2) midnight rain by tswift should be your preferred song for this chapter. 3) this is actually the longest part of tpod. idk where we took a left turn chat but we did. i swear i didn’t mean to make this part as solemn as i did but as we near the end of tpod (tears.), i felt like it was only right to understand oc at her core so here’s the result of that. also — to understand where i got jungkook’s backstory with his parents from, this tiktok is a good place to start!

playlist here

series masterlist here

No one warns you that the final stretch is the most brutal. That success feels just as suffocating as failure when the entire world is watching.

The campaign is nearly done. Months of work, endless negotiations, photoshoots, and strategy meetings all culminating. It’s the moment where everything either clicks like a symphony or combusts in front of the entire fashion world.

Your inbox has been a battlefield. Your phone doesn’t stop buzzing, notifications piling on top of more notifications until it feels like your brain has been rewired into a crisis-response machine. There’s always something, always someone asking, demanding, needing. Your calendar bleeds red with the words URGENT. FINAL. APPROVAL NEEDED. Stores in Milan are delayed, Tokyo wants new creative, LA’s billboard specs aren’t matching the mockups.

Every second is accounted for, every breath calibrated. Still, it’s not enough. There’s not enough hours in the day, not enough you to go around. You take passion in every single project you’ve ever spearheaded — and no, it has nothing to do with the fact that Jeon Jungkook has some entanglement with your priorities.

Every single frame, every image of Jungkook’s face stretched across Times Square, across Paris, Seoul, London, has to be perfect. It has to work.

You really should be relieved this is all coming to an end shortly. Each campaign you work on gets more tedious, takes more out of you mentally, but somehow this time the relief makes it nowhere near your brain.

The strangest thought keeps entering your consciousness, and you have trouble shaking it out — you can’t tell if you’re more afraid of it ending or it continuing forever.

When this campaign ends, so does everything else. The excuses. The built-in justifications for why he’s still around. There’ll be no more moments where his thigh brushes yours and he pretends not to notice. No more mornings on set where he leans too close and murmurs “Did you sleep?” like he didn’t spend the night in your bed.

The truth is louder than every thought you’ve had in the past week. The problem isn’t that you’ve slept with him.

It’s that you haven’t stopped.

Every spare moment, every sliver of stillness not swallowed by meetings or mayhem or managerial fires, you spend with him. It started innocently enough; one night, when you couldn’t sleep and had downed two bottles of apple soju alone in your hotel room, you knocked on his door and asked if you could sleep in there. Technically, you could blame it on soju and loneliness and ‘he was just there’.

But then it happened again… and again. And now it’s every night.

In his hotel room, where his bedframe slams against the walls multiple times before you have to yell at him to stop it before the people next door hears.

In his trailer, where you tell yourself you’re just checking on wardrobe or last-minute adjustments (even though clothes have never been part of your job description), only to end up with your skirt bunched around your hips and his cock pounding up into you.

In your hotel room, where he shows up unannounced, backs you against the wall, and makes you forget why you ever built walls in the first place.

You keep having to tell yourself it doesn’t mean anything. You can’t stop insisting it’s just sex. Just stress relief. Just bodies crashing into each other because neither of you have time to feel anything else.

You’re a terrible liar, always have been. You could never even get away with sneaking an extra rice cake as a kid; your mother would take one look at your face, at the twitch of your mouth or the way your fingers fidgeted with your sleeves, and sigh like she was exhausted by how transparent you were. You’d try to deny it anyway, cheeks flushed, the truth practically dripping off your skin. She’d just shake her head and say, “Don’t lie if you can’t carry it.”

With Jungkook, it’s not just twisted idea of sexual release anymore.

He brushes the hair off your face when he thinks you’re asleep. His fingers trace idle circles on your thigh like he doesn’t want to move. He lingers around you, waits for you.

It’s not like you’re any less guilty. Your hands find him without thinking. Your head always fits perfectly on his chest. Your breath evens out the second you hear his voice.

You hate that this messy, reckless, undeniably complicated situation has somehow become a place you seek out, a weakness you swore you didn’t have.

For all the chaos, all the pressure, all the madness of a global campaign hanging by a thread, he’s the only part of it that feels like breathing.

You’re already two coffees deep and three interns down by 10 a.m. The first one had emailed you a question you answered in the kickoff deck. The second brought you the wrong mockup. The third called you ma’am.

Your phone hasn’t stopped vibrating since sunrise, updates from 4 different countries, each ping a reminder that the final rollout is less than a breath away. You can practically hear the plastic peeling off the billboards, the glass being polished on storefront displays.

You haven’t eaten or even blinked. Your brain is a latticework of numbers, dates, time zones, PR contingencies, and the endless, echoing drumbeat of what if it all falls apart.

You’re seated at the long glass table in the Calvin Klein Seoul office, surrounded by executives from three continents. Stylists, art directors, logistics leads, all of them watching you click through the final rollout deck you spent all night walking through, dressed in Jungkook’s oversized t-shirt, while he had watched you with a little glimmer in his eyes . You’re walking them through the launch cadence, slide by slide, one city at a time. “And when the Seoul flagship hits its first 24 hour mark, we immediately cue the social media team to drop another teaser—”

The wooden door creaks opens. You don’t dare look up. You can already feel it, that little shift in the air, the flicker of attention from the far end of the room, executives perking up at the sight. Something in your chest tenses before your brain catches up.

The person doesn’t interrupt or make a sound. They slide into the room like smoke under a door, low-profile but impossible to ignore.

Without a word or so much as a glance at you, you realize Jungkook sets something down beside you. It’s a paper bag, small, folded once at the top. No label. No note. Just… placed at the edge of your space like it belongs there.

Your words catch mid-sentence. Your mouth stays open, but your voice doesn’t follow.

You keep talking. At least, you think you do. The rest of the sentence escapes your mouth, but it doesn’t sound like you anymore. Because then your gaze snags on him in your peripheral vision; black hoodie, Calvin Klein embroidery at the sleeve, hands in his pockets like he’s some kind of sniper, and your nerves flare like firecrackers in the pit of your stomach.

He moves slowly behind the row of seated execs, ducking his head slightly in polite apology, brushing past some stylist from Paris and the campaign director from London.

You stare down at the bag as if it’s a live grenade. Somehow you already know what’s inside. The shape gives it away. The crinkle of the wrapper when he set it down. The faint, familiar scent.

You only mentioned it once a few days ago.

Late at night, half-asleep, your cheek pressed to his chest, his tattoos warm beneath your fingers, you were tracing one lazily when you said it, half a joke, half a memory. Something about how your mom used to buy you honey-butter rice crackers from a specific stall near Jagalchi Market. You hadn’t had them in years. You didn’t think they even existed anymore. You also didn’t think he was listening.

Certainly not enough to track them down, to bring them here, to drop them beside you in a boardroom full of Calvin Klein power players like it was nothing. Like this isn’t about to ruin you in ways you don’t have the language for.

Because now, your voice is gone, stomach is in knots and your heart is doing something stupid and traitorous in your chest.

You force yourself to keep going, click to the next slide, pretend that your hands aren’t shaking. Pretend you’re not unraveling, one honey-butter memory at a time.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Your hotel room in Korea is technically five-star; minimalist, modern, all black slate and cool steel, with blackout curtains that seal out the city and a minibar stocked with items that probably cost more than your old New York rent.

But tonight, it feels lived-in.

Your heels are discarded near the entryway, blouse tossed over the arm of the chair without a second thought. The table is cluttered with evidence of your unraveling; printouts, lipsticks without caps, a mangled pen you’ve been chewing to death all week. Three water bottles, none of them finished. A wrinkled Post-it with the wrong font code scribbled in your own handwriting. A half-eaten package of the honey butter cookies you and Jungkook shared a few moments earlier. You can’t remember when the room got like this. You just know it reflects some incredibly disorganized part of your brain.

And in the middle of it all, there’s Jungkook. Or rather, you, under him.

Jungkook’s mouth is warm against your skin, dragging slow along your neck, his lips parting slightly as he kisses the hollow just beneath your collarbone. The mattress dips under his weight, one arm braced beside your head, the other sliding down the curve of your waist, fingers splayed. You arch into him before you can stop yourself, chest rising to meet him.

He hums low, the sound buzzing where his mouth meets your skin. “Stress looks good on you.”

You don’t even open your eyes. “Shut up.”

He chuckles quietly, his nose nudging just under your jaw, “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Your eyes flutter open, heavy-lidded and already dizzy. “..For what?” you manage to get out.

Jungkook pulls back just enough to look at you, dark eyes glittering. “Your snack.”

God, there it is again. That stupid flutter. That microscopic internal panic. That ache in your chest you keep calling indigestion.

You groan, dropping your head back into the pillow. “You can’t do that.”

His brow lifts, completely unbothered. “Do what?”

You shove at his shoulder playfully, “You know what. You can’t just bring me something like that, not in front of the team.”

He blinks with wide-eyed innocence. “Why not?”

“Because it’s—” you flail, exasperated, “weird. It’s unprofessional. It’s—”

“It’s not like I kissed you in front of them,” He shrugs.

Your mouth drops open. “Jeon Jungkook.”

He grins, his even stupider bunny teeth poking out with no remorse. “Wait, should I have? I can schedule it for tomorrow if that’s easier for you.”

“Shut. Up.”

“I’m serious. I could do a casual peck in the meeting room. Or, I don’t know, something soft and respectful, like neck biting.”

Your hand flies up to cover your face, laugh muffled against your palm, already hating how much he’s getting to you. “You are the worst.”

“And yet, here I am,” he says with a shameless grin as he lowers his mouth to your collarbone, brushing it with a kiss that feels deceptively light. “Feeding you. Stressing you out more. What a catch, huh?”

You don’t laugh at that. The truth is, you’re still thinking about it. The snack. The paper bag. The quiet way he placed it beside you like it was nothing, like it didn’t detonate right there on the boardroom table, splitting something open inside you so violently it still hasn’t settled. It could’ve been nothing, could’ve been a small, forgettable passing gesture. And for a moment, it was. Until suddenly it wasn’t and it was the idea that he’s noticing you, listening to you, remembering.

You’re not sure anyone ever has before.

You can’t want that. You’ve spent your entire career making sure you didn’t need that.

His mouth is on you again, trailing lower. Warm lips, slow kisses, fingertips slipping beneath the wire of your bra like he has all the time in the world.

You feel yourself slipping again. The thread you were holding onto, gone. His touch undoing whatever discipline you had left.

And then, as if he can hear the chaos in your head, he murmurs against your ribs, “You’re thinking too loud again.”

“You’re being too annoying,” you snap, though it comes out weaker than intended, barely hanging on to its own conviction. What a comeback. Are you 5? Is this a playground? Is your crush really biting your collarbone while you pretend it’s not affecting you?

He hums against your skin, teeth grazing before he bites, your spine curving into him involuntarily. His mouth keeps moving, lower now, and you pathetically keep talking.

It’s not in full thoughts or arguments that matter. Just stray words, loose complaints, flung into the air between shallow breaths and the rising ache in your throat.

“You’re not funny,” you murmur, voice barely there as his lips ghost along the slope of your ribs.

“Never said I was,” he mutters back.

“And I still think you shouldn’t have brought that snack—”

“Mmhm.”

“It’s weird,” you go on, even as your fingers curl in the sheets, “It’s too thoughtful. You don’t get to do that.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious, Jungkook, you—”

“Baby,” he says, and the word lands like a spark. “Shut up.”

You blink at him, not because it’s crude or sharp or surprising — he’s said worse to you in moments less intimate — but because it works. His hand slides up your side, fingers spreading across your ribs like he’s calming you.

“I’m trying to kiss you,” he whispers, mouth brushing beneath your breast now. “And you’re out here giving a speech.”

Your jaw drops at him, and you stare, half-shocked, half-infuriated. “You are so—”

But the sentence breaks apart in your mouth before it can land, because you don’t even know what you’re trying to say. You’re too wired on the cocktail of adrenaline and intimacy and all the feelings you’ve been swallowing down like pills you can’t afford to miss.

You opt for the kindergartener route you have going for you, and shove him. He barely has time to react before you’re pushing him onto his back, straddling him, arms folded tightly across your chest like you’ve just declared emotional war.

He looks up at you from the mattress wide-eyed, hair a mess, lips pink and swollen from the trail he’d been tracing down your body.

“I’m grumpy now,” you announce, “And it’s your fault.”

Jungkook pauses in his tracks, and then he laughs. It’s a real expression, cracking open the air between you like it’s never carried tension at all.

You narrow your eyes, unimpressed. “You think this is funny?”

“I think,” he says as his hands slide slowly up your thighs, “you’re so hot when you’re pissed off.”

You scoff, but you don’t move. “You think everything I do is hot.”

“Because it is.”

“Even when I’m annoying?”

Lightly, his thumbs press against your skin, steady and unrepentant. “Especially when you’re annoying.”

Your pulse is roaring in your ears, and his hands stay exactly where they are. It’s almost like he’s waiting for you to lean in, waiting for whatever version of you breaks first.

Before you can stop them, your lips twitch. “Fine,” you roll your eyes, the words dragging reluctantly out of your mouth. “Maybe I do talk too much.”

He grins ridiculously wide and so outrageously beautiful it makes your stomach twist in protest. “Told you.”

You roll your eyes again, but it’s half-hearted now. You’re already caving. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

Jungkook tilts his head, eyes still locked on yours, like he’s enjoying every second of this unraveling. “Oh, sweetheart,” he murmurs, “It’s already there.”

And then you kiss him again, desperately in a way you’ll hate yourself for later. It’s full of every word you won’t let yourself say, every truth lodged somewhere between your chest and throat, caught like a warning. Because if you keep talking, you’ll say too much. And if he keeps listening, really listening, he might hear it.

You kiss him like it’s the only way to shut yourself up.

You’re still straddling him, knees digging into the mattress, hands sliding up over his chest, tracing the fabric of his shirt that’s too soft, too in the way, too much when all you want is skin and something to grip onto when the rest of your world keeps spinning.

His mouth moves with yours, not in a hurry at all. Yet for some reason your lips cannot stop flapping even as he kisses you like he’s trying to teach you silence.

You mutter between breaths, the words slipping out faster than you can catch them, strung together by nerves and some long-forgotten version of logic. Half-formed thoughts. More pointless complaints. The last flailing attempts to keep control in a situation where you’ve already lost it.

“You’re so annoying,” you mumble, teeth grazing his bottom lip as your lips move against his.

He laughs into the kiss warmly “Is this foreplay?”

“Want it to be?” you murmur, already leaning in again. Your mouth finds his like it’s been waiting all day (Mostly because it has.)

He hums lowly, tongue dragging down the sharp line of your jaw. “We could at least make it original,” he whispers, and you feel his teeth brush your pulse point.

“You make everything complicated,” you breathe out, fingers slipping beneath the hem of his shirt, your nails dragging slightly over the skin of his stomach.

“And you,” he says, “make everything dramatic.”

You pull back enough to shoot him a look, the kind that could kill if your blood wasn’t already on fire. “You kiss me with that dirty mouth?”

Jungkook smiles infuriatingly and raises his arms without a word. You yank his shirt off in one swift motion and toss it aside like it’s offended you just by existing.

He’s bare beneath you; golden skin, lean muscle, smooth lines and sharp edges. He’s the kind of stunning that should get less shocking with time, but it doesn’t. No matter how many times you’ve seen him like this, it still stops you for a second.

Looking at him like this, laid out beneath you, like you’re the one with the upper hand, it does something to you. His thumbs stroke slow, lazy circles into your skin, gentle in a way that feels unearned.

“You’re staring,” he says softly.

“I’m thinking,” you retort a little too quickly, fingers dragging over the center of his chest.

He raises an eyebrow, waiting. “Thinking about what?”

You shrug, playing it off like your heart isn’t thudding against your ribs. “About how stupid you are.”

And he laughs again, head tipping back, throat exposed. “You know,” he says, still catching his breath, “most people find better ways to compliment me.”

You shut him up with your mouth, kissing down his neck, biting lightly at his collarbone, your hands moving with purpose now. He groans, his hips twitching beneath you, but he doesn’t stop you.

But even with his body under yours, even with your hips beginning to grind slowly into his lap, even with all that heat simmering between your thighs, your thoughts won’t quit. They spin like a storm behind your eyes.

You actually have no idea what the fuck you are going to do when, in a short amount of time, you kiss goodbye whatever this is between you and Jungkook.

This arrangement, this twisted little thing you swore was temporary and physical, has spiraled into something else entirely.

You were supposed to be smarter than this. You were supposed to know better. Actually, you do know better.

But how do you walk away from the only thing that makes sense when everything else is spinning? How do you stop when his hands are on your waist and his mouth is stealing the air from your lungs and the only time you feel like yourself is when you’re pressed against him like this?

Now it’s going to be a bitch to walk away from. Somewhere between “just this one time” and the fifth time you woke up in his arms, it stopped being casual. Somewhere between a breathless fuck in his trailer and that stupid paper bag left beside you in the middle of a meeting, it became a cautionary tale for everything you’ve ever believed in.

And for just a second, you wonder if maybe this is what being alive is supposed to feel like. It’s a thought you shove down the moment it surfaces, because god, how cliché. How humiliating. You’ve spent your whole life rolling your eyes at that exact kind of sentiment. At those stupid American rom-coms where the grand romantic arc begins with a spilled coffee and ends in a rain-soaked confession at JFK. You’ve never been that girl. Never wanted to be. You don’t believe in fate or big love declarations at airport gates. You believe in cause and effect, in strategy.

You barely notice when his hand finds the clasp at the back of your bra, his fingers moving deliberately slow like he knows what it means for a woman like you to let someone like him this close to something soft.

The straps slip off your shoulders, snag at your elbows, then fall. Somewhere between the edge of the bed and the frayed edge of your sanity, it’s gone.

You’re bare on top of him now, and his eyes are on you, trailing over every inch like he can’t decide where to look first.

And then because you’re an idiot with a long-standing habit of self-sabotage, you open your mouth again

“So,” you start, “how many girls have you done this with on a press tour?”

He stills, hands pause on your waist. His head lifts slightly, eyes narrowing, like he’s trying to make sense of the sudden shift. “I’m sorry,” he deadpans, confused. “What?”

You blink down at him. “You know. Girls on your team. Staff. Stylists. Whoever.”

His brows lift slowly, the beginning of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth like he’s weighing whether to be amused or offended. “You want to talk about this,” he murmurs, “right now?”

His hands move again, this time sliding up your front, thumbs brushing the underside of your breasts before cupping them fully. The way he touches you is infuriatingly natural, clearly enjoying the contradiction of you scolding him while arching into his hands.

“I just think it’s a valid question,” you reply, which would sound far more convincing if you weren’t already tilting your hips forward.

He raises a brow. “While you’re straddling me? Shirtless? After kissing my neck two minutes ago?”

You glare, unamused. “Answer the question.”

Jungkook sits up slightly, bringing your bodies flush, his chest against yours, his lips brushing the curve of your collarbone as he speaks.

“If I did…” he begins, mouth skimming the edge of your shoulder, “would you be jealous?”

You scoff, but the sound lacks any real bite. “I just want to know what kind of PR nightmare I’ll be cleaning up next.”

“Liar.”

“I’m serious.”

“You’re spiraling.”

“I’m not.” You clarify.

“You are,” he exhales, his mouth now at your throat, “And it’s adorable.”

You want to fight back but his lips are moving down your chest. His teeth graze the swell of your breast, and then tongue follows. Argument folds in on itself. Brain goes brrr.

Whatever the answer was, it doesn’t matter. Right..?

You slide off his lap just long enough to push your skirt down, the fabric gliding over your hips and slinking down your legs in one smooth motion. It falls to the floor, pooling quietly beside his forgotten shirt like it’s grateful to be dismissed.

You’re back on top of him, barely even clothed, one flimsy thong on your body, saying things you shouldn’t say in a voice that sounds dangerously close to jealousy.

“I mean,” you murmur, your hips shifting enough to feel him through the frustrating layers still separating you, “it wouldn’t surprise me.”

He tenses beneath you, but you keep going because you’re already too far gone. “You’re always surrounded by women,” you continue, even as your fingers curl into his shoulders. “Stylists… assistants… makeup artists practically sitting in your lap. All of them obsessed with you.”

His grip on your thighs tightens. “And you…” you breathe, eyes locked on his as you roll your hips once, “you like being adored, don’t you?”

Jungkook’s eyes are half-lidded, his mouth parted like he wants to answer, like he might, but the words never quite make it out.

You don’t even know why you keep talking. The longer you speak, the more ridiculous it sounds. The more foreign it feels coming out of your mouth. You don’t recognize yourself like this — you are not inherently petty or insecure. You know damn well who you are.

You don’t need the answer to any of this. Because he already gives you everything else. When you rock your hips again, his breath stutters. His hands slide up your sides, fingertips skimming your ribs like he doesn’t know whether to stop you or pull you closer. You brace your hands on his chest, breath halting in your throat.

He exhales sharply as if he’s been holding it in since the moment you climbed back onto him. “Jesus,” he chokes, head tilted back, throat working as he swallows hard.

He still hasn’t touched you the way you want him to. Still hasn’t said the thing you’re almost certain is sitting right there on his tongue.

Your thighs tighten around his waist without thinking, your arms wrapping around his neck like your body’s already decided you’re staying, even if your mouth is still trying to fight its way out.

God, your mouth. It’s still poking at bruises that might not even be there.

“I mean, I’m sure they all throw themselves at you,” you speak against his jaw, your lips brushing the curve of it “You’re famous. You’re pretty. You walk into a room and girls practically trip over themselves to be noticed. Of course they want you.”

“And I bet you let them,” you whisper, quieter now. “I bet you don’t even have to try. Just one look and—”

“Okay,” he says finally. “Where are you going with this?” It’s not a snap, more of a low, tired rumble from somewhere deep in his chest.

You freeze, arms still looped around his neck, “Your dick’s been inside me, Jungkook. God forbid I be curious.”

He exhales slowly like he’s not sure whether to laugh or call you out again. Instead, he reaches for his waistband, shoves his pants down far enough to get them off with your help, your hands sliding down his thighs, helping even as the tension between you simmers.

He shakes his head, lips twitching with disbelief. “So, what, should I start asking about your history too?”

You shrug, eyes locked on his, your legs bracketing his hips again like the conversation isn’t tearing you open. “I’m an open book,” you say, voice too calm to be sincere. “Ask me whatever.”

His hands find your waist, fingers gripping tighter now, your clothed core dragging over the thick line of his cock through his boxers, and the sound he makes isn’t quite a moan but it’s not far off.

“Yeah?” he tilts his head back, eyes dark. “You fuck other guys like this, then?”

You don’t answer with words. You respond with another slow grind, as the weight of what’s really being asked sinks into the silence between you. “I could,” you say, the lie slipping out so fast it almost convinces even you.

The truth is actually laughable. You haven’t had a good fuck before Jungkook, not in months. Not since that work trip to Dubai, when you let some stranger talk his way into your hotel room after a rooftop dinner and two glasses of wine you barely tasted. It was fine, technically. He was attractive, charming enough, said all the right things. You came. You faked it the second time. You deleted his number from your phone the next morning.

And yet, that dude still texts you sometimes when he’s bored and nostalgic. The thought makes your stomach turn.

You don’t know why you said it. Maybe to win. Maybe to deflect. Maybe because if you keep reaching for the upper hand, you won’t have to admit how far beneath him you already feel.

Jungkook’s expression doesn’t shift right away. He inhales, sharp and deep through his nose like he’s swallowing back whatever instinct is clawing its way up his throat.

“Yeah?” he says, almost calm. “Are they here right now?”

Before you can answer, his hands are on your waist, pushing you back enough to slide you out from under him a little. He shoves his boxers down with a kind of frustrated urgency, his cock springing free and slapping hard against the taut line of his abs.

You already know what kind of sex this is going to be. The kind where no one says what they mean. The kind where jealousy and resentment and desire all tangle into something loud and wordless. To put it very nicely, he’s going to fuck the attitude right out of you.

But you���re past the point of caring. You’re on a blind rampage now, the dam cracking wide open, and whatever damage comes next, you’ll deal with it later.

“We can call them up if you want,” you snap, teeth bared in something that’s not quite a smile.

He wraps a hand around his cock, stroking slowly, eyes locked on yours with a look that is so far from the man who brought you your favorite childhood snack in a paper bag. “Let’s fucking do that, why don’t we?,” he growls, as his hand moves up and down, “Call them up right now. Let’s see if they fuck you as good as me.”

You kick your panties off, flinging them somewhere toward the foot of the bed without a second thought. There’s this self-destructive little ache that lives just beneath your skin, the one that wants to push him until he snaps. That sadistic little part of you that’s already soaking wet from how far you’ve pushed him, and how much further you plan to go.

He asked a question earlier you have to ponder: Is this foreplay? It has to be. Because if it’s not, then what the hell is it? A psychological experiment? An Olympic sport in emotional repression? Some new form of torture designed specifically for overachieving women with control issues and a deeply repressed praise kink?

Either way, it’s working. Your body is humming, your brain has turned into jell-o, and your dignity is already halfway to hell. So yeah. If it’s not foreplay, it’s a very convincing impersonation.

“Hm,” you hum as you settle over his lap again, letting your fingers graze his chest for balance. “One time, this guy had my legs on his shoulders, I nearly had my feet on the wall behind me.”

The lie drips from your tongue like a challenge. His jaw flexes at the words,pressing the tip of his cock against your folds, dragging it through your slick. You both moan in an unrestrained, ugly, desperate fashion.

“Oh, really?” he grits, dragging the head of his cock through your wetness again,“Didn’t we do that two nights ago?”

You bite your lip, fighting a whimper that threatens to shatter the act. “Did we?” you murmur, dumbfounded, “I don’t remember.”

You’re playing with fire. You know it. The look in his eyes is a warning — you’re as good as dead.

“Don’t worry,” he growls, his voice scraping over your skin like sandpaper, his tip circling your clit, “this is just my nighttime shift. Probably gonna call Jennie tomorrow. It’s been a minute.”

He’s hit something raw now, a nerve buried so deep beneath your indifference, you didn’t even know it was there. Because you don’t care about Jennie. You don’t. You’re not even sure if they ever actually fucked. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t. They probably did. Right?

Why wouldn’t they?

They looked close enough together. Seemed to be the kind of comfortable that doesn’t just happen unless you’ve seen someone naked or nearly naked or laughing in your hotel bed at two in the morning.

You moan involuntarily as the head of his cock slides over your clit, the friction sparking between your hips that makes your fingernails dig into his shoulder. “Y–Yeah?” you gasp as your body clenches around nothing. “Is she as good as me?”

“Sometimes,” he fires back. He presses in, just the tip. Your mouths both fall open like it’s instinct. “You play your cards right tonight,” he grits, breath hitching as his fingers bruise into your hips, “and I’ll bump you up to my number one option.”

You want to hit him. You want to kiss him. You want to sob into his shoulder and tell him you’re sorry, even though you don’t know what for.

You feel so full and he’s barely inside you. “Hnnh, fuck,” you exhale, trying to blink through the haze. You’re bleeding pride and panic and can’t let him win, so you say the worst thing possible. “You know,” you bite your lip to restrain another moan, “we’re thinking of doing another idol for the next campaign.”

His eyes narrow into hateful little slits.

“Might go with Mingyu.”

You twist the knife all the way in. “He’s fucking hot.”

You feel his body go still, every muscle wound tight.

You don’t even know why you said it. You just remember reading something on a gossip site once, some stupid headline about the ‘97 line’ and how close they all were. You don’t really get it. Also don’t really care.

“Yeah?” he grits out, the words slipping between clenched teeth, “Fuck. You’re a real bitch sometimes, you know that?”

His head falls back for a beat, jaw tight, breath ragged. “Why are you doing this to me?”

It’s not a threat or even anger. He’s genuinely asking, vulnerable in a way you’re not ready for. You’ve taken it too far, and you know it.

You always know it, right before you feel the consequences.

You sink down fully onto his cock, guided by the firm, trembling grip of his hands on your waist. Your body jolts from the stretch, from the violent relief of finally having him inside you again.

Jungkook fills you slowly, inch by inch, and your walls flutter around him tightly. You’re already clenching around him when he speaks again,, every word punctuated with a thrust that makes your body seize and your mind go white. “Talk all you want about other guys,” he growls, thrusting up into you again, harder now. “But we both know—” another thrust. “it’s my cock you keep coming back to.”

You try to say something, but nothing comes out. All you can offer is a moan, your head falling back as your hips roll against his, matching his rhythm even as your body trembles from how much he’s giving you.

The only sounds left are incoherent — some cock-drunk babbles and gasping praise neither of you have the presence of mind to translate. But somehow, he feels deeper tonight. His eyes open, and when they meet yours, something inside you stops.

“I don’t care about anyone else,” he says like the words are being torn out of him. “I’ve never — fuuuck — looked at anyone else the way I look at you. Not one fucking person.”

That sentence shouldn’t make you want to hurl but it does. Not because it’s some grand ideology , or because it’s unexpected, but because for the first time in your life, you believe it. No one’s ever looked at you like that before, not even your ex, not even the men who promised things they never meant. No one’s ever made you feel like you were the only one in the room, like you were something chosen. It’s not the thrusts or the stretch or even the way he holds you that finally breaks you; it’s the quiet, devastating truth of being seen.

“Fuck, baby,” he gasps, head pressing into the pillow, jaw clenched trying not to cum too fast. “Still so tight.”

His hand drags up your thigh, then curves around your waist again. “Always feel so fucking good around me,” he gasps.

“This pussy,” he rasps, voice fraying as he thrusts up into you with a force that steals the air from your lungs, “was fucking made for me. Say it.”

The words hit like a pulse between your legs and you swear you feel your brain glitch. You blink down at him, completely drunk, lips parted, a blissed-out smile threatening the corner of your mouth. You don’t even bother pretending to hold back. “Yours,” you whisper breathlessly, “All yours, Jungkook.”

He makes some satisfied move and your rhythm builds with every roll of your hips, every grind that forces him deeper, and then you’re bouncing, chasing friction like a madman. Your arms wind around his neck, dragging him up, chest to chest, your mouth brushing the shell of his ear as your body fucks him with all the fire you’ve been holding in. Every wet snap of skin echoes through the room loudly.

“Shit, baby,” he chokes, hands slipping down to grab your ass.

You grab his jaw, fingers firm, forcing his face back to yours. “Don’t you dare fucking look away from me.”

His eyes fly open, drowning in black. He stares at you, and your hips move faster, sloppier now, thighs burning. You can feel him twitching inside you, every nerve in his body pulled tight and shaking. “You promise there’s no one else?” you murmur, voice even as it splinters at the edges from how fucking good he feels.

He groans like he’s dying, as if the question alone might undo him. “Fuck, baby no,” he gasps, nodding so fast it’s practically frantic. “You’re it. You hear me? You’re the only one who fucks me this good. And I’m the only one who knows how you like it.”

You lift yourself the entire way off his hardened length, and then slam yourself back down, squeezing around him just to watch his face go slack, mouth falling open in a silent curse. “That so?” you tease, “You swear I’m the only one?”

He shudders beneath you, hands everywhere now, “No one else,” he groans, “There’s no one else.”

He pulls you closer, foreheads pressed, skin slick with sweat. There’s nothing between you now. Not pride or distance or a single lie.

Your hips find a rhythm that borders on reckless. It leaves no room for thought, only sensation. You only feel the stretch of him inside you, the way he fills you so completely it’s a miracle you can still breathe.

“You look so good like this,” he grits out, his fingers sliding up the column of your throat, “Can’t even hold back anymore, huh?”

You really can’t. You’re past that now. There’s no pretending anymore. There’s no compartmentalizing the way he makes you feel from the way he’s already carved himself into every part of you that was supposed to stay untouched.

His mouth brushes your ear, hips snapping up into yours with a sharp, brutal slap that makes your whole body jolt. “What were you saying about those other guys?” he pants, teeth grazing your skin. “Because your pussy says otherwise.”

Your head drops forward with a whimper, fingers clawing at his shoulders, tangled in his damp hair like it’s the only thing keeping you tethered to reality.

“Shut up,” you gasp. Your heart kicks hard against your ribs, panic and pleasure all tangled up together, no way to pull them apart now.

Before your mind has a chance to pause your actions, you slap him. A quick, sharp smack across the face. Not enough to hurt.

It doesn’t deter him, not even a little. If anything, it makes him grin harder, all flushed and delirious like you just did him a favor. His hand at your throat tightens slightly, encouraging your worst instincts.

His tongue drags across his lower lip, catching on the silver ring that gleams when the light hits just right. “Feels so good, Jungkook,” you choke out, voice dissolving into air.

“No one else,” you manage, the sound soft and shaky, like it’s been dragged from the pit of your chest and barely survived the journey. “No one’s ever made me feel like this.”

The admission slips out before you can stop it, suddenly too exposed under the dim lights in your room, and it’s immediately followed by a cry when his hips slam up into yours.

“I want to cum,” you gasp, the words tumbling out as your back arches, nails embedded into his shoulders. “I want to cum so bad.”

Jungkook’s grip at your throat softens, thumb brushing along the line of your jaw, “Say that again,” he begs, pleading.

You hesitate long enough to panic. Your heart’s in your throat, your brain’s short-circuiting, and suddenly you have no idea which part he means. But you’re not about to repeat the one that sounds like a confession. You default like you always do and dodge the feeling that has bloomed in your chest like an unwelcome old friend.

“I w-want to cum,” you repeat, lips trembling. It’s quite embarrassing how quick you wither from his touch. He’s fucking you in earnest now with deep, relentless thrusts that make your whole body shaking from the sheer force. Your breasts bounce with every snap of his hips, hands grasping for anything solid — his shoulder, the back of his neck, the sweat-damp strands of hair curling at his nape.

And then he’s just pouring unholy words into your ears and it’s somehow the sweetest noise you’ve heard all week. “You feel that? That’s mine. Every inch of it. Every fucking inch of your pussy… mine.”

“Jungkook!” you practically scream, his name tumbling out like a broken prayer. You try to say more, but nothing actually forms. His head drops against your shoulder, mouth open against your skin, breath coming in short, uneven bursts.

“I know,” he speaks into your skin, cock plunging so deep you swear you feel him in your stomach. “I know, baby. Cum with me. Please, just like that.”

Your body is on fire, everything pulling tight at once. Your nails are buried in his shoulders now, deep enough to leave marks he’ll have to explain later. “Jungkook, fuck, aah, I—“

And then you’re falling down… down, crashing somewhere in your sheets. Yet the only image that flashes, all you can think about is those honey-butter cookies. The ones your mom used to bring home in paper bags. The first time you tasted them, you remember thinking: this is the best thing I’ll ever feel. Somehow, this feels like that again. Like safety. Like sweetness. Like something you weren’t supposed to have but got anyway.

You cum with a cry that tears straight from your throat, body seizing around him so tightly it drags a broken grunt from his chest. The release is blinding, back arching so sharply it feels like your spine might snap, your limbs useless and numb, your mind nowhere and everywhere at once. Blood roars in your ears, heart pounds similarly to a war drum, arms locked around his neck like you might float away if you don’t hold on.

He tries to move, to roll off you like he’s already thinking about cleanup or consequence, but you tighten your grip — arms around his shoulders, legs around his waist — locking him in place with the kind of desperation you don’t even bother hiding. You want him to stay. In you, on you, with you. Your hearts are thudding so hard it feels like they’re trying to break through your ribcages just to reach each other, like even now, even here, it’s still not close enough.

You know you’ll have to get up soon, do all the very normal, very unsexy things: pee, breathe, pretend like this didn’t mean more than it was supposed to.

Not yet, though. Not when your body still feels warm from the inside out. Not when he still faintly tastes like honey butter.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Busan looks different when you return with everything you once swore you needed to prove.

The sea still stretches wide, unbothered by your ambition. The wind still catches at your clothes the same way it did when you were a little girl except now the fabric is designer, and your heels leave imprints in sand that once knew you barefoot.

It’s just another set. Another location added last minute to an already bloated campaign schedule.

It wasn’t even supposed to be part of the rollout. But Jungkook asked for it, a final shoot in the city that made him, to be plastered all over the country like a love letter. He said it with that easy comfort of someone who’s never needed to run from the place that raised him.

You couldn’t argue with him.

The second your feet had hit the boardwalk, you felt it. It was a slow, gnawing ache in your chest, the kind that smells like sea air and old wood and guilt.

You haven’t seen your parents in months. Haven’t spoken to them, either. You run through the excuses you gave yourself in your head, ready to recite them at a moment’s notice — too busy, too tired, too afraid.

Now, here you are, back in the city that built you, standing in the middle of a place that should feel like home. It couldn’t be far from that demented word.

You’re the most successful stranger this town’s ever seen.

Jungkook glows under the sunlight, dressed in pale denim and soft white cotton as he leans against a sea-worn railing, the camera clicking in frantic bursts around him.

You haven’t said much today, barely offered any notes. The comments to the stylists have been short, distracted, your arms crossed too tight across your chest as you chew the inside of your cheek raw.

He smiles for the lens, shifts his weight, lets the wind lift his hair just enough to catch the light, but his eyes keep drifting. Away from the camera, past the crew. Back to you, again and again. You might need to call him out for his staring problem.

You don’t want to explain why your stomach’s been twisted since you got here, why the smell of sea salt and tteokbokki stalls makes your chest go tight, why your parents are twenty minutes away and still have no idea you’re here.

So you keep your arms crossed and your eyes moving from the ocean, to the clouds, to a rusted street sign you swear you used to pass on your way home from school. You’re just not that girl anymore, the one who used to run barefoot across this boardwalk and dream of anything bigger.

Still, when the stylist asks you to step in while she goes to the bathroom and adjust Jungkook’s collar, you hesitate. It feels oddly domestic, despite being surrounded by over ten crew members.

And then you’re in front of him, fingers brushing the edge of his shirt, smoothing the fabric back from his skin. His neck is warm beneath your touch, flushed from the sun or the attention or maybe from the way your hand lingers a second too long. You can’t tell if it’s the wind that makes you shiver or the fact that you’re touching him.

“You good?” he murmurs, meant only for you.

You look up, caught off guard, your hand still near his collarbone. His eyes are already on you, steady and far too gentle for someone who’s supposed to be your problem.

In that second, you swear he knows. Nothing to the extent of the constant inner turmoil your brain is under, but that he watched the way your eyes keep flickering back to the sea and has deemed you mentally unstable.

You don’t say anything. You nod too fast, like that makes it casual, like that makes it fine, and step back like you didn’t just give yourself away.

For the rest of the shoot, his eyes keep drifting back to you, thankfully not in a way that gives him away. It’s more in that quiet, insistent way that makes it impossible to ignore.

Later that night, the world finally shuts up.

The shoot’s been over for hours. The lights are packed, the cameras wrapped, the team scattered across Busan in waves of laughter and secondhand adrenaline, spilling into barbecue joints and neon-lit bars.

You told them you were exhausted from the travel, that you wanted a reprieve in the form of a good book and your mattress.

You’re a better liar than your mother thought you were.

You’re here instead. Barefoot in the sand just beyond the edge of the hotel’s private beach, your heels abandoned somewhere behind you, your white button-down rolled to the elbows, a half-drunk bottle of soju dangling from your fingers like an afterthought. The wind nips at your cheeks, and the ocean keeps moving, loud and endless and entirely uninterested in you. The sky stretches above you like black velvet, stars painting the horizon.

You stare out at the waves as they crash against the rocks, steady and relentless. You let the sound fill the hollow space in your chest where something used to be.

Your phone is off. Your mouth tastes like salt. You haven’t cried, not really, but your throat burns like you’ve been swallowing it all day.

You don’t even register him at first.

“Drinking alone? Brutal.”

You flinch visibly and immediately curse yourself for not hiding better, for letting your guard slip when you’re this close to falling apart.

You turn your head, slow and unwilling. He’s standing a few feet away, hands stuffed into the pockets of a hoodie, his hair still a little windswept from the shoot. His expression is unreadable, but his eyes are soft in that way you’ve come to dread, uncomfortably observant.

Tiredly, you exhale, and look back at the sea. “Not right now, Jungkook.”

There’s a moment of silence, an unfortunately long one. It stretches enough to feel intentional, like it could tip either way. The waves speak for you, crashing steady and loud, giving you something to focus on that isn’t him.

But he doesn’t leave. He sinks down beside you with an exhale, arms draped over his knees, shoulders slouched in that unbothered way he gets when he’s just existing.

Without turning, you tilt the bottle in his direction. “You want?”

He takes it without a word, drinks, passes it back. The glass clicks softly between your fingers.

“Your jaw was locked all day,” he says, almost thoughtful. “Didn’t yell at a single photographer. Honestly kind of alarming.”

Technically, he’s not wrong.

You scoff, trying to play it off. “That’s poetic.”

He shrugs, “I’ve had time to study the source material.”

You roll your eyes, but it’s lazy. The waves fill the space again, stretching wide between you, all sea breeze and salt and unspoken memories filling your brain.

After a moment, he glances sideways. “You okay?”

It’s a simple inquiry. One of those questions you’ve answered all week with a nod and a forced smile and some bullshit about sleep deprivation.

Tonight, it lands differently.

You keep your eyes on the ocean. On the white spray hitting the rocks again and again “Just tired,” you say.

“Yeah,” he replies. “You’ve been carrying this whole thing.”

You blink, caught off guard by the gentleness of it. “Not alone,” you answer automatically, brushing a strand of hair from your cheek, “I have a team.”

“You don’t let them carry it the way you do,” he says. “You hold it like if anything goes wrong, it’s your name thrown in the dirt.”

He’s not wrong. Your whole life has been defined by approvals, by acceptance. Admitting it just doesn’t come as naturally to you as you like.

You tip the bottle back again. The soju doesn’t burn as much now. Slides down easy. Maybe it’s because of the cold numbing of your lips or the ache between your ribs. The waves crash ahead of you, rhythmic and unbothered. The seafoam bursts white against the dark curve of rock, and somewhere beneath all of it, something small gives way.

The words slip out before you even realize you’re speaking.

“There used to be this one stretch of beach my sister and I would sneak off to when we were kids.”

Jungkook shifts beside you, but thankfully says nothing in response.

“It was maybe ten minutes from where we lived. Nothing fancy. Mostly local. Never crowded.”

You don’t know why you’re saying it. Why you’re letting the words drift out like this. Why your lips won’t keep still.

“We didn’t have swimsuits. Not real ones, anyway. We used to cut up old t-shirts and tie them with elastic bands, like we were designing our own line or something.”

You almost laugh at the fond memory. Your sister was somewhat of a eccentric kid, always dragging you along on journeys your mother didn’t want to put a stop to as she cried over bills overdue on the table, as your father drank himself into a hole so deep he couldn’t bare to dig himself out.

You glance down, dragging your thumb along the green glass of the bottle, your hair catching in the wind, brushing against your mouth almost to remind you you’re still here.

“One summer we went every day,” you murmur. “Took leftover rice balls, bruised fruit, whatever we could sneak from the kitchen. Sat on a plastic mat and swore we were queens of the coast.”

Another sip, let the silence settle over the story like a tide pulling back.

“I remember the sand being warmer than this,” you say after a moment. “And the wind smelled different. Less like salt, more like sugar.”

You’re not really sure you want a response from him. This isn’t something that needs fixing. The bones in your jaw tighten, as if that might be enough to keep everything else from slipping out.

Jungkook shifts a little closer. The wind picks up around you, sharp and briny, curling through your hair and catching on your shirt. Somewhere behind you, far beyond the sand and the silence, the city is still awake. But out here, it’s just water and breath and the kind of quiet that makes your skin feel too thin.

“Do you know when the last time I spoke to my sister was?”

Your eyes stay fixed on the shoreline, glazed and distant. Kind of hoping the sea might offer a version of the truth that hurts less.

“Or my parents?” you add.

You let out something that resembles a laugh but comes out dangerously close to a sobbing gasp.

“Five months ago,” you say.

The wind shoves harder at your shoulders, like it’s trying to force the words back into your chest, but it’s too late. They’re out now. Floating in the space between you, real and impossible to take back. “I’ve declined every call.”

“I keep telling myself it’s because I’m too busy,” you murmur, eyes still locked on the waves. “That I’ll call tomorrow. That it’s not the right time. That I’ve got too much going on.”

“But the truth is…” You breathe in slow. “I don’t even know what I’d say.”

It slips out like seawater, salty and sharp and heavy. You don’t know why you said it. Why you’re saying any of this. Why the silence next to him feels like the safest place you’ve had to fall apart in years. Why the words keep showing up uninvited, too heavy to hold and disgustingly honest to bury.

Your career was built on knowing when to shut up. Spent years learning how to compartmentalize, how to file grief under “later,” how to turn pain into something manageable. Now your ankles are in the sand, shoes discarded, spilling your family guilt to Jeon fucking Jungkook.

“I think I’m the worst daughter in the world.”

You half-expect him to laugh at you, or say something about how this is above his pay grade with his position in your life as the dude you fuck. Or try to fill the silence with a joke or a solution or whatever it is people usually offer when they don’t know what else to do.

The problem about it all is you can’t erase the image from your mind of you and your sister playing on the beach, who wore dresses made from seaweed and had dreams sculpted in the shape of seashells. Now, you’re just the girl who ran. The girl who hasn’t called home. The girl who isn’t sure if there’s anything left to run back to.

You swipe at your cheek even though there aren’t any tears yet. The threat of them is there, high in your throat, burning at the edges.

And in the back of your mind, there’s a voice. Your own judgmental one. Why are you telling him this? Why does it feel easier to say it here, now, to him?

His voice is softer than you’ve ever heard it, low enough that the waves almost swallow it whole. “I didn’t talk to my parents for a while either.”

You freeze, fingers tightening instinctively around the neck of the soju bottle, eyes locked on the ocean even as your focus fractures. Tide foams white at the edges of your vision, but it’s his words that drown you.

Jungkook keeps his gaze trained straight ahead, like he’s talking to the horizon instead of you. “It wasn’t some big dramatic fight or anything,” he says, almost as if he’s still deciding if it’s worth saying out loud. “No ultimatums. Just… time and my pride. Too many excuses that felt valid until they didn’t. And then suddenly it’s been two months, and calling starts to feel harder than not calling. Because if you do, you’ll have to explain why it took so long.”

Your breath catches somewhere in your chest.

“I love them,” he continues, “They know that. But when the whole world starts looking at you a certain way, it’s hard to go back to just being their son.“

He looks down, brushes his hands together absently, and sand is clinging to his palms. “I think part of me thought I’d disappoint them just by being… myself.”

You stare at him blankly. Finally seeing him clearly for the first time.

There’s a man underneath it all, a man who’s known guilt. A man who’s run too far and too fast. A man who is still, somehow, trying to figure out how to come home to himself.

Something inside you twists like the nauseous thrum after one too many drinks on an empty stomach.

He looks over at you then, and the moonlight catches across his face. You can see it now, the weight he’s still carrying as he tries to make room for yours.

“You’re not the worst daughter in the world,” he says. “You’re just a girl trying to survive.”

Throat is tight, chest tighter, and head feels like it’s slowly filling with static. But the worst part, the part you weren’t ready for, is the way your heart aches not just for yourself but for him.

He inhales slowly, eyes still fixed on the ocean ahead, “I saw them again,” he goes on. “After everything, after the time apart.”

“My mom made all this food,” he smiles without humor. “Like it was Chuseok or something. I think I cried before I even got my shoes off.”

He glances down at the sand, his tone softer now, afraid of breaking whatever’s holding this moment together. “And I remember thinking… no matter how far I go, no matter who I turn into, there’s still a place that’ll wait for me that doesn’t care about the stadiums or what the numbers say.”

“I knew I had to come home,” his final line delivers like a punch straight to the nose. “Not just for them. For me.”

You don’t fight the tear that slips down your cheek without permission or preamble. No wiping it away or any acknowledgment of it. Saltwater on skin.

“I feel so lost,” you whisper so quietly it barely counts as sound.

Jungkook already knows that saying ‘okay’ wouldn’t help. The wind threads through your hair like a ghost of comfort. You literally don’t know why you’re still talking. Why you’re letting the softest, most wrecked parts of yourself spill out here at his feet, under this sky.

Yet, he hasn’t flinched and somehow he’s the only person who hasn’t asked you to be anything but exactly who you are right now.

Jungkook hasn’t touched you the entire time which makes you feel like a basket case. He’s supposed to be making some remark about how your tits look great in your top, or trying to grope you through your pants. He’s choosing instead to let you break without rearranging the pieces to make them prettier.

You take another sip. The bottle’s gone warm now, bitter at the bottom.

“Maybe it’s time to call them.”

His advice doesn’t come with weight or warning. It lands like a paper cut and it stings in a way that makes you go still. “Not because you owe them anything or because it’ll fix everything. Just… because it might fix a part of you.”

Saliva trickles down your throat like molasses. Your hand tightens around the bottle, your knuckles pale where they catch the moonlight, as if holding onto something will stop the rest of this. “And maybe,” he continues, talking more to the sand than to you, “… maybe, they’re waiting. They’re probably scared to try again or say the wrong thing. Scared to lose you completely.”

You hate the way your chest clenches at that. Hate the calm in his voice, the certainty in it.

Hate how he says it like he knows something you don’t, something you’ve spent too long trying not to think about.

You wipe at your face with the back of your hand. Another tear slips free anyway, trailing down your cheek before you can catch it. You drink to chase it down, hoping the burn will swallow the emotion with it.

“You don’t know them,” you retort.

“You’re right,” he says without hesitation. “I don’t.”

You bite the inside of your cheek so hard it stings. “And you don’t know me.”

The silence that follows feels like a dare.

“I’m starting to.”

Your throat closes around it, tight to speak. You stare at the waves again, vision swimming, heart caught somewhere high and trembling in your chest. Shoulders tense like your whole body’s trying not to fall apart under the weight of being seen.

“Why are you right about this?” It’s not really a question. Not one that needs an answer.

Jungkook shrugs, “High chance I’m not.”

“What would I even say to them?” You expect yourself to start crying harder as you imagine the look on your mother’s face when she swings open the wooden door that divides you two, but instead you let out some strangled breath.

And then, with that same quiet certainty that’s been threading through everything he’s said tonight, he replies. “Hi is a good start.”

You huff a laugh, if you can even call it that. There’s nothing bitter in it, not really, just the frayed underside of someone who hasn’t let herself admit how much she wants something to feel easy again.

You turn back to the water, and in what feels like days or maybe weeks, you let your shoulders fall. The tension doesn’t vanish, but it loosens. Before you realize what your body is doing, you shift.

Slowly, almost cautiously, your head finds his shoulder.

His hoodie is soft where it meets your skin, worn cotton and faint woodsy notes of his cologne. He stiffens for half a second, long enough for you to wonder if you should pull away. But then he exhales, and you feel it beneath your cheek as he settles.

You close your eyes. It’s the first thing you’ve done with him that isn’t laced with tension or a good fuck or something to prove. Like something steady beneath your feet for the first time in months. You’ve spent your whole life staying ready. Even in bed with him, you’re still half-armored, still controlling the pace, the narrative, the exit plan.

Your mind is spiraling. This man, who you swore was just a complication to manage, another name on a campaign, has somehow managed to see more of you tonight than most people ever do. It almost feels like the first real thing you’ve had in a long time.

For a moment, you let yourself wonder what he’s thinking. Then you really don’t have to wonder as his voice slides into the quiet.

“You know,” he murmurs, “if you keep drinking that, I’m going to have to carry you back to the hotel.”

You scoff against the fabric of his hoodie, breath mingling in the cotton. “Please. I’ve survived four week campaign launches on three hours of sleep and a melted protein bar. I think I can handle a little soju.”

“You’re really bad at accepting help,” he says, not unkindly.

You don’t miss a beat. “You’re really bad at minding your business.”

Jungkook takes the bottle from your death grip on it. “You know that’s mine,” you mutter, not bothering to move.

“You offered it earlier,” he snickers, not looking at you.

“That was out of pity. You looked cold.”

The corner of his mouth lifts as he tilts the bottle back and takes a sip. “Mm,” he hums, swallowing. “Tastes like judgment and unresolved emotion.”

A snort exits your body at that statement, and without thinking too hard about anything else, you reach for him, loop your arm through his. You curl into his side, your fingers sliding into the bend of his arm.

Your heart pounds harder than it should. This touch, it’s nothing like what you’re used to.This isn’t about sex or dominance or who will give in first.

Your pulse hammers as you stare at the waves, trying to calm yourself. You’ve had his hands all over you. You’ve kissed him until your mouth went numb. You’ve slept in his bed and cursed him and come undone beneath him.

He leans his head slightly toward yours when he says, “You’re not what I expected.”

You gulp. “What did you expect?”

He pauses, choosing his words carefully, “I honestly don’t know.”

Waves answer for you, their rhythm steady, the only constant in a night that’s shifting under your feet. You take another drink from the bottle he passes back, let your hand stay exactly where it is.

The bottle moves between you two so many times you lose track. When it’s empty, you reach for the rest of the pack you bought and open the next one. And… then another. Neither of you keeping tabs nor trying to.

You’re too warm now to feel the breeze. The moon hangs low and heavy over the water, dim and pregnant. The waves shimmer beneath it, silver and restless.

You’ve stopped talking about work and pretending this warm feeling that’s spread from your scalp to your toes isn’t nice. Now it’s smaller things.

Jungkook tells you about his first performance in elementary school, how he nearly threw up behind the curtain, convinced he’d forget all the words. How he still remembers the way it felt when the crowd clapped at the end.

You tell him about your first pitch meeting in New York, how your voice shook the entire time and your hands wouldn’t stop sweating, but how you walked out with the deal anyway because you refused to let anyone doubt you twice.

You go back and forth like that. Fragments of lives neither of you meant to offer up but somehow keep giving.

Somewhere in the middle of his story about failing his first math test twice — both times for forgetting to put his name at the top — you look at him.

It nearly knocks the air out of your lungs.

The curve of his mouth when he’s laughing. The way his hands move when he talks, animated and careless. The soft gleam of the light catching on his earring, on the slope of his lashes, on the faint scar on his cheek that you’ve never noticed before. His hair’s messy from the wind. His hoodie’s rumpled. His cheeks are flushed from the alcohol.

You must be drunk. You have to be drunk.

Because… god…. he’s beautiful.

Jungkook’s always been hot. You’re well aware of how women all over the world fawn over him. But now he’s just for you under the stars.

You don’t plan it or think much.

You just lean in and kiss him.

His mouth is soft when it meets yours, a little tentative at first. You’re already tilting your chin just so, letting your fingers curl tighter around his arm. He smells like fabric softener and salt, like sea air clinging to his skin and the faint trace of cologne you’ve only ever caught in passing but could recognize even in a lineup. He tastes like soju and mint, like laughter, like stories shared too easily under moonlight. And when he kisses you back, slow, more certain now, you don’t dare hesitate to let the bottle drop from your hands onto the sand, cupping his other cheek with your palm.

Reluctantly, you pull away, your warm fingers still pressed into the side of his face. Your breath whispers against his mouth, “Why did I just do that?”

Corners of Jungkook’s mouth tilt slightly, “I don’t know. But.. if you do it a second time, I might start thinking you actually like me.”

You scoff, biting back the smile that threatens to give you away. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I’m not,” he chuckles, “You’re the one kissing me under the stars. Kind of romantic, no?”

You exhale a laugh. Then kiss him again while holding your breath because you don’t want to say anything else.

And the next day, when you drive twenty minutes to your parents’ house in Busan, you don’t realize how tightly you’ve been holding your breath since that kiss until the street comes into view.

The building looks smaller than it used to. That’s the first betrayal.

Smaller, duller, drained of the larger-than-life scale it once carried when you were a kid staring up at it like it could swallow you whole. The bricks are paler now, bleached by time or guilt or maybe just too many summers. The gate still creaks and the third step wobbles beneath your weight like it remembers you.

Everything is exactly the same. Which is somehow so much worse.

You stand there longer than you should, keys cold in your hand, thumb pressing into the metal like if you just hold it tight enough, maybe the anxiety will dissolve. It doesn’t. You try to rehearse something. An opening line, a reason, an apology but your brain’s playing static. White noise and old echoes and the blood-rush sound of your own name when it used to be shouted across this lawn.

You think of Jungkook. “Hi is a good start.”

So you knock.

The door opens too fast. No time to brace, no time to breathe.

Your mother with a breath caught in her throat. A wrinkle at the corner of her mouth you don’t remember being there. Eyes you’ve spent half your life trying to forget and the other half trying to see again.

You almost forget to say hi.

She looks older somehow. Smaller than you remember. Her hair is pulled back the same way it always was, her apron dusted in flour like she’s been baking something just to pass the time.

She stares at you for a second, silent and wide-eyed.

You ditch the practiced words. Yoy say something else that finally breaks you.

“Eomma.”

You don’t even make it another second before the tears hit you full force. You move with muscle memory, and when your arms wrap around her, she’s already there catching you.

She smells the same. Feels the same too.

Her hands move across your back in rhythmic circles, pressing comfort straight into your skin. Erase the ache of every voicemail you never returned, every text you left hanging, every birthday you pretended didn’t sting.

“I missed you,” she whispers, and her voice breaks around it. “I missed you so much.”

You nod into her shoulder because your mouth doesn’t work right now. Because your throat is tight and your eyes are flooding and your voice gets caught somewhere behind all the guilt. But the words come out anyway, muffled and wet against the fabric of her shirt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to come back.”

She pulls you in even more like she’s trying to fold you into herself, as if you’re something she’s been trying to find her way back to, too. She just gives you the one thing you were never brave enough to ask for.

Grace.

Faint footsteps are heard in the background. You lift your head barely to see your sister.

She’s in the doorway like she’s not sure she’s allowed to be here, with those same wide eyes, hands pressed to her mouth.

“Unnie?”

It’s all she says.

You nod, and that’s all she needs before she’s hurtling toward you, flinging her arms around your waist like she’s trying to make up for every time you didn’t answer her call. Her hug is messier, less practiced yet hits you just as hard.

You laugh. You actually do, right there between the sobs and the apologies and the second-chance hugs. Not because anything’s fixed or that the damage is undone.

It’s just that there’s too much love in the room to hold without spilling.

You dig into your bag with trembling fingers, reaching for the one thing you knew would make her smile. You hand her the photocard. Jimin, smiling on glossy paper.

She gasps like you’ve handed her a diamond. “No way.”

“I bribed someone at the top,” you tease, wiping at your eyes with the back of your hand.

“You didn’t have to,” She hugs the picture tight to her chest.

“I wanted to,” you say, and you mean it.

Time ticks differently that day, a clock you weren’t expecting to miss. There’s too much food, stories told fast, many emotions that rise and fall without warning. You cry again, laugh more, and sit on the same couch you once did with textbooks and chipped nail polish, listening to your mother fuss over your appetite and your sister’s loud music.

Though it isn’t perfect, though there are still things left unspoken and walls to slowly disassemble, it feels like a beginning.

When you finally climb back into your car that evening, parked just down the street where the air smells like dried seaweed and laundry, you sit in silence for a long time. The engine doesn’t start. Your hands don’t move.

You think of Jungkook again faintly.

You realize then and there: you don’t feel so lost.

You feel grateful.

And maybe a little unsteady, knowing that Jeon Jungkook, the cockiest, most infuriating, most impossible man you’ve ever met, was the one who handed you the courage to come home.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

masterlist + request

taglist ; @lovingkoalaface @maybetheproblemisme @mimi1097 @mar-lo-pap @mysjammy @yooniepot @tinytan-gerine @ashslight @sky-23s-world @myzzysstuff @elinaki92 @7fever @munchkin-kitty7-blog @uarmygguk @jjkluver7 @coletaehyung @jkxlvrr @amarawayne @kooslilhoe @bangchanwantsmesobad @kpopslur @senaqsstuff @sugakookies77 @tteokbokibyjk @emmie2308 @neurospicynugget @prxdajeon @majesticjung-97 @jksusawife @rkivesarchive @hyunjinswifetingzz @bjoriis @nan4rf @parkinglot-nights @travelgurrl @softhaes @bexxs @magicalnachocreator @wisebouquetbarbarian @futuristicenemychaos

[theskywithin]

Birth Chart Breakdown: Planets in The Twelfth House

☉ Sun in the Twelfth House There’s a part of you that’s always been just out of reach, not because it’s hidden, but because it’s sacred. You don’t crave attention. You crave understanding. You move through the world quietly, but there’s a glow inside you that never goes out. You may not always know who you are out loud, but in stillness, in solitude, you remember. Your identity isn’t a performance. It’s a presence. And it lives even in the dark.

☽ Moon in the Twelfth House You feel more than you let on. Sometimes you don’t even realize what you’re carrying until it shows up in dreams, or floods your chest out of nowhere. You tuck your pain into the softest parts of you, and protect it like it’s sacred. You’ve learned to grieve quietly, but your grief deserves a voice, too. The feelings you hide are not weakness. They’re memory. They’re love. They’re you.

☿ Mercury in the Twelfth House You don’t always speak what you know. Thoughts move through you like fog, deep, layered, hard to catch. You’ve been misunderstood before, so now you filter. You hesitate. But your silence is not emptiness. It’s depth. You carry truths in your subconscious that haven’t found words yet. And when they do, they will carry weight. You don’t need to be loud to be wise.

♀ Venus in the Twelfth House You love like a secret prayer. You fall for souls, not stories. You carry a tenderness that most people never see, and a devotion that doesn’t ask to be returned to feel real. You give love even when you know it won’t be held, because that’s who you are. You crave beauty that doesn’t fade, and affection that doesn’t ask you to be anything but soft. Yours is the kind of love that leaves traces in dreams.

♂ Mars in the Twelfth House Your anger doesn’t explode, it echoes. You don’t always act on what hurts. You internalize. Retreat. Try to fix it within before you confront it without. But this doesn’t mean you’re passive. You fight differently, inside your own mind, inside your own healing. The rage you suppress is the energy of survival. Let it move. Let it speak. You’re not dangerous, you’re learning how to hold fire in your palms.

♃ Jupiter in the Twelfth House You carry a quiet kind of trust, not loud, not naive, but deep. You believe that even in chaos, meaning will find you. You don’t shout your wisdom from rooftops. You carry it like a secret blessing. Some days, you give more than you have. Some days, you disappear just to keep your spirit intact. But always, beneath it all, there’s a current of belief: that something greater is holding you, even when you forget how to hold yourself.

♄ Saturn in the Twelfth House You carry weights that have no names. You feel responsible for things you can’t explain. You may not cry where people can see you, but you’ve built an ocean inside. You long for rest, but often feel you haven’t earned it. And yet… even in your quiet, even when no one knows what you’re carrying, you show up. Not perfectly, but fully. And that’s more than enough.

♅ Uranus in the Twelfth House Your wildness lives in secret. You want to break free, but from what, you can’t always say. You dream of disappearing and reinventing yourself in the same breath. There’s a part of you that doesn’t want to belong, only be. And though the world doesn’t always understand your rhythm, you’re not lost. You’re just listening to a future that hasn’t arrived yet. A future that begins in your dreams.

♆ Neptune in the Twelfth House You live at the edge of this world and the next. You cry for things you can’t name, love people you’ve never met, and believe in miracles with no need for proof. Sometimes you get lost in longing. Sometimes you confuse illusion with soul. But you were never meant to live only in reality. You’re here to remind us that magic still hums beneath the surface. And that dreams, when nurtured, return us to ourselves.

♇ Pluto in the Twelfth House You’ve buried entire lifetimes inside your silence. Power. Pain. Transformation. You keep your evolution underground, like roots growing beneath the surface. The world sees your calm, but inside, you’ve died and resurrected a thousand times. Don’t underestimate the force of what you carry. You are a storm behind still eyes. You don’t need to show it to prove it’s real.

[calebrity]

fuck me like i’m famous

popstar! rafayel x female reader

in theory, attending your favorite popstar’s after party seems a dream come true. for you, it certainly is. in reality, though? it doesn’t live up to it- at least not innocently.

content popstar! rafayel, nsfw, smut, dubcon, fingering, disillusion, mc learns why idolizing celebrities isn’t wise (by being banged by one during his afterparty), yandere & obsessive undertones, 18+ characters

sidenote hrm… was supposed to be a lil drabble but it snowballed into almost 5k words. hopefully the fishie girlies will like this lil meal tho since he’s kinda a rare sight on the blog 💔 rafayel is freaked the fuck out in this deadass... also i literally had nothing better to name this but i believe chase atlantic kinda fits raf’s vibes here so :,] OH & THANK U FOR 600 FOLLOWERS I LOVE YALL ♡♡♡

Lights glitter on his face in the after party.

You don’t know what you did to earn God’s favor in this life, but whatever the reason, you’re thankful for scoring yourself that ticket. He’s all you listen to; a staple to each of your playlists. And so for what Thomas did- gifting you a special pass he had as an extra to your favorite popstar’s show- you’re ever in his debt.

He might be his publicist; that spare ticket may mean nothing to him. Alright, but-

It might as well mean the whole world to you.

Girls crowd his spot on the couch. It’s decadent: the room bathed in dim, yellow lights as the drinks, generously taken from, sparkle on the table before it. He kicks his long legs out on it and stretches an arm behind the woman at his side. She’s beautiful, scantily clad, all of them are- some curled up to his shoulder, others drunkenly twirling around the room- and because of it, you feel a little out of place.

In jeans and a band tee, you weren’t prepared.

Not for this.

One part of you is positively gushing at the scene that unfolds around you, deciding you could die in peace now that you’d finally experienced one of his concerts, especially in such an exclusive way. Still, another part of you, dwelling low in your belly, twisting like a bad gut feeling, quietly thinks, Has Thomas mistaken me for a whore? Perhaps it’s wrong to think that of those girls... But you also don’t believe they’d take any real offense to that if they were to hear your internal back-and-forth, because they seem delighted to put on their shows for him.

They can’t be blamed, right? I mean… It’s him. Rafayel. Everybody and their mom would trip over their own two feet trying to get an audience with him.

Still.

You ball your fists in your lap.

A-Are you even meant to be here?

Rafayel was always bold on camera, yes; flirtatious to a fault. Sure, he was a playboy and you were aware of that, the whole community was. Really, it was integral to his charm.

But this—

One of the girls giggles when she stumbles over her high heels and into Rafayel’s lap. It’s convenient. Too convenient: even if she’s only half aware of her surroundings, in for a bad hangover tomorrow morning, she still manages to go flying right towards him. You know the purple-haired man must be aware of it too, her frolicking stunts.

Nonetheless, he catches her in his arms before she topples, and he laughs, too.

It’s a pretty sound. Then again, everything about him is. With his dyed, lavender curls and the softness to his otherwise coy face, the little moles dusting it and his glossy, pink lips— he’s beautiful. All the more in that outfit. Cheeky but not enough as to be scandalous. His stylist and his designer have your applause. Clearly, they know what they’re doing.

On stage, he’d seemed playful, but was able to keep his gallivanting at bay. With a wink, though, all that sex appeal just oozes out, and—

It’s weird. How you can spend so much weeks and months and years idolizing somebody, and then suddenly have all that worshipful intent collapsing in a breath. Within the span of not even an hour, you’ve become so disillusioned with this celebrity- your all time favorite- that you can hardly bear to look at him and his wanton display.

Sat on the armchair opposite of it all as it takes place, deathly quiet, you begin to feel sick.

Is this really him?

You knew he was a flirt, yes, but- but what the hell is even this? Is this what he demeans himself to after each show? Just some cheap manwhore with his hand-selected throng of groupies, sipping away at an expensive wine just moments after he set the mic aside after a love song you’d thought to be heartfelt—

Your glass, the one a suited man offered on a tray and you took only to mimic the others, remains untouched before you.

This is startling. And far from your preferred scene.

M-Maybe you ought to go home. And soon. Is what you’ve been thinking for closer to thirty minutes now, and yet you’re too nervous to speak on it. I mean, maybe if you just stood up and left, nobody would notice your slipping out— the room is far from bright and everybody’s buzzed on something, anyway—

Marbled, coral-blue eyes stare at you over the rim of his glass, and they glint with something you think is mirth.

Curiosity, alongside it.

It makes you second guess yourself. Taking your leave.

He’s been watching you for a while now. Even when the stunning women gather in a flurry around him, tugging on his hair and teasing with whispering breaths in his ear, his attention doesn’t remain on them for long. It drags back to you and, for all the distractions occuring around you (the stereo playing an all too familiar song, the drunken chatter, the unease in your chest), he’s impressively focused.

It’s unnerving. It’s divine. He’s all you listen to in the car and in the shower and in your bedroom when you’re dancing to his newest album in an oversized sleep shirt and panties. You’ve cried to him and laughed to him and now he’s here, in shocking clarity, and you were so so excited, rambling about it to your girlfriends for months, but now you’re not so sure of what you’re seeing. If you like it.

He seems less god to you, now; oh, still heavenly, still angelic, for sure, but he toes more along the line of something wicked— like a cherub fallen.

And you can’t find it in you to get up and scurry out even when that’s all you can picture yourself doing in your head, escaping.

When you catch his eye again, you dip your chin (not out of reverence, no longer, but rather unease) and bite on your lip until you taste blood.

So when he lifts his hand with a snap then, the girls pouting as they crawl off him, dissipating no different than fog- you’re ever thankful for the opportunity to finally get up and leave, too—

A voice chimes over itself, layering over the familiar song playing in the background.

“Hey- wait up, cutie.”

You pause when you belatedly realize it’s calling for you.

As if your legs are stilts, you turn around hesitantly (strange: because really, shouldn’t you be happy he’s noticed you?) and try to lessen the shock on your face- even though his amused little smile tells you it’s as clear as day.

He laughs pleasantly, playful to a fault.

“What’s that silly face for? Oh, IIIIIII see, you’re feeling a lil left out, is my guess. Here,” he pats the cushion beside him and you actually blanche. For a moment you think your heart has stopped beating and those thumps you hear are the drum beats in his song as it drifts through the now empty room.

Save for you and Rafayel, it’s completely barren; the better part of its energy has left with the dancing girls but whatever remains of it, he holds.

You eye the spot beside him, unmoving.

An excuse, you realize right then— you can still spit out an excuse.

“I-I’m not one of the girls,” you stammer with a wince before clearing your throat, “I- I don’t even think I’m really supposed to be here.”

Another laugh, and a dismissive wave of his hand. You try to make yourself laugh too if only to appease him, your idol- endlessly nervous.

“Oh, well that’s just untrue,” he teases. “C’mon, don’t be shy~! I was just playing around with the others. It’s just you and me now, so no need to feel all nervous,” he assures, the image of harmless as he crosses his leg over the other and waits.

You blink rapidly. “I—“

You’re about to spew out a feeble rejection and that’s when his face drops.

You’re not sure, for all the records and posters and billboards you’ve seen of his face, if he’s ever made that expression. Not on camera, at least.

He lowly murmurs, “Aren’t you a fan?”

“I-…. Well-….”

A fan? For years now! His number one! A stupid girlish voice in the corner of your mind shrieks, and you almost dredge some joy out of this whole thing.

Letting out a shaky sigh, defeated, you creep over to him on equally shaky legs and take the spot beside him— all with great hesitance, though.

His pretty face alights again. Some of the pressure loosens up, even if only by a little, and your shoulders relax by a smidge.

Maybe it’s fine. Maybe you’re crazy and this is how he interacts with all his listeners no, no it’s not. Or maybe this is just a normal, celebrity thing and you’re blowing this way out of proportion here.

Just like he did with that other woman- that other likeminded fan or plaything or- or you don’t know- he loops an arm around the back of the couch behind you.

…What’s different, though, is that, unlike with her, he rests his hand on your shoulder and hugs you closer to his side. Clinging.

Rafayel smiles. Charming. Frivolous. With a glint in his eye, intense and engrossed, that’s weirdly sober when taking the half empty drink he sets down on the table into consideration.

“There. Good girl. So tell me, pretty,” he starts thoughtfully, fingertips twirling your hair as he leans into you. For the popstar that takes very little seriously, you think he appears awfully interested in some no-name girl who happened to score herself a limited-time lanyard to see him sing.

You swallow thickly. In the back of your mind, thoughts race. So does your heart. You might explode.

H-He didn’t act like this with the others— did you somehow present yourself in a way that made him think he could take more than what the others let him? More than what the others practically begged him to, but for some fucking reason he wouldn’t—

“Did you like the show?”

“Y-Yeah.” You don’t mean to whisper, but a certain, resigned silence is what you’ve been reduced to. His other hand stretches across his body to rest on your thigh.

Rafayel hums. But before he can speak, you- rudely, might he add- cut in. “I- I have to go home soon, so-“

Amused, he snorts. “Relax, alright? Tonight, you’re a very important person, aren’t you? Home can wait,” he muses, so close he’s near nuzzling your cheek.

A very important person? Funny. You’re just another fool bouncing around amongst the nosebleeds- a face he’ll be hard-pressed to catch and certain to forget. Honestly? This whole facade of his is as cruel as it is unbelievable.

Gradually, he’s letting you down.

Your throat bobs. Almost a bit bitterly, you remind, “I- I know you’re a popstar, but we’re still strangers. You don’t have to feel like you need to entertain me or be nice to me.”

“Huh. You’re one smart cookie,” he wryly comments before giving his head a tiny shake, almost more to himself than to you. “Um, look, cutie, you’re definitely no stranger to me,” his words leave you dazed because they sound genuine. You snap your head up to look at him, needing to gauge his expression and fish for deceit. You… find none.

He smoothly continues. “But I guess I’m no stranger to you either, huh? And tonight, you’ll be like, extra acquainted with me.”

✦

It’s difficult.

-When he’s hovering over you and gently pushing you onto the plush cushions into a half-lying position, to not only push him off but find the strength to.

Physically, Rafayel’s no hulking display of power, but he’s intimidating all the same. Mentally, he’s more or less your idol and although he may not hold too much weight in stature (still, he’s stronger than you), he still holds enough golden trophies to decorate a shelf— and too much influence for you to really comprehend.

Or try to toy with.

…You should want this. Should want to lie down and offer yourself up to him with eagerness— it should be like a blessing and yet you’re hesitating.

…Why are you hesitating? A voice in the back of your head, the one that had raved endlessly to her friends about the upcoming concert, asks perplexedly. You’ve no answer. But the man atop you seems to wonder much of the same, too; his brow twitching just slightly with what you think to be dejection before he tilts your chin with long, slim fingers to kiss you and it’s gone.

He moans into that first kiss. Prettily and soft.

Heat flutters in the core of you, your body involuntarily responding to him even as your eyes snap open and shift to where the door is- or where you think it is (have the lights gotten dimmer? or is he just all you see?)- his palm tugging at your hair softly to lie you down.

His lips are plump, pink, just as gentle as they look as they meld against yours— definitely aroused, there’s no doubt there, his warm breaths tinged with needy whines- but there’s an odd affection in them, too. Something personal and doting.

When he tries to slip in tongue, you reel away but there’s nowhere to go. Not really. Not when your head finally touches the cushion and he lets out a small, disapproving sound before giving up on that goal- for now- and attacking your neck instead.

It’s good. Delicious; that perfect mouth knows its way around a mic and a lover, you suppose- suckling and kissing and nipping with the barest amount of teeth as if he’s intent on leaving a mark.

You can’t hold back on it anymore— you drop your hands that had been hovering awkwardly on his broad shoulders, mewling in response, and he shivers.

“Yeah, cutie, make some noise,” he chuckles mildly. You think back to the auditorium. The roaring cheers and shrieks, the phone lights waving in the air and the mist rolling beneath his feet as he sang.

His hand descends down your belly, and you’re brought back to now.

It’s more instinct than anything that has you clamping your legs shut as soon as his fingers reach the denim. He tuts at you, and yet the glimmer in his eye is… endeared, almost.

“Nuh-uh. Don’t shut me away now,” Rafayel scolds, thought it lacks any real bite. Still, your lashes flutter and you stare agog at him.

Like this, he’s positively gorgeous as he props himself up mere inches away- albeit his little grin can almost be considered vulpine. “Didn’t I put on a great show for you out there? Don’t tell me I get nothing in return,” he pouts, tone light but what lies under it is a layer of desire. Opaque and thick.

Hesitantly, you mull over his words. I mean, you just really want this to be over- so to hell to with it, maybe you should just submit yourself. The sooner you appease the playboy with what he wants— that is, some nameless girl he perceives as cheap enough to get on her back for him— the sooner you can leave and pretend Thomas never gave you his special ticket.

The popstar’s words turn comforting as he watches you carefully. “If you’re shy, don’t worry. I’ve seen it plenty’a times before, you know.”

Bigheaded, you think then. Bigheaded but he has every right to be.

Maybe if it was any other guy bragging about the chicks he fucked and scrutinized, you’d throw up in your mouth— and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t cringe a little on the inside— but it’s embarrassment for yourself above all that stirs in your stomach. It joins the butterflies as your cheeks warm over.

“Now,” he continues, his familiar lilt flattening into heavy, breathy lust, “All I want is to see yours. I’m sure your pussy is pretty, cutie- really,” he convinces.

A tremble. “So pretty.”

Oh, you’re erupting on the inside— heart snapping like a snare drum in your chest, overpowering the faint music and drowning it out- your hand shaking where it weakly closes over the back of his own, now only half trying to drag it away.

He hammers the last nail into your coffin. With a ragged, but gentle breath and- as he leans in- a surprisingly chaste peck to your lips, appreciative of what he has before him.

“Won’t you show me it?”

But jaw slack, you hesitate. And- Of course you hesitate. The reasons for your deliberation, that weird gut feeling, become clearer and clearer as seconds progress:

Firstly, he’s the image of fame- and if you were to deny him, if he said the smallest word over it, your whole entire social life as you knew it would backfire on you. The possibility of his saying mean things on the internet hangs in your mind. Rumors circulating, as untrue as they are vivid, coming to bite you in the ass. For as many hours as you’ve spent watching and listening to Rafayel, you don’t know his true colors (as evidenced by right now); that includes what a wounded ego would look like if you rejected him.

Secondly, you hesitate because—

Because he’s perfect. Much like an idol on a pedestal, carefully set there with a singular light overhead to define him and him alone.

In a dark room, all look to him.

Once- an hour ago- you did, too.

Maybe you still do. You don’t know. There’s a whole bunch of feelings (confusion, awe, a betrayal that makes you question just how parasocial your relationship with him was) swirling inside you, none able to be grazed or grasped, and it shakes a part within.

“Please?” He breathes, ever headstrong.

…Your rationale is headlong, falling into the abyss with a word.

“O-Okay,” you all but squeak out. It’s the best you can manage. Rafayel’s breath hitches at that, though, your given assent, no matter how feeble, planting satisfaction deep in his chest.

And so with that he’s swiftly undoing your jeans and rucking them down your thighs.

It’s less out of good will that you help him shimmy them off you, to a bunch above your shoes, and more so eagerness to be done with this whole thing.

When he tucks his knuckles beneath the waistband of your panties- cutesy cotton put on full display for him, perched above pretty thighs- he curses under his breath.

His hands are as big as a man’s but as soft as a woman’s. His fingertips are dutiful as they brush along your folds, as singleminded, hungry, as the former.

…But when they nudge between your pussy lips and at your tight hole, his thumb prodding expertly at your clit, it’s like he has all the awareness of the latter.

“Ah, you’re so wet…” he muses aloud. Very pleased with his discovery.

His eyelids, dazzling with some glittery shade his makeup artist applied prior to his show, droop and don’t meet your flustered stare as he focuses on the space between your legs. And he takes it upon himself to rid you of your panties, too: for as adorable as they are, Rafayel knows it’ll be ten times better for you both if he can just-

Finally fucking see for himself what you’ve got goin’ on down there—

Undies midway down your leg, he comments, “you’re really hyped up after the show, huh?” His exhale is a shaky sound. His gaze is utterly fascinated (and perhaps a touch unnerving, what with its intensity) when it bounces back to that soft dip below your belly.

You’ll give him this much credit— for as wild as that glint in his unblinking stare becomes, he’s fortunately gentle with you.

He wets his lip absently. “Yeah… it gets me going, too. All the lights and cheering faces... Feeling the bass vibrate up from the floor. Can I be honest, though, cutie? When Thomas- oh, shit-“ he shivers when he inserts a digit in- his pointer one- and your hole instinctively clamps down around it, juices glistening to the base of his knuckle as you try not to squirm.

Y-You can’t believe this is happening. Your clothes are all in a disarray- the only piece intact, actually, is your tee that just so happens to be merchandise of the popstar that hovers over you now with his hand between your legs—

You blink back to real life when he sharply inhales.

“…When Thomas told me you were comin’, I made absolute sure to know your standing. That way, I could find you easily in the crowd. I was gettin’ so worked up just looking at you. Could you hear it-? My voice began to shake.” he chuckles, voice euphony to your ears. Familiar in its lilt but not in its timber.

His words stun you. They don’t make sense- is this is all some cruel, sick game after all-? Or- Or maybe he’s mistaking you for someone else? or he’s just choosing a really weird, admittedly screwed up way to let off some steam. God knows, what with his recent album built on the back of unrequited love, he needs the stress relief—

But no. He continues on like nothing is amiss, like your heart doesn’t plummet to the tips of your toes at his offhanded admission, and you forget how to breathe.

“When our eyes met- you looked like you were doubting yourself, but I really was staring at you, you silly girl.” Again, he’s fucking laughing, albeit this time, it takes on a more self-deprecating tone. You witness, almost unseeing, as his facade crumbles in increments. More and more he undoes it by the seams- much like he is with you.

“I was… Hm. I was even singing about you. All those stupid pining love songs— who do you think they’re for, princess?”

A gasp punches out from your lungs. You don’t know what it’s for- his nonsensical confessions, or his handling as he stuffs in another finger (you could’ve used some more working up to it, sure, he knows, but he’s a little impatient tonight) and scissors you open.

Wet shlicks ring in between guitar riffs. Your essence flows all over his knuckles and the numerous- horrifically expensive, you realize- jewels lining them. Rafayel doesn’t seem nearly as appalled as you do, though... If anything, aroused.

It feels so good. He’s hitting that spongey spot inside you just right. It’s a surreal experience, so much so you almost feel like you’ll coalesce into a dream at any moment. The melody playing in the background, the opulent couch as it groans beneath you with every piston of his arm, the twinkling, but dim lights and his face. That picturesque, idol face.

“Here, I’ll tell you the answer…” he leans over you to whisper in your ear, subjecting you to all the charm of a siren. You’re helpless to it ‘cause you’re just a girl.

“You. Always you.”

You’re dizzy. Your head is light but your lower half is heavy, the inner portion of your thighs numbed and sticky. Your limbs tingle but all you can feel is his lips tenderly suckling at your neck and your gushing walls as they constrict around their intruder.

Though they, too, ease up on him. He’s good at disarming you. That’s how you were walking in here, anyway, disarmed and beyond yourself with excitement.

Rafayel moans over you, finding a great amount of pleasure in the whole ordeal.

“You gonna cum? yeah?” He’s sweet, purring in your ear, making sounds as pretty as a girl- maybe even more so. His voice has won awards for a reason. You recall binging musical ceremonies on the internet and shrieking as soon as his name was called to stage, his seeming nonchalance as he accepted an accolade…

Yet you saw his ears, too, the tips of them red under the resounding applause, and wondered just what or who it was that had him bowing his head to the camera—

“A-Ah, mmph- Rafayel, please—!” You choke, fingers curling into his shoulder. In response, he lets out a pleasured, breathy sound, all encouragement and delight in his eyes.

“Mhm. Go ahead. Cum. Cum, pretty girl, all over my fingers. Oh- I really wanna taste you- will y’let me taste you afterwards?” He’s moaning unabashed as you come undone at warp speed. It’s shameful and your cheeks toast over but you clamp your eyes shut and choose to bask in the feeling of it all as it overwhelms you.

He’s good. So good. Masterful with it, really. Not like any of the bungling guys who courted you for all of one date (the more patient: two) before ripping your pants off and sticking their fingers inside without prompting or even half the skill to back their confidence.

No- he’s every bit qualified and then some.

Your nails dig into his clavicle. Rafayel doesn’t care- if that pinch of pleasure between his brow is the least bit credible, maybe he even likes the sting.

“Good girl. There, good girl.”

It’s building inside you. He works you up progressively, rapidly, and it shows in the little gasps you make that fall back to back, the L shape you make with either of your legs as they hitch up around his hips and quake, the ball in your gut that suddenly hardens before—

“Ngh— Rafayel-!”

You scream. Louder than the music. Louder than his words of encouragement, sugar-sweet, hungry, susurrating as they spill in your ear. He sensually nibbles on it and wraps his free hand around your head- with a misplaced affection, you think- to anchor you throughout your climax. He manages to keep you grounded there on the couch but only barely.

Your mind does slip off to another place, though, floating in white oblivion for a number of seconds as your limbs offer small trembles.

Rafayal takes close to nothing serious. So the light, but bubbly laugh that draws you back to consciousness with a sigh is fairly appropriate.

What isn’t is his touchiness as he drags you to sit on his lap— boneless; your skin damp with heat, your damned pants still cuffed awkwardly around your ankles— and croons into your neck. Holding you close like a lover would in the after glow. But this isn’t the after glow, this is the after show. But then again, if his earlier words were true- the ones that barrel back into you with clarity, the haze dissipating- then…

But no. No, how could that be? Those songs aren’t about you— and when you met his eye during the opening, and all the times afterward, you were sure it was just your imagination, especially after the fan beside you threw up her arms and cheered as if his stare was for her instead—

You might know Thomas (very vaguely- more of a friend of a friend you’ve seen at a few get-togethers; you follow him on insta), but that doesn’t mean Rafayel, the man he works for, should know you... I mean, you doubt they hang out often, anyway. Especially not since Thomas would more or less be viewed as the king of no-fun in the popstar’s eyes.

His whole job is to assure that Rafayel keeps his lips sealed tight: you can’t imagine that he’d be loose with his own by chatting with him about you, a girl he’s not all too familiar with but knows just enough to throw a spare ticket at.

So there’s just no way any of this is true.

Half of you expects Rafayel to shove you off his lap at any second, snap back to the reality that you’re not the woman he mistook you for, and flusteredly point you to the door. The other half of you is like it’s waiting for him to pull out his cock (it stirs underneath your ass, hard and by the feel of it, very excited) and take all that’s left to.

He moves your hair aside your shoulder and rubs along your back, instead.

And he whispers in your ear (or into your neck, really), his warm breath fanning there as he says like it’s a vow:

“Wanna see you at my next show. Better be there.”

Your throat bobs. As he speaks, you try not to focus too much on the fluid that oozes from your pussy lips and onto his expensive, designer slacks- but that’s no easy task when he seems to want for that, slightly lifting his hips up.

“No. Before that, even—“ he pauses for a moment, seemingly deep in thought before smiling, resolved. “Oh, I know- I’ll have Thomas help get you settled in with the tour bus. That way, you can just be on the road with me.”

You gawk. Whatever he’s saying doesn’t reach you; you’re only receiving that garbled bits of it, like a radio interpolated by static between voices. Your palms lift to his chest and push there softly.

Smoothly, he takes them in his own and kisses the knuckles, peering up at you like you’ve hung the stars in the sky, giggling.

“Doesn’t that sound just great, cutie?”

“I- wait, you-?”

“I’ll name my next song after you- my next album, even!- and then we can go public immediately.” You can recognize it for what it is, even coming from someone as frivolous as him.

A promise.

“The fans will love you,” he says excitedly before leaning in and smushing a kiss to your damp hairline, murmuring there with a fiery tinge of what you think is devotion. “But not as much as I already do.”

He fishes into his pocket, then, one hand still securing your waist.

“Lemme give Thomas a call… I guess he kinda deserves my ‘thank you’, too, huh?”

𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒔, 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔, + 𝒓𝒆𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒂���𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 ♡

[sophie-frm-mars]

So I don't know if everyone realizes this, but we all have a "forever box" we mentally maintain. In it you keep the platonic ideal of each kind of bad person, separated away from normal people in order to keep the normal people safe. To be clear, this isn't prison, this is just in your head, a space you keep all the bad people in. To clarify further, it has nothing to do with how you believe that bad things happen in real life. You believe in systems that teach people to behave in cruel ways to each other, you believe in mental health crises that make people act irrationally or in ways people find scary or harmful, you understand the cycle of abuse, and none of that stops you from maintaining a box in your head where all the bad people go. It is an abstract place in your mind, a blindspot in your consciousness, and unless you very intentionally apply the things you believe about how bad things happen in real life, you put people in your forever box when you find out they are a bad person.

It's okay that you have this for yourself. There has to be a space on the other side of all your boundaries where you want someone out of your life altogether. I have people in this box in my head who I know I can't have in my life and it's taken a lot of work to know that that isn't the case because they contain an essential ontological evil. Personal capacity is how you actually determine whether you need to cut someone out or not, but this creates a very murky space.

If you find out that someone used to say homophobic things 5 years ago but stopped, maybe you think that person has had long enough in the box. You don't even think it consciously, you just emotionally sit in the reality that they already, as it were, served their time. Notoriously, white people's capacity to find out that other white people said racist things in the past and decide that they've already learned their lesson is quite powerful, just like straight people's ability to find out someone said or did something hurtful to queer people and decide they've had plenty of reckoning for that already is quite powerful. The trick here is that each observer feels like they're determining how long is long enough but they're actually doing an emotional weighing up of how much this person means to them. Plenty of white people are willing to put other white people who don't mean anything to them in the forever box for being racist and keep them there if they're a person they find distasteful.

Imagine a racist. You just pictured someone you find distasteful. Now imagine your best friend saying something racist. Regardless of whether you would respond by challenging that person, trying to educate them, or ignoring it and pretending nothing happened, the emotional difference here is that you didn't put them in the forever box.

When you are deciding that someone is too inconvenient to have in your life, you will tell yourself that you aren't judging them to be a bad person, that you aren't engaging with the situation on a moral level. When you are explicitly passing judgement on someone and calling them a bad person, you make yourself blind to how you are making decisions based on convenience and capacity. I've had this happen to me, and I've done this to other people. It takes work, sometimes consistent sustained effort, not to turn people into cartoons in your head. Although we know emotionally that bad people go in the forever box, we actually only put abstractions of people there.

Someone who you've abstracted in this way, of course, is just on the other side of an incongruity in social reality, a wall between them and you and whoever shares your perspective and abstracts them in the same way. The forever box isn't actually real unless enough people have been told that you did something bad, and put you in their own box in their heads, and then suddenly it is horribly real, and you are in it. In the forever box you are alone. Crushingly, grindingly, deafeningly alone. You are going to stay here and think about what you've done. This is how the reality of social ostracisation starts to materialise.

Nobody got together to agree on the rules, but the forever box has rules nonetheless:

If you do something bad you go in the forever box.

If you try to help someone get out of the forever box, you go in the forever box. Associating with someone may count as helping them get out.

If you try to get out of the forever box, either by pretending you didn't do anything wrong or defending yourself, you get longer in the box.

Because of rule 1, we always know that people in the forever box are bad people. This is reassuring, but it drives the need for rule 2. Rule 2 creates a social pressure that leads to rule 3.

Rule 3 exists because when you don't personally put someone in your forever box but you know that other people say they're a bad person, you know that standing near them may result in you getting disappeared as well, and so any time the person talks or acts in a way that might be seen as evading or refusing punishment, your fear of that increases and sometimes this will result in you vanishing this person from your own life.

Here I want to explain the idea of having a "sentence" in a space that I've said is forever. This is an effect of the scaling of people's personal boundaries into a social force. If you were entirely cut out by 5 people, but they were the only people you knew, the amount of time that you would spend completely alone is the time until you make new friends, which might not be that hard especially if the 5 people who stopped speaking to you were concentrated together, for example roommates in a flatshare. On the other hand, if 1000 people all swore you off as a bad person, for example an entire neighbourhood or a school, it would at first be very difficult to meet people who didn't share their perspective.

This is why social cliques, like in high school, that put pressure on all their participants to have the exact same view of someone are able to rapidly exclude and isolate someone for whom opinion shifts, but the obviousness of this is also what keeps everyone in the clique under control - that's the rules of the forever box working.

People who derive emotional security from the use of the forever box need the forever box to keep working, and in some cases need for it to never ever ever have been used incorrectly, unjustly, and this means that listening to anyone in the forever box, discussing the legitimacy of them being in there, or sometimes even acknowledging that the forever box exists is unacceptable.

For bigots, the desire to drive marginalized people out of public life is putting the entire group into a forever box. When I said at the start of this that the forever box isn't prison, that was a bit of a fib, because prison is very literally manifesting a physical reality of our shared imaginary bad person space, with sentences to serve painstakingly decided by a lengthy legal tradition and a whole set of professionals so that people can believe in some kind of justice being achieved by putting people there.

When people have been in prison, their access to employment, education, democracy, stable housing, food, healthcare, social rehabilitation are all permanently damaged unless there is incredibly intense work undertaken to fix them, and even then they're unlikely to ever be rich or famous or widely respected unless they were already those things before they went into prison. This is the forever box in everyone's heads working in tandem with the carceral system. There is a full spectrum of partly realised systems of punishment between the abstraction of the forever box in your head and the physical reality of a prison cell, and all of them serve to reinforce class divisions.

When marginalised people describe a sense that bigots want them all locked up, or deported or in camps or just plain gone, this is because they feel the direction of this social pressure, the pressure of disappearance, like a wind that blows softer or harder against them. It is so easy for people not in that marginalised group to dismiss this as exaggeration because they don't feel the wind blowing that way at any speed.

Social media (as in, the specific and intentional design of modern social media platforms) provides us with tools to caricature, abstract and alienate each other, and just like the punitive logic of prisons this functions as a way to use our energies on becoming more divided and so easier to control by the ruling class. At the same time as it makes us more reactive and ready to insult and misunderstand and then ultimate block each other, the people who find it easiest to group together and stick together are the people who feel thrown away and judged - this drives both the modern reactionary trend on social media and the famous "why I left the left" right-wing pivot of canceled celebrities.

What is the point in outlining all of this? Well firstly, to challenge how power currently exists in the world we have to understand how people turn to punitive methods for a sense of justice, because the power that a social system has is often granted to it by people's willingness to believe it can bring them justice. Secondly, once we understand the difference between setting your own personal boundaries and trying to make someone else suffer, we can talk about a better way to create something like justice in response to harm. Then, thirdly, if we can put that into practice in real terms and not turn to the impulse for punishment, we can create a society people actually want to live in rather than one people are scared of being excluded from.

[babyleostuff]

⸻ how the hip hop unit helps you study

scoups

your typical dad trying to explain math homework 

cheol really tries his best. he does. it’s just the way in which he tries makes you want to rip out your hair, cry, and run away. because he’s so stubborn he’ll act like he knows the topic so much better than you, even if he has zero clue what it's truly about. will tell you that he read an article online and that he is 100% correct. so even if you ask him to simply read the terms from your flashcard, nothing more, just read, so you could revise the topic, he’d act all: no, but actually! and if you try to tell him otherwise, he’ll just start arguing with you. and we all know how petty this man can get if someone disagrees with him. 

3/10 experience 

too bossy 

too stubborn 

gets frustrated in 0.0001 second and starts pouting 

will tell you that you don’t love him anymore

wonwoo

drops anything to help you out, no matter what you need help with

you need to buy something for your project? he’s already at the store. you need more paper for your flashcards? he’s out chopping wood all nara smith. you need to read a hundred pages of boring articles? let me do it for you! come on, jeon wonwoo, the acts of service man himself would do anything to help you out. even if it means sitting by your side for hours in complete silence, because you need emotional support. even if it means watching numerous youtube videos on topics he cannot even comprehend. even if he has to rewrite the damn book by himself, he will do it. such an encouraging, supportive, sweet, and genuinely helpful study buddy!

100/10

chops wood 

attempts to make study snacks 

will become an expert in the topic you don’t understand, so he can explain it to you 

makes the prettiest flashcards

mingyu

the one that takes it a bit too seriously 

you need help studying? do not worry, here comes kim mingyu with his fake glasses. he’s clearly excited that you need his help, but for some reason he treats it as this super important mission impossible that requires all of his brain cells, as if he’s the one to study. and don’t even try to mention that it’s not that serious, because he’ll get offended. you’d think he’d be all “one kiss for one correct answer”, but no. for some reason turn into this strict, annoying teacher, acting all smart with you. mingyu just takes his job a bit too seriously. similarly to cheol, at some point he will start to act all smarty pants with you, and yeah, you’re smart mingyu, but? let’s calm down a bit, yeah? 

6/10 experience 

you actually manage to revise your material with him 

looks good in glasses 

acts like mr know it all 

falls asleep/gets hungry fifteen minutes into revising

vernon

gets so into the topic that your studying turns into a lecture 

which to be honest - great way to revise your material. vernon is just so curious about… basically anything that even if your topic is as interesting as watching paint dry, he’ll get so into it and ask if you could elaborate. thus, your study time turns into lecture time! and i know he’s the greatest listener too. could sit there for hours and listen to you talk, because - 1. he gets to listen to you, and 2. learns new random facts, which he can use as a party trick later on. and if there’s something that you yourself do not understand, vernon does anything he can to educate himself on said topic, so he can explain it to you. 

11/10 experience 

genuinely interested 

at the end of the night will know more than you 

you get to experience the POV: you’re an academic professor  

great way to spend quality time

[maskedbyghost]

part 1 part 2

You don’t hear from him for two days. Not a text. Not a call. Not a single word. So you finally text him something short—coming by later to grab the rest of my stuff. You didn’t want to leave it like this, but you're not gonna be the one to chase him anymore. You gave him more chances than you should’ve, waited too long for a guy who couldn’t even tell you he wanted you to stay.

He doesn’t reply, but the front door’s unlocked when you get there.

You push it open, step inside, and the second you do, he’s there—leaning in the doorway between the kitchen and the hall, like he’s been waiting, like he knew you’d come at exactly that time. You pause, feeling weird about the way he's just standing there watching you, but you keep your eyes ahead and walk toward the bedroom.

And then the lock clicks, and you freeze.

“Did you just lock the door?”

Simon doesn’t even flinch. Just walks toward you slowly, like this is normal. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not leaving.”

You blink at him, trying to figure out if he’s joking or if he’s actually lost it. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re not leaving me.”

“Simon—”

“No,” he says, firmer this time, standing in front of you now. “I’m not letting you go. I fucked up. I know I did. I should’ve said something. I should’ve grabbed you when you were walking out. Should’ve told you how much it was killing me to watch you leave. But I didn’t. And I regret it. And I’m not gonna let you pack up your shit and pretend like we don’t mean anything.”

You roll your eyes, trying not to let your voice shake. “I’m just here to get my stuff.”

“No, you’re not,” he says, following you as you walk into the bedroom and grab the bag off the floor. “You’re here because you’re hoping I’ll say something to make you stay.”

You start throwing your things into the bag without looking at him. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

He walks over and calmly pulls your sweatshirt out of the bag and folds it before putting it right back in the drawer.

You stare at him. “What are you doing?”

“Putting it back.”

“Simon, I swear to god—”

He pulls out another shirt, smooths it, puts it back in the closet.

“Stop it!” you snap, trying to push past him to grab it again.

But he steps in front of you, puts his arms around you and holds you against his chest. “No. You’re not going anywhere. I can’t let you. I haven’t slept, haven’t eaten anything that wasn’t complete shit, and I’ve been sitting in this house trying to figure out how I let the one person who gave a fuck about me walk out. I know I ruined it. I know you don’t trust me anymore. But I’ll earn it back. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll fix it. I swear.”

You struggle against him, not hard, but enough to make it clear you’re not just giving in. “Let go of me.”

He tightens his arms around you instead and presses a kiss to your cheek. Then another, and another, soft little ones, all over your face—your nose, your jaw, your forehead—mumbling between them like he’s afraid if he stops talking you’ll slip away again.

“I love you. I know I didn’t say it before but I do, and I’ve loved you for so fucking long and I didn’t know how to show it right, but I’ll learn. Just don’t go. Please. Ask anything from me, and I’ll do it. I’ll take time off, I’ll go to therapy, I’ll talk more, I’ll do the dishes without you asking. Just stay. I’ll give you everything. Just give me one more shot. Please, love. Please.”

You’re still half trapped in his arms, his voice right by your ear, and you try to stay mad, you really do. But the longer he holds you, the more ridiculous this whole scene feels, and the more you remember how badly you wanted him to fight for you, just once.

“Anything?” you ask, just to test it.

“Yeah. Anything. Just name it.”

You pull your head back a little, looking up at him. “You’ll let me get a cat?”

He blinks. “A cat?”

“You said no every time I brought it up.”

He groans a little but then lets out this small, helpless laugh and buries his face in your neck. “Fuckin’ hell. Yeah. Fine. Get a cat. Get two. I’ll buy it a bed nicer than mine, yeah?”

You try to hide your smile, but it slips through. “Even if it scratches your favorite chair?”

He looks up at you with a look of pure defeat. “Love, I’d let it scratch my face at this point. Just—don’t go, alright?”

You sigh, and it comes out more like a laugh, and he takes it as a win, because he pulls you in even tighter and doesn’t let go.

And this time, you don’t push him away.

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

can you forgive me now?

@daydreamerwoah @kylies-love-letter @ghostslollipop @kittygonap @alfiestreacle @identity2212 @farylfordaryl @rafaelacallinybbay @akkahelenaa @lovelovelovelovelove987654321 @wraith-bravo6 @tachiara @marispunk @gluttonybiscuits

[xjulixred45x]

I'm doing nothing right now, and to kill time (because I can't write requests from here), I decided to bring up this TWST idea that's been plaguing my mind.

A Yuu who's a parent

And I'm not talking about a Yuu who's a teenage or young parent, no, I'm talking about an adult Yuu, of legal age, who has had a job for YEARS, EVEN HAVE MULTIPLE CHILDREN!!

Who had the bad luck of being run over by the black carriage while doing something mundane like taking out the trash or coming home from work😅

Can you imagine the characters' reactions to an adult man/woman appearing out of nowhere at the entrance ceremony? Not even a member of the staff, just a random human without magic who is suddenly surrounded by teenage boys (almost the same age as their children).

An adult Yuu can probably "make themself understood" better by Crowley than a minor Yuu, since they understand the gravity of the situation and their basic civil rights, especially how to negotiate. Of course, that doesn't mean the Ramshakle dorm room is spotless, but at least it's fixed faster than in canon.

OH GOD, GRIM! Part of me thinks Grim would have more patience/respect for an adult Yuu, and the other part knows that's a complete lie. Although at least Grim seems to have more trust in this new maternal/paternal figure in his life.

Did you see how Inosuke gets when Tanjiro is friendly to him? That's Grim every time YuuMom/Dad says something maternal/paternal to him or is friendly/patient with him.

Ace is still a little shit at first, obviously, but I think he softens quickly, just like in canon. DEUCE, on the other hand, is almost immediately bland. Yuu reminds him so much of his mother that it's not even funny. If you thought these two were protective of the normal Yuu, brace yourself. This is THEIR PARENT NOW, AND THEY'RE THE ONLY ONES WHO DISRESPECT THEM>:(

Their relationships with the other dorm leaders would be just as funny and/or cute.

Riddle DEFINITELY needs a Yuumom/Dad in his life the most. Even though their first interaction was probably fatal (no parent, ESPECIALLY a JAPANESE one, would put up with Riddle's tantrums), I can see Riddle being naturally drawn to them these days.

This kid needs a father/mother figure who makes him understand that making mistakes is a way of learning, and Yuumom/Dad help make learning fun! Just like the Robinson family.

I also get the feeling Riddle would like to know the basics of the original work/world of Yuu (especially if they work in a field like a doctor or lawyer) and it ends up being a two-way street, with Riddle learning about Yuu's world and them learning about Twisted Wonderland.

Leona, another who needs someone to recognize him as his own person and not as a hindrance or a lesser version of his brother. It's obviously one of the hardest to have a positive relationship, but not impossible. Especially after Book 3, where Leona sees Yuu in a more respectful light instead of annoying.

They do the typical things you'd think of as a parent-child relationship, like when Yuu does certain things like scold Leona for sleeping too much, skipping classes, and straightening his uniform—things Leona complains about but doesn't stop them. It's a rare kind of positive attention.

Or when Yuu congratulates him on something specific they NOTICED he's improved, when they let him wander around the ramshakle dorm, etc. Let's just say it's an unwritten rule in Savanaclaw not to mess with Yuumom/dad from now on.

Azul also has a certain trick. He probably had more trouble with an adult Yuu than a student due to, well, life's advantages (any adult knows that contracts made by minors aren't valid—) and ends up having a mixture of fear and respect for them.

Fortunately, there's also a certain soft spot for Yuu, especially because of his age and paternal/maternal attitude. they probably reminds him of his mom.

For that reason, it's not unusual for Yuu to end up going to the Monster Lounge from time to time just to catch up with Azul, make sure he's not doing anything suspicious, and get something to eat. The usual.

KALIM. LOVES. YUUMOM/DAD. Yuu can barely keep up with all his energy, but it's contagious.

Jamil will have to get Kalim to tone down the intensity a few notches for the sake of Yuu's blood pressure, especially if he wants to surprise them with a magic carpet ride. they liked it! they swears! Just let them know next time!

they are also a great source of comfort after Jamil's Overplot. Let's just say that with their help, Kalim is trying to learn a few things about social norms.

Have you seen that typical mom/dad style of dress? Mothers in plain/patterned blouses and fathers in knee-length pants? Yep, that's Yuumom/dad. And Vil won't STAND IT. Practically their first interaction is picking out a new wardrobe for them. IT BURNS HIS EYES--

Aside from that, I can see Vil being genuinely flustered when Yuu criticizes his behavior, whether out of habit or because, well, parents are good at making points (and knowing the entertainment industry, very few adults care THAT much).

There's also the fact that Yuu's compliments are painfully sweet and genuine, like that "you're such a handsome young man!" meme, and Vil can't help but feel more arrogant than usual when Yuu compliments him like that. Parental stuff.

Idia ironically has a good relationship (within reason) with his parents, but that doesn't mean he's scared of Yuu at first, precisely because there's nothing more terrifying than seeing them angry.

He's also bothered by Yuu trying to get him out of his room so often, or by joining Ortho in bringing him food that isn't fast food. Damn it, he gets it!

He's a huge tsundere, which is why he hasn't banned them from Ignihide after all.

Malleus is definitely the one who most relies on Yuumom/dad's positive attention. Not only does this human lack fear of him, but they treats him like a normal teenager, with normal problems, even going so far as to scold him when he deserves it. What does Yuu care if he's a prince? He speaks to people with respect!

Yuu has so much power that he can make Malleus apologize by sounding arrogant, stop him from electrocuting people, or make him think about his actions, all because Malleus would rather put aside his ego than think that his new friend/father/Mother figure is angry with him :(

Thanks to this, Malleus goes to the ramshakle dorm even more often than expected, whether it's to tell Yuu something new he learned about the school's gargoyles, ask for advice on how to make friends, etc.

I like to think that this Yuu is very homesick for being around the kids, especially if they have children at home waiting for them. Which probably does something unusual: it causes the principals to unite to pressure Crowley to return home as soon as possible.

They have grown attached to Yuumom/dad, yes, but the thought that Yuu's children don't have their parent, that they are waiting for their return, that they are suffering, twists their stomachs.

Until then, They'll be in charge of protecting Yuu as much as possible until they can return home to their family!

Shares, reblogs and comments are very welcome!

Let me know if you want me to share any more ideas I have for Yuus!

[mcrdvcks]

— butterflies

summary: You decide to blindfold yourself for the day to learn what the world is like for Matt. word count: 2.9k+ pairing: Matt Murdock x fem!reader notes: this was meant to just be a short, fluffy thing but somehow like half of it is smut? anyways, this is my first time writing smut for matt, so feedback is appreciated! warnings/tags: blindfold, fluff, smut (while blindfolded), oral (f!receiving), unprotected piv, creampie

“Sweetheart.” Matt said, as he stepped into the apartment. He could hear you somewhere in the kitchen, walking slowly and holding onto the wall.

You froze in place. “Matt? You're home early.”

He tilted his head slightly, brow furrowing. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," you said quickly. "I'm fine."

He smiled a little, setting his cane down by the door. “Then why’s your heartbeat going crazy?”

You sighed softly, turning toward the sound of his voice. “Okay, don’t laugh.”

He took a cautious step closer, grin widening. “Can’t promise that. What’s going on?”

“I... decided to spend today experiencing things your way,” you confessed, fingertips gripping the counter. “So I blindfolded myself.”

Matt chuckled softly, warmth spreading across his expression. “Really? All day?”

“Since you left this morning.” You shrugged lightly, embarrassed. “Figured it would help me understand you a little better. But I'm starting to regret it—I ran into the coffee table twice already.”

He crossed the distance slowly, footsteps gentle, stopping just a breath away from you. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Good unbelievable, or weird unbelievable?”

Matt reached out, gently finding your hands. “Good unbelievable.” His voice softened. “You're sweet.”

You smiled, relieved. “So, you’re not mad or anything?”

“Why would I be mad?” He laughed lightly, squeezing your fingers. “But you know you could’ve told me first. I’d have given you some tips.”

“Maybe I wanted to surprise you.”

“Consider me surprised,” he murmured, brushing his thumb along your palm. “Do you want some help?”

You hesitated, chewing your lip thoughtfully. “Just... show me how you do it. How do you walk around here without knocking everything over?”

“It’s mostly memory,” he admitted gently. “And paying attention.”

You smiled playfully. “You sure it’s not your echolocation?”

“Echo—” Matt chuckled, “I don’t have echolocation.”

You tilted your head. “Then what do you call using your enhanced hearing to guide you?”

"Listening carefully," Matt said simply, lips curling into an amused smile. "Echolocation makes me sound like a dolphin."

You laughed softly, squeezing his hands. "Alright then, Daredevil the dolphin."

He groaned, leaning closer to rest his forehead against yours. "Please don't let Foggy hear you say that. I'll never live it down."

"I make no promises," you teased, smiling warmly at his closeness. "So, show me how Daredevil—I mean Matt—listens carefully?"

Matt chuckled, gently sliding an arm around your waist and guiding you away from the counter. "First, relax. You're tense, and it's making everything harder."

"I'm tense because I've been tripping over everything all day," you complained lightly.

"Trust me," Matt murmured, voice soothing. "Close your eyes under that blindfold."

"They already are."

"Good. Now listen." He held you still in the center of the room, his thumb rubbing comforting circles at your side. "Notice the sounds around you. What do you hear?"

You tilted your head slightly, focusing carefully. "I hear... traffic outside. The hum of the refrigerator. And your breathing."

He smiled softly. "Good. Now, deeper. Listen beyond the obvious noises. The way sound reflects off objects, how it changes around furniture or walls."

You breathed deeply, brows knitting together as you concentrated. "How can you possibly hear all that?"

"Practice," Matt admitted quietly. "And necessity."

"It's amazing," you whispered softly. "You're amazing."

He chuckled again, shaking his head. "It's just a skill."

"Don't downplay it," you said gently, leaning into his chest. "I can't even manage one day like this."

Matt pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, holding you carefully. "I appreciate that you're trying."

"Just trying to understand you better."

He smiled into your hair. "You already understand me better than most."

You grinned, lifting your face slightly toward his voice. "Matt?"

"Hm?"

"Am I facing you right now, or am I about to kiss your chin by mistake?"

He laughed softly, cupping your cheek and gently angling your face upward. "Now you are."

"Good," you whispered, brushing your lips softly against his. "This I can get used to."

Matt's smile warmed, and he leaned in again, his voice a playful whisper. "Me too."

You scrunched your nose in thought. “Think I can make dinner like this?”

Matt laughed softly, shaking his head. “Absolutely not.”

You pouted playfully. “You don’t trust me?”

“I trust you,” he assured gently, fingertips brushing against your waist. “But I’d prefer if you didn’t accidentally set the kitchen on fire.”

“You cook blind every day,” you argued lightly. “If you can do it, I can too.”

Matt hummed thoughtfully. “True. But I’ve had years of practice and enhanced senses. You’ve been at it for...” he paused, smiling teasingly, “less than a day.”

“Fair point,” you conceded, smiling. “Alright, what if you help me?”

“I can do that,” Matt agreed. He gently guided you toward the counter, keeping his voice calm. “Step forward, carefully. Counter’s right here.”

You reached out slowly, fingertips brushing cool marble. “Okay, got it. What next?”

“What do you want to cook?”

You tilted your head, thinking. “Something easy. Pasta?”

Matt smiled warmly. “Perfect choice. Pot’s in the cabinet beneath you.”

You bent slowly, hands reaching hesitantly. “Left or right?”

“Left,” Matt instructed calmly. “Careful though, there’s another pot stacked inside.”

You grinned triumphantly as your fingers closed around a handle. “Found it!”

“Good,” he said gently. “Fill it about halfway with water. The sink’s—”

“I know where the sink is, Matthew,” you teased.

He chuckled softly. “Just making sure.”

Carefully, you moved toward the sink, guided by memory and touch. “How am I doing?”

“You’re a natural,” Matt praised, voice filled with gentle amusement.

You smiled proudly, turning on the water and filling the pot halfway. “Okay, next?”

“Stove,” he prompted gently. “Two steps to your right.”

You shuffled sideways, cautiously. “How do I know which burner to use?”

Matt moved closer behind you, his chest lightly brushing your back as he guided your hand. “This one,” he murmured, gently placing your hand over the correct dial.

You smiled softly. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” His voice softened affectionately. “Now, turn it halfway.”

You obeyed carefully, listening to the quiet clicking and hiss of gas. “Done.”

“Perfect,” Matt encouraged. He reached around, taking your hand in his and carefully guiding the pot to the burner.

“How do you always make this look so easy?” you muttered, shaking your head.

Matt laughed softly near your ear. “Years of frustration and burns, honestly.”

You sighed dramatically. “Great, something to look forward to.”

He chuckled gently, giving your hand a reassuring squeeze. “You’re doing fine. Better than I did my first time.”

You leaned back slightly, smiling at the feel of his warmth behind you. “Really?”

He nodded, lips curving softly. “I spilled boiling water everywhere. Foggy banned me from the kitchen for a week.”

You laughed, relaxing into his hold. “At least I haven’t done that yet.”

“Keyword being yet,” Matt teased.

“Hey!” you protested, elbowing him lightly.

He laughed warmly, holding you closer. “Alright, focus. The pasta is on your left, on the counter.”

You reached carefully, fingers finding the familiar box. “How much?”

“Half the box should be fine,” Matt instructed gently. “The water’s not boiling yet, though. You’ll hear it bubble when it’s ready.”

You leaned your head back against his shoulder, listening. “Do you always cook by sound?”

Matt hummed thoughtfully. “Mostly. Sound, touch, and smell.”

You smiled softly. “Teach me.”

“Okay.” Matt took your hand gently, guiding your palm toward the steam just starting to rise from the pot. “Feel the heat?”

You nodded. “Yeah.”

“Listen carefully, the bubbles will start softly. Then louder.”

You tilted your head, listening intently. Gradually, the faint whisper of bubbles grew clearer. “I hear it.”

Matt smiled warmly, proud. “Good. You’re learning fast.”

“I have a good teacher,” you whispered playfully.

Matt chuckled softly, pressing a gentle kiss to your temple. You jerked slightly at the contact, covering your mouth to hide a giggle.

He paused, grinning curiously. “Did I scare you?”

“No,” you muttered quickly, cheeks warming. “Well… I knew you were moving, I just didn’t know where you were moving.”

He hummed, clearly amused. “Still haven’t quite mastered that hearing thing yet, have you?”

“You mean my echolocation skills?” you teased gently, leaning back against him again.

Matt groaned quietly, forehead briefly pressing against your shoulder. “Please don’t call it that.”

“But it fits,” you said innocently. “And it’s adorable.”

“It's ridiculous,” he protested, chuckling softly as his hands settled comfortably at your waist.

You smiled, relaxing further. After a few moments, you heard the soft click of the stove turning off. You tilted your head in confusion. “Why’d you turn the burner off?”

Matt didn't respond immediately. Instead, you felt his hands shift, suddenly lifting you up effortlessly.

You yelped, arms quickly wrapping around his neck. “Matt! What are you doing?”

He laughed warmly, carrying you confidently through the apartment. “I just realized something.”

“What?” you asked suspiciously, gripping him tighter. “That kidnapping is easier when the victim is blindfolded?”

Matt chuckled, amusement clear in his tone. “No. That having you blindfolded could actually be a lot more fun than cooking.”

Your cheeks flushed deeper. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” he whispered playfully, kicking the bedroom door open gently with his foot. “Oh.”

You laughed softly, your fingers gently sliding into his hair. “You’re impossible.”

“And yet,” he murmured as he gently placed you down onto the bed, “you seem to like it.”

Smiling, you reached blindly for him, fingertips grazing his cheek. “Maybe just a little.”

Matt's breath hitched like you’d caught him off guard. Then you felt it—his smile, warm against your palm.

"Only a little?" he murmured, voice dipping low as he leaned into your touch. "I’ll have to change that."

You started to say something snarky, but his hands were already sliding down your sides, steady, careful. His fingers found your hips, squeezing gently. He kissed you again—soft, slow, lips dragging over yours until your breath caught.

Then he dropped lower.

You could feel him shift, the brush of his nose at your throat, the warmth of his mouth trailing down your sternum, kissing between your breasts, slow and unhurried. Your fingers hovered in midair, unsure what to grab onto.

"Matt?"

He didn’t answer. His breath skimmed lower, down your belly, and your breath hitched as he nosed at your waistband. Then he laughed—quiet and low.

"Relax," he said, his voice rough silk. "You look nervous."

"I can’t see you. I don’t know what you’re—"

Your words cut off in a sharp breath as he kissed just below your navel, slow and maddening. Then lower.

"That’s kind of the point, sweetheart."

You flinched when your waistband slid down. His hands were back, working slow, easing your pants down over your hips. You were still reaching out uselessly when he tugged them off completely, and then—silence.

"Matt?"

Nothing but his breath, hot against your thigh.

You tensed. "What are you—"

Then his mouth was on you.

A gasp ripped out of you, head tipping back against the pillows, hands clutching the sheets as his tongue flicked slow, deliberate. You bucked involuntarily and felt a hand on your stomach, grounding you.

"Jesus—Matt—"

He didn’t stop. Just a slow, relentless rhythm, his mouth moving like he could hear every twitch of your body, every gasp, every choked sound.

You whimpered, thighs twitching. "Fuck, I can’t—I don’t know what you’re—"

"Good," he said against you, voice muffled, smug. "Don’t think. Just feel."

You whined, fingers tangling in the sheets tighter, blindfold still in place, the lack of sight making every touch sharper, hotter. You could hear everything—the wet sounds of his tongue, his soft hums against your skin, your own breathless cries.

He licked up slow, then sucked—sharp, sudden.

"Ah—fuck!" You arched, breath stuttering. "Matt, oh my god."

"Mm," he hummed, tongue flicking cruel and perfect. "You sound so good like this."

You were unraveling, hips rolling helplessly against his mouth. He held you steady with an arm slung over your thighs, keeping you exactly where he wanted you.

"I—I can’t—"

"You can," he whispered, the tip of his tongue circling you slow. "C’mon, sweetheart. Let go for me."

One more flick, and the world snapped.

Your whole body jerked, heat crashing through you like a wave breaking over raw nerves. A cry spilled from your mouth before you could muffle it, your thighs shaking, muscles tight. You felt the way he kept licking through it, unrelenting, dragging it out until you were gasping his name again and again.

Finally, finally, he pulled away. You could hear him breathing—steady, controlled. The mattress shifted as he crawled back up.

He kissed your cheek, your jaw, finally brushing his lips against your ear.

"Still think you only like me a little?"

You turned your head toward his voice, smiling weakly. "Okay... maybe more than a little."

His hand slid under the blindfold, thumb brushing your cheek.

"Then let me keep proving it."

You bit your lip. "Is that an offer or a threat?"

He laughed, mouth brushing yours. "Yes."

You were smiling, about to fire back with something snarky, when he moved again. Not a warning. Just his hands on your thighs, nudging them apart, slow and purposeful.

"Wait, what are you—"

"Shh," he whispered, the word soft against your lips. His body slid lower, fingers trailing fire down your sides, slow enough to make your breath hitch.

You reached out blindly, fingers brushing his shoulders, his chest, trying to figure out where the hell he was going next.

Matt's chuckle was low and maddening. "You're really not used to not knowing, huh?"

"No," you muttered, squirming under his touch. "I don’t like surprises."

"You will."

And then he was shifting up again, the heat of his body over yours, chest brushing your shirt where it was still bunched above your breasts. His hand slid under your thigh, lifting, guiding it up around his waist, his other hand braced near your head.

You could feel him now. Thick and hot, dragging against your thigh, teasing where you were still soaked from his mouth.

"Matt..."

He leaned down, lips grazing your jaw. "Still nervous?"

"Only because I can't fucking see what you're about to do," you hissed, hands fisting in the sheets.

He laughed softly, the sound warm and unfairly confident. "Then I'll make it easy. I'm gonna fuck you now."

Your breath caught hard, head tipping back into the pillow.

"Say yes," he murmured, mouth at your neck now, voice rougher. "Say it."

"Yes," you breathed. "Fuck—yes."

You barely got the last syllable out before he was pushing in, slow but steady. Your mouth dropped open with a gasp, the stretch burning and perfect.

"F-fuck—Matt—"

He groaned into your neck, the sound guttural. "God, you're tight."

You clung to his shoulders, digging your nails in as he sank deeper, inch by inch, until his hips were flush with yours and you couldn't breathe around the fullness.

"You okay?" he whispered, voice tight with restraint.

"Yeah," you managed, nodding, biting your lip. "Just—move. Please."

Matt pulled back, slow at first, then thrust back in with a sharp snap of his hips that made you cry out.

"Ah—fuck!"

He grunted, thrusting again, a steady rhythm that made the bed creak. You were so hyperaware, every sound amplified under the blindfold. The slap of skin, the ragged edge of his breath, the wet drag of your body clenching around him.

"You hear that?" he growled, fucking into you harder. "That's how wet you are."

You whimpered, fingers scrambling to find something to hold. He caught your wrists, pinning them above your head, fucking you deeper, harder, each thrust angled like he knew exactly what would ruin you.

"You're fucking trembling," he rasped.

"Because I can't see anything—"

"Exactly," he growled. "You can't brace for it. Can't anticipate. Just feel."

You sobbed out a moan, back arching, thighs shaking around his hips. "Matt, fuck—oh my god—"

His mouth was back on your jaw, your throat, kissing, biting. "C'mon, sweetheart. Let me hear you."

You did. Every snap of his hips forced another sound out of you. Moans, gasps, whimpers that spilled uncontrolled. You could feel yourself unraveling again, tighter, hotter than before.

"You gonna come for me again?"

You nodded frantically, barely able to speak. "Yes—yes, please, I'm—fuck, I'm close."

He let go of your wrists, hand sliding between you. Two fingers found your clit, circling, rubbing just right, and that was it.

You broke.

"Ahh—fuck! M-Matt!" You cried out loud, body locking up as the orgasm tore through you like a live wire, your hips jerking, thighs squeezing around him.

He groaned hard, breath catching as you clenched around him. "Jesus, you feel so good when you come."

You were still shuddering, barely conscious of anything but him still thrusting through the aftershocks.

"Gonna fill you up," he muttered, the pace faltering. "Fuck, I'm gonna—"

You barely managed to whimper a "yes" before he buried himself deep, hips grinding against you as he came, groaning low in your ear.

Neither of you moved for a long moment. You were still gasping, blindfold damp, your fingers twitching.

Matt finally shifted, brushing his nose along your cheek. "Still don’t like surprises?"

You let out a shaky laugh. "I might be warming up to them."

His smile was against your mouth. "Told you."

the title was meant to insinuate "butterflies in my stomach." anyways, weird fun fact about me, i'm terrified of butterflies. don't ask why bc i don't know i just am, lol

[nerdygirlramblings]

lots happening folks. we're almost at the end, now. this one's a little longer than normal.

Despite the plan you had when your gods were here, now, watching your people respond to Fra's blessings, you know you cannot continue on the path you intended. Many of your people seem to trust the gods on blind faith, their miracles evidence enough of your people's blessing. The Elders, however, remain steadfast in their collective unease.

At night, you try to discuss it, but your gods already know. "We trust you will restore them, my queen," Jon murmurs into your hair, twining his naked legs with yours as you rest against Tav's chest. More and more often, when you see them at night - for you accept these are not truly dreams - they are all together. You also find yourself desiring to give them your body in these moments, not out of an obligatory sacrifice but because it is what you want for yourself. What you want from them.

Their trust in you to bring the others back gives you the courage to approach the Elders after the next full moon and ask for an altar for Lex. You explain his role as a messenger and how the people's prayers are better served with Lex's aid. Elder Stigr is outright suspicious of you, but the others are less so, though your place as a woman, seer or not, does not help you. They do, however, concede to your wish.

The night Lex's altar is completed, you dream of a tall man with hair like wheat and an open, inviting smile. He tells you to tell Vigi, one of the older farmers, to pay attention to how the flowers along the main path out of the village grow. You do not understand his message at first, but tell Vigi of your dream anyway. Vigi is like Elder Stigr and does not fully believe because he does not see.

A week after your dream of Lex, Vigi finds you tending the shrines and tells you he's figured out a way to get the crops to grow faster and stronger, something he could do only because of the dream you shared.

At night, your gods tell you how some villagers have set up small altars in their home. Si mentions how the village healer, Thone, has a shrine of his to which she prays twice a day: in the morning she asks Si to spare those whom she can save, and at night she thanks him for ending the suffering of those she could not help. Tav and Gaz boast of several farmers who have altars to them both, with frequent offerings and prayers for a good harvest. Even Jon comments on an Elder, he doesn't say which, who secretly prays to Jon to maintain the current peace.

One full moon goes by. Then another. A third. You request no new shrines. At night, conversation is on anything but the task your gods have set for you. Si shows you the land of the dead where souls are cared for, and those who suffered most are most tenderly watched. Jon shows you how, slowly, they are reclaiming their palace on Fjall Gothar. He delights especially in the throne room where one throne, larger and more ornate than the others, his, sits in a place of pride.

By the fourth full moon, you approach the Elders about the altars for Las and Wel, more than confident you will get what you ask. You've learned from your gods how to manipulate the hearts and minds of men grasping for power, and with this request you will put that knowledge to the test. Elder Stigr's wife, Unnr, whom he married after his first tragically passed in childbirth, along with the babe, is pregnant again, and this time it seems the child will survive until their birth. You know Stigr desires little as much as he is desperate for an heir. When you explain who Las and Wel protect, you watch the anger war with hope on Stigr's face. "Why have these twinned goddesses not been part of our prayers earlier?" Stigr snaps, voice laced with accusation.

"The tome I found, the one I used to beg help from the others only listed Jon, Tav, Gaz, and the god of death. Fra and Lex have come to me as we seem to need them. Perhaps this is the same with Las and Wel. Perhaps the gods feel Las and Wel can help us continue to thrive." Most of the Elders had nodded along as you spoke, having seen how interventions from the earlier gods seemed to come at the moment they were needed.

Elder Stigr must have felt the pull to do all he could to protect his wife and unborn child for his was the first voice to approve the new altar and, more surprisingly, even volunteered to help source the materials to build and shroud the altar. The night it is completed, you dream of several women. You recognize Thone and Unnr as well as the goddess Fra. With them are two women you know must be Las and Wel. Like Lex, Las has hair the color of grains and a strong, sturdy frame. Wel is her dark counterpoint: hair dark as night drapes down around a willowy build. The goddesses talk with Thone about how to care for Unnr, how to ensure she bears a healthy baby boy.

Members of your village have never been in your dreams before, so when morning comes, you stop in to see Thone. As you approach her house, she is bustling out, arms loaded with tinctures and remedies. "Oh!" she says, nearly bumping into. "I'm sorry. Did you need me? I must be off to see Unnr." Your confusion must show as Thone lowers her voice conspiratorially and leans to you, "I had a dream. Several women - they said they were goddesses though I had only heard of one, there is a shrine to her with the others I think - told me Unnr's baby would be stronger than the last few. That he would make it, but only with my help." She stands and finishes with, "I'm not like you and don't put much stock in my own dreams, but when I woke, I couldn't shake the feeling like I should do as the dream said."

You watched, dumbfounded, as Thone left her home for that of Elder Stigr. Your job was almost done. You were dually excited and terrified of what would happen when at last Ale and Rudi were restored. But that was a concern for another day. Instead, on your morning rounds, you made sure to leave extra offerings for your goddesses in thanks.

more

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taglist: @hidden-treasures21 @lostintransist @sirbonesly

[n0rmal-cat]

Yandere Farmer x Thief reader- simple instructions

[yeah sorry for whatever is happening, let me know if there’s any trouble]

You wake up with a groan, dreading the morning light that floods your senses like a harsh reminder of your dreary existence—cold, dark, and uninviting. You’d gladly slip back into sleep, surrendering to the comforting embrace of oblivion. But as you turn over, expecting the familiar hardness of an abandoned building’s floor beneath you, you instead find yourself nestled on a soft pillow. Where are you?

You glance around the room, and the sunlight streaming through the window suggests it’s probably mid-day. "How did I end up here? Did I sleep with someone?" you wondered.

Rising from the bed, you stretch your limbs, stepping out of the bed feeling a softness beneath your feet. "Wow, carpeted floors, fancy... oh, and pyjamas damn." Just then, the door creaks open, must be the lucky-.

"Didn't I tell you to get up before seven?" His voice sends a shiver down your spine. "You!? I thought you were... it wasn't a dream?!" you yell in surprise. "I wouldn't call you stealing from me a dream, but I assure you, I'm entirely real." He removes his hat, revealing beads of sweat trickling down his face and a slight sunburn marking his arms—no, stop that!

"So what time is it, then? If you wanted me up, why didn't you just wake me?" you ask. "Half past eleven. Now tell me, if I woke you up, would you have learned?" His accent is thick as he steps closer, his presence closing in. "A dog needs to be trained, doesn't it?" He stops right in front of you, an imposing figure. "Now, back on the bed." Heat floods your cheeks, turning your face as red as a ripe tomato. "W-what?"

"What, you don't understand simple instructions?" He towers over you, commanding. Without a word, you find yourself sitting back on the bed, heat coursing through you. He kneels before you, grasping your ankle with one hand and sliding the soft fabric of your pyjama pant leg up while rummaging through his pocket with the other. You bite your lip you hadn’t anticipated things taking this turn, but if you’re honest with yourself, you aren’t complaining. You release a shaky breath and close your eyes in anticipation.

A soft click resonates in the silence, and you snap your eyes open, realization dawning as you look down. "What is..." You gaze at your foot, wide-eyed. "Did you put an ankle monitor on me?!" Staring up at him in disbelief, he dusts off his hands with a satisfied smirk.

"How else am I supposed to ensure you don’t run away before you repay your debt?" You’re left speechless, taking in the situation, words failing you. "I'll be downstairs. Get ready and come down quickly because you're already on thin ice, pest." With that, he strides out of the room, leaving you in stunned silence. You lift your foot, inspecting the monitor strapped to your ankle. Etched in golden lettering is the name "August."

"I don’t know if I should feel turned on or pissed off... I guess I’ll get dressed." You make your way to the closet, which is a chaotic jumble of clothes none in the same size or style, and most appear to be barely even cleaned. After some debating , you settle on a simple shirt paired with overalls, the only outfit that seems relatively clean.

After getting ready, you make your way downstairs, trying your hardest not to make a sound. Even though he already knows you’re in the house, it’s a habit you picked up over the years of breaking into people’s homes. As you reach the kitchen, the man you now suspect is ‘August’ is busy cooking something unidentifiable.

The air is thick with an odour that hits you like a freight train—reminiscent of rotten meat. You quickly cover your nose, suppressing a gag. "Do you normally make this much noise when you try to sneak up on someone?" he comments without turning around. "Well, it’s hard when whatever you’re cooking smells like shit..." He hums to himself, his demeanour unperturbed. "Should I gag you as well? You seem to run your mouth a lot. Your food is already on the table."

And so it was, a perfect picture of pancakes, bacon and eggs, but again with the smell of...whatever that was in your nose you couldn't bring yourself to eat anything.

"So what are you cooking then?" you move to try to see what was on the pan but he blocks you with his shoulder.

"my lunch, now eat" his tone firm.

"ah I don't think I can eat right now-" you started to protest, but he spun around, gripping both your shoulders "I had leniency on you in the morning, I made you a full plate for you, lord knows you haven't eaten in a while"

"you don't know that"

"I've watched you on my cameras steal my excitement and sell it off just to get a meal, I quite literally see my logo in the pawn shop every weekend I go back to buy my own stuff, did you not question why you kept taking the same plow every time?"

He seated you forcefully at the table, you couldn’t help but feel a mix of emotions, it felt nice to be here, I mean he was right, the last decent meal you had was well...

"ok fine ill eat the damn food, can you at least tame your 'lunch' to a different room?"

"I already ate" he crossed his arms, a bit of sauce dripped down his chin, you narrowed your eyes at him as you cut into your pancakes.

“So, what am I supposed to do to repay this debt?” you asked, chewing.

“You’ll be working for me, just as I said—feeding the animals, helping me carry food to the stalls,” he replied, leaning forward.

“You don’t really look like you need much help with that,” you mumbled through a mouthful of food.

He leaned over on the table with his hand "And I definitely don't, but I told you I would train you wouldn't I?"

"I guess..."

he took your chin with his rough hands "When you're done come out to the back, but I want that plate to be clean" You feel a knot in your stomach as you nod.

“Good job,” he praised, "I'm glad you can understand simple instructions" Your face travelled with his hand as he walked out through the back door.

You swallowed hard, the remnants of your meal suddenly feeling heavy in your throat. “Holy shit…”

[Please be patient with me I had a rough day, the art is 70% done I’m just not in the right mood.]

[marvelseries19]

STILL HERE

Chapter Three - Castaway

Chapter one | Chapter two | Chapter three

Pairings: Natasha Romanoff x female agent reader

Genre: Angst

Summary: Time has passed. You've survived, learned how to get food and water, keep warm, and even made a friend, but at what cost?

A/N: I'm kinda lowkey proud of the summary this time :) Here's another chapter, probably out of four or five, maybe, not sure yet. As usual, your feedback is welcome, suggestions, questions, or anything is also welcome, I'm all ears... well, eyes. Enjoy :) By the way, do you guys actually read these things?

Warnings: +18, just because at this point.

Word count: 3k+

[You do not have permission to repost or translate any of my stories or claim them as yours.]

Time had become a blur. Days bleeding into nights, seasons shifting with little mercy. The island was cruel and beautiful, both a sanctuary and a cage.

You had grown leaner, stronger. Survival demanded it. The shoulder you’d dislocated never healed quite right, a constant, dull ache that you had learned to push through. The broken ribs had mended, though not without their own reminders—twinges of pain that flared up when you pushed yourself too hard.

The fire crackled steady and sure, a sound you no longer flinched at. It had taken you months to master fire — blistered hands, frustration, tears you hadn’t wanted to shed. Now, it came easily. A skill carved into your bones like every other survival instinct you’d been forced to learn.

You sat cross-legged on the packed earth outside your cave — your cave now — tucked into the cliffs where the ocean wind couldn’t reach you at night. It wasn’t home, but it was shelter. Dry. Warm. Stockpiled with everything you’d salvaged or shaped over three years: rusted metal scraps from the wreck, woven nets, jars made of carved-out gourds, sharpened bones, and a shelf of smooth stones that held what little was left of the emergency kit.

You’d even made a bed out of dried grass and woven mats. It still smelled like salt and earth, but it didn’t hurt to sleep on anymore.

The fish crackled over the flames, speared cleanly on a hand-carved skewer. You didn’t miss anymore — not when it came to spearfishing. The water was your rhythm now. You knew how the shadows moved, where the fish hid, and how long you could hold your breath before your lungs screamed.

You survived.

But that didn’t mean you were whole.

You turned to the coconut sitting beside you, her painted face faded but still watching—always watching.

Red.

You gave her a nod, like she was an old friend. Maybe she was. Maybe she was all you had left.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” you muttered, your voice hoarse from days without speaking.

It was always worse when you didn’t talk. Your thoughts got louder. Messier.

“She’d laugh, you know. If she could see this,” you said to Red. “I made a shelf yesterday. A shelf. Out of driftwood and spite.”

Red didn’t answer, but you imagined her smirking. Natasha used to do that — that crooked half-smile when you were being ridiculous.

The ache came back, low in your chest. The kind that didn’t go away with fire or fish or sleep.

“I don’t know what day it is,” you said quietly. “Haven’t for a long time. I stopped marking them when the notches on the wall started to look like a prison.”

Your eyes drifted to the makeshift calendar you’d abandoned. Years, etched in stone. A tally of time that had started feeling like a weight instead of a reminder.

“I talk to you more than I talk to myself now,” you added, glancing at Red. “It’s easier to pretend you’re listening. Pretend I’m not completely losing my mind.”

You leaned forward, resting your arms on your knees, eyes on the fire. The light cast shadows on your face, highlighting the sharpness that hadn’t been there before. The hollows. The scars.

You were still you. But not the same.

“I think I forgot what she smells like,” you whispered. “That’s the part I wasn’t ready for. How your brain starts… letting go. Of little things. Her perfume. The sound she made when she laughed. Her voice saying my name.”

You didn’t cry. Not anymore. You didn’t have the energy to mourn things you couldn’t get back.

“But I still remember how she looked at me. Like I was worth something.”

A breeze passed. You looked up toward the treetops. No birds. No planes. Just the whisper of wind and the endless sound of waves below.

You reached out and gently adjusted Red’s flower crown, then leaned your shoulder against her.

“I’m not crazy,” you told her. “Not really. Just lonely... I just want to go home."

The fish was done. You took it off the stick you made and tore into it with practiced ease. Nourishment. Function. Habit.

But when the fire dimmed and the shadows stretched longer, you didn’t move. You just sat there, shoulder to a coconut, staring at the dark.

And for a moment, just a flicker, you imagined you weren’t alone.

—

The Hydra agent coughed again, wheezing through cracked ribs and the blood clogging his throat. Natasha didn’t flinch.

She stood at the edge of the warehouse, the shadows clinging to her like a second skin, eyes fixed on the man she’d dragged here three nights ago. He was barely conscious now. Not because she needed answers. She didn’t.

She already knew everything.

Hydra had tracked your flight. Waited until you were far enough from any backup. Shot you out of the sky like they were swatting a fly.

They hadn’t even known where you landed. They didn’t care. You weren’t the mission.

You were just the message.

She didn’t scream when she found out. Didn’t cry. Natasha Romanoff didn’t cry in front of others.

But she made sure he did.

The man tied to the chair hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger, but he had smiled when she mentioned your name. That was enough.

Now, he couldn’t smile anymore. His jaw hung crooked. One eye swollen shut. The other darted toward the dark corners of the room like he was still looking for an exit.

There wasn’t one.

Natasha didn’t speak for a long time. The silence did more damage than any threat could.

Then, finally—

“She was supposed to come home.”

Her voice was quiet. Barely there. Almost soft. The kind of softness that came before a storm leveled the world.

“You didn’t take her from S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers. You took her from me.”

She stepped into the light. Blood dried on her knuckles. Her face was blank. Hollow. She looked like someone who hadn’t slept in weeks.

Because she hadn’t.

“She fought for people who didn’t deserve her. She smiled when she was exhausted. She—” Her voice cracked. She swallowed it down. “She was going to marry me.”

The agent trembled. Natasha tilted her head.

“You don’t get to die easy,” she said. “You don’t get to be a name in a report.”

He opened his mouth — maybe to beg, maybe to explain, maybe to lie — but she raised her hand, and he stopped.

“Don’t. I don’t care what you say. I’m not here for closure. I’m here for balance.”

She didn’t scream when it ended.

She just stood there for a long time afterward, staring at what was left of him like maybe it would make a difference. Like maybe pain could fill the hollow space you left behind.

It didn’t.

The room smelled like blood and gasoline.

She left without looking back.

—

Steve and Clint didn’t know where she’d gone. Not exactly. But they knew enough to follow the silence. She hadn’t answered her comms in two days, and when Clint finally cracked and tracked her location, he showed the screen to Steve with a sigh that said more than words ever could.

They waited until she came back.

When Natasha entered the safehouse, covered in dried blood and someone else’s regrets, they were already there — sitting in the dark like ghosts.

She didn’t flinch. She just dropped her weapons on the table with a clatter and peeled off her gloves.

“I’m not in the mood.”

Clint’s voice was soft, like he’d practiced it a hundred times before saying it out loud.

“You’re not the only one who lost her, Nat.”

Natasha didn’t look at him.

Steve spoke next, standing near the window, arms crossed like he was holding himself together by will alone.

“She wouldn’t want this.”

That made her look up—slow and sharp.

“Don’t,” she said, and her voice had teeth.

“She wouldn’t,” Steve repeated. “You know it. She wouldn’t want you to burn down everything just to feel something.”

“I’m not doing this for her,” Natasha snapped. “I’m doing it for me.”

Clint stood now, voice low, pained. “No, you’re doing it because it’s the only thing you know how to do. Hurt the people who hurt you. Hurt them enough to numb the rest.”

“She’s not coming back,” Steve said gently.

The words hit harder than a punch. Natasha blinked like he’d slapped her. Then she turned away from both of them.

“You think I don’t know that?”

“You haven’t let yourself know it,” Clint said, stepping closer. “You’ve been chasing leads that go nowhere, carving bodies like they’ll give you peace. But there’s nothing left out there, Nat. And there’s nothing left in here either. Not like this.”

“I can’t let it go,” she whispered, not to them — maybe not even to herself. “If I stop, it’ll mean she’s really gone.”

Silence stretched.

Steve’s voice softened. “That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is,” Natasha whispered. “Because if I stop fighting for her, I won’t know who I am anymore.”

Clint came up beside her. Didn’t touch her. Just stood there.

“Maybe it’s time to remember who you were before you met her. And who you were because of her.”

Natasha stayed quiet. Long enough that they thought maybe she was shutting down again.

But then she spoke.

“I want to go home.” Though it wasn't really, not without you.

The apartment was still.

Too still.

The kind of quiet that didn’t feel peaceful — it felt wrong. Like the walls were holding their breath.

Her fingers hesitated over the lock, then turned. The door opened with the softest creak, and suddenly she was inside, and the air hit her all at once — stale and untouched, like time had frozen the moment you were gone.

Everything was exactly how you left it.

The coffee mug you always forgot on the side table. The jacket draped across the back of the couch, still wrinkled at the elbows where you used to fold your arms. The boots by the door, still dusted with sand from that last trip you took together — the one where you’d laughed so hard she’d forgotten to be afraid.

Her legs moved without permission.

She walked through the apartment like it might vanish if she stepped too loud. A ghost drifting through a life that used to be hers. Your toothbrush was still in the cup. Your handwriting is still on the list stuck to the fridge—"get milk / remember to breathe.”

She couldn’t breathe.

She opened the bedroom door last.

It smelled faintly of you — faded now, but still there. That quiet warmth you always carried with you, even when the rest of the world felt cold.

She crossed to the closet and stared at it for a long time before reaching out.

Her hand trembled as she slid the door open.

The clothes inside swayed gently, like they’d been waiting for her. She touched the sleeve of your favorite sweater, then the collar of the shirt she always teased you about — the one you insisted was “lucky.”

And then she saw it.

Half-buried in the back of the closet, tucked behind a shoebox and the coat you never wore — a scarf.

Yours.

She stared at it for several seconds, like her brain needed time to register that it was real. That something of you was still here, still whole, still untouched by the fire that burned everything else to ash.

Her fingers reached out. The fabric was soft and warm.

Her breath hitched.

She pulled it from the shadows slowly, as if afraid it might disintegrate in her hands. The color was faded in places. The end was frayed. It still had that slight bend in the middle where you used to loop it around your neck. She held it like it might break.

And then she broke instead.

Her knees gave out before she could stop them, and she collapsed onto the hardwood floor with the scarf clutched to her chest like a lifeline. Her forehead pressed to her knees. Her breath shattered.

The scent hit her next.

That faint trace of you — barely there, but unmistakable.

And with it came everything else.

The way you used to hum when brushing your teeth. The way you’d curl up beside her on the couch and tuck your cold feet under her thighs. The way you kissed her like you were memorizing the taste of home.

Gone.

You were gone.

And she was still here.

A sob tore free before she could choke it down. Raw. Violent. Like something in her ribs had snapped and let all the air rush out at once. Then another followed, and another, until her whole body was shaking from the force of it.

She curled in on herself, scarf clutched so tight her knuckles went white. Her shoulders shook. Her lips formed your name like a prayer — or a plea.

No one saw her.

No one heard.

Just her and the scarf and the weight of everything she’d been pretending not to feel. The pain she’d hidden behind missions and knives and revenge. The aching silence she drowned in every night when she refused to sleep in a bed that no longer had you in it.

She wept until her throat was raw and her chest hurt from the effort.

She stayed there long after the tears stopped.

Until her body went still.

Until the sun began to rise, casting soft light through the window onto the floor where she lay curled — a soldier made small by grief.

And in her arms, the last piece of you she hadn’t yet let go.

—

The rain had passed by morning, leaving the jungle slick with mist and the air heavy with salt. You’d waited for it — not just because the humidity made it easier to gather drinking water, but because the downpour loosened the earth on the cliffs and gave you better access to what remained of the wreck.

The quinjet had broken apart when it hit the ocean. You remembered that. The sound of metal screaming underwater, the taste of blood, the impossible pressure of being dragged down, limbs locked in panic. You weren’t supposed to survive that.

But you did.

And over the last three years, you’d pulled every salvageable piece of that ship from where the tide left it to rot — a shattered wing here, the broken skeleton of a cockpit there, the cracked remains of what once might’ve been a comms panel, now warped and corroded with salt.

You didn’t know what you were doing at first. Just collecting. Hoarding scraps like they might build a bridge home if you stacked them high enough.

But over time, you started remembering things.

Training. Systems. The way the emergency transponders were built to last, even in the worst-case scenario. They were buried deep — meant to survive a crash, even when the rest of the jet didn’t.

You’d found one last week. It had taken you six months of digging and prying and near-broken fingers just to reach that compartment. It wasn’t intact. Of course it wasn’t. But the casing had survived, and inside—something.

Maybe hope.

Now, sitting under the overhang just outside your cave, your fingers worked through the wires like it was surgery. You’d cannibalized parts from every ruined circuit board, every scrap of antenna you could find. You’d melted rusted solder with fire-heated blades. Wrapped copper with woven threads of your own hair when the cables snapped too short.

And now, by some miracle or madness, the thing sparked.

Just once.

But it was enough.

Your breath caught.

It wouldn’t send a full message — not voice, not even coordinates. But maybe it could do what transponders were built for: a repeating pulse. A ping. Something low-frequency. Something that, if someone out there was listening, could be traced.

You twisted the stripped cable back into the rusted port and flipped the switch.

Nothing.

You held your breath.

Then—

A faint click. A pulse. Barely audible. A slow, steady signal thumping out into the static.

It was working.

It was working.

You didn’t smile. Not really. Your face didn’t know how to do that anymore. But your chest rose, a little higher than it had in weeks. You closed your eyes and let yourself sit with it.

Maybe someone would hear.

—

Somewhere far away — in the middle of a quiet SHIELD base buried in low orbit — a console that hadn’t lit up in months gave a quiet chirp.

Maria Hill didn’t look up right away.

She’d been running diagnostics. Useless protocols. The kind of tasks she took on when sleep refused to come and she wanted something to distract her from the impossible ache in Natasha’s voice every time she said your name.

But then the console chirped again.

She frowned.

An old transponder signature — SHIELD-embedded, but ancient. Malfunctioning. The code was warped and barely legible. Buried in interference. But the system flagged it anyway, because deep in the mess of static…

…it was repeating.

Her fingers moved over the keyboard.

Isolating.

Narrowing.

The pulse came again.

Her heart climbed into her throat.

It couldn’t be.

The signal was weak. Crude. Barely functional. Like someone had thrown together scraps and bones and coaxed them into whispering across the void.

But it was enough.

Maria stared at the screen, her hands frozen above the keys.

Then, slowly, she sat up straighter.

“…Natasha.”

She didn’t call her yet. Not yet.

But the screen glowed, and the signal repeated, and for the first time in years…

…it wasn’t just silence anymore.

-----

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