#I cannot HANDLE ANGST WELL | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

asahicore · 1 year ago

Text

stupid in love - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact

pairing. best friend!sunghoon x fem!reader

synopsis. One night early on in your summer vacation, your best friend Sunghoon admits that his biggest anxiety about starting college is going there as a virgin - one thing leads to another, and you end up learning a few things from each other. The more time passes, the more obvious it becomes that your feelings for each other surpass friendship, but with the end of summer looming over your heads, it's hard to tell where these newfound emotions will lead you.

genre. best friends/childhood friends 2 lovers, summer au, lots of fluff and smut but also some angst to spice things up, when i say smut i mean LOTS of smut. like mostly smut lol (mutual first time, ice play, crazy stuff)

word count. 22.1k

a/n. bringing this one back from the pits of my google docs guys.. its been so long since i've posted anything and im not sure when the new hoon fic will be ready so i thought i'd repost an og asahicore fic!!! the title was originally 'hot like ice' but i changed it bc this is my blog and i do what i want <3 i'd also like to say that in terms of plot this is probably not something i would write nowadays, it's very smut-heavy and thats not what im about now idk i was crazy back then... but i rmb being happy w this fic and its reception when i first posted it so i'm happy to have it back on my blog and hope u guys will like it too <3 as always lmk what u think!!

It all started with a lollipop. Well, two, to be exact. One strawberry-flavored, one apple-flavored.

You stand in front of your friend, lollipops in hand. “Which one do you want, Hoon?”

“I don’t mind, just pick whichever one you like best,” he replies absent-mindedly, eyes on the TV as he tries to find a suitable movie for this late summer afternoon.

You plop down on the couch next to him and look at the two lollipops in your hands, unable to decide which flavor you like better. “I don’t know what I feel like right now,” you announce to an uninterested Sunghoon. “I’ll just try both.”

That seems to catch your best friend’s attention. He watches as you unwrap both candies, tasting each once, twice, then as you decide you want the apple-flavored lollipop and hand him the strawberry-flavored one. He doesn’t take his eyes off of your lips as you wrap them and swirl your tongue around the candy, letting its sweetness wash over your taste buds. You raise your eyebrows when you notice his staring and he blinks a couple times, trying to snap himself out of it. “Did you want the other one?” you ask, confused by his behavior.

“N-no, I like strawberry,” he stammers, turning his gaze back to the screen in front of you and settling for ‘When Harry Met Sally,’ a movie you’ve both seen a thousand times but never get bored of.

You’re used to Sunghoon getting lost in his thoughts, so you don’t question it much. You sit back on the couch, your knee touching his. You two are no strangers to a little skinship - after being friends for almost eight years, physical contact comes naturally. You have to admit that recently, it’s started to feel different; but the idea of your friendship changing tugs at your heartstrings so much that you ignore the prickles on your skin when he hugs you or the way your stomach flips when he smiles at you, dimples and sharp canines on display. You tell yourself it’s all stupid and that you can handle so much as your knees touching.

Sunghoon, on the other hand, can't. The lollipop in his mouth right now was in yours mere moments ago and you’d given it to him like sharing saliva was no big deal. He feels like a thirteen year-old for thinking like this, but this was pretty much an indirect kiss.

He stares at the TV screen, but all he can see are your perfect lips sucking that lollipop, and his mind is desperately not trying to go there, but he just cannot help himself. Blood rushes to his dick as he pictures your mouth around him, sucking him off with as much enthusiasm as you are the lollipop. Would you like his taste? Would you look up at him with those pretty eyes of yours, smiling even with his dick stuffed in your mouth?

His own thoughts catch him off guard, and before they can get any wilder, he runs off to the bathroom, knowing he’d never live it down if you caught a glimpse of his erection. Thankfully, you don’t, and you call after him, asking if he wants you to pause the movie, to which he shouts back a strangled ‘no.’

He comes back ten minutes later, face flushed and breath heavy. “Goddamn, Hoon, I know we’re best friends, but if you’re going to dump a massive load, I wished you did it in your own bathroom and not mine,” you tease him, laughing as his face gets even redder and he opens his mouth to protest.

“I was just on my phone!” he replies, mildly offended.

“Whatever,” you say, still laughing, and turn your attention back to the movie.

Well. Sunghoon would rather have you think he just took a huge shit than have you know he came to the idea of you sucking him off and swallowing every last drop of his cum.

A few days later, you and Sunghoon are lying on his bed, the both of you on your backs, talking about this and that as you often do. It’s almost 3 a.m., and it feels almost rebellious, being up this late after months of waking up at 6, but your high school graduation was a week ago and you feel like you can do anything. The dim fairy lights you forced him to put up and the bright moon outside are the only sources of light in the room, and when you turn to look at him, you can just make out the outline of his face, the curve of his nose, the sharpness of his jaw. You've looked at him a thousand times before, so your memory makes up for what the light takes away from your eyes. You shift to lying on your stomach, propping yourself up on your elbows so you can take a better look at your friend. Something about the moonlight makes him look ethereal, and his beauty makes your heart skip a beat, but you’d never admit that to him. Out of habit, you reach out to touch his moles, gently placing your middle finger on his nose and your pointer finger on his cheek. Sunghoon closes his eyes at your touch, used to the warm feeling that settles in his stomach whenever you do that.

“Y/N?” he calls out, just as you pull your fingers away from his moles.

“Yeah?”

He opens his eyes again, meeting yours. “Is there anything you’re scared of for next year? You know, heading off to college and all that?” You shift again and lie on your back, the sides of your two bodies touching. You stare at the ceiling for a while, thinking about his question, and Sunghoon patiently waits for your answer.

“I’m scared about not making friends. I’m not the least outgoing person ever, but it’s so intimidating, not knowing anyone. And it’ll be weird not having you around. Shut up,” you warn before he can make an egotistical remark, so he just chuckles. “I’m also worried about the amount of work I’ll have. I’ve heard so many times that it’s a huge step-up from high school, the workload and the type of work and all that. What if I don’t even like the degree that I chose? I know I can change it, but it still stresses me out. Turning 18 doesn’t feel like a huge deal, but going to college does. It’s when all the responsibility hits. My mom told me to make my own doctor’s appointment the other day, and I almost cried when I had to call them. I’m not gonna have anyone to do my groceries for me. I’m scared I might get an awful roommate. I hate the idea of communal showers. I don’t even know what I want to do after college, and I know I have four years to make up my mind, but I’m scared those four years are gonna flash by and I’ll be indebted and unemployed by the end of it.” You pause to take a breath, and you can feel Sunghoon’s eyes on the sides of your face, but he doesn’t say anything. “Also, I heard that you put on a lot of weight during your freshman year.”

You turn to look at him to find him smiling at you. “Wow. That’s a lot.”

The two of you giggle, eyes not leaving the other’s. After a moment, you turn your gaze back to the ceiling and sigh. “Yeah, I know. But I’m more excited than I am scared. What about you?”

Sunghoon follows your gaze and looks up above him. He doesn’t say anything for a while, and when he finally speaks up, he says it so quietly, you almost don’t hear it. “I’m scared of going to college a virgin.”

You try to stay serious for a few seconds, but you can’t keep your laughter in and snort loudly at your friend’s words, laughing so hard your stomach starts to hurt.

“Don’t make fun of me!” he whines, hands coming up to cover his face.

It takes you a while to calm down; not only was Sunghoon’s statement ridiculous, it was so unexpected that you couldn’t stop laughing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you apologize, catching your breath. “I just can’t believe that that’s what you’re scared of, of all things.”

“What? It’s a perfectly reasonable concern,” he defends himself.

“Nobody’s gonna care if you’re a virgin, Hoon,” you try to reason with him, but if there is one thing your best friend is, it’s stubborn.

“I’m gonna care! What if I like a girl but I can’t bring myself to make a move on her ‘cause I have no experience?”

“But Hoon, chances are she doesn’t have a lot more experience than you do! She’ll be the same age we are, dummy. We’re not sixteen year-olds jumping into a world of twenty year-olds. Sure, some people have their first time in high school, but a lot do it at university. You’ll be fine,” you reassure. His furrowed eyebrows and pout tell you he’s not fully convinced, though.

“Oh, c’mon! If you really want to lose your virginity before leaving, we can get you laid during the summer. I’m sure we can find a girl nice enough,” you tease, jokingly patting his bicep, trying not to make a note of how firm the skin feels under your hand.

Sunghoon sighs, and you can tell he’s actually taking this seriously. “I’m not that desperate that I’d have sex with the first girl that agrees, you know. I’d still rather do it with someone…” He glances at you for just a second. “Someone I trust.”

You feel your face heat up at the possible meaning behind his words, so you look away, not wanting him to see the effect they had on you. He changes his position on the bed, and now it’s his turn to prop himself up on his elbows and look down at you.

“What about you, Y/N? Don’t you think it’d be good to get a bit of experience before going off to college? It’ll be one less thing to stress about,” he says, a small smirk playing on his lips, and his shy demeanor from moments prior is completely gone. Out of fear that his ego would get even bigger, you'd never tell him, but you love it when he gets like that - when he thinks he’s the shit and teases you mercilessly. You know he does it lightheartedly, and it never fails to bring a smile to your face.

Except right now it does. You’re not smiling, far from it; you’re looking up at your best friend, mouth slightly agape and wide eyes searching for a sign that he may be just joking. He raises an eyebrow expectantly, and your reaction is to scoff at him.

“Do I need to remind you that you’re the reason I have no experience to begin with, Park Sunghoon?” you ask, sitting up on the bed to peer down at him. He shifts again and lays on his back, his hands coming up behind his head as he beams at you.

“Am I really?”

You wish you could slap that shit-eating grin off of his face. This is not the first time you're having this conversation. “Yes, Hoon. Every time a guy was even remotely interested in me, you chased them away. I’m still not over you telling Kang Taehyun I have smelly feet! I had a huge crush on that guy!”

Sunghoon loudly laughs at the memory, and you curse yourself for cracking a smile when you see his face scrunched in laughter. “That was in Year 5, Y/N! It’s been years!”

You grab a pillow and throw it at his head, unable to not laugh along with him. “What about Bang Yedam, then? That was only last year, and you totally ruined my chances with him!”

“Listen, if you having a creepy doll collection is enough to make him not ask you out, then he must not have liked you that much.”

“But I don’t have a creepy doll collection! That’s the whole point!” you say, on the brink of desperation. You sigh at your friend who’s still catching his breath from laughing so much. “You’re just lucky they didn’t repeat your bullshit to anyone. I would’ve had such a weird reputation otherwise.”

“Of course they didn’t. I told them I’d kill them if they did,” he stated matter-of-factly, as if that was a normal and appropriate thing to do.

“Couldn’t you have threatened them that way so they wouldn’t ask me out instead of lying to them about me?”

Sunghoon stares at you for a few seconds, eyes seemingly empty of thought. “Huh. Yeah, I guess I could’ve done that.”

“Ugh,” you groan, and plop down on the bed next to him. Neither of you says anything for some time, until you break the silence again. “You know you even stole my first kiss, Hoon,” you speak softly.

“I know,” he says, voice just as quiet as yours. “You never shut up about it.”

“Why would I? I was about to kiss Lee Heeseung, of all people, the boy everybody, including me, had a crush on, but no, someone had to get between us and kiss me in his stead,” you grumble, giving your friend a harsh side-eye.

Sunghoon sighs and shakes his head as if you’re being irrational. “I don’t get why you’re so hung-up on that. Why would you want your first kiss to be because of a middle-school party dare rather than have it with your best friend, whom you know and trust?”

“It was Lee Heeseung, for God’s sake!”

“And I’m Park Sunghoon!”

Still both laying on your backs, you turn your heads to look at each other. There’s something in his eyes you’ve never seen before that you can’t quite put your finger on. The person in front of you is one you’ve known for years now and yet the look in his eyes is of such unfamiliar intensity that it makes your stomach flip. You inhale sharply when his eyes drift down to your lips, and you can’t help but mirror his actions. The atmosphere has flipped like a light switch; it was playful just mere seconds ago, the sound of your usual banter filling up the room. All of a sudden, there’s something heavy dancing in the air around you, and it makes your heart skip a bit faster and your breath a bit shallower.

Your voice is barely above a whisper when you say his name.

“Yeah?” His eyes snap back up to yours, but you're still stuck on his lips. Have they always looked so kissable?

“Why did you do that? Why did you push those boys away from me?” you ask, even though you’ve asked this question a thousand times before. You want to hear his answer again.

“I’ve already told you. You deserved better than them.” Whenever you ask him about it, Sunghoon always stops here, and you never push. But there are unspoken words left hanging that you’re dying to hear.

“Who, then? Who’d be better than them?”

He's quiet for a second. “It’s a secret,” he whispers finally, a small smirk teasing his lips, and you roll your eyes at him. But then your eyes meet again and your breath hitches. You shift to your side so you can face him more fully, and he mirrors your actions.

It’s his turn to say your name. “Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you kissed anyone since?” he asks, coming off shyer than he’d intended to.

You giggle and smack his shoulder lightly. “Why do you wanna know?”

He snickers too and, to your surprise, stops your fist from hitting him a second time, enveloping his larger hand around yours and laying it between the two of you on the bed. “Cause I should know that sorta thing. Also, if you did kiss someone since then, and I didn’t know about it, I'd be upset.”

“Why would you be mad?” you say, still giggling, trying to ignore the way your heartbeat quickens when he threads your fingers with his.

“Because you wouldn’t have told me!”

“Well…”

“No way, Y/N,” he practically shouts, already feeling betrayed, his free hand coming up to grip his heart in fake shock.

“Let me at least finish first,” you protest. He obliges, although he doesn't look very happy about it. “You know that summer 2 years ago I went away to camp?”

“Yeah, worst summer ever.”

“Well, I did sort of… get with someone, that summer,” you say, avoiding Sunghoon’s wide eyes as he gasps loudly.

“What? Who with? How come you didn't tell me?” he exclaims, letting go of your hand. He sits up on the bed and crosses his arms over his chest like an annoyed child.

“Because of this exactly.”

“What’s this?”

“Your reaction right now!” you say, sitting up as well, both of your knees grazing his. The simple touch sends a shiver down your spine that you can only hope he takes no notice of.

“Wouldn’t you be a bit upset if I told you I ‘got with’,” he air-quotes, “a random girl two years ago?”

“No? Especially not if it was two years ago?”

You both look just as confused as the other, obviously not on the same wavelength. He furrows his eyebrows and glares at you. “Well, I am.”

You throw your head back in laughter and place your hands on his knees, but when you come forward again, you overestimate the distance between the both of you and find yourself mere inches from his face. The laughter immediately dies in your throat, and you feel it go dry when your stunned reaction elicits a smirk from him. You don’t know how long you stare into his eyes, all you know is you snap out of it when his gaze drifts down to your lips once more. You’re closer now than you were before, and having him so close makes your mind spin with all the possible outcomes of such proximity. You lean back on the bed, pulling away your hands from his knees to hold yourself up on them.

“There’s no reason to,” you say, hoping that breaking the silence will dissipate some of the tension in the air. You keep going back and forth between familiar and dangerous and you don’t know how long you’ll be able to handle that atmosphere. “It’s not like anything grand happened. We made out a bit and held hands. We never spoke after that summer, otherwise you’d have known about it.”

Sunghoon lets out a low hum. His eyes are still trained on yours, and you wished he’d look away because you can’t seem to do it yourself. He still doesn’t say anything, so you speak up again. “You say that like you’ve never had girlfriends, by the way. Surely you’ve done more than just kissing.” Silence again, and you can’t decipher the look he’s giving you. “So, I don’t know what you’re so scared about, because it’s not like you have zero experience. I’m sure the girls at uni will love you, Hoon.”

He sighs and finally tears his eyes away from yours, and you’re not sure if you’re seeing things because of how dark and late it is or if there’s an actual blush creeping on his cheeks. “Sure, I’ve had a couple girlfriends, but you know they’ve never lasted long,” he says, looking down at his lap. “We made out… I guess I-” he gives you a quick glance, “I’ve touched their boobs and they’ve touched my… you know…”

You can’t help but giggle at how shy your friend is suddenly being. “Can’t even say the word ‘penis’, Hoon?,” you tease, and his eyes snap back up at yours.

“Of course I can. Penis! There.” You look at each other for a few seconds before bursting into laughter, Sunghoon hushing you so you don’t wake up his parents, but his hushes are louder than your laugh. After a couple minutes, you calm down and wipe your tears away, grateful for the break in the tension between you and Sunghoon.

“Anyway, yeah, I guess I don’t have that much experience. Which is why I brought it up in the first place.” And just as quickly as it’d left, the tension is back again.

You look around the room because the weight of Sunghoon’s gaze on your face is unbearable. You release a shaky breath when you feel his gentle hand on your knee, and your eyes drift to it, but you can’t get yourself to look him straight in the eyes.

“Don’t you think it’d be good to get experience before leaving for college, Y/N?” he asks, and you can tell he’s trying to sound confident, but his voice comes out breathier and shakier than he must intend it to.

“I don’t know… I don’t think it’s necessary,” you say, eyes still trained on his hand resting on your knee. He squeezes it a bit, making you finally look up at him. Is it just you, or did the room get hotter all of a sudden?

“Not everything you do has to be out of necessity, you know.”

The both of you stare at each other for a few moments. This shift in your relationship was bound to happen; you’d been feeling it more and more recently. You didn’t use to think twice about Sunghoon taking your hand in his, nor did you feel those stupid butterflies eating away at your stomach every time his gaze lingered for a second too long. You’d tried to reason with yourself that it was just teenage hormones doing their stupid job, and that you were doomed to feel some kind of attraction for your extremely handsome best friend at some point in your life, but that if you ignored it hard and long enough it would go away.

Well, now that Sunghoon’s lips are barely inches away from yours and your skin is on fire under his hand, it definitely isn’t going away.

“What would you do if I kissed you?” Sunghoon asks, eyes fluttering down to your lips. You think he’s looked at your lips more than the rest of your face in the past hour.

“I’d slap you,” you lie, gaze mirroring his.

“Would you really?” he says, and your hesitation makes him smirk slightly.

“No,” you breathe out, and it’s the answer he’s been waiting for, the answer he needs to finally press his soft lips against yours.

You don’t even have the time to savor the moment, though, because the warmth of his lips is gone as quickly as it came. He pulls back, a surprised look in his eyes, as if he can’t believe what he just did. The tension above you breaks and rains down on you like small pieces of confetti that settle comfortably on your head and shoulders. There’s a knot in your stomach but instead of twisting your insides in nervousness, it feels warm and makes you giddy for what’s to come next. Sunghoon’s surprised expression transforms into a grin at the sound of your laughter, and he can’t help but chuckle along with you.

You scooch closer to him, and his other hand comes to rest on your second knee. You can tell he’s not going to do much more, so you lean in bit by bit, and peck him softly on the lips. You both giggle again and you blame the fact that you want to feel his lips on yours again on the late hour of the night. You peck his lips once, twice more, giggling inbetween, but when you peck them a third time, he doesn’t let you pull away and keeps his lips on yours. The sudden added strength takes you aback, but it doesn’t take you long to yield to his touch and kiss him back.

Sunghoon moves his lips slowly against yours and it’s surprisingly easy to fall into his rhythm. You don’t have the most experience with kissing, but something about doing it with your best friend reassures you and your whole body relaxes as you focus on the feeling of his lips moving in cadence with yours. The knot in your stomach stays there and tightens when his hands ride up your thighs and settle on your hips, holding you snugly there. You’re only wearing shorts and his palms against your bare skin make you release a shaky breath in Sunghoon’s mouth. You pull back for a bit, surprised at your own reaction, but nothing has prepared you for the way your best friend looks at you.

His pupils are dilated, dark; his glossed-over eyes bore right into yours. Your breath was already shallow from the kiss, but it’s his gaze that renders you completely breathless. Sunghoon tightens his grip on your hips and leans in for more, but you put a hand on his chest to stop him, making his eyes snap back into focus.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Y/N. I don’t know what took over me. Are you okay?” he asks, as short of breath as you are, but worry laced in his voice.

“No- Yes- I mean, yes, I’m fine, everything’s fine, I just-” you shake your head, trying to gather your thoughts. “I’m just…”

“Tell me. You can tell me,” he says, rubbing gentle circles into your hips with his thumb, and the unfamiliar yet intimate gesture makes it even harder to concentrate.

“We- we’re best friends, right?” you ask, voice trembling, You ask, even though you know the answer, just because you’re afraid the line the two of you have just crossed is already miles behind you, and you won’t be able to retrace your steps.

“Yeah, of course we are,” Sunghoon reassures, head tilting to the side in confusion.

“And best friends… Do they… Well, it’s normal for best friends to kiss, right?” you say, trying to calm the overpowering urge to kiss him again.

Sunghoon chuckles and tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “I don’t know about that, Y/N.”

“Oh,” you breathe.

Sunghoon quickly catches on to your hesitation. “But who cares about what best friends usually do and don’t do?” he says, holding your face between his hands to make you look up at him. “I liked kissing you, just now. I really, really liked it,” he admits, red dusting his cheeks. “Did you?”

You nod, too shy to put just how much you enjoyed kissing Sunghoon into words. “Do you want to do it again?” he asks and chuckles when you nod again, eyes already on his lips. This time, you don’t stop him when he leans in and let him press his lips to yours again. His words have reassured you and you sigh into his mouth, making him smile into the kiss.

His hands ride up a bit and settle on your waist, bringing you a bit closer to him, and you circle your arms around his neck. The shyness of the first kiss is completely gone, and you’re both gaining more and more confidence, letting everything go and focusing solely on where your bodies meet. He tilts his head, deepening the kiss, and you push your body onto his, a sudden need to feel him against you, to feel his strong arms encaging you.

You pull away at the same time to catch your breaths, smiling at each other when you see how lustful the other’s expression is. Sunghoon’s eyes have glossed over once more, and you’re sure yours have too. “C’mere,” he whispers, beckoning you to him. You climb onto his lap, one knee on each side of his hips. “Is this okay?” he asks, but you don’t answer, you just lean in and kiss him again, holding his face in your hand as his hands roam your back over the thin fabric of your t-shirt. Your kisses are curious, the both of you trying to figure out what feels best as you tilt your heads from one side to the other and let your inquisitive hands travel each other’s bodies. Yours find purchase in his hair, and you revel in the sighs that escape his lips whenever you pull and tug at the strands.

As the kiss gets hungrier and needier, his hands fall down to your lower back, and then to your ass. He just cups it for a while, but after a few moments, grabs it harder and brings you close to him, making your core rub against the hardness that had been building in his sweatpants for a while now. The friction is unexpected and you can’t help the loud moan leaving your lips at the feeling. It’s a feeling you know from your own hand in the privacy of your dark room, but Sunghoon making you feel that way is so foreign that it snaps you out of the daze you’re in.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, was that too much?” Sunghoon scrambles for words, but you’re already pulling away, and he doesn’t know what to do to keep you close.

You sit back on the bed, holding your knees close to your chest. You look at your best friend in front of you who’s looking at you with a worried expression. Something in you craves to reach a hand out to him, to feel his cheeks and jawline under your palms again, to find out if he’d shiver at your touch and if goosebumps would form on his skin. He’s been your best friend for eight years, and you’ve always thought you knew everything about him, the same way he’s supposed to know everything about you. But you realize in this moment that there are things you don’t yet know, melodies to be discovered, treasures to be unearthed. Your fingertips are burning to find them all.

The sound of your name resonates inside your mind and it takes you everything not to fall back on him again. You furrow your eyebrows, confused by all those things you’re feeling. What was it that just took over you, that lit your insides up so?

You straighten your back suddenly and take in your surroundings. Sunghoon’s room is still the same old room you’ve always known, the same blue walls, the same posters he only ever changes when he finds a new interest and lets go of an old one. The same pictures from when you were 10, 12, 15, recent ones now that you’re 18; the same figure skating trophies and medals on his shelves. You turn to look at your best friend. The same soft, round cheeks contrasted by a sharp jaw; the same almond eyes, round with worry at your sudden movement away from him; the same two moles you’ve always found so comforting, for some reason. You almost reach out to touch them, to give you some sense of balance, to reassure you that things aren’t changing as much as it feels like they are. But you’re scared electricity might fry your fingers if you touch him right now. You’re scared you won’t be able to take your fingers off of him, no matter how much it stings. His face is the same as always before, but there’s something else to it, something you could probably figure out if you spent more than three seconds thinking about it, but you’re not sure you want to figure it out.

“Is everything okay? Did- Did I do something wrong?” he asks, voice laced with concern.

Before he can put a reassuring hand on your knee, you get off of the bed, and hurriedly say, “No. I just- I think I should go home.” You look everywhere but at him.

He sits up at your words, concern turned into confusion. “It’s 3 a.m., Y/N, why do you want to go home all of a sudden? You’ve stayed over plenty of times before.”

“I know, I just…” you trail off, trying to come up with an excuse. “I’ve got cramps. I think my period’s coming,” you lie. It’s better than whatever truth is threatening to bubble up.

“Oh. Right.” He scooches a bit, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Is there anything- like- can I do anything?” He sighs, steadies himself. “You don’t have to go, is what I’m trying to say.”

A few months ago, when you had finally wrapped your head around the fact that your best friend was an attractive man and that he made you feel things friends weren’t supposed to make you feel, you’d told yourself it was all just a phase that would pass soon. But feelings this strong surely cannot go away that easily.

You take a deep breath in and tear your eyes away from him. “I think I should go home,” you repeat. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Hoon.”

You turn around and start walking away, but Sunghoon is quick on his feet and stops you from going out the door. “Do you actually have cramps? Or are you just scared that our friendship might change?” He sounds out of breath, like asking this question is taking him all of his energy.

You avert his gaze and try to push past him, but he’s much stronger than you. Puberty sure played its trick on him. You sigh and look down at your feet. “I’m tired, Hoon, let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

But if there is one thing your best friend is, it’s stubborn. “I don’t wanna talk about it tomorrow. I wanna talk about it now. Did it feel nice?” he asks, and his resolute tone of voice makes you look up at him.

“I- I mean-”

“Y/N,” he starts, wrapping his arms around you and leaning in a bit, his familiar scent filling your nostrils. You have to close your eyes. “Answer me. Did it feel good?”

“Yes,” you answer without thinking.

“Is that why you’re scared?”

“Yes.” Your eyes flutter open when you feel his fingers graze your cheek. He leans in again and traps your kiss in a much softer and intimate kiss that makes your head spin and your thoughts cloud. Before you can get carried away, you pull away again, and ignore how beautiful he looks when his eyes stay closed for a couple of seconds longer. He only opens them once you tell him once again you should go home, that you need some time to think.

“Let me at least walk you there. It’s dark,” he pleads, his grip on your waist still tight.

“Hoon, I live right next door, I’ll be fine.” You let him kiss you once more and he makes you promise to call or text him tomorrow.

When you leave, Sunghoon plops back down on his bed, arm resting on his forehead as he plays back the events of the night. Had he done something wrong? Something that made you want to get as far away from him as quickly as possible? He’d tried to be gentle and to make sure you were okay with everything, but he couldn’t help but get carried away when he heard those sweet sighs of yours. He thought he was going to combust when he heard you moan, and he wanted to hear it over and over again, but you’d jumped from him like he’d told you he had killed someone.

He hopes you were telling the truth when you said you were just scared about your friendship changing. He hadn’t wanted to push and get you to stay; he knew it was weird, seeing each other in a different light all at once. He wasn’t completely oblivious; he’d felt that same shift in your relationship those past few months, just like you had, although you’d never spoken about it to each other. He knew he could never go back to seeing you as just a friend when he’d jerked off one day and you were all he could think of. He kept imagining the sounds you’d make and the way your hands would feel on him, and he’d gotten so close to getting that today, but he must’ve fucked something up and now his chances were ruined. He curses himself for letting you slip through his fingers just when he thought he finally had you.

You don’t get a wink of sleep that night. Your mind is reeling with everything that happened in Sunghoon’s room. Your fingers unconsciously keep coming up to touch your lips and feel the ghost of his touch there. Your skin turns hot at the simple thought of how perfect his lips had felt against yours, and you toss and turn in your bed as you consider what might’ve been, had you stayed with Sunghoon.

But it’s all happening too quickly, and even though you’ve been curious in more ways than one about your best friend for the past few months, you hadn’t expected to kiss him and to enjoy it so much on a random summer night. Your thoughts only seem to calm down and your eyes finally close just as the sun starts to rise.

The next day, Sunghoon wakes up in the early hours of the afternoon and checks his phone right away. A couple of notifications, but nothing from you. A text from Jake in their group chat with Jay asking to hang out at Sunghoon’s pool, to which he replies that they can come whenever. He taps a quick one out in the shower, memories of your scent and your lips on his getting him to finish quicker than he’d like to admit. He’s in the middle of a late breakfast when Jake and Jay spawn at his door, swimming trunks already on. Still nothing from you.

It doesn’t take Jay and Jake long to figure out that something is up with their best friend. It’s not like he does much usually, but today especially, he makes no effort to entertain them. He laughs at their jokes, but it feels like he laughs because he hears other people laughing rather than because he genuinely finds them funny. He barely even reacts when the inflatable pool ball hits him right in the face.

His friends don’t say anything until they’re all seated at a table by the pool, sipping on some ice-cold Coke. The air is still warm but the sun is low in the sky, hidden behind the house. Sunghoon is still lost in his thoughts, unblinking eyes fixed on a random point in the distance. Jay and Jake exchange a look before the former breaks the silence.

“Is everything alright, Hoon? You look out of it today.”

Jay’s voice brings him back to the here and now, and his eyes jump back and forth between his two friends who are looking at him expectantly. “Huh? Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” he says, leaving some of the truth out, but his friends know him better than he gives them credit for.

“Are you sure? I feel like there’s something you’re not telling us. You usually act like a little bitch when you’re tired, you don’t get all…,” Jake shakes his hand in front of his face, “distant like that.”

Sunghoon bites his lip, debating whether he should tell his friends about you or not. No matter how stupid they may be, they also know both of you quite well, so they might prove not completely useless, he thinks.

“Y/N and I kissed last night.”

It’s almost comical, how Jay and Jake bring their head forward in astonishment, how wide their mouth gets, how their eyes look like they might pop out of their sockets, and how they say “You what?!” at the same time. On a normal day, Sunghoon would've laughed.

“We kissed,” Sunghoon repeats, eyes drifting down to the ground in front of him as he rubs his neck in embarrassment.

“Fucking finally!” Jay exclaims.

“Told you it was gonna happen. No way you two were going to stay just besties forever,” Jake teases, punching Sunghoon in the arm. “How was it?”

Sunghoon sighs and leans back in his chair, letting his head hang back. “Really fucking amazing,” he chuckles. His friends holler for him, snickering like 12-year old boys who just saw a hot girl walk past.

“God, I saw this coming from miles away. I don’t know why you kept on insisting nothing was gonna happen between you two,” Jake says, beaming.

“I really didn’t think anything would… I just… Started seeing her differently recently, I guess.” Sunghoon shrugs, sheepishly smiling to himself.

“So, what happened? Did you guys just kiss or…?” Jay asks, raising his eyebrows suggestively. Jake giggles at the insinuation of sex but has a curious glint in his eyes when he waits for Sunghoon’s answer.

“Yeah, um, we just kissed cause she- she sort of ran away?” Sunghoon admits, wincing at the recollection.

“You what?!” Chaeyong’s voice rings out in the food court of the mall where you’re currently sitting, halfway through your strawberry milkshake.

“Keep it down, would you?!” you scold her, smiling apologetically to the people staring at you and your friend.

“If it was so good, why the hell did you run away, Y/N?”

“I just- I don’t know… Freaked out, I guess…” you mumble, cowering under the harsh look she gives you.

“Well, have you talked since?” You don’t reply, just guiltily avoid her gaze. “Y/N!”

“I know, I know! I just… don’t know what to do. ‘Hey, nice making out with you last night, bit weird since we’ve been best friends since we were 11, but that’s fine, right?’ Ugh! That’s so stupid,” you complain, flopping back in your chair.

“That’s exactly what you should say. Going MIA on him will just make things weirder. Plus you’ve never gone more than 24 hours without speaking so one of you will eventually cave in. It should be you,” she says, looking at you with a raised eyebrow as she takes a sip from her milkshake.

You scoff when she gives you a ‘you know I’m right’ look. “I’ll think about it on the way home and text him. There.”

And you do think about it on the way home; but you don’t get the opportunity to send the text, because as soon as you get off the bus at the stop right across from your house, you see Sunghoon sitting on the bench of your porch, looking around nervously and rubbing his hands on his denim shorts. You chuckle to yourself; who knew he got so distressed from not speaking to you for a day?

He stands up when he sees you approaching and raises his hand in a quick wave. “Hi, Hoon,” you greet, and you can feel his whole body relax when you hug him. So, you don’t hate him, he thinks. You sit down on the bench together. “Sorry I didn’t text you. I didn’t know what to say after… last night,” you admit, hugging your knees to your chest as you sit facing him.

“Yeah, I figured,” he chuckles, smiling shyly at you. “I was scared you’d never want to see me again.”

You look at him with wide eyes, mildly offended, and punch his arm. “How could you think that?!”

“Well, you did sort of run away from me last night,” he says, lightly punching your arm in return.

You tut in defeat. “I did, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. I’m just glad you didn’t walk past me straight into your house just now.”

You chuckle and rest your head on top of your knees. “That would’ve been a bit much, even for me.”

Sunghoon lets out a puff of air through his nose in response, and then the two of you sit in silence. You’re contemplating what to do next when your friend pulls you from your thoughts. “Should we, um…” He shuts his eyes tightly in reflection for a second before opening them again and looking straight at you. “Should we just pretend like last night didn’t happen? Would that make you feel more comfortable?”

His words take you aback and your eyes widen a bit; you hadn’t even thought pretending nothing happened last night was an option, because you didn’t think you’d ever be able to actually get it out of your head. Even now, if you stare at Sunghoon for too long, your gaze will naturally drift downwards or you’ll get a flashback of his large hands around your waist. But apparently, if he can offer to pretend like the previous night wasn’t a thing, then it must not have been such a huge deal to him. You quickly try to hide your disappointment and nod at your friend. “Right. Yeah. Sure.”

Silence makes its way between you two again. It makes the late afternoon breeze a bit chillier and the physical distance between you and Sunghoon feel much bigger than it actually is. Wanting it to go away quickly, you ask, “Do you wanna watch a movie, then?”

Sunghoon’s never looked so relieved about watching a movie, and he immediately accepts your offer. You get some popcorn ready while he searches for a movie to watch. He clicks on a horror movie that looks like it’s got a cliché storyline and awful acting, but you’re happy for any sort of distraction when Sunghoon is sitting so close to you.

You and Sunghoon always sit close-by when you watch something together, knees and shoulders brushing against each other. Tonight isn’t any different, except that your skin burns everywhere it touches his. You can smell the faint scent of chlorine in his hair, and it’s so intoxicating you want to bury your face there and breathe it in.

You’re thirty minutes into the movie and still nothing’s happened when Sunghoon puts his arm around you, letting his hand hang over your shoulder. The sudden warm contact makes you take a sharp intake of breath as memories of the previous night come flooding once again. You don’t know what you were expecting, but Sunghoon simply rests his hand there and doesn’t do anything more for another thirty minutes, except for squeezing your shoulder when there’s a small jumpscare, making you chuckle at him. This isn’t much more than what you’re used to with him, but knowing your friend, he must be thinking the ball is in your court. So you scooch a bit closer into his side and rest your head on his shoulder, the scent of his skin even stronger now that your nose is so close to his neck. You feel his chest raise and relax as he sighs deeply and tightens his hold around your shoulders. His small reactions to you spur you on and you decide to wrap an arm around his waist and you feel him flinch oh-so-slightly at your touch in such a sensitive spot. He starts to rub circles into your shoulder and rests his head on top of yours, and your whole body relaxes into his. This is so much more than what you’re used to with him; and yet, you so readily melt under his touch.

You can barely focus on the movie because of how close Sunghoon is. When a particularly scary ghost jumps on the screen, you flinch and hide your face in his neck, and he giggles at your reaction, hand coming up to stroke your hair comfortingly. It only takes you a few seconds to realize what position you’re in, and you release a shaky breath as you slowly lift your head towards Sunghoon, only to find him already looking at you, seemingly having had that same realization. When his eyes drift down to your lips, you know you’re done for.

You call out his name, and he’s already answered ‘Yes?’ before you’ve had time to finish uttering the second syllable. “I don’t think I want to pretend last night never happened,” you admit, holding his waist a bit tighter.

“Good. Me neither,” he breathes out before leaning down and trapping your lips in his, the kiss releasing all your pent-up frustration of the day. The world seems to melt away with his lips on yours, the movie already long forgotten. Sunghoon pulls you into his lap and you slide your palms up from his waist, against his chest and to his shoulders before wrapping your arms around his neck, bringing your body closer to his. His hands are sitting on your hips, fingers lightly pressing into them and your lower back. Now that you both seem to know what you want, it’s so easy, just falling into this kiss.

His tongue darts out to lick your bottom lip and you gladly open your mouth for him, letting his tongue explore it. You haven’t kissed someone like this in ages, maybe ever, but Sunghoon takes the lead and effortlessly gets you to follow his rhythm. When a flick of his tongue against yours feels particularly nice, you arch your back and press your chest into his, making him smirk into the kiss. This time, when he brings your hips down onto his, letting you feel his erection against your clothed core, the feeling doesn’t make you want to run away; instead, you want to feel it again and again.

You fall into a nice pace of rubbing yourself against him, eliciting hushed moans and loud breaths from the both of you. You can’t concentrate on kissing him and grinding down on him at the same time, so you drop your head down to bury your face in his neck, leaving a few pecks there but mostly moaning against his skin, enjoying how your hot breaths make him shiver.

You can’t keep a whine from escaping your lips when he bucks his hip into yours and his tip brushes directly against your covered clit, instantly bringing a hand up to your mouth. “Fuck, Y/N,” he breathes. “I know we gotta keep quiet ‘cause of your parents but the sounds you’re making are so fucking pretty. I wanna hear them over and over again.” His words make you whimper against his neck and you feel your slick starting to pool in your panties.

“H-hoon. This feels so good,” you moan, breathing warmly against the shell of his ear.

“I know, right? Feels so good,” he chuckles, hands grabbing at your ass to bring you harder down onto him. His actions are about to elicit another moan from you when, all of a sudden, a loud jumpscare in the movie makes you jump away from the boy underneath you and yelp in fear, which in turn makes him scream in surprise. You look at each other, panting and eyes open wide, hands clutching at your hearts, until you burst into laughter. The fun moment is short-lived, however, as your mom rushes down the stairs not ten seconds later, frantically asking if everything is alright.

You sit up straight at the sight of your mother and clear your throat. You’re thankful for the dark of the room which hides your and Sunghoon’s swollen lips and flushed faces from her view. “Sorry, mom, we were just watching a scary movie. We’re fine.” She sleepily nods and walks back up the stairs, and when she’s back in her room, Sunghoon and you exchange a look and erupt into another fit of smaller, quieter giggles.

That night, after Sunghoon’s gone home, the both of you get yourselves off in your own beds, the strong memory of each other’s lips and hands bringing you both to your releases. Without even realizing it, you moan out Sunghoon’s name as your orgasm hits. The window from your room doesn’t face his; but still, your heart is beating so loudly that you’re afraid the sound might carry from your open window to his. You get up and close it.

Now that you and Sunghoon both know you want to kiss each other, you do it everywhere: in his pool, his back pressed against the wall; on the sunchairs when you were supposed to be drying off; on your beds in the middle of the night, none of your parents or siblings suspicious of anything; in front of your house, because even though he was supposed to just walk you home, he couldn’t keep himself from tasting you one last time; in the backseat of his car after an evening with your friends and he drove you two home.

You spend a good two weeks of just kissing before your body starts to crave something more. At some point, Sunghoon’s hands resting nicely on your waist or sometimes, if he’s feeling bold, grabbing at your ass, start to not be enough anymore. You knew you wouldn’t be satisfied with just kisses and sweet touches when one day, his hands slowly but surely slid up your naked belly before grabbing onto your bikini-clad breast, lighting your whole body up on fire. He’d slipped his hand underneath your swimming top and rolled your nipple between two fingers and you had felt his dick twitch under your core when you let out a loud moan at the new yet so pleasurable feeling.

You know what it is that you want, but it makes you feel dirty. Your fingers have made you finish a hundred times before, but wanting Sunghoon to make you feel that way is a whole other story. Is that even what he wants? Would he be weirded out if you asked him about it? Is there even the sliver of a chance that maybe, just maybe, he has those same thoughts about you, and wants you to make him feel good as much as he wants to make you feel good?

If his grunts and the way he ruts into you when your make-out sessions get particularly steamy are any indication, then the answer to those questions would respectively be yes, no, and yes.

You’re lying on a sunbed one afternoon, letting the sun dry off your wet skin from the pool, when you finally muster the courage to tell Sunghoon about your wishes. After all, he is your best friend, and you know you can talk to him about anything. Even when that ‘anything’ involves his fingers inside of you and his dick in your mouth.

“Sunghoon?” you call out, turning your head to look at your best friend. He’s bathing in the sunlight without a care in the world. His skin has tanned a bit since summer started three weeks ago and his muscles are even more defined after all that swimming and working out he’s been doing. You want to reach out a hand, to feel the taut skin of his abs and chest under your palms, and to maybe then slide your hand down until you feel his hard-on underneath his swimming trunks. Your chairs aren’t far apart and you could do it from where you are, but you’d rather ask him first.

“Yeah?” he answers without turning towards you.

You take a deep breath in before you start talking again. “You know how you said it could be good for us to get… experience before going to college… And how we’ve been kissing these past couple weeks…”

“Yeah, I know,” he chuckles.

“Well… people do more than just kissing, right?” you ask, voice slightly shaky. This seems to pique his interest as he turns to look at you.

“Yeah?”

You hope you’re not just imagining the enthusiastic tone in his voice. “I think… I think we should try that too, don’t you think?” you ask, eyes not leaving his as he sits up on his chair and turns his knees towards you, fully facing you now.

“Yeah, I agree. I completely agree.” He stares at you for a few moments as if in disbelief. “Do you want to- Should we- Let’s go up to my room, yeah?” he offers, standing up and reaching his hand out to you. You gladly take it.

You and Sunghoon are a giggling mess as you practically run up the stairs, unable to get to his room quick enough. As soon as the door is closed behind you, you wrap your arms around each other, your lips finding his immediately as he walks you back to his bed. When you feel the back of your knees hit it, you detach yourself from him and lay on it, elbows holding you up as you look up at him expectantly.

“Fuck,” he whispers, leaning in to hover over you. He traps your lips in a short but sweet kiss before pulling back and murmuring against your lips, “Have I ever told you how pretty you are, Y/N?”

You beam at his words but decide to tease anyway. “You always go on and on about how pretty you are, but never about me.”

He giggles and pecks your lips again. “Well, I’m telling you now. You’re gorgeous.” You kiss him to hide your flustered face, pulling him so close to you he’s practically laying on top of you. Your hands are a bit more curious than usual, your kisses hungrier, the both of you anticipating what’s to come.

You grind against each other, the feeling of his erection against your barely covered core enough to send your mind into a frenzy. You forget everything around you when you feel Sunghoon pull back in the slightest, far enough so that he can look at your face and gauge your reactions but not too much that you still feel his hot breath on your lips. One of his hands is holding the back of your head as the other travels downwards, stopping for a second on your breast to massage it lightly before continuing its journey. It ever-so-slightly brushes against your core, making you buck your hips up into his touch, but his hand is already gone leaving you whining and pouting and him chuckling at your cute reaction. “You want it that bad, huh?” he teases.

You scoff, not wanting to let your friend know the effect he has on you. You press your palm against his clothed erection and he hisses at the unexpected contact. “So do you, Hoon.”

When he presses his lips to yours again, you both smile into the kiss. You cup his jaw and tangle your fingers through his hair, and his hand slips from under your head and joins his other hand on your thigh, grabbing at both of them, fingers slightly digging in your skin. He’s so, so close to where you want him most, and he seems to have noticed your growing impatience by the way you squirm underneath him. Seeing you so needy for him only makes him needier for you; he has more experience than you, so you probably expect him to take the lead, but the truth is, he has no idea what the fuck he’s doing.

“Y/N?” he murmurs, face buried in your neck as he leaves a trail of wet kisses there.

“Yeah?”

“What do you want me to do?”

The question takes you a bit by surprise. You pull away to look at your friend. His eyes are completely glossed-over, and yours are probably the same. “Oh. I don’t know. I just… want you to touch me, I guess,” you say, voice a bit quiet.

“I don’t know how to do that,” he admits sheepishly. He kisses your neck and cheeks before pecking your lips. “Could you- could you show me? How you do it? And I can show you how I do it?”

You take a second to take his words in. Was he suggesting that you touch yourself in front of him, and that he do the same?

This was like a dream come true.

“Yeah, sure.”

Sunghoon giggles in response, and you can’t help but crack a smile too, even though the idea of getting yourself off in front of your friend, no matter how appealing, is still a bit nerve-wracking. “You first,” he says, a mischievous glint in his eyes, and you roll your eyes at him.

You sit back against the headboard of the bed and slip a hand underneath your swim bottom, the other hand coming up to cover your eyes in an attempt to escape Sunghoon’s heavy, lustful gaze. “None of that. I wanna see you,” he says, pulling your hand away from your eyes and resting it on a pillow next to you. “And if you keep these on, I won’t be able to see anything,” he says, looking down at your bikini top.

Before you can protest, he comes to sit on his knees in front of you, kissing your neck and letting his hands roam your back. “I wanna see all of you.” It’s so easy, untying your string bikini, he almost thinks you wore it on purpose for him to take it off. You avoid his gaze as he takes your top off of you, leaving you half-naked in front of him. “So pretty,” he whispers, and you can’t help but look at him, slick pooling between your legs from the fascination he’s looking at your breasts with. He trails kisses down your neck until he reaches them, taking a nipple in his mouth and swirling his tongue around it, then looks up to see your reaction. You never knew your nipples were this sensitive, and you can’t help but arch your back at his touch and moan loudly, hand flying up to tug at his soft hair. He releases your nipple with a pop and moves sideways to pay the same attention to the other one, but Sunghoon is impatient and doesn’t waste too much time on it; he knows he can come back to your boobs later anyway. Right now, you’ve got a hand between your legs, and that’s what he’s dying to see.

“Can I take this off, too?” he asks, looking up at you as his fingers hook on the sides of your swimming bottoms, waiting for you to nod. His eyes don’t leave your glistening core as he pulls the thin fabric down your legs, discarding it somewhere on the floor of his room. He lays on his belly and kisses the inside of your knee as he holds your thighs in his large hands, still transfixed by your pussy when he says, “Show me how you do it, please.”

You both take a sharp breath in when you start moving two fingers in gentle circles over your clit, already wet from making out with Sunghoon. Your fingers are nimble and know exactly what to do after years of doing this, but the pulse in your core is even stronger now that your best friend is watching your movements this intently. He looks like he’s scared to blink in case he might miss something. You can’t take your eyes off of his face; you’ve never seen him so fascinated by something, so eager to learn. It makes you want to put on a show for him.

A surge of confidence hits you out of nowhere as you slide your digits down your folds, gathering some slick before sliding them back up to your clit and rubbing it a bit faster, a bit harder, your moans growing louder and higher in pitch. With your free hand, you tug at the base of Sunghoon’s hair and make him look up at you. You release his hair and bring your pointer finger up to your mouth, sucking on it and swirling your tongue around it, and Sunghoon’s mind is taken back to that day a couple weeks ago when you had sucked on those lollipops. Oh, how things have changed since then. Not that he’s complaining. “Fuck, that’s hot,” he breathes out, eyes zeroed in on your lips and mouth slightly agape.

You smirk at his reaction, stomach on fire with the feeling of having this kind of power on him. When you’ve wet your finger enough, you bring it down to your slit, circling around your hole before entering it, releasing a loud moan for good measure. Sunghoon is mesmerized by the quickening with which your finger slips in and out of you, the fingers on your clit never relenting. He doesn’t even realize he’s released one of your thighs to palm himself over his shorts until you notice it yourself and tut in disapproval.

“Come and help me, Hoon,” you say, and the boy snaps out of his daze at the sound of his nickname. He nods slowly, changing his position so that he’s laying between your legs, head dangerously close to your core. You slip your other finger out of your hole and he takes that as a sign to replace it with his own. One hand still gripping your thigh, he imitates your previous actions as he gets his pointer finger wet with his saliva before pressing it between your folds, right underneath your clit where your fingers are still rubbing circles, sliding it down towards your slit, and finally pushing it in.

“So warm… So wet, too,” he whispers in wonder, making you cover your eyes with your forearm out of shyness.

“Oh my God,” you moan, arching your back and letting your head drop to the side on the pillow. Sunghoon’s finger is much thicker and longer than your own, and it stretches you out and hits a deep spot inside you you never could, no matter how much you tried.

“Like this?” he asks, eyes curious as they bounce back and forth between your face and your entrance sucking his finger in.

“Yes, yes, just like that, you can also- oh- you can also curve it upwards a bit- fuck, yeah, just like that, Hoon, you’re doing so well,” you say, the praises just flying out of your mouth.

This seems to instill some confidence in him, as he cocks an eyebrow at you and speeds up his actions. “Yeah? My finger making you feel good, Y/N?”

“Oh, shut up,” you bite back, but immediately let out a long whine when he easily inserts a second finger in your soaking pussy. He curves them inside you just like you told him to, and the feeling of his fingers filling you up and your own quick ones on your clit are creating a familiar knot in your stomach that is so close to breaking. That is, until Sunghoon pulls your wrist away from your clit.

“Y/N… Can I?” he asks, and you’re not sure what he’s planning, but nod anyway. He wastes no time before pressing his tongue flat down on the sensitive bud, and you actually feel like your soul might leave your body. Fingers knuckle-deep inside you, he licks and sucks at your clit, and the warmth of his tongue against your folds is what makes you tumble over the edge, tightly gripping his hair and bucking your hips into his mouth.

“Oh my God… Oh my God, Hoon, please, don’t stop, please,” you beg, voice getting higher and whinier as you cum all over his tongue. He continues eating you out until it gets too much and you have to tell him to stop. He hikes his body up yours, pecking you sweetly on the lips when he reaches them.

“Your turn,” you announce and hook your legs over his hips to straddle him. You’re about to lean in for a kiss when you notice how lovingly he’s looking at you: his eyes are soft and a small smile is playing on his lips. It takes you aback, but you’d be lying if you said butterflies didn’t spread in your stomach. “W-why are you looking at me like that?”

His grin gets a bit wider. “Did I make you feel good?”

“Y-yeah…,” you admit, averting your gaze from him.

“I’m glad. You taste good, by the way. Sweet.” You want to kiss the devilish smirk off of his face.

You scoff at your friend, glaring a bit. “Whatever. Sit up,” you order, but it just makes him smirk more.

“Yes, ma’am.”

You look up at him to check for confirmation, and when he nods, you hook your fingers under his swimming trunks, taking them off of him along with his boxers underneath. His already fully-hard cock springs free and slaps against his stomach, and you curse yourself for your reaction that will surely just inflate his ego, as if it wasn’t already massive. Your mouth hangs open, eyes zeroing in on his length, flushed red from lack of attention and what you can only guess is precum leaking at the tip. It's straight from a porno.

“Like what you see?” Sunghoon teases, making you look up at him, and you can only stupidly nod. You take the position he was in earlier, laying your head on his thigh and caressing the other, letting it ride up to rub his inner thigh and the tiniest bit over his cock, making his smirk vanish as he takes a shaky breath in.

“Show me how you do it,” you say, echoing his words from earlier. He gulps, finally realizing that he was going to have to masturbate in front of your curious eyes just as you had. He spits on his open palm and spreads the precum over his length with his thumb, lubing himself up before gripping the base and starting to move his hand up and down. You watch as his head falls back against the pillow when his palm grazes over his tip and his movements pick up some speed.

You rub his palms over his thighs, itching to get closer to his cock and make him feel as good as he had done to you earlier. Tentatively, you reach out to grab his balls in your hands, massaging them softly, feeling satisfied when a loud moan leaves his throat. “Oh, f-fuck, that feels good, Y/N,” he breathes out, voice much higher than you’re used to. If he thought that felt good, then nothing could’ve prepared him for the feeling of your soft and warm tongue kitty-licking his balls, then taking turns sucking each one into your mouth and releasing them with a pop. “Where the fuck did you learn how to do that?” he asks, involuntarily bucking his hips into your face.

You can’t help but giggle, and Sunghoon thinks he might come from the sweet sound contrasted with your lewd actions alone. “I read a lot of fanfiction,” you explain, and he doesn’t question it. If Wattpad taught you how to suck dick, then so be it.

You wrap your hand around his and tell him to keep going so you can get an idea of what pace and movements he likes, and you graze your fingernails over his abs and chest with your other hand, chuckling at how sensitive he is when you lightly pinch his nipples. Sunghoon takes his hand off of himself, laying both of his hands palms up next to him on the bed, so you decide to literally take things into your own hands. Trying to recreate what he did before, you spit into your palm and wrap your fingers around his tip, bringing your hand down in a swirly motion to the base of his shaft. You do that a few times, asking, “Like that?” to get confirmation from Sunghoon.

“Just like that, baby,” he says, not even taking notice of the pet name; but you do, and your face immediately flushes, surprised at how much you like it.

“Baby?” you repeat, but he’s too lost in his pleasure and just hums in response. His reaction eggs you on, and you lick a long stripe from his base to his tip, swirling your tongue around it and humming at the bitter but not unpleasant taste of precum there. When another moan escapes his throat, you take his tip in your mouth, at first just shallowly thrusting your head, but then trying to take more and more of him.

You’re so focused on what you’re doing that you don’t even realize how quickly he’s panting and how his grunts start to get whinier until he’s moaning out your name. “A-ah, Y/N, feels so good, ‘m gonna cum, fuck-”

He goes silent as he shoots his release down your throat, eyebrows deeply furrowed and mouth open wide in pleasure. There’s so much of it and you can’t swallow it all, so you pull your head back, catching your breath, and a hot string of cum hits your chin and your throat. Sunghoon takes a look at you and the sight of you with some of his cum makes his dick twitch before he plops back down on the bed. You giggle as you take tissues from the bedside table (cause of course he’s got tissues next to his bed) and wipe away his seed, then lie down next to him, brushing away the hair that’s sticking to his forehead with sweat and peppering his face with soft kisses.

He opens his eyes and smiles, turning his head to look at you before engulfing you in a bear hug, sweaty bodies sticking together but neither of you minding it. “That was so good, Y/N. What the fuck,” he sighs, pecking your forehead.

You hum, nuzzling your nose into his neck. “I know, right? Who knew you could use your mouth for other things than saying stupid shit,” you tease.

He pulls back and gives you a look that tries to be stern, but you know he’s joking. “Do I need to remind you again, young lady?”

You giggle and peck his lips, forcing him out of character as his dimples appear on his cheeks. “Later, definitely.”

And after that day, he makes sure to remind you time and time again of how good his mouth feels on you. You should’ve seen it coming with how amazing of a kisser he was; but truly, there was nothing like cumming on your friend’s tongue.

You’re relieved to find that not much has changed, after all; you and Sunghoon still play around in the pool, watch stupid movies and hang out with your friends like always. Sure, there are stray hands here and there, or looks that last a little too long and mean a little too much, but if anything, it just makes your friendship more playful and exciting.

You’re both open with what you like and don’t like, so it doesn’t take either of you to figure out exactly how to make the other come undone embarrassingly quickly. (The shortest amount of time it took him was 2:38 seconds - yes, he timed it - and he hasn’t let you live it down since.) You like it when he presses his large hand down onto your lower tummy while he eats you out, or when he sits you between his legs and whispers all sorts of things as his fingers work their magic inside you and on your clit. He likes it when you get down on your knees in front of him and look up at him as you suck him dry, or when you sit in his lap and kiss his neck and play with his hair while he plays video games. And don’t even get him started on when you palmed him over his sweatpants while you watched a movie with Chaeyong, Jay and Jake, making sure that the movements under the blanket went unnoticed by them. He wanted to punish you after they left, he really did, but you took him in your mouth right there in the living room and gave him an orgasm that had his thighs shaking for five minutes afterwards. You were pretty proud of yourself for that one.

You also find out that he hates it when you tease and edge him, which only makes you do it more; the only problem is that, if you do that, he’ll make you ride his thigh and won’t help you at all. His proud smirk and snide praises combined with the feeling of his thick thigh underneath your core were more than enough to get you to your end, though.

And truly, nothing has changed, especially not Sunghoon’s special talent in pushing boys away from you.

“What do you mean, Lee Heeseung is coming back?” he heatedly asks, slamming his glass of lemonade down on the outdoor table so hard you’re scared it might break.

“It’s the summer, of course he’s coming back. He just stayed behind for a bit to enjoy a few weeks of the city without college, and now he’s coming back here,” Jake explains, shrugging.

“Do you know when he’ll be here?” you ask, far too much excitement in your voice to Sunghoon’s taste.

“Just in a couple days.”

Sunghoon has smoke coming out of his ears when he sees how much you perk up at the news of your old crush being back in town for summer. He likes the boy, but he hates that you like him. And since Heeseung is friends with Jay, Jake, and by association Sunghoon, begrudgingly so, he’ll definitely see lots of him in the upcoming months. And if Sunghoon sees Heeseung, then you’ll see Heeseung, too. And that, Sunghoon doesn’t like.

You notice something is off with him that afternoon because of how uncharacteristically quiet he is. Sunghoon, ever the loud introvert, is always arguing for no reason and laughing louder than everybody around him. So when he merely chuckles at his friends’ numerous displays of stupidity in the pool and doesn’t even say anything in protest to you getting on Jake’s shoulders to play against Chaeyoung and Jay, you know something is definitely up. You also have a good idea of what that something might be, and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t find it endearing.

You stay behind when your friends leave in the early evening. Without a word, you and Sunghoon pack away the inflatable toys in the pool cabin and clean up the table, putting the dirty glasses in the sink. You do the dishes while he prepares sandwiches for the two of you, which he insisted on doing after he heard your stomach grumbling. You watch the latest Kurtis Conner video as you eat and can’t help but notice that he doesn’t even chuckle at any of the jokes or skits when he’d usually be clutching his stomach in laughter.

When you’re done eating, you take a resolute breath and pause the video, but Sunghoon doesn’t even notice, only snapping out of his daze when you call out his name.

“Huh?” When his eyes find you, he almost looks surprised to see you, as if he’d forgotten you were there.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” you ask, slightly frowning. “You look so out of it today.”

“Huh? I’m fine, nothing’s wrong,” he says dismissively and presses play, but you quickly pause the video again.

“I’m your best friend, Sunghoon, I know when something’s the matter and I know when you’re lying. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but don’t pretend everything’s fine when we both know that’s not true.”

He peers at you for a moment, cursing you for knowing him so well. He crosses his arm and averts his gaze, pouting like an angry child. “I hate it when you’re right.”

You giggle and make your way around the counter to him, standing inbetween his legs and wrapping your arms around his neck to make him look up at you. His hands come naturally up to your waist. “I just…” he starts, then immediately stops himself with a sigh., “You’ve always had a crush on Heeseung. But these are our last couple months together, and I don’t want somebody else taking up your attention…”

He buries his face between your breasts to hide his blush, and you can’t help but giggle again. “Stop laughing at me!” he protests, but the muffled sound of his voice just makes you laugh more. You stroke his hair and press a gentle kiss at the top of his head.

“Sure, I’m happy Heeseung’s coming back. But there’s no one I’d rather spend my summer with than you, Sunghoon, you should know that.” He leans back to look up at you with puppy eyes and a small pout. You cup his face, admiring how cute he looks like this, and smile softly down at him.

“Really?”

“Really,” you answer, and he leans in for a kiss.

It’s a soft one. It’s a patient kiss, neither of you urging to get somewhere else, to do something more. It reminds you of that kiss in his room a few weeks ago, when you were still curious and discovering each other. From then on, your kisses had become more feverish, more eager, more playful. But now, you’re taking your time. For now at least, neither of you is going anywhere. So your lips melt together slowly, and when you take breaks to breathe, you look each other in the eyes and smile before leaning back in.

It’s when you sigh against his lips, eyes still closed as you pull away, that it hits him. I could do this forever, he thinks.

I could sit here with my arms around her waist and her lips against mine and the smell of chlorine and the sound of her laugh forever and I’d never get tired of it, he thinks, but immediately afterwards, he realizes he won’t get to do this forever. Summer will end, you’ll both head off to college, and you’ll only get to see each other every few months until another summer comes. And who knows what might happen until then?

You might meet someone and realize Sunghoon isn’t all that; hell, he might meet someone, but he highly doubts anyone could even come close to the way you make him feel.

“Hello? Earth to Sunghoon?” you quietly joke, looking down at him with an affectionate look in your eyes. You press the pads of your fingers to his two moles before replacing your fingers with your lips, giving each one a quick peck. “You were up on the moon for a minute there.”

Sunghoon hums softly, smiling as he lets himself melt under your touch. “Sorry. It’s just really hot, isn’t it?” he says, a stupid excuse he uses as a blanket to cover his feelings. There is some sweat beading at his hairline, which helps make his lie more believable, but you don’t need to know it’s not just because of the summer heat.

Slowly, your smile turns mischievous, and Sunghoon can tell you have an idea in mind. “It is pretty hot… Wait here.”

He watches as you fill a tall glass with ice from the dispenser in the fridge and pop an ice cube in your mouth, a devilish smile on your face, and laughs when that smile is replaced with a frown as the coldness hits you and you spit it back into the glass, laughing along with him. “What the hell are you doing?” he asks between giggles.

“I got the idea a few days ago when we were having popsicles…,” you say looking down at the glass between your hands, slightly embarrassed. “You kissed me and your mouth was really cold but it felt nice.” Sunghoon hums, egging you to go on. You lift the glass up to his cheeks, applying just a bit of pressure to the soft skin. “I thought this could be refreshing.”

You take the ice cube back in your mouth, sucking on it but not letting it melt completely before pressing your lips against Sunghoon’s and opening your mouth just a bit so he could feel the cold of the ice cube. You feel his smile into the kiss as the ice cube swirls between your tongues, sending shivers down your spine.

“Very refreshing indeed,” he murmurs when the ice has completely melted. He gets up and takes the glass in one of his hands, leaning down to your level and says “C’mon” with the same mischievous smile as you on his face.

You two hurry up the stairs, and when you get to his room, he hands you the glass before throwing himself on his back, laying on his back with his hands behind his head. “Show me what you had in mind.”

You straddle his hips and take an ice cube from the glass, rubbing it over his lips before pushing it inside his mouth, the cold making him hiss. You quickly counteract that by pressing your lips to his, the contrast of your warm tongue and the freezing ice turning him on more than he would’ve thought.

When the ice has melted, you take another piece and brush it along his jaw, down his Adam’s apple and around his nipples. The cold temperature makes him squirm but he doesn’t shy away from it, even closing his eyes to focus solely on the feeling. While you play with the ice cube, you also leave warm kisses all over his skin, reveling in its slightly salty taste from the thin layer of sweat. You let the ice cube melt between his abs and watch him wriggle as he sucks in a sharp breath, then grab another one, starting off where the previous one stopped. You circle his navel while your fingers play with the hem of his swimming trunks. He pulls them down himself and you chuckle at his eagerness. “I should’ve known you liked the cold, with all those years of ice skating you did,” you tease.

He’s almost fully hard, and it only takes a few kisses and trailing the ice cube down his inner thighs to have his dick fully erect. He’d only been letting out small sighs and hisses until now, but when you grab another ice cube and circle it around his sensitive tip, he throws his head back into the pillows and moans loudly. You push your luck and drag the ice cube down his shaft, his thighs snapping together when it reaches his balls. You put it in your mouth and let it melt so that your tongue is still cold when you swirl it around his tip, already tasting precum there. But before you can take him further in your mouth, he calls out your name.

“Wait. I don’t wanna cum just yet. My turn.”

He shakes his shoulders in excitement as you switch positions, you taking your t-shirt and bikini top off and laying on your back and him sitting down with one knee on each side of your thighs, an ice cube in his hand and a giddy smile on his face.

He brushes it over your lips before pushing it just a bit into your mouth, holding onto it with two fingers while you suck on it, gazes locked in each other. Just as you did earlier, he trails it down your throat and your chest until they reach your nipples, marveling at the thin wet trail it leaves in its wake. He licks this trail as he circles one of your nipples with the ice cube, and you don’t know if you should focus on his warm tongue or on the cold ice cube. Once it’s melted, he takes another one and circles your other nipple with it, his mouth coming to wrap around the now cold one. Your hands fly up to grab at his hair, your back arching into his touch as you moan and pant loudly.

He sucks and licks at your nipples until you’re calling out his name, begging for more. As nice as his mouth or an ice cube around your nipples feel, your pussy is throbbing and desperate for attention. “Sunghoon… Please,” you whine.

“Please what?” he teases, looking up from your breasts with a smirk.

You whine again, knowing he knows full well what you want. “Please…”

He trails the ice cube down your stomach, circling your navel a few times where it melts before slipping two cold fingers underneath your bikini bottoms. “Is this what you want, baby?,” he asks as he rubs his fingers between his folds, and you whine at the feeling of having him so close to your hole and to your clit but not quite there either. He smirks when you nod frantically but whine at the loss of his fingers against you as he takes your bottoms off and reaches for another ice cube.

You release a loud moan and arch your back off the bed when the ice cube touches your clit. “Fuck, Hoon!”

He rubs the ice cube up and down your folds, your heat melting it much faster than your skin. He takes another one and brings it to your entrance this time, circling around it before pushing the ice cube in and staring with wonder as it melts quickly. He holds your hips down so you stop bucking them up, whimpering at the amazing feeling of the ice against you. He replaces the ice cube with his fingers inside of you and his tongue on your clit, sucking expertly at the sensitive bud and lapping at your juices. And while it feels good - God, does it feel good - and you let Sunghoon know just how nice it feels with your moans, whispers of his names and the way you hold onto his hair, you’re craving something more.

It’s something you’ve been wanting for the past few days, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on it. No matter how nice Sunghoon’s fingers and mouth felt, they didn’t make you feel close to him enough. You wanted to be so close to him you didn’t know where you ended and where he started; you wanted to feel him.

You pull him up by the face, asking him to come here and getting lost in his lips as soon as they reach your level. God, Sunghoon’s kisses. You could drown in them. But still, that craving, that need for more. And now that his body is pressed up against yours and you can feel his erection against your thigh, so close to your core, you think you know what it is that you want. “Hmm, please…”

“You keep asking me for something, but you don’t tell me what it is.”

“You. I want you, Hoon, please,” you beg, murmuring against his lips as you wrap your legs around his hips and bring him even closer, his cock now pressing against your cunt.

“M-me?,” he asks, leaning back just a bit, but you pull him back in right away, resting his forehead against yours.

“Yes, please. I need to feel you inside me.”

Your words are enough to get a moan out of Sunghoon. “Fuck, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this,” he pants, planting kisses all over your face and neck. Usually, you’d giggle at the ticklish sensation, but right now, you’re so drunk on pleasure, it just makes your breath even shallower and your core wetter.

“How long?”

“God. Since the second time we kissed probably,” he replies, reaching for a condom in the drawer of his bedside table. You think back to that moment six weeks ago (how has it been six weeks already?, you think), after you and Sunghoon had made up and made out on his couch in front of a horror movie. He’d wanted you for that long? And he’d waited for you to say something since then?

“Today’s your lucky day, then,” you tease in an attempt to alleviate the need for him that takes over your bones, but his gaze when he looks back at you ruins any effort. If anything, it just makes you need him even more. You feel like you might explode if you don’t have him right now.

You watch as he clumsily wraps the condom around his member, clearly never having done this before, but you wouldn’t be of any help, so you let him figure it out on his own. You let your head fall back as he rubs his tip up and down your folds, gathering your slick on his dick before aligning himself at your entrance and giving you a long, deep kiss.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks, forehead on yours.

“Yeah. Are you?”

“Yeah, I am. But I’m also scared.”

“Scared of what, Hoon?” you ask, opening your eyes to look at him. You caress his cheek and cup his face in your hands, watching softly as he lets his head rest on your palm.

“I’m scared of hurting you. I heard it hurts the first time. And I’m scared…” he closes his eyes and frowns a bit. “I’m scared it’ll feel too good. That I’ll always want it. You.”

You take a small moment to think, your thumb brushing over his cheek in what you hope is a comforting manner. “You won’t hurt me, Hoon. It only hurts if you’re not ready… And I’m plenty ready. I know you’ll take it slow.” You smile softly when he nods, turning his head to kiss your palm. But if sex is as good as you’ve heard it is, you’re also scared that it might be the best thing you’ve ever experienced and that you’ll never get enough. You and Sunghoon have been meeting up almost everyday this summer and it has more often than not ended up with one of you between the other’s legs; you could never get bored of the things he made you feel or of knowing you were making him feel those exact same things. If you couldn’t live without his fingers, how could you live without his dick?

How could you live without him?

You tried to snap out of those thoughts, reassuring yourself that even before all of this you couldn’t imagine yourself living without Sunghoon, and that there was no reason this should change anything. “And don’t be scared of that, silly,” you say, making him smile. “I’ll always be here, Sunghoon. I’ll always want you, too.”

“Fuck, okay,” he whispers, kissing your lips once before pulling himself up on his palms, hovering over you. “Tell me if you need me to stop, yeah?” he asks and waits for you to nod before finally pushing in.

You instantly moan when you feel his tip inside you, and Sunghoon stops, frantically asking if you’re okay. It takes some convincing to get him to push himself further in. “It feels so good, Hoon. Please keep going.”

You tell him to not stop until he’s fully inside you, and he obeys, even though he wants to stop when he sees your frown and your sharp intakes of breath. When he’s buried to a hilt, he can’t help but collapse on top of you, burying his face in your neck and wrapping his arms tightly around your waist. “Y/N,” he drawls out. “Feels so fucking good. So tight,” he murmurs against your neck.

“Mmh. Give me a minute, baby.” Your hands caress up and down the expanse of his back and you feel him relax on top of you. As you adjust around his length, the stretch starts to feel more and more pleasurable, until pleasure is the only thing you feel. “Hoon?”

“Yeah?” he says, kissing and nibbling softly at your neck and earlobe.

“You can move, now.”

Sunghoon doesn’t need to be told twice and ever-so-slowly slides out of you, leaving only the tip in before he slides back in. His thrusts are slow but deep, and it’s everything you’ve ever wanted and more. He’s barely started but you’re both already whimpering messes, holding onto each other tightly as pleasure like neither of you has felt before takes over your entire bodies.

As you both get more comfortable, his pace picks up just a tiny bit and you tentatively raise your legs higher so that they’re hooked around the back of his knees instead of laying on the bed. The new angle only adds to the intense pleasure, but you don’t even realize you’re crying until Sunghoon stops mid-thrust, wiping your tears with his thumb and worryingly asking if you’re okay and if it hurts and if he should stop. You open your eyes and smile, instantly calming his nerves. You bring his head closer to yours and kiss him like you’d stop breathing if you didn’t. “It feels so fucking good, Hoon. So, so good.”

He sighs out of relief and resumes his actions, heart swelling with pride that he’s making you feel so good, you’re crying. He’s always hated seeing you cry or hurt in general; but knowing what kind of tears these are, he thinks you look so pretty with tears streaming down your face. His hands grip your thighs a bit tighter as he quickens his pace, already addicted to the feeling of your warm walls taking him in so well.

He slips out a few times but you’re always quick to guide him back inside you. He lifts his body up a bit to get a deeper angle, hoping it’ll get him to stop slipping out, and he’s blown away by the sight underneath him. He thinks you’ve never looked so gorgeous as you do now, legs spread wide for him, cheeks flushed, brows furrowed and mouth agape for him. He kisses your tears, the salty taste bringing a smile to his lips. “So perfect,” he whispers against your mouth. “You look so beautiful.”

Sunghoon takes your legs and wraps them higher around his hips, the new angle hitting a spot inside you that’s making you see stars and has you moaning his name like it’s the only thing you know how to say. You feel that familiar tension build up inside your stomach much faster and much stronger than it usually does.

“Fuck, Sunghoon, I’m gonna cum,” you warn, and a harsher thrust inside you is what pushes you over the edge, the sensation crashing into you and making your thighs shake. An orgasm has never hit you this hard before.

You’re clenching around him like crazy and Sunghoon gasps as you milk him dry, his own orgasm hitting him all at once. He shoots his release inside the condom and stills inside you, breath completely taken away by the sudden, overwhelming sensation.

He lays on top of you for a moment as you both catch your breaths, trying to make sense of how something can feel this good without killing you instantly. He apologizes when his pulling out makes you wince and kisses the top of your head. He rolls onto his back, pulling you with him so that you’re now almost lying on top of him, head against his chest as his arms wrap themselves around you. You leave kisses all over his chest and neck and his hands caress your back.

“That was amazing.”

“I know, right?” he responds immediately, his enthusiasm making you laugh.

“Thanks, Hoon,” you say timidly, voice muffled against his skin.

“For what?”

“For making me feel this good.”

He chuckles. “No need to thank me, pretty. If anything, I should thank you for letting me make you feel good, and on top of that making me feel good.”

You hum at his words and you both stay there for a bit longer, enjoying each other’s warmth. Something blooms inside your chest, and you don’t know whether to let it grow or to squash it down. It feels nice, almost too nice, and you’re scared it might get ripped away from you and it won’t feel so nice then.

Friendship, sex, love. In those weeks spent with Sunghoon, those previously clear lines have blurred to a point they were all one big messy ball of feelings and not three distinct things you could tell apart. Has sex turned your friendship with Sunghoon into something romantic? Or is that just an illusion, and being so intimate with your best friend has messed up your once platonic vision of him? But was your vision of him ever platonic?

Haven't the two of you always been teased about liking each other for a reason? After all, you and Sunghoon didn't grow up together, and he’s never felt like a brother to you. He has always been your male friend; you’ve always been aware that he was your friend who was also a boy. When you'd moved in the house next to his, you hadn’t instantly clicked; it took a while for the ice skating prodigy to warm up to you, but his parents had warmly welcomed yours into the neighborhood and quickly became friends, so it was only a matter of time before he’d open up to the idea of you being around. Constantly.

You’d walk to and from school together, do homework together, go on family trips together, cheer each other on at your respective competitions. After his ice skating lessons, when his coach let him have the whole place to himself for a bit more practice, he’d tie your ice skates for you and drag you onto the ice rink, holding you by the waist or shoulders as he skated backwards in front of you, but also laughing at you when you inevitably fell. He’d tease you for getting second place at the science fair or for getting your arguments torn apart during Model United Nations, but the way he’d be a little nicer to you or share his food more often that week wouldn’t escape you.

Being a handsome young ice skater, Sunghoon had developed quite the loyal following of boys and girls alike who would come to see him at his competitions. He thrived off of the attention, but no matter how much he enjoyed his fans’ admiration, you were always the one he’d skate to after having won first place, hugging you tightly over the barrier separating the ice from the bleachers. Especially during your younger teen years, Sunghoon wasn’t one for skinship or PDA, so it always meant that much more to you that even after his most important wins, you were the first thing on his mind. It never failed to make your stomach flip, and all the death stares from his fans in the world couldn’t have changed a thing.

You were already close, but you became practically inseparable after Sunghoon’s injury. During the competition that would have gotten him a place at the Youth Winter Olympics had he won, his nerves got the best of him and he didn’t land his triple axel, hurting his ankle in the process. Ten years of dedication and hard work, ruined in mere seconds. To say that it destroyed him would be an understatement.

You were the one to bring him back up. You listened to him when he needed to vent, held him when he needed a shoulder to cry on, cheered him up when he needed to smile. He didn’t even need to tell you what he needed, you seemed to just know. You reminded him that he had a lot more value than his medals and trophies and that he didn’t need them to be complete. His family and friends tried their best to make him feel better, but their words never reached him quite like yours did.

Slowly but surely, his confidence came back. He’d lost his fans, but he’d gained a friend he knew would always be there for him. His dimples would appear more often, his laugh would resonate louder. His injury had made the two of you grow closer, creating a bond that would only strengthen over time.

And yet there were moments when being friends wasn’t enough. When calling him your best friend didn’t feel right. You had other friends, friends you were close to; sure, maybe not as close as to Sunghoon, but close nonetheless. And you didn’t feel that way around them.

Their laugh didn’t make your heart skip a beat. You didn’t want to bury your face in their necks and breathe in their scent when they hugged you. You didn’t want to know every single detail of their day. And you surely didn’t feel a pang of jealousy in your chest when they danced with another girl at your school ball.

You also didn’t crave their lips on yours every single day since it had happened for the first time and didn’t want to see what they sounded or looked like while getting the life sucked out of them through their dick.

Everybody told you it was obvious you were ‘more than friends.’ Why did romantic love have to be ‘more’ than platonic love? Why were there levels to it? You didn’t like the idea of taking your relationship with Sunghoon ‘one step further’; that wasn’t the way it felt to you. Rather, it felt like having to change everything you knew and create something new. Something where you could see him laugh and tell him about your day, but where you could also kiss him and graze his skin with your fingertips. Something that only you could share with him and only he could share with you. But you were afraid the friendship would fall apart if things didn't work out. So, instead of taking the risk of changing everything, you made sure things would stay the same. You’d tell the butterflies raging in your stomach to settle down and you wouldn’t let yourself fall into his touch in case it’d be like falling from the highest mountain.

That is, until he kissed you. Until this moment, right now, lying in his arms, ear right over his heart so you can hear it beat for you. You look up at him. His eyes are closed and a soft smile rests on his lips. He looks so peaceful. He always looks pleased when you’ve just been together, but right now, he seems to be in such a serene state, it almost makes you laugh.

Now that you’ve given in to your feelings, you’ve realized just how strong they were this whole time. Nothing has ever felt better than being in Sunghoon’s arms, than being able to see him at his most vulnerable state and to give all of you to him. All those things you didn’t know about him just six weeks ago, you know them by heart now. You’re sure there’s other things to find out, and you’ll make sure you will.

But summer won’t last forever.

A wave of sadness slaps you right in the face, bringing you back to reality. There’ll come a time where you and Sunghoon won’t be able to lounge around all day or lazily make-out at your will. You’ll go your own ways and not see each other for months at a time. The thought of that is unbearable, and you feel like looking at Sunghoon for a second longer might rip your heart into a million pieces.

When you sit up, tearing yourself away from his grip, he immediately opens his eyes, asking what’s wrong.

“Just need to go to the bathroom. I heard you can get STIs from not peeing after sex,” you half-lie. He nods and falls back into the bed.

You rush to the toilet, needing to get far away from Sunghoon as quickly as possible. Even your pee smells different - guess that’s what having a dick inside you will do to you. You wash your hands and look in the mirror: your skin is darker in some spots, surely Sunghoon’s work. So not only did he mess with your thoughts, he also had to make your body all weird, too?

You splash your face with cold water, hoping it will bring you back to your senses. You and Sunghoon have been best friends for years. There’s no point in changing all of that now, is there? You’ll be leaving soon enough, anyway. Why ruin a perfectly fine friendship for a summer fling?

Those are your thoughts as you head back to Sunghoon’s bedroom, ready to tell him that this whole thing was a mistake and you should just pretend it never happened. But your resolve crumbles at your feet as soon as you step inside the room.

Sunghoon’s got a couple of snacks ready as he browses through Netflix in search of an appropriate movie. “How about Twilight?” he says when he feels the bed dip under your weight next to him. He kisses your forehead and pulls you down on the bed with him so that you’re lying back against his chest.

Screw it, you think. Whatever this is, it’s much more than a summer fling.

The rest of the summer goes by in a flash. No, you don’t try to make Sunghoon jealous by flirting with Heeseung; if the mention of the latter’s name was enough to get your friend mad, then purposefully twirling your hair or batting your eyelashes at the older boy just might make Sunghoon white-boy-punch a hole into a wall. And it’s not like Heeseung would try coming onto you, either, with how clingy Sunghoon gets when he’s around, always an arm around your waist and a glare that could kill Heeseung.

Sunghoon gradually opens up to Heeseung being around, even though it takes you reminding him almost daily that he’s the one whose arms you wanna end up in over anybody’s. After a couple weeks, Sunghoon stops looking like he's on the brink of starting a fight every time Heeseung so much as talks to you or hands you a glass of lemonade, and finally relaxes around him.

You spend countless sleepless nights with Sunghoon. You’ve probably memorized every single one of his moles by now, and you’ve made sure to kiss all of them. He holds you against him like he might lose you at any given moment. The only nights you don’t fall asleep in each other’s embrace are when either one of you is sleeping over at your friend’s house. On those nights, sleep always takes hours before washing over you, the lack of warmth keeping you awake.

Your friends and you spend entire days at the lake or by Sunghoon’s pool, not a care in the world. You rest your head on Sunghoon’s shoulder as you watch the fireworks Jake and Jay bought go off. Sunghoon grills your marshmallows for you, blowing on them so they cool down before handing you the stick. You try to ignore how the night air gets slightly chillier and how the sun sets slightly earlier, but by the last days of August, it becomes too noticeable. When September rolls around, you’re sure there’s a small crack in your heart.

You know Sunghoon feels the end of summer too. His kisses are deeper and his lips linger over yours a second longer. He frowns when he kisses you and hugs you, like he’s trying to remember what it feels like. His usual playful demeanor when you’re in bed together is gone, instead seemingly hellbent on making you feel good and almost begging you to say his name. As if you could say any other name. As if you could say anything else.

Neither of you mention your departure until the night before you leave. After spending the evening with your friends, you lie together in bed, the side of your face resting against his chest so you can feel his heart against your ear. He’s tracing patterns with his fingertips on your back, and it takes you a while to figure out he’s spelling his name over and over again, as if to etch it in your skin. When, once in a while, he takes his hand off of you to reach for his phone, you can still feel his fingers caressing you, ghostlike against your skin.

The air around you feels heavy, pressing the both of you down into the mattress. You wish the bed would eat you alive so you could stay there, warm against each other, as long as you like. You know you can’t leave without talking first, but the words won’t come to you. Instead, they float around the bed, weighing your heart down into your stomach.

“So,” you start. You're unsure what to say, but you know this conversation has to happen, one way or another. In the end, you settle on, “Excited to leave?”

Sunghoon scoffs lightly, his motions on your back coming to a stop. “Not really, no. It’s not like I’m leaving that far, and half of our school is going to our uni.”

“Maybe, but there’ll be tons of other people. Tons of other girls, too,” you add after a short pause.

“Don’t do this, Y/N, please.”

You sit up at his words. He covers his eyes with his forearm and takes a deep breath in, sensing an incoming argument. “Do what?”

“This. Getting mad at me when I haven’t done anything.”

“I’m not mad at you,” you protest, frowning down at him.

“No? Then what’s this?” he says, smoothing down the lines between your eyebrows and on your forehead with the pad of a finger.

“Whatever.” You nudge your head away from his touch. It burns. “It’s not like I’m wrong, anyway. You’re gonna have a bunch of girls at your feet, and you’ll know what to do with them, right? Now that you’re not a virgin?” you question, avoiding his gaze.

“Y/N…” he sighs, shutting his eyes tighter as if in pain.

“What? This was the whole reason why, right? Get experience with me so you could fuck girls better, no?”

“Y/N!” he says, raising his voice enough to let you know he’s upset but not enough to scare you. He sits up, looking at you with hurt and disbelief in his eyes. “What’s this all of a sudden? It’s not like I forced you into this! We agreed on it together!”

“So you agree? That this summer was just about getting experience and now you’ll use it on other girls and pretend like we,” you gesture between the two of you, “never happened?”

“What do you mean ‘agree’? I never said any of this! Don’t put words into my mouth!”

He watches as you get up from the bed, arms crossed and pacing his room. He calls out to you a few times, but you don’t stop to look at him until he speaks your name with a sternness you’ve never heard before from him. “What?” you snap.

“I don’t get why you’re acting like this out of nowhere! We both knew summer was gonna end at some point, and why we were doing this! Why are you blaming me now?”

“Because… because…” you sigh, scrambling for an excuse. Why were you doing this? The thought of Sunghoon doing what he did to you to another girl, making her feel as good as he had made you feel, kissing her like he had kissed you, made you sick. It made you see red, it made you want to make him wear a shirt with your face on it so everybody knew he was yours.

Sunghoon gets up and stands close in front of you, too close. You close your eyes. If you see his moles, you might reach out to touch them and let yourself fall even more. If you fall, you’ll need to get up, but his scent makes your knees weak.

His hands find your face, holding a little too gently, you think. Your small ones wrap around his wrists and grip them, a little too harshly, he thinks.

You take a step back and finally look into his eyes. There’s hope in them; hope you’ll say what he wants, what he needs to hear. That you want him like he wants you. That you wish summer wasn’t over. That you’ll keep him in your heart until you can see him again. So, when what you say next is none of the above, he feels his heart sink down to his feet, leaving a murky puddle there.

“I can’t do this.”

You rush out of the room, practically running home. You fight your tears back until you slam your bedroom behind you, pathetically sinking to the ground as you let out a loud sob. You don't have the energy to get up, and cry into your hoodie's sleeve right there on the floor.

When you’ve calmed down a bit, you get up and lay in your bed, hiding your whole body underneath the covers. Maybe this is for the best, you think. If you end it like this, you won’t have the knowledge of whether he’ll wait to have you back or he’ll move on like nothing happened. That way, you can do whatever you want, not caring about what he’s up to.

But even now, your hands subconsciously reach out towards a person that’s not there and your feet hang over the edge of your bed as though to get up and run to him anytime. You curl in on yourself to stop your body from aching for him. It doesn’t work very well.

Sunghoon stays where you left him for a few minutes, too stunned to move. Should he run after you? Should he let you cool off for a bit and talk to you in the morning? Would you be mad at him if he didn’t try to see you now or would the mere sight of him just make you angrier? He plops down on his bed as these questions run through his mind, butting into each other and making everything more confusing.

He thinks back on everything that led to this, and his mind settles on that day a few days after graduation where his thoughts had dropped to the lowest pits of hell. If only you hadn’t brought those two damned lollipops.

The next morning, Sunghoon wakes up as if somebody had slapped him awake. He doesn’t bother to brush his teeth or eat anything before running over to your house, almost forgetting to put shoes on. He finds you in your room, packing the last of your things into an already full suitcase. He stands at your door, panting as his hands rest on his knees.

“You haven’t left yet. Thank God.”

“God, Hoon. It’s not that far between your house and mine. How are you so out of breath,” you say, glancing at him from the corner of your eye.

He walks to you and kneels in front of you, taking you in his arms before you can say anything. “Talk to me, please. Don’t leave like this. I’d never forgive myself if you left and you were mad at me, Y/N.”

You thought you’d cried so much last night that there was not a single drop of water left in your body, but you thought wrong. Your eyes immediately well up at his words, and he leans back when he hears a soft sniffle escaping you. Only then does he notice how puffy your eyes from all your crying.

“No, no… Have you been crying? I’m so sorry, pretty, please don’t cry,” he pouts, pulling you back into his embrace. It hasn’t even been half a day, but you missed his warmth so much, it only makes you cry harder.

After sobbing against his chest, possibly staining his shirt in the process, you pull away and in your light-headed, dehydrated state, spill your heart out. “It’s so stupid,” you sob. “We’re not gonna see each other for months and I’m gonna miss you so much and I don’t want you to be with other girls. I want you all to myself and I don’t want to be your friend that you fucked for a summer just so you could get experience, it was a stupid idea in the first place, if you wanted to kiss me, you should’ve just kissed me. But you didn’t just kiss me and now I’m scared that this all meant nothing to you but everything to me and that I don’t want to be friends anymore but you do and I’m mad that it took me all summer to say this even though I’ve known it for years but I didn’t want to admit it to myself but also you didn’t say anything and I’m mad about that too. Because there’s no way you don’t feel like I do but maybe you actually don’t and-”

Whatever you were about to say dies out against Sunghoon’s lips as he presses his lips to yours, interrupting your rambling. He pulls away, looking at you with a huge, stupid grin. He’s so stupid, you think. I love him so much.

“Fucking hell, Y/N. I’ve been waiting for you to say this so bad, you have no idea.”

You punch his chest, frowning at him. Those stupid tears won’t stop. Everything is so stupid. “Then why didn’t you say it first?”

“Because I didn’t know how to. You know I’m bad with words. And I was scared it’d make things weird.”

“I don’t want things to be weird,” you pout.

“I don’t want things to be weird, either. I want things to be nice and happy.”

You giggle. “That’s so stupid.”

“Right? It’s so stupid,” he repeats, kissing you again.

“Your breath smells,” you complain when he pulls away.

“And you have tears on your lips. Tastes salty,” he teases.

“Yeah, thanks to who?”

“Sorry.” He smiles and kisses you again. He holds you against him for a while, enjoying this last moment together. As long as he can see a smile on your face before you leave, he’ll be fine.

“I’m gonna miss you so much too, Y/N. And forget about those non-existent girls. There’s no one I’d rather be with than you.”

“How do you know? You haven’t met any of them yet,” you say, voice muffled against his t-shirt.

“I’ve met other girls before. None of them compare to you,” he says, and you immediately gag at how cliché it sounds. “What?! It’s true,” he giggles.

“You’re not gonna go and date a random guy, are you?”

“Of course not. None of them compare to you,” you say, lowering your voice to imitate his.

He helps you finish packing, and when you’re done, you lay together on your bed, not saying much because not much needs to be said. Your parents struggle to tear you away from each other and from your bed when it’s time to leave. He helps your dad put your baggage in the trunk of his car, telling you to not lift a finger so you watch him go to and from the car, leaving a kiss on your forehead every time he walks past you. You notice with a smile that he doesn’t carry much at once, making him have to go back-and-forth quite often.

After saying goodbye to your family, your dad waits in the car as you and Sunghoon hang back awkwardly, kicking small pebbles on the pavement. He takes your hand in his, making you look up at him, then takes the other hand, then hugs you close to him.

“I’m gonna miss you,” you say, as if that wasn’t obvious. You’re trying hard to fight tears from falling again, but it’s like there’s an ocean behind your eyes, water somehow never running out.

“I already miss you,” he says, and that’s enough to get you to sob again, which makes him start crying too. You’re crying, he’s crying, your mom is crying from the porch as she watches the two of you, it’s a mess.

You force yourself away from him, cupping his face in your hands. “We’ll see each other soon, okay? And college will be fun. You won’t even have time to miss me. But make time to think about me, yeah? And text me.”

“I will. I’ll think about you all the time, I already do,” he says.

“Okay,” you whisper and hug him one last time, very briefly, pressing a kiss to his cheek. You’re about to walk away but he doesn’t let go of your hand and pulls on your arm to bring you back to him.

Pressing his forehead against yours, he whispers, “I love you,” and you sob.

“I love you, too.”

This time, when you walk away, he lets you go. He watches as you get into the passenger’s seat and as the car drives away, as it takes you away from him. You watch him stand there in the rearview mirror, until his silhouette becomes smaller, and smaller, and smaller, until you can’t see him at all anymore.

Summer went and fall came as they do every year. Dead leaves are falling but it’s a new start for you. It’s a new town and you don’t know anybody, but you click instantly with your roommate and make new friends throughout your first week there. You realize everybody’s in the same boat, and they’re all eager to meet people and are curious about college life. You love your classes but complain about them nonetheless. You eat more ramen than you’d like to admit and turn up hungover at a 9 am class on a Thursday. You pull all-nighters at the library and develop a caffeine dependency. You’re a college student.

You and Sunghoon were very dramatic when you left, you soon realize. You call almost everyday. He’s not there with you and you miss him but at least you don’t have to pretend you’re not stupidly in love with him anymore. Because it’s stupid, being in love, it really is. You wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Your first semester passes by almost too quickly, and before you know it, you’re on the drive home, already one eighth of the way through university. You’re excited to go home, but Sunghoon’s finals last a week longer so you wait around for him. When you complain about it, Chaeyoung tells you to get a grip. “You haven’t seen him in three months, I’m sure you can handle another week.”

And you can, but barely. You were about to explode but then he’s back and you’re in his arms and his hair is still so soft, his scent is still so comforting and his moles are still there. You kiss them both before you finally press your lips to his, and it makes you feel so alive, you could die right then and there.

You lie on his bed and talk for hours as if you didn’t keep in touch the whole time and it’s like you never left. It’s like summer never ended and you’ve just been lying in his bed the whole time, college just one big fever dream.

But his skin doesn’t smell like chlorine anymore, and he’s not in his swimming trunks. It’s fall, almost winter, and you’re kissing Park Sunghoon. You realize you can kiss him whatever the season and you find comfort in that. It was a big day (you cried a lot when you saw him) and you’re tired so you think you’ll kiss for a bit and that’ll be all but then he whispers “I missed you so much” against your neck and a fire lights inside your stomach. Oh, how it burns. You think it might consume you whole, but you don’t dislike that idea.

In a flash, you’re on top of him, his shirt is off, your shirt is off, but it’s not enough so you take your pants off too and Sunghoon is confused as to why you’re going so fast, but follows you anyway. “What’s going on?” he asks when you’re done with the taking off of your clothes and have moved on to kissing and biting at his neck like it’s your first meal in ages, because it is.

“I missed you too,” you simply answer, and he smirks as he nods slowly, now understanding your eagerness.

“Missed me that much, huh?” he teases, letting his head fall back against the pillow so you have better access to his neck.

“Shut up. Kiss me,” you order, and he doesn’t need to be told twice. Your kisses are ravenous and desperate, very fitting for two horny people in love who haven’t seen each other in months. But the pulse in your core makes you too impatient to stay anywhere for too long, and really, it’s not your fault if you’re grinding down onto Sunghoon’s clothed erection, it’s just that he smells too good and you missed him too much.

Sunghoon laughs at you for being so impatient to hide just how impatient he is. His giggles keep him from moaning loudly enough to wake the whole house, and you laugh as you tell him to stop laughing.

“I’m serious. I missed you so much. Need you so bad,” you say as you get rid of your underwear and quickly do the same for his. He gasps when he feels you take his dick in your hand and brush its tip between your folds, both out of pleasure and out of surprise.

“Shouldn’t I get you ready? Stretch you out a bit?” he asks, his hands roaming up and down your back as he sits up on the bed so that you’re straddling his lap, and you shake your head no. You’re probably already embarrassingly wet from your short makeout session, anyway.

“I don’t care if it hurts,” you say, lining his tip with your entrance. “Need to feel you.”

You sink down on his cock, the both of you releasing loud moans at the long-awaited feeling. He lets you adjust to his size for a minute, but as soon as you move your hips just a bit, signaling to him that you’re ready for more, it’s over for you. He wanted to be patient and take his time, he really did, but you feel so warm around him and your small whimpers are so pretty that his resolve of letting you take the lead is thrown out the window. He pounds into you at a rapid pace that has you biting his shoulder to keep yourself from screaming.

You had imagined your first time back with Sunghoon so many times before. It usually involved a nice playlist in the background, fairy lights and candles lighting the room, hours of foreplay and sensual lovemaking, with a nice bath afterwards. Sometimes, when you were particularly needy for him, you imagined something closer to what was actually happening, where you’d rip each other’s clothes as soon as you got to the bedroom and fucked like animals (a bit much, admittedly, but you really missed him).

What you definitely hadn’t expected, however, was that you’d both cum in less than five minutes. What could you do, though, when he was hitting your g-spot over and over again, his length stretching you perfectly as he whispered in your ear how much he’d missed you and how good you felt? And what could he do when you took him in so well, clinging onto him as you told him how much you’d missed him and how good he felt?

You finish at the same time, hole clenching around him and milking him dry. He doesn’t pull out for a while, letting you collapse onto him as you both catch your breaths, just like you had that first time. “That was a bit quick,” he pants, and you can’t help but laugh.

You pull back to look at his face. It’s so pretty and stupid. What a stupid face that you love so much. Do you love it because it’s stupid or is it stupid because you love it? You think that that’s a stupid question, and you kiss the mole on his nose, then the mole on his cheek, right next to his nose.

“We have all night to go slower.”

“We have all Christmas break,” he corrects.

We have the rest of our lives, you think, and you think that might be a bit much, but you say it anyway. Sunghoon hums and says, “yes, we do,” and you think maybe it’s not all that stupid.

Maybe it’s the greatest thing that’s ever been.

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz (ask to be removed/added!)

#enhypen x reader #sunghoon x reader #enhypen smut #sunghoon smut #enhypen angst #sunghoon angst #enhypen imagines #sunghoon imagines #enhypen au #sunghoon au #enhypen fanfiction #sunghoon fanfiction

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atlabeth · 2 months ago

Text

bittersweet - joel miller

summary: you stumble into joel's life and he has no intentions of keeping you there. too bad you're just as stubborn as he is.

a/n: did someone order a whole novella of plot mixed with occasional banter ending with no relationship in sight but a new bond that will inevitably grow to be more? no? here it is anyways!

set before joel gets to boston but he's already been separated from tommy but who tf cares about canon tbh we're just having fun here. i started this when the show first began and as usual, abandoned it and as usual, came back with a fervor 2 years later. hope you all enjoy! i barely proofread this bc ive already read it so many times while writing and i physically cannot do it one more time rn so please let me know if there are any glaring mistakes

wc: 20k (officially my longest one shot! congrats joel)

warning(s): fem!reader (she is southern); decent age gap (joel is 40 and r is 27), half and half on fluff and angst; canon typical violence, some directed at reader; a lot of cursing; a lot of gun violence throughout most of the fic; numerous gunshot wounds; threats of sexual violence against reader but nothing ever happens! joel kills a lot of people (and is kinda mean for the first half of this); inaccurate medical stuff!! i did my research but am prob wrong on some stuff so pls dont flame me

both gifs bc i imagined both of them while writing and bc theyre both so hot jfc

You wish you weren’t so accustomed to waking up to gunshots.

You dart up from your bed immediately, the sound rattling around your brain as your weary mind tries to make sense of the situation. You have your pistol in your hand before you even fully realize it, your instincts honed even in your grogginess.

Screams accompany the gunfire and you push against the grimaces trying to fight their way to the surface. This isn’t the first time the compound you’ve stayed in has been taken over by force, but it’s the first time you’ve been this unprepared, and the first time you haven’t been on the ground floor for easy evacuation. No one is in your room trying to kill you—not yet, at least—and you have to take that blessing while you’ve got it.

You throw on your jacket and shove your feet into your boots, thankful you tucked your laces in months ago. You can handle the minor discomfort in exchange for the advantage. You throw what you can into your backpack, ensure your knife is secured in its sheath, and edge towards the door.

Normally, you share a room with Devon, but she went on a supply run alongside a few others a couple days ago—you regret not taking her offer to come along on account of your many patients, but you can’t waste what could become a very short life on regrets.

You open the door and peer out, trying to gauge your chances. The gunshots are getting closer and the screams are louder. If you weren’t on the top floor, you would have considered the window. But you have to get to the infirmary first, and you don’t really feel like breaking your legs.

Soon as there’s an opening, you run. Your most recent area of refuge is a run down high school, and you know it well after your months here. You practically throw yourself down a hallway to hide from a group of men coming up the stairs, and your heart threatens to beat out your chest.

Their rifles and shotguns are much bigger than the little handgun that you’ve carried state to state. You have to press your body against the wall to stop it from shaking, and grip your pistol so tight you feel the ridged handle indent into your palm.

“Go room by room!” one man at the front shouts. “Leave no survivors!”

Your only hope is to get out before they find you. The infirmary is in the old nurse’s office on the first floor—if they’re already up here gunning down the last of the compound, then you have little doubt that your patients are already dead. There’s no point in joining them out of some false sense of heroism.

There were no heroes anymore.

You back up slowly, making sure you stay flush against the wall while you keep an eye on the hallway. You think about slipping into the classroom you’re next to, but you decide against it. You can’t afford to get trapped.

You continue to stealth your way down the hallways, keeping your head on a swivel as you try and think through all your escape routes.

There’s another staircase on the other side of the top floor, but that might be too out in the open. A couple of stairwells are tucked behind unassuming doors, but that would leave you even more trapped if things went south. And of course, you can always throw yourself out a window and hope you don’t break your legs.

More gunshots, more screams—you hear the thumps of bodies falling to the floor and you have to steel yourself. It doesn’t matter that these people were your friends or acquaintances or anything close to it. They’re dead now, and you refuse to join them.

You turn the corner and immediately retract—a trio of armed men are going classroom by classroom, and you hardly stand a chance against one. Once you retrace your steps, you poke your head around the corner only to be greeted with the sight of more bandits. You press yourself against the wall, heart racing.

You’re stuck in this hallway, dead if they see you. Might as well make things a little worse and at least get yourself some cover if you’re trapped either way.

The ceiling is crumbling above you, has been falling apart for a few months. You pick up a piece of tile, take a deep breath, and throw it as hard as you can. Two of the trio go to check it out, and the third is focused on them to watch their backs. You dart out of your hallway and run as quick and quiet as you can, and you make it to the alcove leading into a classroom.

Twin classrooms actually, connected by a door in the middle, so you’re not completely stuck. You breathe out a sigh of relief, but it’s immediately short-lived when you hear the pump of a shotgun.

You whirl around to see the empty shell fall to the ground, your hands already flying up on instinct. You’re staring down the barrel of the gun, held by a man standing in the doorway between the two classrooms. He doesn’t look particularly nice, but he hasn’t shot you immediately, so you should learn to count your blessings.

“I’m a doctor!” you proclaim, your heart threatening to pound out of your chest at this point. You’ve learned it’s the best thing to lead with. “Don’t shoot, I—” you suck in air as fast as you can, but all this running with your life on the line is wearing on you— “I’m a doctor.”

Again, he doesn’t instantly kill you. He keeps his gun trained on you and takes a few steps closer, and you’re making much more eye contact with the barrel than him.

“A doctor?” he repeats skeptically. “You look a little young for that.”

“I was a surgical resident before the outbreak,” you lie. “I just have a young face.”

He lowers the gun just slightly, so it’s not aimed at your head anymore. “You’re a surgeon?”

“Yes,” you nod repeatedly. “They said to leave no survivors, but I— I can help any of your wounded. As much as you need, just— just please don’t kill me.”

The man stares at you and you tense every muscle in your body to not shift under his scrutiny. Eventually, he fully lowers his gun.

“Thank you,” you breathe. You feel like you could collapse from the relief, but it doesn’t last long as he moves in. Soon as he’s close enough, he slams your hand against the wall and your gun falls out of your limp grasp.

Your heart rate spikes as you flatten yourself against the wall in an effort to put space between the two of you, but it’s fruitless.

“If you’re fuckin’ lying,” he mutters, his hot breath hitting your face as his grip on your wrist tightens painfully, “you’ll end up like the rest of your people.”

“I’m not lying,” you enunciate stiffly, staring him right in the eye.

The man holds your gaze for another moment before he nods, seemingly satisfied. He lets go of you to pick up your gun from the ground and tuck it in his holster, and you stumble forward when he pushes you with the barrel.

“Get movin’, little lady,” he says. “I’ve got an awfully itchy trigger finger.”

You fight the urge to talk back. You’ve avoided getting shot for this long, and you don’t really fancy getting a shotgun to the face in such close quarters. You keep your hands up and start walking, hoping by pure will you can stop them from shaking.

You walk out of the classroom and through the hallways, and you’re able to catch glimpses of dead bodies as you go. You recognize far too many of them—those with their features still intact, at least.

These people welcomed you into their community with open arms, treated you like family even though they’d only known you for a few months. You knew anyone like that didn’t last very long, but you tried to ignore it.

You couldn’t think about that now, though. That was how the world worked—how it had worked for a long time now.

You stumble your way down the stairs and finally make it to the lobby. Even more bodies litter the first floor—you see Eleanor, the woman who brought you back here when she could have left you for dead; Delilah, who you worked with in the infirmary; Cade, who flirted with you too much for his own good but always managed to make you laugh—

Your focus is jarred from thoughts of your comrades survival to those of your own as the man pushes you hard with the barrel of his gun. You just barely manage to catch yourself with your hands as you fall to your knees. You look up to see yourself in the middle of a group of bloodstained bandits, and you clench your hands into fists to keep them from shaking.

“What part of ‘no survivors’ do you not understand, Jake?” one of them says. “We don’t need another mouth to feed because you want a plaything.”

Your skin crawls at the thought, but he just shakes his head with a grumble. “I’m not like Marshall. Didn’t kill her ‘cause she says she’s a doctor. She can get Becca and Joel back on their feet,” he looks pointedly at a woman, “can make sure Nadine’s still in working order.”

“How do you know she’s not lying?” the woman counters, and she squats down to look you in the eye. You meet her inquisitive gaze, refusing to look away—she breaks first, at least, and stands back up. “Could be tryin’ to save her own ass.”

“I’m not lying,” you grind out. “Wouldn’t do me any good to get shot at your camp instead of here, would it?”

“Watch your mouth,” she says, but she backs off anyways.

“Check her for weapons and tie her up,” another one says. “We’ll take her back once we’ve picked this place clean.”

Again, you swallow the words you want to say. You bite your tongue when you’re wrestled from the ground and searched for weapons. You don’t fight back as your hands are tied together behind your back, you don’t fight back when Jake prods you with his gun even as he follows you to the infirmary to get your medical bag, you don’t fight back against anything.

You’re a captive of the people that slaughtered your friends, only alive because of the overexaggerated skills you’ve used like a shield since the outbreak started. Your continued survival depends on helping people you might not even be able to save, and you doubt this group will want to listen to your medical explanations.

But you are alive. And that’s all you care about.

(You’re not breaking the one damn promise that still matters.)

It’s not a very fun ride back.

These people travel by horse and they don’t want you running off, so you have to sit in front of Jake, the man who spared your life who seems to be some kind of leader. He makes idle comments to pass the time, and it’s not as bad as it could be, but you dislike him anyway. He did help murder your whole community.

Sunrise comes around just as you make it to camp—you have to fight to stay awake on the ride, and when you jump down, you’re reminded that this slaughter happened in the middle of the night.

It doesn’t matter how tired you are, though, because your work starts almost immediately. You think about asking Jake for coffee as he leads you to your first patient, but you don’t think he would take too kindly to it.

He mentioned Becca when he was pleading your case, and she ends up being your first stop. She’s got a nasty gash on her leg that she got from hopping a barbed wire fence and it’s kept her off her feet since it happened.

You clean it out as best you can and stitch it up with what these people have on hand, which happens to be a needle and thread. At this point, you think you’ve done more stitches this way than the normal way. To her credit, she bears it well—better than Jake, who grumbles every time you ask him for the materials you need. It’s like he doesn’t even want you to help, which doesn’t really make sense when he’s standing there with his gun like he’s ready to shoot you at any moment.

Next is Nadine, and you’re accompanied by the woman who accused you of lying. They must be close, because she doesn’t leave her side during your entire checkup. Nadine has a broken arm that you can tell she hasn’t been resting properly, but at least there’s no swelling. They’ve already done a makeshift sling for her, so you just do a par for the course checkup then refashion her sling to be more effective. None of them appreciate you telling her she needs to rest, but you figured that would be the case. This doesn’t seem to be the happiest bunch of people.

Finally, you’re hauled off to your last patient, Joel. You’re exhausted from your sleepless night and walking on glass with every passing second, but he’s the last one. He can’t be too difficult to deal with.

You reach the final room and Jake pounds on the door.

“Joel!” he calls. “You decent?”

“Do you know what time it is?” a gruff voice responds, and you hold back a sigh. Is everyone here difficult?

Jake opens the door anyway and gestures for you to walk in. You do, and you see a man laying down in bed atop the sheets. His eyes are closed but he doesn’t even look peaceful—just annoyed.

You purse your lips. Everyone here is difficult.

“We got ourselves a doctor,” Jake says. “So stop complainin’ and let her look at you.”

“I don’t need a doctor,” he says.

“You got shot two days ago,” he retorts. “Only reason no one’s looked at it more is because no one thought you would make it through the night.”

“I’m fine.” He sits up with a groan characteristic of someone who is not fine, and he levels his gaze at you. “You’re wasting your time.”

“I’ve got nothing but time,” you say. “I don’t think he’s gonna let me leave until I look you over, so…”

Joel scoffs. “Don’t tell me you went and kidnapped a doctor.”

“We got lucky at the school,” Jake says.

He rolls his eyes. “I told you, I’m fine.”

You glance at your captor. “I don’t think we’re getting anywhere.”

“You better get somewhere,” Jake says.

“I might make better leeway without you standing over me,” you say.

He frowns. “You’re a prisoner. Can’t trust you alone.”

“I’ve gotten through the past two patients just fine.”

“I don’t need you jumpin’ out the window and running the first chance you get,” Jake says.

“Look,” you say, a muscle working in your jaw, “do you want your man to get through this or not? Because if you do, I need to work in silence, and it doesn’t seem like the two of you are very good at it together.”

He doesn’t budge, and you let out a loose breath. “You can wait outside, and if I do anything suspicious, feel free to shoot me. But at least give me the room.”

The approval of your own murder seems to satisfy him, however temporary, because after staring at you for another moment, he grunts. He goes over to the door, then lifts his gun and looks at you. “Remember, I’ve got an itchy trigger finger.”

He leaves the room to let the threat sit in the air, and you close your eyes and sigh deeply. You don’t know when, but you know you have to get out of here eventually.

“And just who the hell are you?”

You open your eyes to see Joel staring right at you, very unimpressed. He looks to be in his 40s, the greying in his scruffy hair and beard giving it away—if that didn’t do it, the hardened weariness in his eyes would.

Men like him tend to be the worst patients, at least in your limited experience. Something tells you Joel won’t be any different.

“A doctor,” you say. “What’s wrong with you?”

“You don’t look like a doctor,” he says.

You already hate this guy. “Sorry. I lost my white coat and stethoscope when people started eating each other.”

“I mean you look too young.”

“Well, you look too old to still be this annoying,” you retort. “Now tell me what’s wrong with you so we get over this quicker. ”

Joel grumbles and rolls his eyes, but he eventually answers you. “Got shot a couple days back.”

“There an exit wound?” you ask.

He nods.

“How much does it hurt?”

“Like hell.”

You narrow your eyes at him. “You this short with all your doctors?”

He grunts, and you sigh as you kneel down next to him. “Alright. Show me.”

Joel stares at you for a moment before relenting. He shrugs off his jacket then pulls up the bottom of his shirt, revealing a shoddily bandaged wound on his lower chest.

You raise your eyebrows. “Who patched you up? And when?”

“Does it matter?” he asks.

“Yes, actually. Helps me know the likelihood of infection, and if there is one, how fucked you are.”

“Why do you need to know who did it?”

“Because it’s pretty shitty handiwork,” you say.

“Kept me alive,” Joel says. “Far as I’m concerned, that means it’s pretty good.”

You roll your eyes. “You tell yourself that when you’re dying of sepsis.”

“Not everyone has your luxuries, doc,” he responds dryly.

“I’d say you certainly have some luxuries,” you say. “Looks like this missed your major organs, for one. You’re extremely lucky.”

He huffs a mirthless laugh. “Wouldn’t really classify myself as lucky.”

“You should,” you say, glancing back up at him. “Takes an awful lot of it to get by these days.”

Joel remains silent. You sigh again and take it as your sign to start working.

You gingerly peel back the bandages, and to Joel’s credit, he only grimaces the smallest bit.

“No infection,” you murmur. “That’s good.”

“Guess it was patched up pretty well then,” he says.

You glance up at him. “You dressed it yourself, didn’t you?”

Joel shrugs. “Maybe.”

“You seem pretty normal for someone who got shot a few days ago,” you say.

“‘Cause it’s not the first time,” he says. “You tellin’ me you haven’t been shot?”

You shake your head. “Stabbed, sliced, scratched, bit, but never shot.”

His eyebrows rise. “You’ve been bit?”

“By people, not infected.” You chuckle. “The one thing I’ve managed to avoid, at least.”

He makes some noise of acknowledgement. “Things get crazy in that hospital of yours?”

You smile wryly. “Nothin’ crazier than I see out here everyday. And nothing worse than Outbreak Day.”

Joel goes quiet at that. You don’t know why you continue on as you clean out his wound, why you’re talking so much when you went through the last two patients in relative silence. Maybe it’s because Jake isn’t standing over your shoulder.

“I worked in a hospital in the middle of Boston,” you explain. “The city practically imploded when it all started—felt like we were the epicenter of it all. Patients turned their nurses, folks in the waiting room killed their families, and all the infected that managed to escape went on a rampage in the city.” You shake your head with a sigh. “Sometimes I still don’t know how I made it out alive.”

You feel Joel’s gaze on you for a long time after. You can’t bring yourself to meet his eyes, so you busy yourself with dressing both sides of his wound now that you’ve cleaned it out. Eventually, though, he speaks.

“Boston’s a long way from Kansas,” he says. “How’d you end up here?”

You shake your head again as you finish taping the last piece of gauze across his exit wound. “Can’t reveal all my secrets day one.”

“Bold to think I care that much,” he says.

You frown. “You were the one that asked.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but he’s interrupted when the door opens. Both of you look over to see Jake, looking unapologetic.

“I got bored,” he says, answering your unspoken question. “Can’t take this long to bandage someone up.”

You set down your nearly depleted roll of gauze. “I just finished, actually.”

“He gonna live?” Jake asks.

“Bullet went straight through and missed any vital organs or arteries, so he really avoided the worst of it,” you explain. “I cleaned it the best I could and covered it with gauze—I think it would do more harm than good to stitch it up. He should be okay, but someone should really monitor him for the next few days to make sure it stays that way. And if you have antibiotics, send ‘em his way. Better to be safe than sorry when it comes to infection.”

“Good,” he nods. “I think we have a couple—I’ll get ‘em to you.”

“Good,” you echo. “Then I think we’re done here.”

You stand up from the bed, thinking you’re finally in the clear, when he pulls out a pair of handcuffs. You’re about to question it when he opens them and clips one side around the radiator next to the door, then looks at you.

“We got one last order of business,” Jake says, and it clicks in your head.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you say incredulously.

“You said it yourself,” he says. “Someone’s gotta keep an eye on him. Might as well be the one that treated him.”

“This is ridiculous,” you spit. “I did what you asked, and you treat me like— like a goddamn animal?”

“You’re a prisoner,” he says, like he has to remind you. “I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you. You’ll run off the second you can.”

You grind your teeth together. “Can’t even put me in a cell like a dignified prisoner?”

“If Joel dies, it’s your head,” he says. “You should thank me. This gives you the best chance possible.”

You want to fight it, but you can’t. Not when he could put a bullet in your head with that shotgun he seems very fond of.

So you clench your jaw, swallow your pride, and let him handcuff you to a radiator that looks like it’s a decade older than you. This motel they’ve hitched up in really has all the luxuries.

“What if I do start dyin’ in the middle of the night,” Joel says dryly. “She can’t exactly work her magic with one hand.”

“I’m sure she can do plenty magic with one hand,” Jake chuckles, and your skin crawls as he looks you over. You clench your jaw so hard you think your teeth might crack.

“Real clever, jackass,” Joel intones.

Jake rolls his eyes. “Just walk your sorry ass across the room if you have to.”

“You really thought this out,” he says.

“Don’t make me regret makin’ her save your life,” Jake says, and he turns his attention back to you. “Don’t do—“

“Anything stupid,” you interrupt despite yourself. “Yeah, I know.”

You feel the pain before you even really see him pull the gun out, the glint of metal the only hint to the searing fire in your cheek. You fall to the ground, hissing as your free hand darts up to nurse the wound rather than try to catch yourself. The pain smarts both on your knees and your cheek, blood already spurting from the cut he opened up. Your vision swims in front of you.

“Watch your mouth, bitch,” he growls. “Remember why you’re here.”

You just grit your teeth as he holsters his pistol—no, your pistol, the bastard—riding through the wave of dizziness. You want to remind him you won’t be of much use if you’re fucking dead, but you don’t feel like earning yourself another badge of his approval. So you just nod in submissive acknowledgement, and he looks at Joel.

“Keep her in check, will you? I don’t feel like dealing with more of this bullshit in the morning.”

“Sure,” Joel says.

That seems to satisfy him, because Jake only gives you another dirty look before he leaves and kicks the door shut behind him.

Your eyes begin watering against your will, lesser pain than you’ve experienced in the past somehow managing to bring you down. You bite down hard on the inside of your lip as you shift to sit against the wall, hoping a different source of pain will force the blood trickling down your cheek into the background.

You can’t cry over something like this. Not in front of a man like Joel.

“I know you’re looking,” you say bitterly. “If you want to call me an idiot, just do it.”

“You’re an idiot,” he says. You don’t really know what you expect.

“It’s one hell of a group you’re running with.” You pull your hand away from your cheek, grimacing at the concerning amount of blood coating your fingers. Between this and the dull pain in your knees, you’re going to bruise something fierce.

Nothing like getting pistol whipped with your own gun by one of the hunters that slaughtered your community like sheep to make you feel at home.

“They’re the same as everyone else,” he says. “Don’t know how you’re still surprised after all these years.”

Your thoughts go back to the first group you had to leave. The first time you were forced to be terribly, horribly, woefully selfish, when you lost the only thing that mattered. You wonder if he thinks about you as much as you think about him.

Screams echo in your mind. You shut them out.

“...I’m not,” you say. “Just acknowledging.”

As silence consumes the air between you, you can’t help but pull your legs closer to yourself in an effort to be as small as possible. You’re intimately aware that you’re at Joel’s mercy, and you can only hope he’s not that sort of man. Jake’s comments don’t bring you much solace.

He must notice how tense you are, because he sighs and shakes his head. “Relax. Ain’t gonna hurt you.”

“Sorry if I don’t believe that,” you mutter.

Joel scoffs. “Don’t matter what you believe or not.”

“Well, I believe that I’m royally fucked,” you spit. “I’ve been here for five hours and I’m already bleedin’ and stuck in a room with you. Doesn’t fare well for my future.”

“How’d you even end up here?” Joel asks. “We ain’t exactly bringing in new folks.”

You huff. “You weren’t too far off with them kidnapping a doctor.”

He doesn’t seem fazed, and you think that should concern you. “What, they just wander into a hospital and pick you up?”

“They wandered into a high school and murdered my whole community,” you correct. “I’m only here because I pleaded my case before they could shoot me.”

“...Wound does feel better,” he says. “Least you kinda know what you’re doing.”

You glance away. “Bandaged more GSWs these past few years than I ever did in med school. I’m used to it by now.”

There’s another knock on the door and your whole body tenses. Joel calls out that it’s unlocked, and you’ve never been so grateful to see the woman from before. Nadine’s sister, you remember— Rachel. She breathed over your shoulder the entire time you fixed up her sister’s sling.

“You better?” she asks.

He nods. “Back on my feet, at least.”

“Good,” she says. She seems to notice you, bleeding and deflated and restrained, and looks back at Joel unfazed. “What’s the deal here?”

“Jake did it,” he says. “Wants to keep her in check.”

“Long as it means she’s not a problem, I couldn’t care less,” she admits. “But you gotta get your ass in gear, Joel. Community meeting in the lobby.”

“Y’all woke me up at four in the morning,” Joel complains. “Can’t let an old man sleep day after he gets shot?”

“You said it yourself; you’re back on your feet,” she says. “Better see you in five.”

She leaves and closes the door behind her, not even passing a second look at you. You felt less alone when you were moping your way through Missouri.

Joel heaves a sigh and stands up. He grabs his jacket from the bed and slips it back on, buttoning it up in the middle. You watch him go through the motions because you have nothing else to do, but you notice the roughness of his hands.

“You gonna do anything about those torn calluses?” you ask.

He glances at you with a frown. “Why’re you lookin’?”

“Got nothing else to do,” you say. “You don’t cover those up, they could lead to infection.”

“Sounds like everything can lead to infection,” he mocks.

“Kinda does,” you say. “‘Specially in this world.”

Joel huffs a laugh and he pulls a couple bandaids out of your medical bag, still sitting on his bed. “That good enough for you?”

“Don’t do it for me,” you say. “Do it for yourself.”

He grumbles as he tucks them into his pocket, and you continue to watch him as he gets ready. Ties up his boots, shoves knives into sheaths on each leg, fixes the watch on his wrist—

“Quit starin’ at me,” he mumbles.

“I told you,” you say. “Nothin’ else to do.”

“Look at the wall,” Joel says as he slings a rifle over his shoulder. “More interesting than me.”

“The wall doesn’t have your overwhelming charm,” you say.

He scoffs. “Can’t believe I’m stuck with you.”

You shrug. “Can always kill me yourself and be done with it.”

“Who’ll save me when I crash in the middle of the night?” he mocks.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” you say. “You patched yourself up, after all.”

Joel exhales a little harder than usual out of your nose, and you figure that’s what passes as a laugh around him. You take a strange amount of pride in it.

You think he’s about to leave, but instead he picks up your medical bag and slides it over to you.

“Patch yourself up for a change,” he says. “Don’t want you bleedin’ all over this expensive flooring while I’m gone.”

That gets the slightest laugh out of you as you pick it up. “Thanks.”

Joel grunts in acknowledgement, and he moves over to the door. You start unzipping the bag but have to pause, the sight of your blood all over your hand making you grimace. You’ve gotten some on your jeans unwittingly, and you can’t help but sigh. Sure, they’re already covered in dust and grime and blood from other people, but you didn’t want to add yours to the mix. Especially on your favorite pair of jeans.

Maybe you’d be able to scrounge a bottle of hydrogen peroxide up sometime. It’s the least this world could give you.

You look up to see Joel standing in the door frame, looking at you instead of leaving.

“You’re gonna be late,” you say. “Then we’ll both be on Jake’s shit list.”

Joel blinks. He looks like he wants to say something, but he just nods.

“See you ‘round,” he says.

“Not like I can go anywhere,” you say wryly.

You go back to rummaging through your bag, trying to find the gauze you haphazardly shoved back in. Joel’s still looking at you, and his gaze burns your skin. You hope if you ignore him, he’ll leave.

He does. He shuts the door behind him when he leaves, quieter and gentler than you expect.

You stare at your hands, one bloodstained and the other cuffed. You’ve taken care of your calluses better than Joel, at least.

The thought is warmer than it should be.

Makes you realize how cold the room feels.

Joel doesn’t come back for a while. Half the day, you think.

It’s difficult to keep track of time in here. With the door closed and the window shutters down, what little light streams through doesn’t give you much of an idea of the hour.

You also don’t really have much to do, which makes the time pass even slower.

You clean your cheek out the best you can and tape it shut with some small butterfly bandages. You hope that’ll make it heal quicker, or at least keep it protected from the elements. You can’t let it get infected after all you’ve spouted to Joel.

It still smarts, but you try your best to ignore it. Jake did a number on you, and with your own pistol at that.

He might have spared your life, but you’re killing him before you escape this place.

You try to sleep, but it doesn’t really work. You’re exhausted, plain and simple, but you think your body will have to give out for you to get some rest at this point. The position you’re stuck in is too damn uncomfortable for your brain to shut off, and every time you get close, you just see the bodies of your friends, see the same nightmares you’ve relived for a year and a half.

So instead, you decide to test your boundaries.

You’re handcuffed to one of the middle pipes, which goes all the way down to the ground and about a third of the way up the wall. You use your finger to measure and figure out you have around five inches of leeway with the chain. Not enough to do much of anything with, but still something.

Once you’re done with that, you just… look around. There isn’t much else to do, but this is Joel’s room. You were a psych minor before the world ended—maybe it’ll give you some insight into him, give you something to use. You’re not above manipulation if it means you can get someone on your side.

But frustratingly, there’s almost nothing. It’s not like you expect him to have a whole decorated room in the apocalypse, but he’s really giving you nothing here.

An open pack of bullets sits on his bedside table. His sheets are still a mess from his rude awakening because he didn’t bother to make his bed before he left. The extra unused pillows lay scattered on the ground,

So you can’t analyze him using his barebones room—you have nothing but time, so you think back to how he looked before he left and go from there.

Joel’s beard and facial hair were both relatively under control, so he’s someone who cares a decent amount about cleanliness and hygiene. He carries two knives and a rifle outwardly, but you wouldn’t be surprised if he had a handgun hiding somewhere or more weapons in his bag. He speaks with a Southern accent—stronger than yours, but you lost some of it while you were studying in Boston.

You used to not mind. People seemed to respect you more without it, seemed to take you more seriously, and that was all you wanted in med school. Now, it just feels like another part of yourself that you’ve lost. Like you can’t even call yourself an Okie anymore.

He looks to be in his forties, but you don’t remember a wedding ring. Whether he’s been a life-long bachelor or loved and lost and just chooses not to wear it, you don’t know. From what you’ve seen, all hardened survivor-like, it’s hard to imagine him with a wife and kids and a white picket fence life.

But what do you know? Anyone who’s still alive at this point has to have a hardened heart. There’s no other way to survive. There’s a reason you’re fucking handcuffed to a radiator.

Maybe before this all started, Joel was kinder. Softer. Maybe he did have a wife and kids, and he loved them more than anything. Maybe he actually smiled.

You shake your head. No use thinking of the past, and certainly no use judging him. You’ve changed too. Everyone has. And if he has a family that he lost, then you’ve got more in common than you think.

Maybe you can use that.

Joel is covered in blood when he eventually comes back into the room. He gives you half a glance before he pulls his pack and rifle off and sets them on the bed.

“Can’t believe you’re still here,” he says.

“Can’t exactly leave,” you respond. “How’re you all bloody after a meeting?”

“Went huntin’ after,” he says. “Things move quick here.”

“Well, how’d that go?”

“We ain’t gonna starve, so as good as it could be.” Joel passes another glance at you, this time a little longer. “Your cheek looks better.”

“Feels like shit,” you say. “How’s your chest?”

“Feels like shit,” he echoes. “But I’ll live.”

“None of that blood is yours, is it?”

“No.” He points his finger at you. “And you’re not doin’ another checkup, doc, so don’t even think about it.”

You smile sweetly and hold up your shackled wrist. “Couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

Joel huffs. “Still can’t believe Jake did this. Like he’s tryin’ to punish me, sticking you with me.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I feel like they’re punishing me by sticking you with me too.”

“You can’t be stuck with me,” Joel says. “This is my room. You’re the intruder.”

“I’m real threatening, huh?” you mock. “So much so that I gotta be restrained.”

“Threatening, no. Annoying, yes.”

“You’re too kind,” you drawl. You watch him unpack some more, then you purse your lips. “Y’know, you really shouldn’t have gone hunting when you got shot a couple days ago.”

“Was only half a mile out.” Joel scoffs. “There you go provin’ my point.”

You hum. “Guess you really are stuck with me, then.”

“Lucky me,” he mutters.

Joel is in and out for the rest of the day, and even when he’s in you don’t really talk. When he comes back for the night he at least brings some stale bread and a small ration of meat for you—you and your growling stomach are appreciative, but it makes you feel like a prisoner even more than the handcuffs.

What’s worse is how annoyed he seems about it all. Like this was your choice—like you not only chose to throw in with these people, but you chose to stick yourself with him. You think about telling Joel that, but you decide against it.

Just because he said he wouldn’t hurt you doesn’t mean he won’t go back on his word. People tend to not really care about their word these days.

You try to make small talk, but he doesn’t give. Eventually, when he settles in for the night, you decide to try as well.

It’s even more uncomfortable than when you tried earlier. You lay down on the ground, you lean against the radiator, you settle against the wall— it doesn’t matter what position you try because they all cause some part of your body to start hurting within minutes.

You thought it would be easier, considering how many nights you’ve spent sleeping on hardwood floors and cold dirt, but it’s not. Blame it on your privilege from the bed in your previous compound or the unsettling nature of being stuck in a stranger’s room or the endless nightmares that follow you wherever you go—it doesn’t really matter.

A few pathetic hours of tossing and turning pass, and Joel ends up throwing a pillow and a blanket in your direction. When you thank him, he just grunts in response and goes back to sleep.

It makes it a little easier. Makes you feel a bit better about your forced company, at least.

Jake comes by in the morning to send Joel on his way for whatever task he has to do that day and pick you up. He unlocks your cuffs and takes you on the world’s shortest version of rounds. You look at Becca’s leg wound (no infection), ensure Nadine is resting her arm (she is), and by the time it’s Joel’s turn, he’s already out and about.

Turns out him lounging in bed was an oddity caused by being shot the day before, because you and Jake find him in the parking lot with a couple others getting ready to go out on a supply run.

“You know, you really should be resting,” you say as you walk up to him.

Joel scoffs when he sees you approaching and puts the last bullet into his rifle’s magazine. He’s got his sleeves rolled up, allowing you to see the slight ripple of his forearm muscles as he pushes the bolt back into place.

“I’m fine,” he says. “Certainly don’t need you followin’ me around.”

He grimaces a little when he stands up, and though he hides it well, you see his arm move for just a millisecond as he fights an instinct to press against his wound.

“Clearly,” you respond dryly. “Look, I know what I’m talking about.”

“You look like you learned medicine from watching Sesame Street.”

You scowl. “I know more than you ever will. Just like how I know that if you ain’t careful, you’re gonna ruin all my hard work.”

“I’m not gonna run a marathon, so stop bothering me, will ya?��

“I’m your doctor,” you say. “This isn’t bothering.”

“You’re not a doctor,” he says. “And you’re certainly not mine.”

“I am one, and certainly the closest thing you’ve got to one,” you huff. “You’re not dead, are you?”

He rolls his eyes. “Just keep your mouth shut. It’ll do you a lot more good around here than whatever the hell you’re doing.”

“If you just let me do my check up, I would be gone already,” you insist. “Instead, you’ve gotta be a stubborn asshole.”

Joel looks behind you at Jake. “You put her up to this?”

He shrugs. “None of us really want you to drop dead out there, I ‘spose.”

He groans and shakes his head—you’d think you were asking him to shoot his mother the way he’s protesting. But eventually, he sits back down and does a flourish with his hand.

“Make it quick,” he tells you.

“I’ll do it well,” you retort. “Pull your shirt up.”

Joel does, revealing the bottom half of his chest once again, and there’s a whistle behind you. You see Joel shoot an absolutely scathing look out of your peripherals, and you do your best to ignore it all.

The gauze is bloody, but it isn’t soaked through. You remove the dressings and redo them, glancing up on occasion to make sure you’re not hurting him. He doesn’t grimace or wince, but when he tenses every time your fingers brush against his bare skin.

“Sorry,” you murmur. “I should’ve asked if I could touch you.”

“I don’t care,” he says, but you feel him shift anyways.

The rest of it goes by pretty quickly, since you did all the important work yesterday. Once you’re done, you zip your medical bag up and nod.

“You’re good to go,” you say. “Just keep it clean to avoid infection. And don’t get shot again.”

He snorts. “Don’t plan on it.”

Joel walks off to rejoin the other hunters, and you watch him go until Jake clears his throat behind you.

“Time for you to start payin’ your keep, little lady,” he says.

You hum. “So I don’t just get to stay handcuffed to a radiator all day?”

He pushes you with the barrel of his gun to get you moving, and you stumble into a walk. “I hope you’re better at maintenance than you are at jokes.”

You just sigh and bite your tongue. He sucks, but he’s not actively threatening you. Might be the least you can ask for, at this point.

Your keep, it turns out, is doing miscellaneous chores.

You do laundry. You clean rooms. You help reinforce the wall. Bits and ends of a lot of different odd jobs, but you honestly don’t mind. It’s better than sitting in Joel’s room, shackled to a radiator and going stir-crazy.

The one bad thing about leveraging your skills is that it makes you useful, and therefore, important. These people can’t risk you running out on them when there’s new injuries to deal with every day, so you’re constantly being watched.

Random survivors that run off are just freeing up space and food. Random doctors that run off are risking lives.

Jake tries to make conversation, and it’s painful, but you go along with it. You swear your cheek hurts every time you look at him—he doesn’t even apologize for it, even though he’s there in the background the entire day. You want to ask him if he has any other job than to stand around you and threaten you into submission with a shotgun, but you decide to keep your mouth shut.

Night is falling by the time you finish things up, and you sit on a milk crate in the parking lot with another stale piece of bread and half a can of beans as your dinner. Not the most glamorous, but enough to fill you up.

You’re beginning to think it’ll be an uneventful night when you hear yelling.

“Open the fucking gate, now!” It’s Joel’s voice, angry and frantic. “We’ve got wounded!”

You jump into action before you even really know what you’re doing and run to the wall, following two other men that were eating their own dinner in the parking lot. Jake is on your heels as the three of you push the dumpster working as the world’s worst gate out of the way.

“The fuck happened?” Jake yells.

“The fuck you think happened?” another one responds. “Runners and hunters and—”

“And Paul’s fuckin’ bleeding out,” a woman continues, out of breath as she runs in.

You look up to see Joel bringing him over in a fireman’s carry, and you meet each other’s eyes. You let out a deep breath and nod, then pull your jacket off and lay it on the ground. You snap your fingers at another one of the supply runners. “Gimme your jacket.”

He frowns and looks at Joel, and he narrows his eyes. “You fuckin’ deaf? Do what she says.”

He does, thankfully, and you put it down next to yours. “Put him down, Joel.”

Joel shifts him off his back slowly then squats down to get him on his feet. Paul’s knees buckle and Joel catches him, then lowers him to the ground.

“Go get my medical bag,” you say. “It’s in your room.”

He nods and runs off, and you look down at your patient. The top half of his shirt is completely soaked with blood, but you see it’s coming from his arm. You put as much pressure on the wound as you can, ignoring his groan of pain. At least that means he’s still alive. Unconscious, but alive.

You look at another one of the supply runners. “What the hell happened to him?”

“One o’ the hunters shot ‘em in the arm,” he says.

“And where the hell is Daniel?” Jake suddenly says. “And Lee?”

“What the hell do you think?” the woman spits. “They got bullets in the head before we even knew what was happening— runners had us distracted.”

“And you thought it was smart to lead ‘em right back here?” Jake asks incredulously.

“We already lost two,” she grits. “I wasn’t gonna lose a third.”

“God fucking damn it!” he yells, and he points at the men that helped you open the gate. “Close the damn wall off, get your damn guns, and shoot on fucking sight! You hear me?”

They nod and get to work, and Jake runs off just as Joel gets back. He has your bag in his hand and you look up at him.

“Get down here,” you say. “I need your help.”

He nods and kneels down beside you, setting your bag next to you.

“Put pressure on the wound,” you say. “I’m trying to stop the bleeding, but I think the bullet hit his ulnar artery. That’s why it’s gushin’ like hell.”

Again, Joel does what you ask without questioning you. You’re thankful that everyone is listening to you when you need it—you only hope he survives this so they give you a little more leeway in the future.

You rifle through your bag until you get your water and gauze. You push Joel’s hands out of the way and you hastily clean the wound, just enough to ensure any dirt and debris is gone. You start packing the bullet hole with gauze, again ignoring his groans as you push it in deep. You do the same to the exit wound so you don’t have to get your ungloved fingers all the way in his arm—thank god, because dealing with bullet fragments is a headache you don’t think you can handle right now.

You see Jake run past with a number of people behind him. You recognize some of them from the raid on your commune, and it makes you realize your patient wasn’t one of them.

They all have their guns drawn out of an abundance of caution, and you think it’s a bit ridiculous, but you keep your focus where it’s supposed to be. You get Joel to apply pressure again while you check Paul’s pulse, two fingers on his neck then his wrist. It’s weak, but it’s there, and right now that’s all you need.

You’re just about to let yourself take it down a notch when a bullet whizzes right past your ear and buries itself into the pavement.

Your scream gets stuck in your throat, and your hand flies up to your ear on instinct. You can’t even tell if you’re bleeding because there’s already so much on you. Guess it wasn’t ridiculous.

Joel instantly shoots up from your side, bloodied hands already pulling his rifle off his back. He’s fired before you know what’s happening, and you lunge back over to put pressure on the wound again.

A firefight erupts immediately. Jake and another woman are yelling orders, and you can’t see whoever is shooting at you all but your only thought is that of your patient.

You watch Joel take another shot, and then he looks over his shoulder at you.

“Get out of here!” he yells, fire burning in his eyes. You don’t need to be told twice.

You slip your arms underneath Paul’s shoulders and stand up, then you pull him up as much as you can. You start dragging him, a mixture of adrenaline and pure willpower getting you through it. You get to the infirmary, thankful you stopped by there earlier when Jake was putting you through the gauntlet of odd jobs, and you get him onto a bed.

You check his pulse once more—still there at a similar strength. His wound isn’t actively gushing blood anymore, and he’s regained some color in his face. Since it’s not worse, you collapse into a chair next to the bed.

Gunshots ring out in rapid succession, and each one makes you wince. You would join to help, but you don’t have your fucking gun. At least if Jake gets shot, you’ll be able to get it back.

You don’t think you have any friends here. But god, you really hope Joel makes it out unscathed.

You don’t get to relax for very long. Three more wounded get brought in over the course of twenty minutes, each facing death in different ways. When the second is carried in, you force the escort to run out and get your medical bag, then stay with you so you can delegate. You only have two hands and you can't do every goddamn thing at once.

One man dies almost immediately. He took a couple bullets to the chest and one hit an artery. He bleeds out before you can even start trying to pack one of his wounds. You can’t even take a moment of silence for him because your second patient starts crashing.

It all blends together, honestly. Reminds you of the times you were with the code team for a shift, when everything was a life or death situation and everything could go wrong at once. But there’s only so much you can do in a motel room without any hospital equipment.

You tie a tourniquet with pieces of your shirt and a stick from outside. You pack wounds once more. You drag chairs and pillows around to elevate limbs. You put pressure on the wounds until they stop bleeding. You get blood on every damn thing you touch because you haven’t been able to find latex gloves anywhere for the past two years.

There’s only so much you can do when you have so little.

Eventually, though, it settles down. The gunshots stop, the bleeding stops, and the pulses get stronger. Everyone that was alive stays alive over the next few hours, coming in and out of consciousness. It’s still quiet, though, because most of them immediately fall back asleep. Getting shot takes a lot out of you.

Your assistant leaves after the first hour when you assure him you can handle the rest. You wish the sinks worked so you could get all this fucking blood off your hands, but you wipe off what you can and deal with the rest. Your shirt’s already covered in it.

Maybe you’ll convince Jake to let you go on a supply run so you can stop by a lake or something. You don’t want to waste what little water you have on cleanliness, but you make a point not to touch your face more than you have to. The last thing you need is to get an infection because you got blood in your eye or something—you think that would be the stupidest way for you to die.

You’re rifling through the barebones medicine cabinet, trying to see what would help in case of an emergency, when you hear approaching footsteps. You turn around to see Joel, and you can’t help but smile.

“Joel,” you say, relief rampant in your voice, “you made it.”

“So did you,” he says. He doesn’t sound half as glad as you do, but you’ve learned over the past two days that he doesn’t tend to show emotions other than anger. “How are they?”

“One’s dead, three are alive,” you say with a gesture. “Dunno their names besides Paul, so I guess you can spread the word.”

Joel nods as he looks at each of them. Again, he hides his emotions well—if he feels a particular way about any of them, he doesn’t show it. Eventually, he looks back at you.

“How are you?” His eyes trail up and down your body. “Any of that blood yours?”

“Thankfully, no,” you say. “The worst is over. I found some antibiotics, so hopefully we’ll be able to avoid any infections. Barring those or any freak changes, the rest should make it.”

“Good,” he says.

“Any of that blood yours?” you ask, inclining your head. He already has a fair amount of dried blood on his jacket—comes with the territory of being Joel, you think—but there’s some fresh.

“No,” Joel says. “We got most of the hunters, but some ran off. Couple of us went after ‘em to finish the job.”

“Did you?”

“Yes,” he says. “Tracked ‘em to their camp and did what we had to do.”

You nod. Seems these people are pretty good at taking out other communes, Joel especially.

He probably wasn’t in the group that killed your people because of his gunshot. Had he been healthy, you bet he would have slaughtered them like all the rest.

But he didn’t. And he’s shown you more kindness in his own way than anyone else here has.

You realize hypotheticals don’t really matter to you as long as the bullet ends up in someone else’s head. You don’t really know what that says about you.

So you look back up at Joel and ask, “We safe for the night?”

“Yes.”

You nod again. “Okay.”

And that’s that.

You spend the next few days in the infirmary watching over your patients. Jake is in and out, mostly checking in during the day to ask about the injured and make sure you’re not about to run away. When he stays, he lets his shotgun rest against the wall rather than keeping it pointed at you. Maybe he trusts you more—you think it’s more likely he assumes you won’t run because you have critical patients.

He’s right. You don’t know them, and you only know Paul’s name, but you feel like you have to save them—have to save him.

Maybe it’s because this guy wasn’t part of the group that killed yours, maybe it’s because you think he’s your age, maybe it’s because he looks shockingly similar to Connor. But you feel a strange amount of obligation to this man to save his life.

Even if you were in here alone, you don’t think you would run. Guess the Hippocratic Oath stays with you even after the world has ended.

On the third night, Joel comes in. He has a bottle of water, your rations, and your jacket.

“You left it in the parking lot,” he says when he hands it to you. “I picked it up when we got back from the hunt.”

“...Thanks,” you say. You’ve been in these bloodstained clothes for way too long, but you don’t really have any changes. You were ripped out of your community as a prisoner, after all.

You pull your shirt off and slip into your flannel. Even though some of the blood soaked through to your skin, you already feel better. You’re doing up the buttons when you realize Joel has turned his head, making a point not to look at you.

“Uh, sorry,” you say. “I didn’t really think you’d care.”

“Figure at least one person here should respect your privacy,” Joel says.

You chuckle. It’s oddly touching from someone like him.

“Thanks.”

You hang your shirt on the back of your chair. It kinda is your only top, so you can’t just go throwing it away. You’ll get it clean eventually.

“The number’s down,” Joel says, looking at the beds. “Maya’s good?”

“I guess.” You still don’t know their names. “Bleedin’ stopped, and she was talking up a storm. Sutured her wound, gave her some pain meds, and sent her on her way.”

“Good. How’re the rest doing?”

“Okay,” you say. “I’m mostly just waiting until they’re consistently awake and making sure the wounds don’t get infected.”

“You talk an awful lot ‘bout infections.”

You shrug. “Out here, they’re usually a death sentence.”

“Noted,” he says wryly.

The two of you stand there for a while. The silence is awkward, but but you prefer that over the heaviness of the first night.

“Just make sure you get some sleep,” he finally says. “You won’t be much good if you’re fallin’ asleep when we need you.”

You chuckle. “Noted.”

Joel nods again and walks off. You sit back down in your uncomfortable chair, ready for another night of anxiety, when he stops in the doorframe and speaks up.

“I’m sorry ‘bout how you ended up here,” he says carefully, as if he’s unsure of his words. “But it’s probably a good thing someone like you is at this motel.”

You smile. You think this is the first time you’ve heard him be this genuine.

“Thanks, Joel,” you say. “You’re a stubborn jackass, but you don’t make for a bad roommate.”

That gets the smallest laugh out of him. “Night, doc.”

“Night, Joel,” you say softly.

Things change after that week.

Joel looks at you differently. Everyone does, honestly—no one thinks you’re lying anymore, thinks you’re some naive twenty-something. You can hold your own, and you’re not someone to mess with.

But not everything changes.

(“Are you fucking kidding me?” you protest when Jake takes you back into Joel’s room. “I save three of your men and you still don’t trust me?”

“I trust you to save my men, not stay put,” he says. Since you don’t offer your hand, he just grabs your arm, pulls you forward, and locks the cuff around your wrist. “And you’re more important than ever now, little lady.”

You lunge at him, but you come up just short when Jake steps out of your range. He tuts and shakes his head at you.

“No need for that,” he says. “I’d hate to ruin that pretty face all over again.”

“This really necessary?” Joel asks, a hard edge to his voice.

Jake shrugs. “Way you’ve been spendin’ time with her, figure you’d jump at the chance to have her to yourself. Just don’t break her.”

Joel clenches his jaw as Jake leaves, letting out a growl when the door shuts.

“Un-fuckin-believable,” you mutter. Now you’re sure you’re going to put a bullet in his head before you get out of here.

“Took the words outta my mouth,” he grumbles.

“You wanna shoot him for me?” you ask.

Joel shakes his head as he sits back down on his bed. “Not yet.”

You blink. “Not yet?”

He grunts. “Ain’t talking about this with you.”

So you don’t. You don’t say much because he doesn’t say much—after your conversation with Joel in the infirmary, you’re not too keen on annoying him.)

You’re good enough to save lives but still can’t be trusted on your own. Maybe it’s actually a smart move, because you spend every spare moment thinking about ways to escape and ways to put Jake six feet under.

You also can’t stop thinking about Joel’s words: not yet.

You might have found an ally in the most unexpected place.

Another week passes with more of the same.

You check on your patients who have all survived their wounds. They’re out of commission for another week at least, but they’re alive. You finally have a conversation with Paul and he’s so much like your brother you want to cry.

You do the chores asked and now expected of you, and though you mainly keep to yourself, you find a friend in a woman named Trish when you spend a few afternoons together sewing up holes in clothes.

Though you’re still not trusted alone and you don’t have your own room or the freedom to move around at night, you’re no longer expected to spend every moment inside the walls. You end up doing weekly supply runs with Joel and you don’t hate it as much as you thought you would.

They never let you take the horses out, and you still don’t get a fucking gun. Apparently, you’re still a flight risk.

They’re not wrong, but you wish they would fall for it. It would be so easy to run with a horse.

So instead you’re given a knife, and you and Joel have to set out on foot each time. Always you and Joel, because apparently you can’t get away from each other. Maybe they think he’ll kill you if you do try to run. Maybe they can see you’re starting to warm up to him.

You don’t know, and you don’t particularly care. Joel has made it clear he won’t hurt you if you don’t try to hurt him, so you feel safe hunting with him. Besides, he’s a killer shot and you’re great with a knife, so you make a good team either way. He even gives you his revolver to use on the road sometimes, though you always have to return it before you’re back at the motel.

But if Joel is looking at you differently because of a newfound respect, you’re looking at him differently because of newfound feelings.

He’s handsome, anyone can see that—gruff and grizzled and muscled from the life of a survivor. He has sharp, dark eyes that narrow at everything, so much so that you bet his crows feet are from years of distrust rather than years of laughter.

You never really paid attention to it at the beginning because you were terrified you were going to die. Anything you tried to figure out about him or his life was in the name of survival, was about pinning him down in order to manipulate him.

Joel is angry and impatient and mean, and he's probably killed a hundred different people in a hundred different ways in the name of survival—but since that night he visited you in the infirmary, you swear he’s softened around you.

Quite frankly, it’s ridiculous. He’s at least fifteen years your elder, this is the apocalypse, and you’re still in a camp full of enemies. You have no time to be making heart eyes at Joel.

So you don’t make heart eyes. Instead, you just stare at him like you normally do and tell him he’s crazy when he questions you about it.

But god, it isn’t easy. You spend more time with Joel than anyone else—you guess he’s your Jake-appointed chaperone now—and the second time you go out on a supply run with him, you run across a lake.

You convince him to stay for a bit so you can wash off, finally cracking when you swear to him you still have lingering blood on your hands from your night running the camp ER. You strip down to your undergarments with little care and dive in, and when you catch Joel looking you up and down in what he thinks is a covert way, you think your heart might burst.

It’s been a while since you’ve done… well, anything sex-wise. You doubt you will ever get there with Joel, mostly because you’re going to take these feelings to your early grave, but you’re allowing yourself to be delusional when absolutely everything else in your life sucks.

After all the shit you’ve been through, you think you deserve it.

You end up having to cut your luxury excursion short when you hear the distinct croaking of stalkers. Joel grumbles the whole time you’re getting dressed, saying you’re gonna be the death of him and this was stupid and he regrets ever saying yes to you, but he puts himself in front of you every time he thinks he sees one.

It’s the little things.

Two weeks later, on your fourth supply run, things go a little differently.

Everything close by has been picked clean either by Joel’s group or people traveling through the area, so Jake and Marcos, the group leaders, decide that you’re going to go out farther than usual in order to get more supplies. Even though you go out every week, and other people hunt when they can, but it’s not enough.

You’re fine with it and Joel grudgingly agrees to it, so after getting some extra rations and water just in case, you set out on your way.

You find an abandoned convenience store when you’re walking down the side of a road that still has some water, meds, and cigarettes behind a couple toppled over shelves. It’s better than nothing.

When you venture into the woods you find a house. Joel insists on going first in case anyone’s inside—he checks the bedroom and the kitchen and says they’re clear. When he’s going up the stairs with his gun drawn, you a few paces after him on the bottom step, you get grabbed from behind.

Your scream of surprise gets Joel’s attention immediately, and there’s a knife to your throat before you even know what’s happening. Joel has his gun trained on the head of whoever’s got you just as fast.

“Let her go,” he says.

“Not everyday I get a couple bargin’ into my house,” your captor says smoothly. He has one of your arms in an iron grip, and your other hand is an open palm to convince him you’re not a threat. “She’s too pretty for you, don’t you think?”

“Joel—”

“Let her go,” he growls.

“Y’all were gonna steal from me,” the man says. “Don’t see how we can walk out of here all friendly-like.”

He presses the blade into your throat just enough to draw a thin line of blood, and you clench your jaw so hard you think your teeth might crack. Joel meets your eyes, and they actually have something in them you haven’t seen before—fear.

“What d’you want?” Joel asks.

“I think you know what I want,” he says. His grip on you tightens and something inside of you snaps.

You stomp on his foot as hard as you can. He grunts, the action shocking him more than it hurts, but his grip loosens and that’s all you need. You move faster than him as you rip your knife from your belt and reel it backwards to stab him in the gut. You grab his wrist and wrench it to the side, giving you the space to turn away from him and kick him in the chest. He falls to the ground, you pull Joel’s revolver out, and you shoot him in the head.

Your breaths are coming out as pants by now, your heart threatening to beat out of your chest as you stare at his dead body. Pools of blood are already forming behind his head and gut, and you feel nothing but red-hot rage.

You’re so fucking sick of men thinking they can take whatever they want, thinking they have a right to whatever they want. You’re honestly glad this happened. It meant you got to put a bullet in his head.

Joel says your name and you realize it’s the third time. You can barely hear him over the ringing in your ears.

“You’re bleeding.”

“I feel fine,” you say. This isn’t the first person you’ve killed, you want to tell him, far from it. This isn’t the first time you’ve killed to save your life, you want to tell him.

For some reason, the words don’t form.

“He tried to slit your throat,” he says. “You’re not fine.”

“Still standing, ain’t I?”

He says your name again, a bit stronger this time. “You’re bleeding. You need to sit down.”

“I’m—”

“If you say you’re fine again, I’ll throw you over my shoulder and get you out of here myself.”

You huff. “Now you know how I felt that first night.”

Joel shakes his head. “Always gotta be right, don’t you?”

“You know me,” you say faintly.

You do sit down, eventually, if only because Joel looks like he would absolutely make good on his promise. You sit on the third step and he goes one below you, and you pull your medical bag out of your pack.

“I can clean it out,” you say as you rifle through it for your gauze. “Your hands are probably dirty.”

“Y’know, I’m not a complete idiot,” Joel says. “Remember when you said my bandaging was good?”

“I said it was passable,” you correct.

“‘Good enough to keep you alive’, I recall.”

“And you think I want good enough?”

You finally get to your gauze—you swear, it falls to the bottom every time—when Joel puts his hand on your wrist. It’s gentler than you expect, even with the calluses.

“Let me do it,” he insists. “Need to feel fuckin’ useful somehow.”

You stare at him, hoping your pupils aren’t dilated or something else just as stupid to reveal that your heart is beating out of your chest.

“That’s what this is about?” you whisper.

Joel clenches his jaw and glances away. “He could have killed you and I just stood there.”

“You didn’t have a clear shot,” you say.

“I should have made one,” he says. “Out here, we’re a team. Partners. You don’t let your partner get grabbed.”

“We had no idea he was here.”

“I should have known,” Joel says roughly. “I shoulda known and I shoulda stopped him and you wouldn’t have had to kill him.”

You cover his hand with yours before you can doubt yourself, and Joel looks back at you, surprised. He doesn’t pull away.

“It was a mistake, and we got out of it,” you say. “If we’re partners, then you can’t put all the weight on your shoulders and none on mine. I held my own, didn’t I?”

Joel doesn’t respond, and you sigh.

“If they keep sendin’ us out on these things, then you’ll save my ass so many more times,” you continue. “And I’ll save yours, and we’ll joke about it when we get back to that shitty motel and Jake locks me to the radiator for the hundredth time.”

“So it don’t matter that I pulled more weight this time,” you say. “Because it’s a whole lotta push and pull—you just can’t pull away from me because of this.”

“Clever,” he says wryly. “You sure you’re not a writer?”

You manage a smile. “Not even close. Are we good?”

Joel pauses for a moment, his gaze falling down to your hand on his. He clears his throat and pulls away, then holds his hand out. You huff a laugh and give him the gauze.

“We’re good,” he nods.

You sit together in silence as Joel cleans the blood off your neck, only interrupted by your occasional wince. He’s surprisingly gentle with you in a way that you never would have expected, never touching you more than he has to. Your skin burns wherever he does, and it takes everything in you to keep your breathing steady. You don’t want him to know, and you don’t want to mess up his work.

Joel finishes soon enough, and after a quick investigation in a broken bathroom mirror, you approve. You take what’s left from the house in supplies and then you get out. It takes a little longer because Joel refuses to leave your side—”what if a clicker bursts in through that broken window? You’d be dead like that.”—but you don’t argue. You think it’s sweet, actually, but you don’t tell him that.

When Joel insists on heading back early, you don’t fight him. When you insist you want to keep his knife back at the motel, even if it has to be a secret, he doesn’t fight you.

You don’t talk much on the walk back, but things are different. The air is lighter between you two. Joel doesn’t frown at everything. He actually manages to joke around with you.

Things are different.

You’re finding out that you don’t really mind.

You go even farther on your next supply run. The area isn’t as scarce as it could be, but Marcos insists on stocking up before summer, when it’s too hot to constantly venture out like this with little water.

Things are going pretty well, all things considered. You run into a decent amount of clickers over the miles that you’re able to take down with you distracting and Joel stabbing each time. You don’t run into any people, though Joel keeps his head on a swivel.

Eventually, though, it starts to rain. Clear skies shine above you, but you still get drenched within a couple miserable minutes.

“Where the hell did this come from?” you complain.

Joel takes a cloth out of his pocket and wipes down his gun. “They not teach the water cycle in schools?”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” You scowl at the sky. “Was ‘sposed to be clear skies all day.”

“We’ll just call it short,” he says. “Go back to the motel.”

“We’re five miles out,” you say. The rain starts coming down harder and you curse. “We’re not making it back without getting soaked.”

“You can’t handle a little water?” Joel asks.

“I’m already miserable enough being around you,” you say. “Don’t need to add trench foot to the equation.”

He shakes his head with a huff. “Fine. I remember a cave a while back— you have another mile in you?”

“As a matter of fact, I did cross country in high school,” you say. “Also walked a whole lot when I was getting away from the coast.”

“Always gotta one up me, huh?”

You smile. “Always.”

It ends up being a little more than two miles, but you and Joel make quick work of it. Soon enough, after you’ve checked for any infected, you’re sitting in a little grotto waiting out the rain.

You’ve both taken your top layers off to let them dry, alongside your boots and socks. It feels a bit strange, a bit too familiar, to be doing all this with Joel—but like you said, you’re not too fond of trench foot, so you deal with it.

You sit near the opening of the cave, entranced by the downpour. The tension in your shoulders has slowly dissipated as you’ve watched the storm. There’s something calming about the sight, the sound— the way the world feels once it’s over.

“You shouldn’t be so close to the outside,” Joel says. Miraculously, the tension comes back.

“It’s fine,” you say.

“Ain’t so fine when everyone can see you,” he says. “Ain’t so fine when a passing hunter doesn’t like how you look and puts a bullet between your eyes.”

You sigh as you adjust your position to look over at him. He’s taken to sharpening a stick with one of his knives. “You always this positive?”

“I’m realistic,” he says. “How do you think I’ve survived so long?”

“Well, I’ve survived too,” you say. “And I’m not half the miserable bastard you are.”

“You’re half my age,” Joel says. “Give it time.”

You shake your head with a huff. “Got a bright future ahead of me, then.”

“I’m alive,” he says. “That’s as bright as it can be these days.”

“That’s so sad,” you murmur, your gaze turning back to the rainfall.

You hear him stop with his knife. “What’d you say?”

You know he heard you. Probably just trying to give you a chance to take it back, but you don’t care. “I said it’s sad.”

“Don’t see how it can be sad,” Joel says. “Survivin’s all anyone wants out here.”

“Maybe on a base level, but I—” you pause and shake your head again, trying to collect your thoughts. “I got a life I’m trying to build. Things I’m chasin’— things that make this all worth it.”

“Like I said, you’re half my age.” The joking lilt he’s had fades, and you know you’ve struck a nerve. “Everything you’re trying to get, I’ve already lost.”

“Joel,” you attempt, but he shakes his head.

“I built a life and I lost it,” he says. “I’ve trusted people and I’ve paid for it. So don’t act like I’m doin’ all this for no reason.”

“Then tell me,” you say, bolstered by his tone. “Tell me what you’ve gone through, what justifies this, so we can move past this— this barrier you’ve put between us, and actually get to know each other.”

“I don’t have to tell you shit,” he grumbles.

“Fine,” you say. “Then I’ll go.”

By this point, you’ve shifted your position completely to face him. Joel still won’t look at you, but he’s gone back to sharpening that damn stick.

“I’m not actually a doctor.”

Sure enough, that gets his attention. He stops so abruptly that you think he might slice his fingertip off. He doesn’t, but he looks at you incredulously.

“What?”

“I’m not a doctor,” you repeat. “Or a surgeon, really.”

He frowns. “Then how do you know how to do all this shit?”

“I was studying to be one,” you say. “But I still had a pretty long way to go.”

Joel glares at you. “How long?”

“I was in my third year of med school when the outbreak started,” you say. “Got to be MS3 for all of two months before everything went to shit.”

“You didn’t even graduate?” he marvels.

You shrug. “I passed my boards. Well, Step 1, at least. The world ended before I got to the others—”

“Oh my god,” he mutters.

“I was still a student doctor,” you assert. “I know plenty—”

“Not enough,” he interrupts.

“Enough to keep my patients and myself alive,” you remark. “And more than enough to stitch up your sorry ass.” You gesture at him. “How’s that gunshot feel?”

Joel just scoffs and shakes his head. He doesn’t look mad, like you thought he would be—just looks shocked, surprised, annoyed. Maybe angry just for the hell of it.

“Why are you tellin’ me the truth now?” he asks. “No one else is around. I could kill you right now for bein’ a liar—tell the group clickers got to you.”

“A liar with medical experience is better than nothing,” you say. “From what I’ve seen over the years, folks aren’t too keen on killing people like me. ‘Specially after I saved their people.”

“Besides,” you incline your head, “I don’t think you have the guts. Not after last week.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Joel says. “I’ve killed plenty of people less annoying than you.”

“Well, I don’t go down without a fight,” you say. “And I’m very good at stayin’ awake. So if you decide to go for it, you can’t take the easy way out.”

He scoffs, but you notice it doesn’t have the malice you’d expect behind it.

You should be wary. You’re alone together in the middle of nowhere, miles from your group—and they wouldn’t save you if it came down to it. For God’s sake, Joel has a knife in his hand. He could take you down easily enough if he wanted to. Weren’t you terrified of that when you were first stuck in his room a few months ago?

But you’re not. You can’t deny that you like him anymore, and that could be clouding your judgment, but you’re not scared of him. Not since that night in the infirmary.

You go back to watching the rain, making a point to have your back to Joel as you do. Maybe as a sign of trust, maybe to show you’re not scared of him—you don’t really know. But nothing happens. He doesn’t stab you in the back, literally or figuratively.

And eventually, he speaks up.

“I’m from Texas.”

You laugh wryly. “I tell you I’ve been lyin’ to everyone this whole time and you tell me you’re a Texan.”

“It’s somethin’,” he says. “Ain’t that what you wanted?”

You turn around and raise your eyebrows. “Where in Texas?”

“Grew up in Arlington,” he says. “Was in Austin ‘fore everything went to shit.”

You nod. “That makes sense. The accent and the attitude and everything else.”

Joel snorts. “‘Everything else’?”

“The way you carry yourself,” you say. “How stubborn you are. Classic ‘Don’t mess with Texas’. You ever have a bumper sticker like that?”

That gets an actual laugh out of him. A genuine laugh, a genuine smile. “Hell no. I didn’t need to showboat like that. Sarah woulda never—”

He stops suddenly, his smile fading just as quickly as it appeared. You feel the moment slipping out of your grasp quicker than you can run after it, and you feel a little desperate.

“Who’s Sarah?”

Joel shakes his head. “No one you need to know about.”

Just like that, the moment is gone and the barrier is back up. You try to hide the disappointment you feel. When Joel’s not being a jackass, you really enjoy talking with him.

“...Okay,” you say. You’ve already pushed him once. You don’t want to push him again on something that brings out that sort of reaction.

Joel goes back to sharpening the stick. It’s half the size it was before, but he doesn’t let that stop him. He’s got a couple to keep him busy.

You go back to watching the rain. The downpour continues, and eventually, you hear the crackling of thunder in the distance.

“Great,” you murmur.

“You see any flashes?” Joel asks.

“No lightning,” you say. “Least it ain’t close.”

“That means we can still get out of here tonight.”

You shake your head. “No way I’m doin’ seven miles in a thunderstorm.”

“We went five miles out,” Joel reminds you.

“And then went two miles off course to get here,” you say. “It’s already getting dark, and these woods have infected. You really wanna go through all that just to get back to that shitty motel?”

“They got food there,” he says. “We have nothing.”

“We’ll be fine for a night,” you say. “It’s not like we’re in danger of freezing. We can sleep in shifts so nothing can sneak up on us. We’re tucked away pretty well, anyways.”

Joel stares at you for a good, long second. You can tell he wants to fight—he always want to fight, you’ve learned—but eventually he lets out a sigh and makes a flippant gesture.

“Fine,” he concedes. “But we’re leavin’ at first light, rain or not.”

“Fine,” you echo.

You’re able to relax a little after that, knowing Joel’s not going to make you hike back to camp in these conditions.

The rain doesn’t ease up, but as night falls, your anxiety gets the best of you and you end up sitting against the wall, across from Joel. You have a sad little dinner together, the usual of stale bread and meat from whatever animal was hunted that week.

Soon enough, it’s pitch black outside and you only have the rain and the crickets for company. Better than rain and clickers, you suppose.

You wish you had a book, or a ball of yarn and some needles, or literally anything to give you something to do other than stare at a cave wall. Joel isn’t much of a talker, even now.

“I’m from Oklahoma, you know.” You decide to fill in the blanks, unable to take the silence much longer even with the rainstorm. “So we’re two southerners in a pod.”

“Knew you had some kinda accent,” Joel says. “Just couldn’t place it.”

“It faded while I was in Boston for med school,” you explain. “I wanted to get out as soon as possible.”

“How’s it feel, being back in the middle o’ nowhere after spending all your time in the city?”

You chuckle and look over at him. “You’re not gonna believe it, but I grew up in the middle of nowhere. Born and raised on a cattle ranch in Beaver.”

“No shit,” Joel says incredulously, and he actually smiles. “No shit you’re a farm girl.”

“Don’t act so surprised!” you exclaim. “I’ve more than held my own out here!”

“Thought you were some big city hotshot doctor when I first met you,” he says, shaking his head. “Turns out you’re just a farm girl med student.”

“Well, you’re just a jackass from Texas,” you retort.

“And you’re a jackass from Oklahoma,” he says. “Guess we ain’t so different after all.”

You laugh and look away, unable to bite back a smile of your own. “Whatever.”

That lightness from your walk the past week returns, and you and Joel spend the next few hours just… talking. You do most of it, because getting Joel to talk about his past is like pulling teeth, but you don’t mind.

You tell him stories from your childhood, what it was like growing up as a rancher’s daughter. How you spent your whole life trying to claw out your roots and how, now that it’s gone, it’s the only thing you want. What undergrad was like, what med school was like, how you spent just as many nights blacked out from alcohol as you did studying until your eyes bled.

Joel contributes in smaller places, like telling you what he was like as a kid or relaying his own high school stories, because he didn’t go to college. Tells you about his work as a carpenter. You find it hard to imagine a younger Joel when it’s near impossible to look in his eyes and see something other than the world-weary, grizzled survivor he is now, but with his words you’re able to piece it together. It helps that his voice is so nice to listen to when he’s not yelling.

You want to ask him about Sarah, but you don’t. Things are going so well that you’d be an idiot to ruin it. You hope he trusts you enough one day to tell you.

In the middle of it all, you realize the way you’re thinking: into the future, long-term future, with Joel a part of it. Your plan from the start has been to bide your time until you can gather enough supplies to run, get your pistol back from Jake and use it to put a bullet in his head, then get the fuck out of here.

But now you can’t stop thinking about Joel, and you realize you want to keep him in your life. You don’t want to stay here, but you don’t want to leave him. You don’t care if he doesn’t like you the way you do, you don’t care if he doesn’t even want to be your friend—you’re just tired of running from everything and defending yourself with lies. You’re tired of being alone.

Eventually, you can’t fight your yawns anymore. Joel tells you he’ll take first watch and you can already tell he’ll refute any arguments. You put your jacket and shoes back on and make sure Joel’s revolver is in grabbing distance, then you lay down using your pack as a pillow.

“Y’know, this is the first time we’re sleepin’ in the same room without a radiator.”

Joel huffs. “Yeah. You get through the night without runnin’, maybe I can threaten Jake into getting you your own room.”

“I dunno.” Your eyes are closed at this point, the mixture of Joel’s timbre at a softer volume and the downpour all around you almost lulling you to sleep. “I kinda like being in the same room as you.” You smile. “We can ditch the cuffs, though.”

Joel is silent for a while. If your brain were sharper, if you weren’t nearly asleep, you might’ve had the sense to worry or be ashamed. You’re sure you’ll regret it in the morning.

“Get some rest,” he finally says. “You need it.”

“Night, Joel,” you murmur. “Wake me up in a couple hours or I’ll kill you.”

He laughs quietly. “Night, doc.”

You dream of your old life. Early mornings on the ranch. Fighting with your brother to get the better chores and swearing you’ll never talk to him again when he gets the ones you want, just to end up racing him to the boundaries of the farm and back to settle disputes as usual. Waking up in the middle of the night to make your favorite dessert for the two of you, homegrown strawberries with whipped cream.

You dream of the day everything fell apart. Screaming in the hospital and your coworkers being killed and sights so brutal in the streets of Boston that you will never, ever forget them. Connor forces you to keep running through it all, tells you that you can’t stop to save anyone because you’ll die too, and he is not going to let you die. He swears he won’t leave you.

You dream of the night you saw him for the last time. Having no choice but to break the one promise your mom forced you two to make before she died in your arms, and making another one that you refuse to break for anything. The last time you saw Connor, a night that you’ve relived a million times where you’ve failed to change the story each and every time.

You wonder what he would think about the kind of person you’ve become.

It’s light outside when you finally wake up. You expect your back to be killing you, but after sleeping against a wall, floor, and radiator for most of the past few months, this was actually kind of comfortable.

You rub the grogginess out of your eyes and realize there are dried tears on your cheeks. You hope to god you didn’t actually cry in your sleep over some nightmares—you don’t need Joel to see something like that.

When you sit up, you see Joel cleaning his rifle.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” he says wryly.

“Mornin’,” you say, interrupted by a yawn. You have to shield your eyes from the sun, and you’re about to ask him how he’s doing when it hits you.

“Oh my god— what time is it?”

Joel says nothing, just focuses on wiping out the barrel.

You push his shoulder. “Why didn’t you wake me up, you jackass?”

“You needed your sleep,” he says simply.

“Like you don’t?” you retort. “You’re twice my age, old man. You need it more than I do.”

“I’m fine,” he says. “I’ll sleep when we get back to the motel.”

You scoff. “You’re unbelievable.”

“And don’t you feel so much better?”

You shake your head as you stand up and begin to gather your things. “First light, my ass.”

Joel sighs. “Helpin’ you out is a thankless job.”

Though you want to stay mad, it’s a champagne problem that you get over it pretty quickly. You feel more refreshed than you have since you ended up in this group, and considering you were sleeping on a cave floor with your backpack as a pillow, things aren’t really going to be better for you back in Joel’s room.

You give him a grudging thank you right before you’re about to leave, and he accepts with a smugness that makes you regret it.

You make casual small talk for the first mile, but things go in a different direction when Joel pops an unexpected question on you.

“Who’s Connor?”

You trip over your own feet, and you know it’s wishful thinking to hope he didn’t see it. You regain your footing and keep walking, making a point to not look at him.

“Where’s this coming from?” Your words might come out a little too aggressive, but you don’t really care right now.

“You talked in your sleep half the night,” Joel says. “Kept muttering about some guy named Connor, how you didn’t wanna leave him.”

“It’s none of your business,” you say.

“You don’t get to pull that shit with me after tryin’ to go all Twenty Questions last night,” he insists. “You told me ‘bout half your life anyways.”

Just because you told him about inconsequential childhood and college things doesn’t mean you owe him actually important stuff. You can do what he did and just shut him down again, and every other time if he happens to ask again.

But you were preaching all that shit about togetherness and getting to know each other and breaking down the barrier. Joel might be a hypocrite, but you have to be better than Joel.

“...He’s my brother,” you finally say. The words feel heavier saying them to him for some reason.

“He dead?” Joel asks. Leave it to him to be blunt.

“No,” you say roughly, hastily. “No, I—”

You swallow the lump in your throat and shake your head. “I don’t know. We lost each other a while ago, and I’ve been trying to find him ever since. So I guess I just really, really hope he’s not.”

“When did you see him last?”

“Two years ago,” you say. “We were in some commune in Ohio with a buncha hunters that tolerated us because I was a doctor and he was a good supply runner. One day, one of the leaders started accusin’ a bunch of people of stealing meds. Swore the supply was goin’ down—accused every person I’d treated the past few months of bein’ a junkie and stealing. Killed every single one of ‘em over the course of a week.” You shake your head as the memory comes back in full force. “Meds kept disappearing. Soon enough, no one was left to blame but me.”

“Did you take ‘em?” Joel asks.

“No,” you say. “I had no reason to. Still don’t know who did it. But Connor realized I was next on the chopping block and no amount of reasoning would bring him down from the edge, even if that meant killing his only doctor.” You bite the inside of your cheek to hold the tears back. “Connor and I fought like crazy that night, but eventually, he won. He gave me all his supplies and got me to leave in the middle of the night. I wanted him to come with me, but he said they would hunt me down. Said he had to stay cover my tracks. Told me to go back to Boston, find the QZ— he would meet me there.”

Joel is silent for a moment. When he speaks up, it’s his usual.

“You’re pretty far from Boston.”

“Roads I was tryin’ to take were completely overrun,” you say. “I had a car back then, in pretty decent shape—decided I would try and get back to the farm just to recuperate. Resupply, take a breather, just try to shit out before I had to get all the way to Massachusetts.” You shrug. “And I guess a part of me thought that Connor might have thought the same thing.”

You huff. “Pretty clear I never fuckin’ made it there, though. I just gotta hope he had better luck than me, and that’s waiting for me there—not dead in a ditch in Ohio.”

“He probably is,” he says.

“Fuck you, Joel,” you snap. “That’s all you gotta say?”

“I’m bein’ honest—”

“Well, I don’t need your honesty,” you bite out. “We made a promise to each other. Far as I’m concerned, he ain’t dead ‘til I see his bones. I don’t care how stupid you think it is.”

He doesn’t say anything for a while, but when he does, it’s about what you expect.

“It is stupid.”

“Joel—”

“But it’s also admirable.”

You glance at him. “You hit your head back there or something?”

“No. Just think it’s rare to be able to keep up hope like that.” He shrugs. “One of the things I’ve admired ‘bout you for a while.”

Again, you feel your cheeks heat—your whole body, honestly. You busy yourself with the path ahead of you while you try to remember the art of subtlety.

“...Thanks,” you finally say. “But I think you’re lyin’. You thought it was stupid when we first met.”

Joel snorts. “Things’ve changed since then. You’re way less annoying now—can’t hold that against me.”

“I am the same level of annoying, thank you very much.” You smile at him. “You like me more now. Face it.”

He just huffed and shook his head, though you could tell he was fighting a smile of his own. “Just shut up and keep walking.”

You do, for the most part. Your path is pretty straightforward, only having to take a few detours due to infected that you take out pretty easily together. You and Joel have really found a groove working with each other since you started going on these supply runs.

Maybe that’s what gets you to speak up again.

“You really think my brother’s dead?”

Joel doesn’t respond immediately. He lifts a low-hanging branch so you can duck under it, and when you glance over at him, he looks conflicted.

“Doesn’t matter what I think,” he says. “Only matters what you do.”

“You say all the time that you’re older and wiser than me,” you say. “So give me some of that elder wisdom.”

Joel frowns. “I’m only forty.”

“Can’t be only forty when you’re constantly sayin’ I’m too young to know things,” you retort. “So tell me the truth. Do you really think he’s dead? That I’m wasting my time trekking across the country?”

“...I don’t know,” he says. “Been eight years since all of this fell apart. Logically, neither of us should still be kicking, but we are.”

“So you think he’s alive.”

“I think people beat the odds all the time,” Joel says. “And if your brother’s got the same stubborn genes as you, then I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s beat ‘em too.”

You nod a few times. Whatever Joel said wasn’t going to change your mind—you meant what you said, that you won’t believe Connor is dead until you see his lifeless body. But it feels like Joel is on your side, even if it’s just one foot over the line.

Those words echo in your head again: not yet.

You decide to test the boundaries.

“I think so too. It’s why I’m putting up with all this,” you say. “This… group. Jake’s bullshit. So I can get out when it’s time and keep trying to find my brother.”

This is bigger than the doctor thing, and you’ve just dropped it on a casual walk. You’re still considered a flight risk, hence Joel’s constant companionship and the radiator nights even after you’ve more than proven yourself. You don’t know how much Joel ever believed it, but this pretty much confirms that it’s true.

“Shouldn’t talk like that out in the open,” Joel says after a moment.

“We’re in the middle of the woods,” you say. “Who—”

“Anyone,” he interrupts. “Here or there. So whatever shit you’re planning, don’t tell me about it.”

“Joel—”

“I mean it,” he continues. “I don’t care if you get yourself killed. Just don’t get me pulled into it.”

You walk the rest of the way in silence.

Joel is barely around the next day, or the day after that. You earn your keep like normal, but it makes you nervous. You try to talk to him at night, but he doesn’t give. You shouldn’t have tested the boundaries.

It’s not like you think he’s loyal to this group—you don’t think he’s loyal to anyone but himself—but he’s been with them for longer than he’s known you. Why would he choose you over them? It doesn’t matter if he got scared when you were grabbed, if he let you sleep a little extra. It’s probably just a glitch in his programming or whatever.

One thing you should always remember about Joel is that he will always put himself above anyone else. You might have thought differently at some point, but it’s the truth.

You just hope he finds it in himself not to turn you in.

You barely sleep the next night, too paranoid about everything going wrong just because you decided to trust Joel with something other than watching your six.

That means when gunshots start erupting, it’s less of a rude awakening and more of a reprieve from your pitiful attempt at sleep.

You dart up so quickly you nearly slam your head against the radiator. You don’t like most of the people in this group, but at least they tolerate you—most of them respect you. You’re not too keen on pulling this stunt again with another group of hunters that could be even worse than this one.

That is, assuming this is an attack by humans and not infected. People, you can bargain with. Runners and clickers, not so much.

The thought makes you look over at Joel’s bed, surprised he’s not the one that woke you up. You quickly realize why.

He’s gone.

His materials, his bag, his weapons—it’s all gone. What’s more surprising is that he’s actually made his bed for once.

You don’t think he’s dead. But you also don’t think he’s coming back, so you’re officially on your own.

A part of you hopes against it. But why would he leave without saying goodbye if he wasn’t leaving for good?

You blink back tears. They shouldn’t even be falling. You’ve only known him for a few months and you spent half of those fighting him. But you liked him, damn it—sharp, jagged edges and all.

But it doesn’t matter.

You’re so tired of being at the mercy of others, constantly begging for your life with white lies you can only hope are enough. You can’t sit here and cry. You have to get out of here.

You pull your cuffed hand. It hurts, obviously, and you immediately switch tactics: pulling at the pipe you’re attached to. You grip it as tight as possible and pull, your feet pushing against the body of it for more power.

This radiator doesn’t even work anymore. It’s old and rickety and it can’t be that sturdy, even if it’s made of metal. You’ve been stuck to this thing for your whole time here, and you are so fucking sick of it.

You finally pull the pipe apart from the radiator with a yell, and you land on your back a few feet away from the force you used. You try to even out your breathing as you recover, and pull yourself back into a sitting position. The door suddenly slams open and you wield the pipe like a weapon, pushing away from the entrance on instinct.

Instead of an intruder or a clicker, it’s fucking Joel.

He stumbles inside, covered in blood with a hand pressed against his side and curses waterfalling from his lips. Your eyes widen as you continue to breathe heavily. He looks towards the radiator, then to you, but he doesn’t even seem surprised.

“The hell are you doing?” he asks.

“Trying to escape,” you respond breathlessly. “The hell are you doing?”

“Comin’ back for you,” Joel says. Your face heats inexplicably. “But it looks like you already handled half the job.”

He pulls something from his pocket and tosses it over to you. You loosen your iron grip on the pipe to catch it.

It’s the damn key to your handcuffs. You can’t help but laugh. You wasted all that effort just for Joel to show up ten seconds later, your knight in bloody armor.

“What’d you do?” you ask.

“What needed to be done,” Joel responds. His voice is gruff from the pain, though he tries to hide it. You don’t understand why. There’s no point. “Now get yourself out of those things and let’s go.”

You blink and look up at him. You’ve been dreaming of getting out of this place from the moment you got here—of killing everyone that killed your people, of clawing your freedom back from those that stole it from you. You can’t believe Joel got to it first.

“Why’d you do it?” You can’t help but ask. Far as you knew, he got along with these people. If not that, he at least survived with them. Didn’t care about the people they murdered.

“Because I had to,” he says. “You just gonna stare at ‘em?”

You want to ask more, but you have a feeling you won’t get anything out of him. Not now. So you push down on your thoughts of lost revenge to finally free yourself from those cuffs rather than relying on another.

“You’ve got a minute to grab anything you need,” Joel says. You’re just starting to massage your raw wrist when he starts to walk off, hand pressed even harder against the wound he’s trying to hide.

“Wait!” You shoot up, nearly tripping over your feet trying to follow him. It’s not hard to catch him when he’s doing more stumbling than walking.

“There’s no time to wait,” he says. “Gunshots bring people and clickers, and I ain’t dealing with either.”

“You’re hurt,” you say, only proven correct by how easily you get in front of him. The growing patch of blood on his shirt, holding his weight on his uninjured side, his labored breathing—you don’t need to be a med student to see the obvious. “Was your murder spree interrupted?”

Joel scowls. You find it funny how he always seems to take offense to you caring about his health. “Don’t act like it tears you up inside. I did you a favor.”

“Yeah, I appreciate that,” you say wryly. “Now, can you chill out for a second and let me at least look at whatever they did to you?”

“We don’t have—”

“We do have time,” you interrupt. “I assume you killed everyone in here, so we don’t have them to worry about. It’ll be a second before any infected get here, but if it makes you feel better, the doors lock. And in my medical opinion—”

“You’re not a doctor,” Joel bites out.

“I’m the closest thing you’ve got to one,” you retort. “And I don’t think you’ll make it a mile before your adrenaline fades and you’re out of luck.” You cross your arms. “Without bandaging it, you’re practically begging for an infection. How’s sepsis sound to you, Joel?”

He stares at you—glare is more appropriate, actually. “You and your fuckin’ infections.”

You stare back, refusing to move. “Not my fault you haven’t taken a shower since the outbreak started.”

Eventually, he groans in annoyance and walks back over to the bed, taking a seat that causes him to wince.

“Can’t believe you just wanted to walk out of here,” you say as you grab your medical bag.

“Save the preaching, get to stitching.”

You laugh and shake your head. “Pull your shirt up.”

He does, and you get to work, going through the same motions as the first time you met.

“You get shot or stabbed this time?”

“Stabbed,” he says. “You ever gonna wine and dine me, or you just gonna keep tellin’ me to strip?”

You smile. “You find some good wine out here and a kitchen that works, I’m more than happy to do it.”

You feel his gaze on you as you continue to work, feel his muscles tense then relax every time your fingers brush his skin, and you like it. You like knowing that he killed all these people without a second thought and he still reacts this way to your touch. Maybe it’s sick—this sort of lightness does feel wrong after what he did—but the more you think about it, the more you don’t care. It’s not like there’s anyone still around to judge you.

“Noted,” he says.

You bite back your smile to keep it from growing. “Who did this to you?”

“Don’t matter,” Joel says. “They’re dead now.”

You sigh and shake your head. “How’d you do it, then? These people are capable—tore my community down like it was nothing. You’re just one man.”

“Why d’you think I did it in the middle of the night?” Joel looks away. “Surprise is one hell of an element. They expected it from you, not from me. ‘Sides, it’s not the first time I’ve done this.”

“Ah.”

“Always known I would do it,” he continues. “Ever since I joined this group. They were just a means to an end—they were too reckless for their own good. Woulda gotten me killed sooner or later, and I ain’t lettin’ that happen.”

“Awful lotta time to make a murder plan,” you say. “Mine feels half-baked compared to yours.”

Joel shrugs. “Guess that’s why I did it before you. Helps not being handcuffed to a radiator.

You shake your head with a huff. “Worst way I’ve ever slept.”

You continue on in silence for a good while. You don’t mind because it helps you focus, especially once you start sutures—you’re usually the one that starts the conversations anyways. But then—

“I have a brother too,” Joel suddenly speaks up.

You smile wistfully. “Now you’re openin’ up.”

He shakes his head. “Just answerin’ your question. Why I did this.”

You frown. You continue suturing without faltering, but Joel must see your face because for once, he keeps going.

“You weren’t gonna get outta here anytime soon,” Joel says. “Not with Jake up your ass, makin’ those kind of comments. You didn’t hear the way he talked about you with everyone else.”

A chill runs up your spine. You fight to keep your hands steady.

“There was only so much I could do to protect you the way things were here,” he says. “So I changed things.”

He talks about it so simply. Slaughtering a whole camp of people is changing things.

But he did it to save your life. Can you really cherry pick any of that? Especially when you thought about doing the same countless times over the months?

“My brother and I fell apart,” Joel continues. “He didn’t like the shit I was doing to survive— said there was a line we had to draw, that there was more to life than just survivin’. I didn’t agree. So we went our separate ways.”

Joel meets your eyes. “I ain’t gonna let that happen to you. Not when you’ve still got a chance.”

You bite down hard on the inside of your cheek when you feel the pinpricks of incoming tears.

He really did do this for you. To keep you alive—to keep you safe.

When you fell asleep that night, you thought he was only a couple steps away from betraying you.

Instead, he was your salvation.

After you stitch Joel up, give him some painkillers, and make sure he’s not going to die, you take your time going through the rest of the camp. There’s a surprising amount of materials around, especially that was being kept in individual rooms. It’s a little difficult seeing all the bodies, but not as hard as you thought it would be.

When you get to Jake’s room, you take your pistol from his body and shoot him in the head with it. He’s already dead, but it still brings you some sort of satisfaction. You think Joel will chastise you for wasting bullets, but he doesn’t say a thing.

You fit as much as you can into both of your packs and even more in your horses’ saddle packs. You pick the two that look to be the strongest and set the others free—they’ll stand a chance on their own rather than tied up here.

It’s nearly morning by the time you’re done, and you stand next to Joel as you watch the sunrise. It might be the one thing you never get tired of—one of the few things that remind you of how beautiful the world used to be.

Dawn is… oddly silent here. You grew up with frogs and cicadas and all sorts of barn animals making themselves heard into the night and early morning, but the apocalypse brings a strange sense of serenity. When it’s not being interrupted by infected or hunters, that is.

“Feels wrong standing out here,” you murmur. “Knowin’ what you did.”

“I told you, it had to be done.” Joel shakes his head. “You wanted ‘em dead anyways.”

“Doesn’t make it any easier,” you say. “Nothin’ does.”

“Maybe for you,” he says.

You hum in acknowledgment. This isn’t something you want to fight over—not know.

“Where’re you goin’ after this?” you ask.

“No clue,” he murmurs. “I sorta… drift from place to place. Anywhere I can survive.”

“I understand,” you say. “Spent a lotta time like that.”

You feel Joel’s gaze on you. “What about you? Where’re you off to?”

“Boston,” you say. “It’s where Connor and I agreed to meet again. We heard about a QZ there, so figured it would be a safe place to meet after however long it takes to get there. Been tryin’ to get there for a while, but I’ve been thrown…” you chuckle, “majorly off course. Seems like a pipe dream now, but I’m still gonna try.” You glance over at him. “Can you believe we’re stuck in Kansas?”

“Got no idea how the hell I ended up here,” Joel says with a chuckle of his own. “Figure you would like it, though. Close enough to your panhandle.”

“Close enough but farther than ever,” you say, and you smile wistfully. “I miss the farm.”

“I miss Texas,” he admits.

“Someday, we’ll get back,” you murmur.

Joel hums in acknowledgement. He looks back at the sky, and a good ten seconds of silence pass between you before he speaks.

“I’ll get you to Boston.”

Your eyes widen. For a moment, you’re not sure if you’ve heard him correctly. “What?”

Joel shrugs. “Didn’t save your life back there to leave you to die out here.”

“I can’t ask you to do that, Joel,” you say. “You— you barely know me.”

“Actually, you talked my ear off enough that I know plenty,” he says. “‘Sides, I’m gonna need someone to keep an eye on this wound—rather have it be the devil I know.”

You feel a certain warmth settle in your chest, alongside a growing smile on your lips. “You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack,” he nods.

You stare at Joel for a good, long while, and then you hug him.

You can’t help it. You can feel his staggered heartbeat, his uneven breathing—the way he just… stands there, like it’s the last thing he expected. It makes you wonder how long it’s been since someone last hugged him, showed any kind of affection.

“Thank you,” you whisper.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. It takes a second, but he hesitantly wraps an arm around you. He pats your back more than anything, but when you pull away, he’s fighting a smile.

“I mean it, Joel.” You laugh, almost giddy. “It felt like a death mission on my own. But with you… seeing my brother again feels real.”

“No sense in lettin’ someone else lose a brother when I can try and stop it,” he says.

“You’ll find Tommy again,” you say. “I know—”

“No,” he interrupts, shaking his head. “We made our choices. But you and Connor still got a chance.”

You swallow the lump building in your throat and nod. No use arguing with him over one of the sorest subjects. “This means more than anything, Joel. I’m serious.”

“Then let’s not waste it on being sentimental,” he says. “C’mon. We’re burning daylight.”

You let out a breathy sort of laugh, full of relief, as you follow him over. Joel locks his fingers together to give you a step up onto your horse, and once you’re on, he gives you an amused look.

“You do know how to ride a horse, farm girl?”

“Please,” you huff. “I grew up around ‘em. Probably know better than you.”

“Let’s not get crazy now.”

Joel gets on his horse and you ride up closer to him so you can look him in the eye.

“So we’re goin’ to Boston,” you say. “Any idea how the hell we get from here to there?”

He pulls a rolled-up paper out of his pack and flattens it out. “Just so happens our benevolent leader Jake had a map. It ain’t the best, but it’ll give us a path to follow.”

You nod a few times, your resolve steadily growing. “We can actually do this.”

“‘Course we can,” Joel says. “Didn’t do all this just to fail.”

“Some actual optimism,” you marvel. “I can’t believe it.”

He shrugs. “Balance is important.”

“And a joke, too,” you say. “If the world hadn’t already ended, I would think it was right now.”

“Alright.” Joel huffs and shakes his head. “Let’s get goin’ before I regret bringing you with me.”

You don’t try to bite back your smile this time.

You stir your horses into action as you begin to ride, Joel in front of you to lead but little distance between you.

You knew you would get out of this place somehow, but you thought you’d slip out in the middle of the night alone, running for your life with no idea of where to go next. You’d run into a group of people, barter your skills in return for your survival, and so on and so forth until you somehow made it to Boston. A pipe dream indeed.

Instead, you’ve got a horse, a pack full of supplies, a plan, and Joel.

You’ve got Joel, and you feel like you can breathe for the first time in months.

#joel miller x reader #joel x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x y/n #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller angst #joel miller x female reader #joel miller fic #joel tlou x reader #the last of us x reader #tlou x reader #sadie writes

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froggiewrites · 8 months ago

Text

Fanboy

Pairing: Law x Reader

NSFW

Summary: You get a little more than you bargained for when you decide to clean your Captain's office for him and stumble upon his smutty fanfiction. Warnings: Very Mild Angst, Smut, Fem!Reader, Roleplay, Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Edging, Minor Dacryphilia, Petnames (use of sweetheart and good girl) Word Count: 7.6k Notes: This was originally supposed to be a sub 2000 word silly one shot about Law writing Sora smut. As you can see, it very quickly got out of hand. I hope you all enjoy it!

You have come to terms with the fact your Captain does not and will never want you how you want him.

It was hard, at first, to hear his silky voice and see his strong hands and not imagine him saying what you want to hear as he holds you against the wall, fingers slipping slowly up your thighs to where you need him most. It got even harder a few years in, after he started wearing perpetually open shirts and coats, showing off the tattoos you so desperately want to trace your tongue across. But you’re finally starting to accept that he simply doesn’t feel the same. His eyes don’t linger on you when you’re around. He doesn’t show you any leniency (not that you would expect any, of course, but it’s hard not to notice his favoritism for Bepo when he forgives him in an instant for a transgression he had you swab the deck for). He doesn’t accept your help when you offer it, no matter how badly he needs it.

He just doesn’t really want anything to do with you, or at least no more to do with you than anyone else on the ship. Penguin and Shachi, who unfortunately clocked your affection for your Captain years ago, have come up with a long list of excuses as to why he hasn’t shown any signs of affection.

“He’s shy.”

“He gets embarrassed easily.”

“He’s worried about the power gap.”

“He only looks at you when you aren’t looking.”

“Yelling is how he shows his affection.”

And of course, your personal favorite.

“He’s just a nerd. He doesn’t know how to act around women.”

Shachi has repeated this one a lot, and as always you immediately dispute it. “That cannot possibly be true, Shachi.”

“Why not?”

“Look at him!”

“I know what he looks like. Doesn’t change the fact he gets nervous.”

“Captain has never, for even a single moment, shown any sort of hesitation or shyness in front of me. And he’s a grown man, a handsome one, not to mention a wanted pirate. You honestly expect me to believe he’s some shy little nerd who can’t bring himself to talk to me? He just doesn’t like me, Shachi. And that’s fine. I’m a big girl, I can handle it.”

“Handle what?” Penguin’s voice echoes in the small room he and Shachi share, which you’ve decided to invade for the day.

“Her pining for Captain.”

“Ah.”

You huff. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like it’s like…a fact of life. Something so easy to brush past.”

Shachi narrows his eyes in confusion. “I thought you said that’s what you wanted to do. Be casual about it, and all.”

“Yeah, I want to. It feels different when you do it.” You’re pouting. You hate that you’re pouting.

Penguin gives you a pitying smile, dripping with good natured sympathy that makes you clench your jaw. “It’s tough, isn’t it?” He sits on the edge of his bed, careful not to shift you too much. He pats your shoulder, tutting quietly. “It’s hard to get over somebody you don’t really want to get over.”

“Yeah,” you mutter. You finally lift your head, and once you make eye contact, his smile turns a little more teasing.

“I know a great guy you could use as a rebound.”

You sigh. “Is it you?”

He laughs. “Who’s to say? You don’t need him yet.” His smile softens again, something more genuine. “But know that if you really do give up, there will be other guys. Other chances. Give this one a good shot, a real one, and if it doesn’t work out? Come talk to us, and it’ll all be alright.”

Shachi pipes up as well. “It will work out, really. But if it doesn’t…” he wiggles his eyebrows, and you can’t help but finally give them the laugh they were clearly aiming for. Which becomes a full on giggle fit once they light up and give each other a massive high five at their victory. The room is warm, and you finally forget your worries for a moment.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working?” Law’s voice cuts through you like ice, and your laughter stops in an instant. Shachi and Penguin are unphased, of course, still smiling freely.

“I just got off of my shift, Captain. I was going to take a nap, but…” Penguin pokes your side, and you let out a soft squeak as you curl in on yourself. You don’t miss the way Law’s eyes narrow slightly at the contact, the way he seems to focus in on the noise. He must be annoyed with you, with how you’re taking up space somewhere you don’t belong.

“I’m also off shift.” Your voice is small, embarrassingly so.

“I wasn’t talking to you two.” Law’s voice is just as flat and authoritative as always. He’s nothing if not born to command. You’d love to hear what commands he might give you, if–

No. Bad. Evil. Your mind betrays you, as it always does. You sit up so you can hide yourself behind Penguin, make yourself small and inconspicuous and hope that Law will stop looking at you with those beautiful piercing eyes. You don’t know how long you can be normal under such an intense gaze.

“I’m on break,” Shachi defends, causing Law’s eyes to shift over to him. You can’t help but let out a sigh of relief as you feel the pressure of his gaze leave you, and you wrap your arms lightly around Penguin, allowing your forehead to fall forward and press into his back. You can feel the rumble of a laugh working its way through his chest, though you can’t figure out why.

Law’s voice is significantly harsher than before. “Well, end it.” You flinch, unused to him snapping quite so cruelly. Law may have a shorter temper than he would admit, but he never sounds quite so furious, especially not with Shachi and Penguin. He seems to realize this as well, because the next time he speaks is much gentler. “I–Just get back to work. I need everyone at their best right now.”

“Aye aye, Captain!” There’s a hint of chuckle in Shachi’s voice, for some reason. He stands, bed creaking as he does. “You can use my bed if you want to nap in here. Let Peng have his.”

You let out a soft whine, but peel yourself off of Penguin anyway. “No, it’s fine, I should get back to my room anyway. I need a nap before I do anything else.” You think you see Law nodding in approval out of the corner of your eye, but when you turn to look at him, his eyes are firmly on Shachi, glaring at his back as he leaves. Just wishful thinking on your part, as always.

Penguin softly pats your back as you walk past. “Chin up. It’ll all work out.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“What’ll work out?” Law is staring at Penguin’s hand on your back.

“Nothing!” You try not to sound panicked. You fail, of course.

His eyes narrow.

“Sorry, Captain. This is a secret just for us lowly crew members. No captains allowed!” Penguin’s smile is relaxed and easy, and it almost manages to calm you down. You would love to play along, make a little joke out of it, but the idea of him finding out petrifies you. What if he’s disgusted by the idea? Horrified enough to kick you out of the crew, your home, your family? He wouldn’t, you know that, but the image in your head is so clear. Your chest feels tight, your head fuzzy, and you think at some point you started holding your breath.

Law makes a noncommittal grunt, scowl still clear on his face, but he leaves. A small mercy.

“Hey, take a breath, please. You look like you’re gonna pass out.”

“I feel like I’m gonna pass out.”

“Are you gonna be alright to get back to your room? Do you need me to walk you?” Penguin’s hand rests gently on your elbow, and he looks ready to jump to your aid at any moment.

You give him a shaky smile. “I’ll be alright. Anxiety’s never killed anyone. Probably.” You take care to walk as steadily as you can out of the room, avoiding eye contact with your Captain, who’s waiting directly outside.

“You okay?” His voice stops you in your tracks.

“Yeah, I’m–” You see the disbelief on his face. “I’ve been better. But it’s okay. I’ll get there.”

“Are Penguin and Shachi giving you trouble? They mean well, but sometimes their jokes can go a little far. I–” He clears his throat, eyes glancing away for a moment. “I could talk to them. If you need me to.”

You chuckle. This means he really has no idea he’s the source of your anguish. Good. “Oh, no, it’s nothing like that. They’re actually helping me through something.”

He purses his lips. You imagine how soft they’d feel on yours. “Helping you through something?”

“Yeah. I’ve been struggling with it lately, and talking to them has really helped.” You stare intensely at the wall behind him, worrying that you’ll come undone and say something you can’t take back if you stare into his eyes for too long. Something about him just makes you want to melt under his gaze, and you can’t afford to give in to the impulse.

He hums, eyes briefly fluttering closed. “I see. Well, I’m glad you have their support.” Is it just you, or is his voice a bit colder than it was before? “I’ll leave you be. Have a nice nap.”

“Thanks, Captain.” You try not to run back to your room until you’re sure he can’t hear your footsteps anymore. You change out of your boiler suit, desperate to be in something more comfortable than this, and throw yourself into your bed face first. You press your face into your pillow, trying to ground yourself. You aren’t allowed to imagine what it would feel like to lay on Law’s chest instead, his hands on your back, tracing meaningless patterns into your skin. You aren’t allowed to imagine the warmth of the blankets as his, or the comfort of your weighted blanket as his arm around your back. You certainly aren’t allowed to cry about the fact that it isn’t him, and that it never will be. Because that would mean you weren’t getting over him, instead getting lost in a fantasy of what can never and will never be. And you have no time for fantasy, despite what your heart keeps trying to tell you.

You dream of him, as you always seem to.

You could cope with it, if it were simply sex. If it were about nothing more than his cock and his hands and the way his voice penetrates deep into your bones whenever you hear it, turning you pliable and needy. But today’s dream is one you’ve had before, and one you always dread.

I love you. His hands are gentle as they wrap around your waist, pulling you close. I can’t imagine my life without you in it. His nose nuzzles against your neck, tickling you and making you giggle.

I love you too, Law. I think I always have. Your hands rest on his chest, and you can feel his heart beating below your fingers, quick and thundering. You smile. Nervous?

Of course I am. Look at you. His eyes bore into yours, and you can see the affection flooding them. His nose brushes against yours, his lips growing closer, and his eyes flutter shut.

Yours shoot open.

No matter how many dreams you have about Law, you can never kiss him. How sad, that your brain can imagine a hundred ways he can fuck you and not one in which gives you the one thing you’ve been craving most.

You throw off your covers and throw on a bra, not bothering to get fully dressed. You need some air, which is unfortunate, considering the Tang won’t surface for at least another day or two. You can at least go downstairs and find a window, press yourself against the glass and pretend you’re out in the cold of the ocean, at peace with the world around you. You can avoid passing Law’s office, and hopefully that means you’ll avoid the man himself. You don’t want to burst into tears the moment you see him, and you feel too soft and fragile right now, like your edges are crumbling. Half of you is still in the dream, melting into fantasy, and being snapped into reality with a single look might shatter you.

You pad quietly out into the hallway, unsure of what time it is, not wanting to wake anyone. It’s impossible to tell what time of day it is on the Tang when you’re underwater, lit only by harsh fluorescents that constantly buzz. It’s peaceful, feeling the cold metal of the floors seep through your socks and hearing the quiet thunk of your footsteps muffled by the fabric.

“Are you heading downstairs?”

You turn to see Bepo, shifting uncomfortably on his feet, papers in hand. “Yeah, I am. Why? Do you need something?”

“Can you run these to Captain for me? I would, but–”

You see him wince as he speaks, and you immediately know what the problem is. Before you can even think about it, you’re swiping the papers from his hands easily. “Yeah, of course, big guy. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you so much!” He’s off in an instant.

You stare at the papers, willing yourself into reality. You’re going to bring something to your captain. The man you have no other relationship with. Just doing your job. And afterwards you can go back to your room and cry all you want, if you really feel like you need to.

Law should be in his office right now, buried up to his neck in paperwork. It doesn’t feel great to add to that pile, or to let him see you so underdressed, but Bepo needed help. You can’t let him suffer just to avoid some embarrassment. You make your way down, knocking lightly against his office door.

No voice calls you inside.

Strange. He should be here. Maybe he fell asleep at his desk again. You’ve heard the others scold him for that dozens of times, and you’ve caught him yourself once or twice. He’s going to ruin his back if he keeps doing that. You crack open the door, ready to shift him into a more comfortable position, but you find your Captain isn’t actually there at all. His desk is a mess, papers everywhere, a sharp contrast from the neatly organized shelves and minimalist look of the rest of the room.

“Maybe I should tidy up for him,” you mutter to yourself. Law hates asking for help with things he believes he should be able to handle on his own, but clearly this is getting away from him. And even if he wasn’t grateful for the intrusion, at least it might lighten his load a little. You’d do nearly anything to ease your Captain’s burdens, if he’d just let you.

Before you realize it, your hands are on the papers, your former fragility forgotten as you get lost in the calm that such a mundane task brings you. You start by simply organizing the papers into stacks based on their titles and a quick skim of their opening paragraphs. You don’t read any further, not wanting to read anything not meant for your eyes, and you quickly find you’re able to organize everything into three neat stacks: medical papers, ship logs, and a third stack of anything that doesn’t fit into the previous two. You’re nearly finished when you find a title that makes you pause.

You can’t figure out what What You Can’t Have could mean, or what this bundle of papers is doing in Law’s office. Skimming the first few paragraphs doesn’t give you any explanation, until you start reading more closely and see a name: Sora.

Everyone in the North Blue knows about Sora, Warrior of the Sea, and everyone on this ship knows it more intimately than most. Your Captain’s fondness for the series and your fondness for him means you know it very well, well enough to know this is not one of the noncanonical (but still official) spinoff novels, or a novel adaptation of one of the comics. There’s a character you’ve never heard of before in this, one that, if you were a more paranoid person, you would suspect is based on you. She can’t be, of course. That would be ridiculous. But as you read her introductory paragraph, you can’t help but notice she bears a striking physical resemblance to you. Same hair and eye color, same height, same build. But she can’t be you. She’s described as seductive, enchanting, and many other things you know nobody would ever say about you.

You should put this down. But the writing style is so familiar, and so are the handwritten edits in the margins. Your captain wrote this. You had no idea this was what he did in what little spare time he has. You keep telling yourself to stop reading, to tuck it away and pretend you didn’t see it, because really, you know he wouldn’t want you to have seen it, easily embarrassed as he is. But there’s so much passion in the words, so much care, and frankly? It’s good. Really good. You think he has some real talent, in something you would have never expected him to even try. His care for the series oozes from every word, and he’s really good at building tension, and–

Oh.

Your captain hasn’t just been writing fanfiction about his favorite hero.

He’s been writing smut.

Really good smut, honestly.

You lean against the desk, completely enraptured by his work. The tension between Sora and this unnamed woman is astonishing, every single word winding you up tighter as you wait for the dam to break. Before you know it, you’re fully bent over the desk, clutching the page in your hands, trying not to rub your thighs together at the very graphic descriptions of what Sora is doing with his hands. You imagine Law’s hands, lithe and long, sliding under your shirt like Sora’s do under this mystery woman’s. You imagine his breath puffing against your ear as he instructs, be good for me, now, and maybe you can finally get what you want, just like Sora does. You imagine him moving impossibly closer, feeling his hardness press into your thigh as–

“What are you doing in here?”

You freeze. Your captain is standing in the door, papers in hand and scowl severe. If you didn’t know better, you would think for a moment his eyes lingered on the cleavage you’re showing by leaning over this far. But you do know better, so you tell yourself he’s simply observing the papers in your hands, even if his gaze seems aimed too high for that. You shoot up, papers still in hand, shirt riding up in the process, and god does it look like his eyes dip down to your exposed midriff in the process. But they don’t. You have more pressing matters than your delusions, anyway.

“Hi Captain!”

“...Hi.”

“I–Um. I was organizing your desk for you.”

His eyes linger on the three stacks of papers, humming quietly. “I see that. …Why?”

“Bepo had me run papers down to you, but you weren’t here, and–and your desk was so messy, so much messier than usual, and I was worried maybe you were overwhelmed and I thought it might help.” You’re speaking a mile a minute, clutching the papers close to your chest in some desperate attempt to ground yourself, but the sound of the papers wrinkling causes him to glance down and now you’re sure that just for a moment he was looking at your boobs and you’re far more flustered than you were when you began.

And even worse, he smiles. It’s a soft, gentle thing, which sneaks so slowly onto his face you don’t even know if he realizes it’s there. But it is. And it’s beautiful. “Thank you, then. I appreciate the thought.”

Your grip eases on the papers for a second, and the crinkling brings his attention back to them. You don’t know what gives it away, but with the way his eyes widen slightly, the way his lips part, you know that he knows what you have in your hands. The way he whispers your name, the fear in it, makes your heart clench.

“Captain–”

“Did you–I–” He takes a breath, gathers himself. “Did you read anything you weren’t supposed to?”

God, you did. You’re halfway through a sex scene, flushed and flustered and thinking about your captain in ways that are wholly and completely inappropriate. You’re panicking. You can’t let Law see how flustered you are, can’t let him realize that you were fantasizing about him, lusting after him in his office while he’s out like some kind of pervert. So, trying to turn this around on him, throw him off his rhythm, you decide to make a deeply out of character choice.

You open your mouth, taking a dramatic breath as though you're going to start reading aloud, and you can see the panic in Law's eyes. Before you can decide between reading and handing it over to spare him the embarrassment, you hear “Shambles!” as the papers in your hand are swapped with the ones he walked in with. You're momentarily disappointed, before you look down and are struck with intense and all consuming delight.

In trying to get the fanfiction out of your hands, Law has, in fact, given you more of his fanfiction to read.

You gasp quietly, cheshire cat grin widening. Law looks at you with confusion, clearly still so thrown he hasn't realized what's just transpired. In your current state, you can only think of one way to inform him.

"Her hands were soft and gentle, so small compared to his-"

"STOP." He lunges forward around the desk, powers forgotten as he decides to bullrush you to get the papers out of your hands. His hands wrap around your wrists, and before you know it you’re pinned against the desk, chests pressed together, his leg pressed between your thighs. You flush, overwhelmed by the sensation of his hard body against yours, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “Do you think this is funny?”

You open your mouth to respond, but his lips are so close, and you feel something else pressing into your midriff. You make a small choked noise, and his glare doesn’t dampen.

“Are you trying to embarrass your captain?”

“I–uh–Captain–” You can barely squeak out anything, and he presses closer.

“Answer me.”

“You’re so close.”

He pauses.

He blinks.

And suddenly your captain is across the room, face bright red, holding his papers in front of his chest like a shield. “I–um.” He stares at you a moment, his eyes moving from your face to your chest to your hips and back up, and suddenly the papers shifts down in front of his crotch.

He couldn’t…

Could he?

Before you can process this, he’s speaking again, his tone far less authoritative than it was before. “How far did you read?”

“Uh–pretty far.”

You could swear his voice cracks a little as he whispers, “Oh god. This is–you were never supposed to see that.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to keep reading, it was just–it was really good.”

He stares at you a moment, mouth agape. “What?”

“It was–I liked it a lot. I didn’t even mean to start it, I just couldn’t figure out what pile to put it in, and then I got really invested, and–I’m really, really sorry, Captain.”

“You liked it?” His eyes are narrowed, looking at you like something dangerous, like if he shows a moment of weakness you’ll pounce. He approaches you slowly, inching closer and closer.

“...Yeah. I did. I was really impressed, actually. I didn’t know you were a writer.”

He scoffs. “I wouldn’t call myself that.”

“Why?”

“I just…don’t know if I’m good at it.” He sounds small in a way you’ve never heard him. You’ve never seen Law less than confident before. He absolutely radiates it, a constant smug grin and twinkle in his eyes. It suits him far better than slumped shoulders and wringing hands.

“Are you kidding? It was amazing. What I was able to read, anyway. I couldn’t bear to put it down.” You reach for him for just a moment, your hand ready to touch his shoulder, but something in you pulls it back. You can’t bring yourself to touch him, not as you are.

He won’t look at you. You can feel his regret in sharing, in allowing his mask to crack slightly. There’s a bitterness to his tone as he snaps at you like a wounded animal. “You expect me to believe that? That you didn’t just read it to laugh at me?”

You can’t keep the pity off of your face. His first instinct is always to believe he’ll be hurt, that an open hand is a sign of a slap, and not a kind touch. “Why on earth would I do that, Captain?”

His shoulders unknot a bit as he thinks it over. You have never done anything to hurt him, and to tease in such a cruel way is not in your nature. He’s not relaxed, not quite, but he isn’t ready to run anymore. He leans against a nearby table, parking himself at a distance but assuring you he won’t go further. “I suppose you wouldn’t. …So you really liked it?”

The way he’s looking at you is so fragile, so soft. You feel your heart clench at the sight of such a guarded man looking so adorable, though you know he would hate to be called such a thing. You can’t help the affection that leaks into your gentle smile as you look at him. “I really did.”

He huffs, trying to bring back up his walls, but he can’t hide his relief, and his continued interest. “What did you like about it?”

“I thought the descriptions were very vivid. It was…” It feels like crossing a line you can’t uncross to call it hot, but he’s looking at you so expectantly. “Very stimulating.”

Something akin to a smirk grows on his face, offset by the dust of a blush on his cheeks. His voice is an octave deeper when he speaks. “Simulating?”

You shiver. “I–uh–yes. The leads had really good chemistry. I never imagined Sora would be so…charming. And I liked the woman too, though I have to admit I didn’t recognize her name.”

He nods. “You wouldn’t. She’s an original character.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, I wanted to try my hand at something new, and I didn’t like pairing him with any of the canon characters so I just…made one up.”

You shift nervously on your feet, thinking about how remarkably familiar her description was. “So you made her just for this? Didn’t even give her a name?”

“I haven’t decided her name yet, but I’m working on it. And yeah, she’s just for this. Why?”

You want to be subtle, ease your way in, but your mind is running a mile a minute and frankly subtlety has never been your strong suit anyway. “So…is she supposed to be me?”

He shoots up so quickly he nearly falls over. “What? No! No, why would you think that?” He looks absolutely mortified, like he’s praying the floor swallows him whole. He looks about two seconds away from shambling himself out of the sub and letting the ocean take him away.

“Well in her intro, when you describe her…she looks a lot like me.”

“...She does?” He seems genuinely surprised, and you can’t help but laugh.

“Why are you asking? You’re the writer! You didn’t realize?”

“No, I…” He’s blushing to the tips of his ears. “She was just supposed to be a beautiful woman. I didn’t think that hard about what she looked like beyond that.”

“She has the same hair color and eye color as me, you describe her as around my height, and the dress she’s wearing in her intro is my favorite color.”

His shoulders are so tense they’re practically up over his ears. If his voice cracks when he yells, you’re kind enough not to acknowledge it. “I didn’t think that much about it! I just thought of a beautiful woman and I described her.”

“So when you think of a beautiful woman in your head, you see me?”

He doesn’t answer.

You try to hide your giddy smile. “That’s sweet, Captain.”

He avoids eye contact so aggressively you swear it must be hurting him at this point. “It wasn’t–I–I didn’t notice. You don’t think it’s…creepy?”

“That you think I’m beautiful?”

“That I wrote porn about a woman who looks exactly like you.”

“Oh. When you put it like that I guess it doesn’t sound great.” He tenses again, so you rush to reassure him. “But no, I don’t think it’s creepy. It’s not like you meant to, or anything. Or that you wrote about me and like, another member of the crew or something. Why would I be mad that I just happen to be exactly your type?” Your heart is beating out of your chest as you try to portray a confidence you certainly don’t feel.

“Right. Yeah. I–There’s nothing wrong with that.”

He didn’t deny it.

“And it’s…great porn, honestly.”

Your delivery is so awkward the tension finally breaks as he laughs at you. “I appreciate that. I worked hard on it. But I’m not sure on some of the descriptions.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure it reads as true to life.”

“Does it need to?”

“No, not really, fantasies don’t have to be realistic. But…I can’t help but think about it anyway. What if part of it is so unrealistic it takes you out of it entirely, and I just didn’t notice? Or didn’t know because I’ve never tried that specific thing? Do you know what I mean?”

You do. You know insecurity in your work, the way it whispers in your ear. You know that words are not enough reassurance to silence those whispers. You want to help him, even if you don’t know how you could.

“What if we…tested it? To see if it’s realistic?” You can’t believe the words that just left your mouth. From the look on his face, Law can’t either.

“What?” A beautiful crimson streaks across his face and up to his ears, heat radiating off of him.

“Oh my god. Forget I said that, that was so inappropriate, I’ll just go–”

“No!” He’s so loud you both flinch, and he seems surprised by his own objection. His long fingers are wrapped around your wrist, and you can feel his calluses brush against your skin. God, what you wouldn’t give for those fingers to be somewhere else. “No, don’t–don’t leave. I think–I would–um. I’d like that.”

You blink. “You would?”

“Just to…test it. To make sure my writing is accurate. I’m a perfectionist.”

“Right.”

“Yeah.” His eyes flicker down to where he’s holding you, and to your surprise, he doesn’t release his grip. He tugs you closer, pressing your chests together, and you can feel his warm breath in his ear. “Are you ready?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Law.”

“What?”

The deep rumble of his voice is commanding in a way that has you rubbing your thighs together. “I want to hear you say my name. Call me Law.”

“Yes, Law.”

You can feel his smirk as he whispers the next words in your ear. “Good girl.”

Heat rushes to your face, and you bite your lip to keep from making any deeply embarrassing noises. He chuckles as he pulls away, and you see no trace of his earlier apprehension or nerves. You suppose Law has always been a good liar, always putting up the front of the proud, confident, and unshakable Surgeon of Death. What is this but another part for him to play?

“How did it start again?” He places his hands on your hips, leading you away from the desk and toward the wall. “She and Sora meet up in the club, strike up a conversation–”

“Can we skip to the good part?” You hate how needy and breathless you sound. You’re already worked up from reading, from hearing him speak, from being so close, that you think if you spend another minute without some kind of release you might explode.

He chuckles. “I guess we can skip forward a bit.” He presses you against the wall, hand sliding to your thigh. You shiver, but he stops right before his fingers slide under your shorts. “But have you been good enough to earn it?”

You whine, a pathetic, wounded sound that comes from deep within you. For a moment, you see his facade slip as he swallows, trying not to give away how much the sound turned him on. But after a moment his mask settles back firmly in place, and you’re both ready to continue the game. “Please, Law. I’ve been good. I’ll be good.”

His smile is all teeth as his fingers find their place inside of you. First one, pumping slowly and deliberately, curling to hit your sweet spot just right. He moans quietly in your ear at the feeling of it. You know his line before he says it. “Do you feel that? The way you’re pulling me in? You need me bad, sweetheart, don’t you?”

He inserts a second finger right as you open your mouth to answer. “Ahh–Yes! I need you!”

He pumps harder, faster, and his other hand starts to wander towards your chest. His lips find your neck, nipping at the point where it meets your jaw, making you gasp again. His hand gently squeezes your breast through your shirt, and he can feel your hardened nipples through the fabric. He chuckles. “Yes, you do. Nobody else can make you feel as good as I can. You know it. That’s why you’re here, that’s why you’re so drawn to me. On some level you know: it’s just you and me. We’re all there is, all that matters. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Law! Yes!”

His free hand effortlessly removes your shirt, and you gasp as you’re exposed to the air, your back pressing into the cold wall. He removes your bra next, letting out a soft hiss of appreciation when he finally sees them fully exposed. “As beautiful as I imagined,” he whispers, seemingly to himself. You don’t remember that line.

His mouth finds your nipple easily, sucking and nipping as you threaten to come undone under his attention. His fingers are still moving, his thumb on your clit, building the tension in your body until you feel like you’re going to explode. You’re so very close to the edge, close enough that in your pleasure you forget the next part of the story for a moment.

Until his fingers leave you.

“No!” Your head slams back into the wall as you wail, tears welling up in your eyes. Law seems unaffected, pulling back from you as he slowly inserts his fingers into his mouth, savoring your taste. The only sign that you’ve shaken him is the clear strain of his cock under his jeans, desperate to be free.

His fingers leave his mouth with a pop, and he smiles at you, eyes half-lidded. “Did you think it was going to be that easy? That you would just get what you want, no questions asked?”

You whine, the sound filled with genuine despair. The room is silent for a moment as he stares at you, waiting for your next line, and you try to remember the part you’re supposed to play here. You just barely manage to grasp it, breathlessly saying, “I thought you were a better man than to leave a lady wanting.”

He slides off his tank top, revealing his beautiful tattoos to you. “Oh, honey, this isn’t about what you want. It’s about what you need. And how wonderful it’ll be, once you’re so on edge you can barely stand it, and I finally give in to you. Can you imagine it?” He pops the button of his pants next, sensually sliding them and his boxers down to expose his bare hips. “What it’ll feel like, when I’m finally inside of you?”

His cock is finally free, bobbing in the air as it leaks with precum. He looks painfully hard, and you swallow as you briefly imagine it in your mouth. You’d give almost anything to taste him right now, but that isn’t a part of the scene.

“You’ll feel so full, honey. Imagine how good it’ll feel to cum on my cock. Isn’t that worth the wait?”

“God, yes.”

“Good girl. So agreeable.” One hand finds your hips as he uses the other to line himself up. “Are you ready?”

“Yes, god, please.”

He slowly slides in, feeling the drag of every inch of his dick against your walls. He makes a strangled noise at the feeling, burying his face into your neck as he desperately tries to catch his breath. He stops once he’s fully sheathed in you, giving you both a moment to adjust.

And then another.

And another.

“Law?”

You can hear him chuckle against you. “What, darling?”

“Please, Law.”

He pretends to ponder whether or not to give in for a moment, keeping you in suspense, before he relents. He pulls away from your neck, revealing his extremely red face. His voice may be calm, but the rest of him cannot hide the effects you’re having. “What do you want, sweetheart? Use your words.”

You know the line you’re supposed to say next. She tells Sora she wants relief, wants him to move, wants anything that she can have. But you’re soft, and weak, filled with want. You cannot help but think of your dream this morning, what you were denied and what you’ve always wanted. So you speak the honest truth. “I want you to kiss me.”

He stares at you for a moment, eyes searching yours. You see your own want reflected in him, an affection that makes your chest ache. Then a smile blooms across his face, one gentler than you deserve. The line he says next is Sora’s, but what comes after is all Law. “Whatever the lady wants,” he murmurs, before his lips meet yours.

The kiss isn’t fireworks, or an all consuming flame, or any other way you’d ever heard such a thing described. It was tender, it was kind, and most importantly, it was Law. You’d never wanted anything else. It finally confirms to you that this isn’t a dream, that he’s really here, pressing you against this wall, a desire burning in him that only you can satiate. The lust is still here, the heat of your bodies intertwined, but there’s something tender and real beneath it.

Once you both pull back, panting, you look into his eyes and know the scene is well and truly over. Now it’s just you and Law, breaths mingling and hearts pounding. He smiles at you, a nervous, delicate thing, his confidence left behind with the script. He’s breathless as he whispers, “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do that?”

You let out a soft, unsure laugh. “Is that Law talking, or Sora?”

He brushes his nose against yours. “It’s all me. It always has been.”

You can’t help your lovesick smile, dripping with a saccharine fondness you couldn’t hide if you tried. You meet his lips again, a kiss with a little more fire, a little more desperation. You try to convey everything you can’t say aloud: the years of yearning, the pain of thinking this moment would never come, the euphoria of learning you were wrong. Your hands press against his chest, his pulse fluttering under your fingers in unison with your own. You wrap your legs around his waist, desperate to pull him ever closer. He lets out a soft sound, almost a whimper, at the feeling of your lips against his as you clench around him. His tongue slips into your mouth, and once again the air around you grows ever hotter.

“Can I move?” There’s a whine to his voice. “Please.”

“Please do,” you moan, wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing your chests together.

He needs no further instruction, thrusting harshly, hips rutting against yours. You can feel him struggle to hold himself back from pounding into you at a bruising pace. His hands grip your hips, his nails digging in as he clenches his teeth.

“You don’t have to hold back, Law. I’ll take anything you want to give me.”

He struggles to speak through his self control. “I want to enjoy this. I want to take my time.” Another deliberate thrust has you dragging your nails down his back, making him moan in your ear. “I want this to be as good as it can be for you.”

“This is–ahh!–already better than I’d ever dreamed, Law.”

One of his hands moves to your clit, his fingers starting a steady motion. “Not good enough,” he mutters. His lips find your neck, placing open mouthed kisses along its length, his teeth grazing your skin. You feel yourself coming close to cumming again, your voice growing louder, echoing through the room as you babble. You don’t even know what you’re begging for, the words please and more and Law are all you can say, all you can think. There is nothing in the world beyond the feeling of him against you, inside of you, his soft lips and callused hands.

You expect him to rip away your pleasure again, but when he briefly stills, your babbles turn to sobs anyway. He pulls back to look you in the eye, take in the sight of the tears running down your face, and you can see him soften once again. His hands and hips start moving again immediately as he presses soft kisses against your cheeks, clearing away your tears.

“Sorry, sorry, it’s alright. You’re doing great. I won’t take it from you again, I promise.” His voice is filled with pity. “You’ve been so good, you can take what you want now.” He builds you back up quickly, his hips pressing into yours even faster than before. You can feel yourself about to burst, and you slam your lips into his, moaning into his mouth. The dam finally bursts, and the pleasure nearly blinds you as you clench around him, his hips struggling to keep moving with how tightly your legs are wrapped around his waist. Your orgasm is what finally makes him break, filling you to the brim as his movements stutter.

You bask in the feeling for a moment, both panting and dripping with sweat, his cock rapidly softening inside of you. Your head lolls forward, pressing into his shoulder, and you press a kiss against his sticky skin.

“Was it worth the wait?” He tries to ask the question in a teasing tone, but you can hear the insecurity underneath it.

“It was worth everything and more.” You shift to wrap your arms tighter around him and nuzzle your face into his neck.

You can feel the rumble of his chest as he chuckles, gathering you up as he slips out of you. “Agreed.” He kisses the side of your head, an action so filled with care it nearly makes you burst into tears again. He tries to lower you onto something, making you pull him closer and whine. “I just need to set you down for a second, sweetheart. I’ll be right back.”

“No.” You sound like a pouting child, making you cringe, but he laughs fondly anyway.

“Alright. A few more minutes. But I have to clean you up eventually, and then we need to find a place a bit more private to settle in, don’t you think? Or at least somewhere more comfortable.”

You hum quietly, pressing your nose further into him. You can worry about logistics in a few minutes. Right now you just want to bask in his warmth, in this dream turned reality, in the absolute joy of your feelings being reciprocated. “I really didn’t think you liked me,” you mutter sleepily. “I’m glad I was wrong.”

“I could say the same,” he murmurs into your hair.

You laugh. “Shachi and Peng are going to be so smug about this.”

“They are?”

“They’ve been trying to tell me for years, and they don’t get to tell me I told you so very often.”

“They were telling you too?” He laughs. “We could have done this months ago if we’d just believed them.”

“Yeah,” you whisper, your eyes starting to slip shut. “You’re worth the wait, though.”

You can hear the smile in his voice as his hand rubs soothing circles on your lower back, luring you further into sleep. “Yeah. So are you.”

Tag List: @pandora-writes-one-piece @shy-writer-999 @saturogojosgirl @dreamcastgirl99 @tochillwithamockingjay

#law x reader #trafalgar d law x reader #one piece x reader #law x you #law x y/n #trafalgar law #one piece #one piece law #op #one piece smut

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burymagdalene · 5 months ago

Text

Chateau Lobby #4 - S. Reid x Reader

Whilst trying to navigate romantic relationships after prison, Spencer finds himself in love and caught in an all-too-serious non-relationship with reader. Wanting to break this streak, he asks to spend Valentine's Day properly with a real date. Afterward, they find themselves desperate with trying to express their love for each other.

pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader genre: Smut (18+ pls pls), fluff, and maybe a bit of angst at the start tags: switch!Spencer, blowjob, fingering, a bit of munch!Spencer, pinv sex, age gap (not explicit, but I was foaming at the mouth thinking about it while writing), praise, riding, creampie, lots of teasing and love… all that jazz. wc: 6.9k ;-) a/n: Happy Valentine's Day! I had to name this one after essentially the best love song ever. I kiss all of you!

Work is grueling as usual, couples flooded the diner you work at for their pre- Valentine’s Day festivities with flowers in hand and shit eating grins plastered to stay.

Yet, you’re off soon and you can taste your freedom just like the stale coffee you’ve been throwing back all day as the bell to the front door jingles with more fervor than usual,

“I want to take you out. Properly. Friday. It’ll be a good, proper, date. Yeah.”

You blink in bewilderment, apron tied around your waist as Spencer proposes your first actual date at the kitschy restaurant you work at.

After Spencer got out of prison, his perceptions around a genuine connection in a relationship seemed to be as distant a reality as the person who he was before prison. Upon meeting you, a small radiant glow around you at all times as you poured him his coffee during his lunch breaks beckoned him into this altercation he’s in now with you.

The dull incessant nagging on his shoulder at all times whispering his new inadequacies in relationships has steered him into a solitude state he has never experienced before. You couldn’t possibly stoop so low to fall for an ex-convict? Would he even call himself that? Would you?

Most importantly, he had no idea how to steer a relationship before this complete 180 in his life, and now he’s even more lost to the tenderness he’s craving so deeply it hurts to even give himself a taste of optimism within the relationship he’s developed with you.

Spencer has somehow held himself back from you in all these months in such a critical way that it has resulted in a bond which the concept of he’s priorly abhorred. You only have sex.

Well, that’s kind of impossible for him. Only sex. But every time he’s seen you, been with you alone, it has led to sweat mingling and his dry whining. You two can’t help but to talk about your lives, your passions, can’t help but give each other sickening support and kindness that makes him nervously chew the skin of his thumbnail.

Despite how much he thinks about something genuine between you two, in reality, he just gets scared. Simply put. He has seen and been through unimaginable horrors, it scares him to bare that to another person, to someone who brings aid to him. Pushing you away in any sort is not something he can handle, so instead he’s managed to come up with a only slightly agonizing set up for the both of you.

It’s better than confessing completely and inevitably driving you away with his damages.

Except, this clearly hasn’t worked out. It’s February, he’s been seeing you every weekend for months and Spencer cannot bear the thought of taking all of your time like this and you getting nothing on Valentine’s Day. It sickens him, it strikes him one night. If you told him that some other guy you were seeing had put you in the exact situation he’s put you in, and you’re not even receiving flowers and an all expenses paid dinner on Valentine’s Day, he’d personally show up to his apartment and kill him.

So he’s finally stepped up.

A sweep of bravery flooded his senses on his lunch break, and he was up on his feet walking to where he knows you are at this time without even thinking.

Your manager, however, was not as excited about this distracting public confession, and grumbled out a prompt for you to leave early before causing a further hindrance, and now you two are sitting next to each other on the curb outside.

Spencer is staring holes into the side of your smiling face as you pick a loose string from your jeans.

“I can’t believe you asked me out at work,” you giggle and shift your gaze at him for a split second “didn’t really know if you even liked me.”

“What? Of course I like you, you’re the only person I spend time with.”

“Hm. Yeah, it’s just confusing sometimes. I really like you, but usually when guys like you back they want to take you out, ha.”

You end your sentence with a dry laugh that explains to Spencer how you’ve been feeling throughout the time you’ve been sleeping together.

“I’m so sorry. I just- I thought it would be easier on you. Than for you to actually be with me. Why didn’t you mention anything?”

You sniff, like knowing that what you’re about to say is probably a bit too mean to say to someone who just asked you to be his valentine.

“Why should it be on me to say something, you don’t tell me anything. Nothing about how you feel about me, apparently. I never said anything because I was going to put up with whatever until you dropped me because I care about seeing you too much.”

That makes Spencer shift his gaze to his own knees in front of him.

“Yeah, I’m unfair. I guess I just assumed that because you’re more confrontational than I am.”

“Am I though?”

Spencer sighs, with how many times you’ve dogged on him for certain things he’s said or done, yes. But you’ve never really mentioned how the relationship was impacting you, it’s easier for you to bring up menial topics to him, he guesses.

“No, you’re not.” He finalizes.

You huff out a laugh and place a kiss on his blazer-clad shoulder– a peace offering. Grabbing his arm, you pull his jacket sleeve up to check the time.

“I’m gonna drive home before you have to go back to work. I’m sorry I was mean. I’m really excited to go on a date with you friday. I’ve never had a Valentine’s Day date.”

Standing up, you brush off your concrete imprinted palms on the back of your jeans before tilting up Spencer’s chin (he’s remained utterly still sitting on the curb) to meet your gaze. He looks away slightly to your shoes and rests his forehead against your stomach, a wordless apology as he nods against you.

Again, you place your palms to his cheeks to look at you, he’s always had a problem with maintaining eye contact for long periods of time.

“And…you mr. gentleman, are you excited to wine and dine me?”

Spencer’s kicked-puppy look dissipates as his love-struck smile takes its place.

“Yes. I actually think it’s going to be the best night I’ve had since… maybe since I’ve met you.”

Smiling, you’re satisfied.

“That’s right. Okay, Spencer. Thank you. I’ll see you Friday.”

You try to suppress your grin as you spin away on your heels, but Spencer catches it before you turn and it heats his frigid body from sitting outside for so long. How has he been so dumb all this time? Somehow it being easy with you, painfully easy to be treated tenderly by you, since the beginning has slipped his mind. Of course, an actual relationship with you would come as naturally as it has since you started.

He’s never been so sure of it.

✵

Spencers looking at himself in the bathroom mirror as the bouquet he picked up for you and the personally annotated book he’s giving you sit on his kitchen table, awaiting his arrival to put their still existence into motion.

He knows you well, he’s intently stored away every single piece of information you have given him. He knows everything you’ve been through, the best day of your life, what turns you on so much you get embarrassed… so on and so forth. Yet, he’s staring at his pre-date reflection right now seeing how his face has drained of all color.

The restaurant he picked has been mentioned by Rossi a few times as a favorite. Fancy, Italian, expensive, and Spencer was able to get a reservation by the skin of his teeth for Valentine’s Day because he (regrettably) had to pull a “I know David Rossi, yeah..” on the phone a few days ago.

So he should be rather prepared, he knows where you’re going, he’s been on a date before, sure. Yet…

Spencer flicks off the light in his bathroom to force himself away from the mirror, agonizing over his face isn’t productive in the least. You already know what he looks like.

He drives in complete silence to your apartment, he’s already anxious as ever and he has to be behind the wheel, which is not his forte. But the thought of seeing you in the passenger seat glowing after a fancy meal appeals to him so greatly his stomach swirls.

Spencer’s early, of course. He couldn’t not be. He was probably ready for the date 3 hours before the time he said he would pick you up at. With this day off he’s been able to sit and pace and freak out for hours. Great.

When he knocks with the fist holding the book for you he hears frantic scrambling for thirty seconds or so before you swing the door open–

“Spencer!” You gasp belatedly when you see the flowers, “oh my god! Come in, I need to put my shoes on and I’m good to go.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day, so pretty…” Spencer mumbles against the top of your head when you pull him into a greeting hug.

“Mmm. Happy Valentine’s Day. You smell good.”

You can’t help yourself, wrapping your arms around Spencer’s neck and pulling him into a kiss immediately. All too easy, you’re used to your mouths working furiously together. It's like another language for you.

But Spencer is pulling away slightly, speaking against your lips, “I'm trying to take you on a date first.”

Groaning lightly you start kissing him again, resulting in his hands placed on your waist slowly peeling you off him. Spencer's hands and lips have a mind of their own though, his hands are firmly pushing you off as his lips chase yours as you separate.

Laughing, you tilt your head to one side to inspect him, “So after the date you’ll get me home by 8:00 and give me a chaste kiss goodnight?”

Spencer chuckles and shakes his head at your toying.

“If you’ll let me, I’ll fuck you after the date. But, sure I’ll also give you a chaste goodnight kiss, though it’s 7:30 so you can rule out being home by 8:00. Sorry.” He pulls in his lips and raises his eyebrows as if to say, that’s that.

“If I’ll let you?”

“Right.”

“Mmkay.”

“And… if you like it I can do that again and again,” he chuckles and rubs his forehead with his palm, “and then I’ll take you on a second date.”

You avert your eyes to hide the tell tale signs of you flustered, hating whenever he gets the upper hand in flirting because you can not take it as well as Spencer can when you dish it out.

“Whatever-” whipping your head around trying to locate your shoes Spencer giggles under his breath, your presence has totally eased his nerves. He watches you pick up your heeled boots and he kneels slowly in front of you to place them on your feet.

“You’re sweet,” at your words Spencer smiles to himself and zips up the sides of your boots. “I’m so excited for the rest of the night if this is gonna be my treatment.”

“What? Princess treatment? You should be excited, I’m going to be cutting your food and feeding it to you.”

“Ooh. Waving me with a big leaf and feeding me grapes?”

“Something like that. Yeah.” He smiles and stands up, grasping your hands to help you up. “Very pretty. You look beautiful.”

“You look beautiful too,” you poke his side, “I love this maroon tie. I wish you would let me kiss you.”

Spencer sighs at your dramatics and cups your face for a soft kiss. You sigh into it and he kisses your neck once in finality.

“Better?”

Smiling bashfully, you nod.

✵

The looks of the restaurant struck you immediately, and there is a nervous prickling at your spine that happens when you’re in fancier places than you think you deserve– a feeling of being a persona non grata.

To hide your insecurity, you grasp Spencer’s hand as he tells the hostess the reservation name and whistle lowly below your breath at the long draping lace curtains around the room and the barely-there candlelight illuminating the entirety of the restaurant.

Sitting down, you immediately start the date with a joke that falls flat, “So, do you take all your ladies here on the first date?”

Either Spencer thought the joke was distasteful or he didn’t get it, either way he furrowed his brows and shifted his eyes to the side for a moment like he’s looking around for a translation from a bystander.

“No?”

“I’m just- yeah, I’m kidding. Sorry. I’m nervous.”

“I was really nervous before getting you tonight, my hair… I don’t know.”

“Ha, seriously?” Unbelievable you think, his hair is slightly wind ruffled and his curls look ringlet-y, you never could wrap your head around the tales of the plain mean teasing over his looks he’s lived through. “You’re extremely handsome, I tell you that.”

“You do. I wanted to impress you.”

“You do.”

The whole dinner fills your stomach with butterflies that mixes extraordinarily well with whatever red wine Spencer ordered for the two of you. It has you leaning forward when you laugh, has you running your foot up and down the inside of his calf, causing his voice to spike up two octaves whenever you trail up slowly.

Spencer halts your movements quickly though, grabbing lightly at your ankle to stop its ministrations, making you hum around your fork and him roll his eyes light heartedly.

The night was going very well once your romantic jitters melted away into a comfortability you felt you could only possess when around Spencer, something nobody else has given you before.

It was utterly ridiculous, feeling so lovey dovey, you can see how the holiday has some emotional merit to it and isn’t just a capitalist money grab to drain the pockets of couples and make single women feel unworthy. Though maybe you’re just feeling that because you’re not on the victims end of the money grab, regardless…

On the other side of the booth, Spencer has been spiralling into a clusterfuck of thoughts around how much more deeply invested he is in you than he thought. You’re here though, you didn’t turn down his proposal and you kept mentioning how excited you are.

Still, every exhale out of his lungs is a shudder in fear of a looming rejection of an inquisition he’s not even sure he’s going to ask, or if it’s already set in place. Are you dating?

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Um, ahh, um, are we dating?’

What an idiot!

You burst out laughing. Jesus, he must’ve been sick mulling over the aftermath of the date going back to your former dynamic of who even knows what. You couldn’t possibly live with the idea either, but are probably more keen on living in the moment than Spencer.

“You wanna date me? Be my boyfriend?” Your laughter is trailing off, but you have a smile as you say it from giddiness rather than mocking.

A gust of air then, “More than anything.”

The chilly air outside that was previously cooling both of your anxieties upon entering the restaurant meets the same warm cheeks for an opposing reason now. Hand in hand, you walk with full bellies back to Spencer’s car.

Filled with the first secure sense of trust and vulnerability in your life, hand in hand you swing your arms together like a lovesick teenager.

All hesitation around what you could do or say to drive Spencer away flies out into the abrasive February air and off with the wind, so you ask,

“When, if you know, did you first realize that you.. like-liked me?”

“Like-like huh? Haven’t heard that one in a while.” Spencer opens the passenger side door for you and guides you in with a palm on your lower back. He watches you buckle yourself in and leans his arms against the top of the car, looking down at where you’re seated he contemplates his answer seriously.

“I knew I like-liked you once I first saw you brushing your teeth in my bathroom the first night you stayed over. Hm. Yeah, I was watching from the doorway in awe, and seeing you do something so… banal, and it tearing me open. I wanted to see it every night.” He shuts the door and walks to his side as you sit staring out the window where he once was.

Spencer turns his car key, putting on your seat warmer before his own, and rubs your cheek with his thumb. “I really enjoyed myself tonight.”

“I first knew I loved you when you picked me up from work when it was raining. I’m not even sure what, but seeing your wet hair and maybe that getting your suit wet didn’t matter at all to you… I just felt so… I went home and stared at my hands all wet for like an hour. Then I woke up the next day with a cold, ha. I’m… so, yeah.”

You know what you said, you’re not shocked it came out and you didn’t want to really avoid it anymore with frivolous watered-down terms.

Spencer laughs and places his forehead against the wheel at a stoplight. “You’re perfect. I can’t believe it, I’m so lucky and you’re so perfect and I realized I love you now in the same way I realized I did when you were in my bathroom. It feels the same.”

✵

Now you’re back at Spencer’s apartment. Head tilted up and pressed against his front door as he’s fumbling with taking off your coat while simultaneously kissing away your lipstick, it rubbing on his chin in a smudged crimson streak.

Your thumbs are looped through the belt hoops in his trousers as you’re pulling his hips against your own.

Spencer always has a way of kissing you that feels all consuming, and you think you cannot possibly kiss anyone else in your life without implementing everything you’ve learned about kissing Spencer. Every kiss in your future would be executed to roll Spencer Reid’s eyes back, you can’t possibly kiss anyone ever again.

Sucking on your top lip, he flings your coat to the ground and wraps his greedy arms around your waist as he pulls you impossibly closer to him.

It’s almost a grounding exercise within itself to make out with Spencer, you can’t possibly hear, feel, see or taste anything other than him when he’s this way. The universe exists solely between your lips and the way your overactive brains become a fuzzy-soft blend of peace when you’re passing your tongues between mouths is placating.

Still puppeteering Spencer through his belt hoops, you move him towards his worn leather couch you’ve associated his scent with. Spencer is sat with his legs spread open in a lazy manspread as you stand and look down at him.

“Should I sit?” You poke teasingly, knowing by the dick print shining through his trousers that he could beg for it pretty easily. Spencer nods slowly, pulling his hands from his sides to grab onto your hips to pull you down.

You stop him though, arm placed firmly on his shoulder, halting yourself from falling onto him. You would like to hear how badly he wants it.

“Woah, tiger. I think I asked you something, no?” you’re laughing plainly at the grovelling face he makes that you know he doesn’t realize he’s making. Ever the overreaction.

“Yes. You should sit.” He grumbles.

“Why?”

“Because I know how much you like to feel yourself against me when you’re needy like this, and…I want to do everything for you. Because if I don’t have you against me soon I’m going to fall apart.”

Sounds good enough.

Humming happily you straddle Spencer’s lap and reattach your lips onto his, welcoming the inevitable swollen look with no complaint. Without hesitation, you wiggle your hips contentedly against his crotch. Spencer's sharp inhale of pleasure never gets old.

Cupping your jaw into his warm hands he whispers against your lips, “This a good enough reason, or should I give you one more?”

Gasping lightly against the friction you’re creating you respond, “Sounds like you want to give me another reason anyway.”

“I can always feel the way you tighten your legs around my hips. It happens almost instantly every time… like you have to brace yourself to feel me against you. I can always tell how badly you want it.”

He’s mumbling against your neck as he says it, partly because he can feel your pulse race against his lips and partly to hide how red he gets when he feels brave enough to talk this dirty to you.

Once he starts sucking a mark onto the sensitive part of your neck, every nerve in your body is on high alert to each move he makes and you need to part, if only briefly, to regain your composure, you’re all too frazzled, a live wire.

“Spence, can I suck you off?”

The pained half-groan half-laugh Spencer lets out is exactly what you expected to hear as you crawl down on the floor between his legs, rubbing his thighs up and down with open palms.

“Y-yeah. Um. Why should you, I mean, why should I let you?”

He’s failing miserably at trying to make a call back to your prior teasing, too impacted by the visual of you between his thighs to make a coherent, taunting remark.

“Because I’m supposed to be getting the princess treatment.” You unzip his pants slowly while looking into his half-lidded eyes.

Your heart always flutters at this part. Before you find your usual rhythm you always assume that you’re going to forget everything you’ve learned about sucking dick and ruin the atmosphere, the pressure of caring is almost always crushing.

Still, you find yourself eagerly pulling his dick out of his underwear, and shuffling towards him more till your arms are overtop his upper thighs and the top of your head is brushing his lower stomach, which curls inward when you place kisses up his length.

“Woah-” Spencer whispers out as you continue to kiss him lightly. Instead of crudely grabbing your hair or face, his hands find themselves behind his head as he lengthens his body out like a cat sunbathing.

Running the tip of your tongue across his frenulum, Spencer twists his hips to the side, trying to run away from the pleasure and as a result his cock wipes against your cheek. You grab the base now, keeping it steady so it’s not like you’re working on a moving canvas and take the tip into your mouth.

You place your tongue out, covering your bottom teeth enough so you’re comforted in knowing you’re not going to scrape him, and suck lightly while moving your tongue that's against the bottom of his tip in circles.

“That’s! That’s enough, okay. Jesus.” Spencer says a bit too loud and jolts your system, which was just falling into a methodological pace.

Pulling back, you lick your lips and pull them into your mouth, tasting him even when he’s not in your mouth anymore and look at him expectantly.

“S-sorry. I didn’t mean that. I was going to cum. You can keep going… only if you want.” He tries to save his little oversensitive outburst from mere seconds ago.

Wordless, you move back to what you were doing. You want to listen to him a bit though, as a treat, so you take more of him into your mouth instead of focusing all of your energy on the most sensitive part of him. Spencer hums in content and his head falls back against the couch.

A small trickle of your spit is slipping out and running down his cock, you always feel so embarrassed when it gets messy, you don’t know why, you don’t feel awkward at all when Spencer is going down on you so enthusiastically that you can feel his saliva running down your inner legs.

Now you’re thinking about how good it feels when he’s going down on you. You whine softly around him and put a hand that was resting on his thigh to rub over your tights and underwear from where you reach under your dress.

Spencer was already close earlier, watching you try to touch yourself as you give him head is simply too much again.

“Angel, d-done, I’m…okay-”

You pull off of him with a pop and the trail of saliva connecting your bottom lip to his dick stretches and breaks as you talk.

“Can we go to your bedroom please?” it's hoarse and rough but you can’t bring yourself to care.

“Come ‘ere.” Spencer stretches out his hands to you so he can pull you up from his carpet. Tucking himself back into his underwear for some semblance of modesty, you two walk the short trip to his bedroom as you hold onto his arm.

Like it's your own, you jump and land on your back onto his comforter which all but swallows you whole as you relax against it, excitement thrumming through your veins as if your cells are chanting “my turn, my turn!”

Spencer lithely crawls on top of you, sitting on his knees as his thighs cage yours in.

“You looked so pretty tonight, I’m almost mourning having to take all this off.”

“Almost, though.”

“Yeah, I know I’ll probably cheer up pretty quickly when I do, huh?”

You laugh and cover your face with your hands, it’s so stupid but he always makes you feel like you're melting all over when he’s being corny.

Soon enough, Spencer is peeling your tights down with your underwear, and you’re squirming along with him while trying to help and shimmy out of your dress and bra. For a small second, Spencer pulls away to take off his blazer and roll up the sleeves of his dress shirt.

Leaning down on one forearm by your head, he begins kissing you again. Your mouths work together as his other hand trails his fingertips incredibly light against your inner thigh. Biting down softly on his bottom lip, a plea. Spencer uses his middle and ring finger to gather your wetness up to your clit.

The circles he’s rubbing against you leave you moaning and whining against his open mouth as he kisses you through it, maybe throwing in a few “aw’s” or hums in approval as he continues to work his fingers against you.

You both know exactly where this is leading to, and he always has to thoroughly prep you so that you can painlessly take all of him. Those same fingers move against your opening now, Spencer places the middle finger against you and is met with little resistence, so he begins fucking you slowly with it.

Back arching up so your chests brush against each other, Spencer take’s your opportunity of bliss to slip in another finger, scissoring you open as wet sounds emanate between your thighs.

With two of his fingers in you now, his efforts to kiss your lips have become harder than ever as you become more and more nonverbal and increasingly whiny.

“Where’d all your teasing go? What happened to calling the shots?” Murmured at your chin as your jaw opens with a whimper. You shake your head, you can’t entertain this, he’s kicking you while you’re down and it’s not right!

Looking down, Spencer see’s your toes curling in and slowly pulls his fingers out of you, a loud suction-y noise following his absence. You blink your eyes open blearily, trying to refocus yourself and reorient yourself into this living plane.

Spencer has stealthily moved down to where your legs are spread open and he’s looking at you exposed with so much adoration in his eyes that even though you’re blinking away tears, you can see it clearly. He’s in love with you.

“Oh, please.” You gasp out, trying to cut to the chase before Spencer asks if he can eat you out. He smiles, and asks anyway to frustrate you good naturedly.

“Do you want me to return the favor, my valentine?” he swoons.

“Yeah, uhhuh, please.”

“I saw you touching yourself when you were using your mouth on me earlier,” he moves his head between its rightful home in between your thighs, “were you thinking about how good it feels to be in that position?”

“Mm. Yeah.”

“Lucky you then, huh?”

“M-mhm!”

He’s tired of hearing himself talking now, he just wants to be nestled into your pussy and let his tongue work you up in a more productive way than pitiful teasing.

With the palm of his hand flat against your very lower belly, Spencer simultaneously pushes down and up, exposing more of your clit to him and adding pressure to your stomach. He kisses your clit and pokes his tongue out as you lightly circle it as your hips squirm.

Intermittently, Spencer suctions your clit, pulls away completely, and goes back in to repeat the pattern. You’re smeared over his lips and chin and half convinced that he keeps pulling back to see your strings of come stick to his lips.

He changes methods, using his tongue to lick and suck at the source of your slick, nose prodding at your clit. You take it into your own hands to increase the stimulation on your clit as you rock your hips against his nose, Spencer muffles a moan into you.

Recognizing this, Spencer pulls back up to attach his lips back to your needy clit. Through his lips he’s running his tongue against you and the pleasure is unrelenting and intense. The exact stuff that makes you come.

“P-please stay there.” You manage to whimper out, the thought of him changing positions or rhythm is too scary for you to stay silent when you’re this close to finishing. You can feel him smile against you as he stays where you want him to.

Your hands reach for his hair as you thread it between your fingers, the silky stands grounding you to the bed before you prepare to come and fly out to wherever in the space-time-continuum Spencer takes you whenever he goes down on you.

Eventually, the pleasure gets to be too much for you to stifle and savor off much longer, you’re too greedy to ask him to edge you too. You don’t have enough willpower to put this off, you can ask him to eat you out for hours and hours some other day.

With one last suction, stars dance behind your eyelids as Spencer holds your hips down to suck off every last bit of come you have for him, trying his best to lick you clean when you finish all over his face.

There’s nothing to do but take a slow deep breath in and a long deep breath out as you put the pieces of your brain back together. Once you do, Spencer is up by your face again as he was earlier while fingering you, and he’s palming himself over his underwear.

“Okay?” He asks through pleasure filled furrowed brows.

Nodding, you laugh, you can still feel yourself throbbing for Christ’s sake. Spencer nuzzles his nose against your cheek and kisses your jaw. You let your eyes close again, the feeling of his lips against your skin calming down your racing heart.

It’s a completely silent and peaceful atmosphere of Spencer kissing where he can as you come down until you feel his curious fingers swipe at your clit again. Immediately, your eyes snap open.

“I can’t- I can’t.” You bargain like your life is on the line.

Spencer pulls his fingers away for a moment, looking into your eyes and rubbing it once more as you gasp so hard a strand of hair in Spencer’s face blows to the side, he leaves you alone then.

You cannot fathom how Spencer is almost fully clothed right now. With shaky, malleable limbs, you pull him a bit closer to you and slowly pop each button of his top open. He’s watching your fingers work against his shirt as he continues to rub himself over his underwear gently.

Laying flat beside you know, Spencer lifts his hips up to pull his underwear down finally. Like a moth to a flame, you sit up and take him into your hand again, missing the feel of him hard against you, you note that you want to ride him more than anything.

“Spencer, darling, can I ride you?”

For a moment he has an unreadable face, but you know that gears are turning in his head at such a rate that he can’t compute them into a response yet.

“Tonight was supposed to be about you.”

You roll your eyes.

“Spencer, darling, can I ride you for a bit?”

“Yes.”

He responds just as you finish your sentence, eagerly pulling your wrist so you can straddle him again for the second time tonight.

Sitting right below where is cock is hard, you wrap your hands around him and place him up to your stomach, displaying how deep he’s going to be inside of you once you’re fully settled on him, at his dazed face you tease, “deep, huh?”

Spencer shuts his eyes in embarrassment, but his dick twitches and you smile down at it like it’s giving you Spencer’s insider secrets that he can’t say out loud.

Lifting yourself up, you shakily rub him over your entrance a few times before sitting down slowly on his head. You both whine as you start, Spencer's hand on your hip rubbing circles while his eyes are still closed.

You want him to watch so badly. You sink down further, almost all the way with a small squeal that has Spencer’s eyes opening and his stomach tightening, checking to see if you’re in any pain.

“M’ okay. Fucking big, can’t get used to it.” You trail off.

A light pink blush appears on his cheeks like your compliment had come from a sweeter, more innocent place in your heart. You place your palms on his chest as you take a deep breath in and sink down all the way.

“Fuck- perfect. You okay?” Spencer speaks through his teeth at your whining as you accommodate him.

Again you laugh to take the fiery attention completely off of you, “So much dick.”

“Stopp.” Spencer whines. He feels so much like a dude when you compliment him like this, his ego doesn’t even know what to do with these extremely filthy compliments. He assumes you feel the same way when he’s fingering you and won’t shut up about how you feel and sound.

Starting with small circles, it feels like Spencer is churning you as deliciously as humanly possible. The more small movements you give the deeper the need to actually ride him is, you stop holding back and start picking up your hips against his as your nails dig indents into his chest.

Spencer’s singing out soft uh’s with each pass of your hips and you’re (unfortunately) not able to match his sweet pleads as you’re holding back full and embodied moans that slip out when you angle him perfectly inside you.

You want to swindle it so that Spencer forgets about your prior compromise and lets you ride him till he’s coming inside of you, but when your hips stutter briefly with exhaustion, he notices immediately.

“Flip over.”

Pretending to be mad, you roll your eyes and lay flat on your back, the stretch of removing yourself from him making you suck in air between your teeth.

“Felt so good, did so good for me, please let me do that for you.” Spencer whispers into your ear as he positions you onto your side.

One of his arms from behind you is holding up your thigh closest to him, inadvertently spreading you open for him to be inside you once again. With one of his hands on your thigh and the other propping himself up for a good angle, you take matters into your own hands, lining him up with yourself again.

As easy as ever, Spencer pushes his hips slowly as he enters you from the side and your head falls to the pillow, allowing Spencer access to your ear and side of your neck.

When he finds his rhythm, he gets more confident, gaining his voice to mutter praises and filth into your ear as he fucks you.

“What’d I say? Told you I was gonna fuck you, jus’ had to be patient. Jesus, always so patient for me, with me. I’m sorry…”

You can tell he’s not exactly referring to his act of fucking you right now, moreso the push and pull he’s put you through for months. But it feels good to hear, Spencer's emotions are spilling out since he’s put out everything he’s felt for you on the table.

“Mmf. Would wa-wait forever-” You’re trying to be comforting, you’re getting your brains fucked out. The angle on your side has Spencer’s cock dragging along the front of your vagina, every single toe-curling spot is being rubbed relentlessly.

“Perfect. Perfect.”

The open mouthed kisses Spencer’s leaving on your cheek are wet and sloppy, but wholeheartedly welcome. With his face so close to yours his stubble is rubbing against you, making you whine.

Picking up on the way Spencer’s breathing becomes more shallow, you assume he’s pretty close. All night he’s been starving himself of this and you almost get excited for him, you’re too in deep.

Realizing he’s close after you have realized it, Spencer moves his hand from your inner thigh and starts rubbing your tender clit with his fingers again. Moaning loudly through a closed mouth, you let him this time.

You have to trust him to put you back together to your normal self after this though, you’re expecting a hard second orgasm and after how much the first one took you out, you have to brace yourself as you feel it brewing in the bottom of your belly.

Noticing how you’ve buried your face a bit more into the pillow and are trying to work on steadying your breathing, Spencer picks up quickly how you’re feeling.

“I got you, you’re okay, you’re okay. I know…” He kisses along your cheek and with a squeak that makes Spencer’s own orgasm arrive, you throb around him and twitch in his arms as you come.

He’s pressing his body into you as though he’s a weighted blanket, soothing the aftershocks that are thrumming through your entire body with his own. Spencer places his hand against your heart to gauge how you’re doing and begins peppering your skin with kisses.

“Do you feel good?” Spencer’s begun massaging your side and back softly, preventing any sore muscles from developing there before tomorrow hits you.

You come to yourself, before you had panicked, not sure how to trust Spencer completely with the vulnerability you were about to experience, but you’re fine. You’re happy. Coming harder than you have before is not scary because that’s exactly what Spencer wanted from you.

“Yes. I could cry.”

“Baby…”

Slowly you flip over to face him, a little teary but nothing streaming down your face as you plant a kiss on his lips. And then again.

There’s still a small lipstick stain on his jaw from when you were sitting above him on the couch earlier. You trace over it with your finger.

“You’re going to be finding hidden lipstick marks all over your body for weeks…” you smile and close your eyes.

“I hope,” he replies softly and earnestly, “I really like them. I really like you.”

✵

You’re both clean now. Showered and fresh as a daisy, you smell like all the products in Spencer’s shower and you’re standing behind him, arms wrapped around his waist as he dries off his hair in front of the mirror.

You can see his skin is tinged pink from the hot water, creating a sweet blush over his back and shoulders where you press your cheek against. With your skin soft and warm now, you think about the small snow flurries falling outside, how they mean nothing to the warmth coming off you and from inside you.

Spencer moves away from the mirror, allowing you your turn to get fully ready for bed. Taking out the “spare” toothbrush he has that’s essentially yours, you begin brushing your teeth. Feeling eyes looking at you from your side you turn to where Spencer is leaning against the wall and watching you.

Suddenly, you remember what he said earlier in the car, how he realized he loved you. You slow your brushing down and meet his gaze, sure that if someone else were in here to describe your looks it would be a cheesy “eyes shaped like hearts” moment.

Your heart fills, the toothbrush clatters in his sink as you drop it and run over into his arms, placing kisses all over his lips and face, leaving small streaks of toothpaste behind.

Through similar frantic kisses Spencer speaks in giggles,

“I still want to see this every night. I need to.”

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer x reader #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fanfiction #smut

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moonlightwonu · 9 months ago

Text

김민규 // Kim Mingyu Fic Recsᡣ𐭩

가끔 널 잃을까 봐 겁나 그 날이 오면 난 이룬 게 뭘까~

Main Recs Masterlist

➣Part I // Part II

MINORS DNI!!!!!!!

Please like and reblog the fics to show the creators love and support~

“Honeyboy” by @chocosvt

Fem!reader || Slowburn, eventual friends to lovers, angst, smut, summer romance, fluff || W.C: 54k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･when you graduate high school, you realize you’re not really going to miss anyone, apart from a cute boy who doesn’t even remember your name. five years later, after accepting an offer to pass the summer at a friend’s lake house, he’s standing right in front of you. the universe doesn’t give second chances very often. you’re not going to let the honey boy slip away twice.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✮

“Foolproof Stupidity” by @shuarush

Fem!reader || adulthood, romance, fluff, smut || W.C: 54.4k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･after giving your blood, sweat and tears to your company, you found yourself lost in whoever you are and were, and in the middle of an uncomfortable event you decided to throw caution out the window and go out of your comfort zone. meeting mingyu wasn’t the reason for it, but it was a good consequence. the feelings that emerged in your heart, on the other hand, were something you simply couldn’t handle at the moment, and you might just let your traumas get the best of you and push away the thing you fear the most: love.

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“Hits Different (...’cause it’s you)” by @gyuswhore

Fem!reader || uni au, brother's bestfri, slowburn, angst, fluff, smut || Parts: 2 || Total W.C: 40k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･Kim Mingyu was the first friend your brother had brought home for dinner. Fast forward a couple years, his toothy smile and pierced ears would wedge their way into a permanent place in your heart. Nail to a coffin, never to escape. or; in which you get rejected by the only boy you've ever loved; a rejection you can't quite shake off.

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“My Daisy” by @wonwoonlight

[Series] || Strangers to lovers, singledad!mingyu, fluff || Parts: 10 (+prologue, +epilogue) || Total W.C: 36k || Status: Completed

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･when your cousin asks you to be her substitute at SVT Inc. as she takes her maternity leave, you're pretty sure this wasn't what you signed up for.

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“The Other Woman” by @idyllic-ghost (I linked the reworked version of the original fic series but pls do check out both versions they're both amazing)

Fem!reader || found family, angst, fluff, smut, side wonwoo x reader || W.C: 31k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･You’re married to Wonwoo, but his father desperately wants him to have a child - which you cannot have. He gives into his parents wishes and meets the other woman, whom he eventually agrees to marry as well. You’re left heartbroken for a few years, seeing the man you love build a family that you had always wanted, but happiness is on the horizon as you meet someone new.

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“Close Proximity” by @chilligyu

Fem!reader || roommate au, fluff, romance, drama, angst, suggestive, side wonwoo x reader || W.C: 18k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･when she first met mingyu, she didn’t know what to expect. she was desperate for a roommate, he needed a place to stay. they were exactly what the other needed, in more ways than one.

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“Statistically Speaking” by @/gyuswhore

Uni TA au, fluff, smut, angst || W.C: 21k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･In all your years of academic endurance, you’ve never failed. A 100% success rate, despite you cutting it close at times. However, the line graph that is your life starts tanking somewhere around the time you began taking this hellsent Statistics in Psychological Research class. With a professor that wouldn’t know his ass from his head, and an overworked, overenthusiastic, and overcaptivating TA, it couldn't possibly get any worse than this. However, statistically speaking,…it could.

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“I’ll Marry You With Paper Rings” by @vitaminkyeom

Fem!reader || Childhood best friends to lovers, slow burn, fluff, angst, humour || W.C: 28.3k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･When the two of you were little, you and Mingyu had made a marriage pact, agreeing to marry each other if both of you remained single till thirty. Of course, it was just a joke between the two of you and you both went about in your own ways, the silly promise pretty much forgotten. You soon had a huge list of ex-boyfriends and it became a routine for Mingyu to be your human tissue after each breakup. It was a tiresome job, taking care of you, but if the said best friend in love with you didn’t do it, who would? Or, in which, even twenty years later, Kim Mingyu finds himself running to your every beck and call, despite telling himself he won’t fall for you anymore.

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“One Last Time (For Old Time’s Sake)” by @tonicandjins

Angst || W.C: 10.9k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･you receive an invitation for the worst day of your life.

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“After All This Time” by @hannieoftheyear

Fem!reader || Friends to lovers, fluff, smut, minor angst || W.C: 18.7k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･When you're asked to be on the wedding party of a long-lost friend, you get the chance to reconnect with former classmate Mingyu, but not without your old feelings and struggles resurfacing.

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“Kim Mingyu’s (Unhelpful) Guide to Losing Your Virginity” by @shuaflix

Fem!reader || college au, best friends to lovers, fwb, smut, fluff, humour || W.C: 31.3k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･after accidentally telling your friends that kim mingyu took your virginity (he didn't), you’re shocked when he proposes to relieve you of the fabled v-card for good (he does).

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“I Can’t Run Away” by @yuzukult

Fem!reader || Opposites!au, angst, fluff, smut, slow burn || W.C: 15.7k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･everyone expresses love in different ways. that doesn’t exclude you.

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“We Don’t Usually Hold Hands” by @/yuzukult

Fem!reader/oc || idiots to lovers, fwb, angst, fluff, smut || W.C: 16.8k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･when a friend brings up the potential feelings of a fuck buddy, you’re left wondering what to do when you confirm it’s true.

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“Liar, Liar!” by @sanakiras

Fem!reader || rich rivals to partners in crime to lovers, murder mystery, smut, angst || Parts: 2 || Total W.C: 30.5k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･in a dramatic turn of events, a rich businessman is found dead in his lavish estate, and the authorities believe it was no accident. as the detectives dig deeper, they ultimately end up with two key suspects: you, the businessman’s very own daughter, and your sworn enemy, kim mingyu. as the time progresses, tensions rise and secrets spill — and the truth has the power to either bring you closer together or tear you apart.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✮

“Over My Head” by @hannieehaee

Fem!reader || brother's best friend, friends to lovers, pining, angst, slow burn, smut || W.C: 15k

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･moving out of state for college was a terrifying experience for most people. fortunately for you, you had your older brother wonwoo to guide you while there, and even better, his best friend mingyu.

Please let me know if the links have any problems~

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ceeaann · 4 months ago

Text

Opposite Attract !? — Being the Total Opposite of Them

Characters - Vi, Caitlyn, Jinx, Sevika, Viktor, Jayce, Content - 2k words, hcs, contrasting personality pairings, light angst, possessiveness & protectiveness, established & developing relationships, tender moments, playful banter, mutual (and one-sided) yearning, conflicting morals & values, opposites-attract themes, soft/domestic interactions, power struggles, emotional vulnerability, implied past trauma, affectionate teasing, mild language.

A/N - hi im back haha... this one is a rlly short one cuz im writing smth amazing right now huehue (its sooo good trust ill be posting it in a few days)

— Vi

-You met Vi by accident—wrong place, wrong time, and before you even realized what was happening, she had already handled it.

-"You wouldn’t last a damn second down here, sweetheart."

-At first, she thought you were just another fragile little thing that needed protecting. And at first, you thought she was dangerous.

-(You were right. But not to you.)

-Vi teases you constantly.

-"You’re just so soft, babe. It’s unreal."

-"You say that like it’s a bad thing."

-She grins. "Nah. I like it."

-You try to keep her out of trouble. It never works.

-"Vi, maybe we should think this through."

-"Uh-huh. Lemme know how that goes while I punch this guy."

-"VI—"

-Dating Vi is terrifying.

-"Hey, babe, funny story—I may have started a bar fight." "Vi." "Before you say anything, I won."

-She lives to fluster you.

-"You always get so shy when I call you babe. S’cute." "I—I do not!"

-Vi leans in. "Oh yeah? So if I called you sweetheart right now, you wouldn’t get all shy on me?"

-"...Shut up."

-"That’s what I thought."

-You’ve seen her throw herself into fights for you without a second thought.

-"Vi, stop, you’re bleeding!"

-"They started it."

-"That doesn’t mean you have to finish it!"

-She smirks, wiping blood from her lip. "Sweetheart, that’s exactly what it means."

-But then, one time, you actually hit someone.

-Vi had the guy handled—had him cornered, already mid-swing—until he lunged at you.

-And you punched him.

-The guy went down.

-You stood there, wide-eyed, clutching your fist like you couldn’t believe what you’d just done.

-Vi just stared.

-Then, slowly, she grinned.

-"Well, damn, babe."

-"I—"

-She grabbed your wrist, turning it over to check for damage.

-"You throw a punch like that again, and I might just marry you."

-You turned scarlet.

-Vi never let you live it down.

-"Hey, babe, remember that time you punched a guy?"

-"Vi, stop."

-"Nah, seriously, you were terrifying. I was quaking."

-"I am never doing that again."

-She grinned. "Yeah, yeah. Talk to me after your second punch."

-You keep her grounded. She keeps you wild.

-Balance.

— Caitlyn

-Caitlyn despises rule-breakers. So naturally, she fell in love with you.

-You flirted while she was cuffing you, calling her “Officer Cutie.” She pretended not to care, but her ears were so red.

-You broke out of jail just to see her again.

-"You're breaking the law."

-"You're breaking my heart."

-You treat laws like suggestions. Caitlyn treats them like the word of God.

-"No, you cannot bribe an officer, that’s illegal."

-"Then why do they take the money?"

-"YOU’RE MISSING THE POINT."

-Caitlyn has arrested you multiple times, but at this point, it’s just flirting.

-"Back again, officer?"

-"Maybe if you stopped committing crimes, I wouldn’t have to keep arresting you."

-She gets so flustered when you flirt with her.

-"I swear, you’ll be the death of me."

-"Aw, Cait, don’t be dramatic. You’d look so good in mourning black, though."

-You show up at crime scenes just to mess with her.

-"Fancy meeting you here, Sheriff."

-"WHY are you here?"

-"Moral support. Also, I may or may not have stolen some evidence. Oops."

-First kiss? During a heated argument about morality. You kissed her just to shut her up, and she froze.

-“You—you can’t just do that!”

-“Why not? Worked, didn’t it?”

-Caitlyn is constantly exasperated with you, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

-She scolds you like a mother but spoils you like a lover.

-“One day, you’re going to get yourself killed.”

-“Yeah? But at least I’ll look hot doing it.”

-She has never sighed so much in her life.

-You love making her break the rules. One time, you convinced her to steal a single piece of candy from a store.

-She acted like she personally had doomed Piltover.

-"I CAN NEVER SHOW MY FACE HERE AGAIN."

-"Cait, it was literally a mint."

-"A stolen mint."

-She once caught you doing something very illegal and instead of arresting you, she sighed and went, "Just… don’t do it again."

-That’s when you knew she was doomed.

— Jinx

-You the embodiment of "calm down."

-Jinx the embodiment of "I will not calm down."

-The moment Jinx met you, she immediately decided you were her favorite person.

-You did not agree.

-"So, you’re all serious and broody, huh? Like, all ‘I have a tragic backstory, don’t talk to me’?"

-"No, I just don’t enjoy explosions."

-"Pfft, sounds like a tragic backstory to me."

-Jinx tests your patience daily.

-She steals your things just so you’ll chase her.

-"Jinx, give me back my book."

-"Make me, serious-face."

-You tackle her.

-You are the ONLY person who can calm her down.

-You’re incredibly patient with her. No matter how chaotic she gets, you never push her away.

-That scares her. She’s used to people getting tired of her. But you never do.

-The first time she has a breakdown in front of you, she expects you to leave.

-Instead, you just wrap your arms around her and hold her. No words, no judgment.

-Jinx never admits it, but that’s the moment she realized she’s completely in love with you.

-You always pull her out of danger, even when she insists she doesn’t need help.

"Baaabe, I totally had it handled." "Jinx, you were literally on fire." "Okay, but—" "No."

-Jinx is determined to break through your stoic exterior.

-“C’mooon, just smile for me once, yeah? Bet you’d be real pretty when you do.”

-The first time you genuinely laughed at her joke, she melted.

-She was obsessed with making you laugh after that.

-First kiss? She literally caught you off guard mid-sentence and ran away laughing.

-“You should see your face, babe! Priceless.”

-You are the definition of opposites attract.

-You keep her sane, and she keeps you... un-boring.

— Sevika

-Sevika thought you were too soft for the world she lived in.

-“People like you? They don’t last long down here.”

-“Then I guess you’ll just have to protect me.”

-You weren’t scared of her. That pissed her off.

-But she couldn’t ignore the way you made her feel—like maybe, just maybe, not everything in the world was awful.

-You tended to her wounds without question, never expecting anything in return. That scared her more than anything.

-"I can do it myself."

-"Yeah, well, you weren’t, so sit still."

-Sevika would kill for you.

-You’re the only person she’s soft with, and everyone notices.

-“She’s different when she’s with you.”

-“Nah, she’s just scary in public.”

-You make her believe in something more than survival.

-And damn it, she loves you for that.

-If anyone even breathes wrong near you, Sevika is already cracking her knuckles.

-You're basically her emotional support human, and she has no idea how she ended up this soft.

— Viktor

-Viktor never thought he had time for love. He had science. That was all that mattered.

-And then you came along.

-At first, he brushes off your romantic nature as a distraction.

-But then he catches himself listening to you.

-You talk about dreams, about passion, about things beyond logic, and—damn it—he likes it.

"You’re ridiculous," he murmurs, watching you twirl around his lab with a dreamy expression. "And yet, you keep me around." "...Yes. A mistake, clearly."

-It’s not a mistake. He’s doomed.

-You force him to take breaks, dragging him away from his work despite his protests.

"Viktor, have you eaten today?" "I consumed knowledge." "That’s not food." "It is intellectually nourishing." "You’re ridiculous."

-You leave little notes on his desk when he’s too busy to talk. "Reminder: You’re brilliant and I love you." "Reminder: You need sleep, you absolute workaholic." "Reminder: I’m kissing you later, whether you like it or not."

-He pretends they’re a nuisance, but he keeps every single one.

-The first time you kiss him, he’s so flustered he forgets how to speak.

-"I—uh—hmm—well—" "Oh my god, Viktor, just kiss me back."

-He does. And once he starts? He doesn’t stop.

-Viktor is completely enchanted by you. He never knew love could feel this… effortless.

-"You’re a distraction," he mutters one night, watching you ramble about constellations.

-"A good one?"

-"The only one."

— Jayce

-Jayce is used to people either admiring him or challenging him outright. He’s not used to you.

-You don’t hang on his every word.

-You don’t take his charm at face value.

-You argue. You push back. You challenge him.

-And damn it, you’re good at it.

-"You know, most people find me charming."

-"Most people have low standards."

-"Wow. Remind me why I keep you around?"

-"Because you love the abuse."

-He swears you’ve made it your life’s mission to challenge every idea he has. And worse? You’re smart. He can’t even dismiss you because you actually make good points.

-"This is the best approach."

-"No, it’s the most convenient approach."

-"Oh, I’m sorry, do you have a breakthrough invention?"

-"No, but I have common sense."

-"...Touché."

-He swears he hates debating with you, but the way his eyes light up every time you challenge him? Yeah. He loves it.

-At some point, your arguments stop being about proving each other wrong and start being about understanding each other.

-You’re not impressed by his title, his status, or the way people look up to him. You’re only impressed when he actually earns it.

-That makes him work for it. Not because he has anything to prove, but because he likes knowing he can meet you at your level.

-Jayce flirts like it’s second nature. With most people, it’s effortless. With you? It’s a goddamn battlefield.

-"Come on, admit it. You like me."

-"I tolerate you."

-"You love me."

-"I love watching you struggle."

-"Same thing."

-He’s never had to work so hard for someone’s attention, and it kills him. But the first time you actually soften toward him? It’s over for him. Completely.

-He’s never wanted something so badly in his life. And it’s not just because of the chase. It’s because you make him better.

-You don’t just challenge his ego—you challenge his ideals. You make him think. You make him question things he’s taken for granted.

-And despite all the teasing, all the stubborn back-and-forth, all the arguments? He’s never felt more alive than when he’s with you.

-The first time he kisses you, it’s because you’ve finally pushed him past his breaking point.

-"You’re so—"

-"I swear, Jayce, if you—"

-And then he’s kissing you. Hard.

#arcane x reader #arcane #arcane x y/n #wlw #arcane headcanon #arcane imagines #arcane x you #vi x reader #caitlyn x reader #jayce x reader #viktor x reader #caitlyn kirraman x reader #caitlyn kiramman x reader #jinx x reader #sevika x reader

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petalbcrnes · 2 months ago

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❀﹒﹒⇅﹒𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐋𝐘 𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 ╱ with JASON TODD & DICK GRAYSON ㄨ BLACK WIDOW ! READER ꩜ .ᐟ ⠀⠀ hcs & drabbles. ⠀·⠀ ୭

　　﹕ (✿˘͈ᵕ˘͈) ┈ #directory #rules . ♡ ﹒ this ask made me rethink the whole ‘reqs closed but suggestions open’ deal i gave going on rn. i cannot physically write everything req i get in my inbox,,, so i just take suggestions— no pressure to write it like a request.

❛ ꜝ ┈ ✺ cw ﹒ violence and abuse described in this work— it doesn’t take a big part of it though. a bit of angst because i cannot control myself.

𓏲𓏲⠀⠀.. ⠀Your reputation precedes you—former Black Widow, perfectly trained killer, someone who understands that justice isn’t always clean or merciful. But Gotham’s protectors seem determined to complicate things. You find yourself in unfamiliar territory— a certain vigilante has wormed his way into your heart. ✶

. 　 ✺ 　 ⁺ 𝐉𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐎𝐃𝐃 ︶︶

The warehouse explosion lit up Crime Alley like the Fourth of July, and Jason couldn’t help but grin as you dropped down beside him from seemingly nowhere, not even slightly singed despite having been inside thirty seconds ago.

“Show off,” he muttered, but there was admiration in his voice.

“Says the man who literally just drove his motorcycle through a second-story window.” You checked your weapons with practiced efficiency, muscle memory from a lifetime of survival. “Find what we needed?”

“Financial records, shipping manifests, and enough evidence to put half of Falcone’s operation away.” Jason held up a hard drive. “Plus whatever you did in there should send a nice message to the rest.”

You shrugged, the movement elegant even in tactical gear. “The message needed to be loud.”

“No arguments here.” He stepped closer, close enough to see the flecks of gold in your eyes. “Bruce is gonna have an aneurysm when he finds out about tonight.”

“Good. Maybe it’ll keep him busy enough to stop lecturing us about ‘excessive force.’” Your fingers found the edge of his jacket, tugging him closer. “Besides, you didn’t seem to mind my methods when I saved your ass in there.”

Jason’s laugh was rough around the edges. “Pretty, I never mind your methods. Just wish you’d give me a heads up. I like to watch.”

Your smile was dangerous and entirely too appealing. “Next time, I’ll put on a show.”

Jason absolutely gets your approach to justice and rarely questions your methods— if anything, he thinks you’re more efficient than the Bat-family’s usual “catch and release” program.

Will definitely team up with you on missions and enjoys the hell out of it, especially since you don’t try to hold him back from doing what needs to be done.

Gets incredibly protective when other people criticize your past or your methods, even though he knows you can handle yourself— old habits from his own experience being judged.

Loves sparring with you because you’re one of the few people who can actually challenge him, and there’s something thrilling about fighting someone who’s genuinely dangerous.

Sometimes you’ll find him reading up on Red Room techniques or Widow operations, not to judge but to better understand what made you who you are.

Has absolutely gotten into arguments with Dick and Bruce about your relationship. It’s a delicate situation. While Bruce and Dick understand you would never hurt Jason on purpose, they do worry how the methods you two choose will affect not only Jason— you as well.

There’s a twisted kind of understanding between you and Jason. I think in the end Bruce only wants the two of you to be able to find peace and not feel trapped by the blood you two have spilled.

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　　

. 　 ✺ 　 ⁺ 𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐊 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐘𝐒𝐎𝐍 ︶︶

The Blüdhaven rooftop was slick with rain as you materialized from the shadows, silent as death itself. Dick didn’t even flinch— he’d learned to sense your presence weeks ago, though he still couldn’t figure out how you moved so quietly in those boots.

“You’re late,” he said, not turning around.

“I’m exactly on time. You’re just early because you’re nervous.” You stepped beside him, close enough that he could smell gunpowder and vanilla perfume. “The target’s already handled.”

“Handled how?” Dick’s voice carried that careful neutrality he used when he was trying not to lecture you.

You tilted your head. “Does it matter? The trafficking ring is shut down, the girls are safe, and the world has three fewer monsters in it.”

Dick closed his eyes briefly. “We talked about this—”

“No, you talked. I listened.” Your gloved fingers traced along his jaw, gentle despite the calluses from trigger guards and knife hilts. “I know you want to save everyone, even the ones who don’t deserve it. It’s what makes you beautiful, Dick Grayson. But some people can only be stopped one way.”

He caught your hand, thumb brushing over your knuckles. “And what does that make you?”

Your smile was sharp as broken glass. “Practical.”

Dick tries so hard to be the moral compass in the relationship, constantly walking the line between accepting who you are and hoping he can influence you toward less lethal methods. (He’s like “I can fix them” and just makes it even worse). It’s not as if he doesn’t want to see this side of you. He does. He just wants to help you navigate the pain jt took to get here.

He’s genuinely fascinated by your skills and will ask you to teach him your stealth techniques, though he draws the line at the more assassination-focused training.

Gets genuinely distressed when you disappear for days on missions, not because he doesn’t trust your abilities, but because he worries about what those missions might be doing to your body and mind.

Has definitely tried to introduce you to everyone else as a “reformed” anti-hero, which backfired spectacularly when you made a casual comment about eliminating witnesses. He learned not to sugar-coat you and your methods after that. Better to accept them head on.

Loves the way you move— there’s something almost hypnotic about your grace in combat that he finds beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

Will patch up your wounds without question, but always with that worried crease between his brows that you’ve learned means he’s planning another “conversation” about your methods and how you cannot keep putting yourself in so much danger.

Sometimes catches you staring at him like you’re memorizing his face, and it breaks his heart a little because he knows it means you’re always prepared to run.

Has started leaving his window unlocked specifically for you, even though you’ve never actually needed to use the window.

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　　

﹒ ♪ ┊ INBOX OPEN.⠀⠀feel free to send me asks and suggestions in my inbox. ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

˖ `· . 𓏵 © 𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐁𝐂𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐒 don’t use my work without my consent. ... ⏤ㅤ Ⳋ ⊹

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sunflowerwinds · 1 month ago

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girl, so confusing | v.a

summary: your relationships are a jumbled mess all thanks to you. you try to make amends with caitlyn but she isn’t so forgiving. vi makes an appearance that has you questioning if this was all worth it.

prev. part -> lick it, spit it

pairing: fem!cheerleader!reader x soccer player!vi

contains: modern!au, angst and so much of it, rocky friendships, tw: alcohol consumption and intoxication, and useless lesbians.

word count: 3.2K

a/n: i hope y’all don’t kill me this being my first post for pride month. i love you all. HAPPY PRIDE MONTH, ANGELS!! be safe & enjoy <333

Two weeks of absolute silence from Caitlyn is what you received from that incident.

During practice, she would purposefully ignore you and talk to pretty much every member of the squad except you. After the first few days, you figured that you deserved it.

It’s fresh, you told yourself as you watched her turn her back to you to talk to a fellow cheermate while you stared at her back; facing the indignity of your actions.

But nearing week two, you were tired of being iced out from the one girl you wanted to talk to more than anything right now. The problem with all of this was that when something like this would happen you would go to… well, Caitlyn.

Every bothersome event that happened throughout your day, you would bitch about it to Caitlyn. Now, you were stuck with no one to help you fix this.

And Vi.

Fucking Violet.

You couldn’t even start on how Vi has been treating you since the event. She didn’t text you for about a day or two, giving you the space that you had asked of her but by day five, she was spamming your phone with anxious texts.

A mixture of ‘how are you feeling today?’, ‘text me when you can please’, and the most gut-wrenching one; ‘i miss you.’

Like she was blatantly unaware that what you two had ruined everything.

At that two week mark, you had 35 unread texts from Violet and it was killing you to not answer them. Every single time you saw her name, your mind flashed the memory of Caitlyn’s infuriated and betrayed face when she realized what you had been hiding from her.

It’s not like you didn’t want to talk to Vi.

The guilt of it all was what you couldn’t handle; not while Caitlyn was shunning you out of her life.

It was the week before your first big cheerleading routine for the football team and you have had enough of it. The side-eyes when you dared to be inches near her, the huffs of annoyance when she realized you had arrived to practice, the near childish behavior when Caitlyn hadn’t even given you the time of day.

Whispers of the truth amongst your cheermates.

‘I heard she fucked Caitlyn’s ex.’

‘I think she walked in on them, like, oh my god. Talk about traumatizing.’

‘Can you believe she just did that and for so long? I would’ve beat her ass.’

That’s the thing. Even though they were talking shit about you, to your face, you were still another pretty and sweet cheerleader, just like them.

Yeah, fucking right.

So, you decided that the morning before practice, you would approach her and attempt to finally explain yourself.

Coach Medarda dismisses your squad with a not-at-all disencouraging statement: “Ladies remember, this is our first routine of the football season. We cannot mess this up. You are one unit. Without one of you, it does not work. So be present. And complicit.”

You suck in a deep breath as you watch Caitlyn chugging her water bottle on the metal bleachers, alone. Her blue strands are stuck to her forehead as her head tilts up to the cloudy blue sky, eyes shut as she attempts to calm her heart rate from flying.

You’re in a similar position but, exhaustion aside, you’re focused entirely on something else. You take a few seconds to muster up the courage and open your mouth.

You speak softly, going to sit down next to her.

“Cait?”

Her eyes peek open to see you, and they roll like they have been for the past two weeks; a familiar scene. She sits up and attempts to stand and walk away, but you reach for her wrist as a silent beg for her to stay.

Her head whips towards you with an uninterested expression, but her shoulders tense, giving away how irritated she is.

“Please, Cait. Let me explain.”

Caitlyn blinks at you, eyes flickering down to yours, which causes you to release her with a muttered apology. She sucks in a long deep breath before situating herself next to you once again, but staring straight ahead.

“Okay.” She huffs.

“Okay?” You double-check to make sure you aren’t making it up.

Her head turns to you with a sharp glare, but you nod in understanding.

Don’t push it.

You suck in a deep breath, mentally preparing yourself for any reaction.

“Cait, I need you to understand I never ever meant to hurt you,” Caitlyn makes a sound similar to a scoff and a chuckle mixed into one. You ignore it for a moment as you continue. “I-I didn’t even know I was into girls until Vi and I got assigned to be partners in English Lit. It happened so quickly and one thing led to another and we were seeing each other every other day. I wanted to tell you that night about everything and come clean. It was killing me keeping that a secret from you.”

The navy haired woman turns her body to you as she questions: “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Knowing that you were doing that behind my back for weeks knowing what she did to me? That you felt guilty?”

“No. No, that’s not–” You shake your head rapidly. “That’s not what I meant–”

Caitlyn presses a palm to her damp forehead with a long sigh.

“Then what do you mean? What is the point of this… explanation?”

Your lips twitch into a frown at that, looking down at your cheer shoes.

“To try to let you know that I never wanted to keep it a secret from you. I thought it was nothing; that she wouldn’t mean anything to me but…” You trail off as you shove your face into your hand, shielding your eyes. “She does. That’s what I was going to tell you that night. That I stupidly caught feelings for her.”

Caitlyn snorts at that. “Yeah. That’s very stupid of you.”

You nod in agreement as you lean forward to look at her.

“Are we… okay?” You test.

Caitlyn sucks in a deep breath. “Why? So that you can feel better about what you did to me? Or so you can talk to me again?”

Your heart sinks at her words, and you shut your eyes, knowing you’re still not in the clear.

And your silence causes Caitlyn to shake her head with a low scoff.

“Cait—”

“I have to go so I’ll-” she stands to her feet, adjusting her ponytail. “I’ll see you around.”

Not a ‘fuck off’ or a ‘never talk to me again’, so you took that as a plus. She’s tolerating you now.

You watch her step down the metal bleachers, with that unsatisfied, hollow feeling still twisting in your chest.

Later that night, you decided to attempt to write your paper for Social Psych class but the only thing clouding your mind was a red haired figment that has been haunting you. You adjust your back, straightening it to release some tension, when you hear your phone vibrate from across the room.

You still haven’t opened your messages from Vi, refraining from giving in. But you know how easy it is for you to fold for her.

Headphones blasting the most depressing music you’ve ever heard, you type away at your keyboard with determination for any sort of distraction. You’re about halfway through when you swear you hear a thump.

Removing one headphone, you pause your movements to search for another sound. And before you put the headphone back in your ear, another thump echoes throughout the dorm.

You think for a moment that it could be Sky, so you remove both headphones and set them on the counter top. You push back on your swivel chair to leave your bedroom and make your way to the front door.

Then it hits you.

Sky’s been home for over an hour now.

You remember as she peeked into your room to ask if you wanted the leftover food from her lunch.

You're standing in front of the door when you hear another louder thump and then a groan. Curious, you lean forward to peer through the peephole.

In the warped view, you see Vi slumped against the door. One of her hands is pinching the bridge of her nose as she releases long and slow breaths.

What the fuck is she doing here?

“Vi?” You call out carefully, as you didn’t want to open the door and have her come in.

Her eyes widen as she pushes herself off of the door with a grunt.

“Hey, uh, can I come in?” Her voice is slow and has a slight slur to it.

You silently curse to yourself as it’s obvious now that Vi is intoxicated.

“How did you get here?” You ask.

Vi sighs as she shakes her head to herself. “I walked here. Got back from a party with the team.”

You blink. “It’s Monday.”

“Yeah, well, what do I have left to lose, y’know?” A weak laugh leaves her lips as she sniffles.

You shut your eyes with a long inhale before unlocking the door. You twist the knob and hesitantly tug the door open, eyes already glazed over threatening tears.

Vi stands upright to appear as sober as possible, but you aren’t blind. She’s sporting a replica of her jersey in a t-shirt form and a pair of baggy jeans.

You both just stare at each other for a moment; neither one of you is brave enough to make a move.

“Can I come in? Please?” Vi’s voice is low and a little raspy, thick with the alcohol she’s been drinking.

A beat passes. Contemplating on whether or not your choice is going to be a good idea or not.

“Yeah.”

You open the door wider and step aside, avoiding her eyes as she steps in. Her movements are lazy and careless as she looks around the space like she hasn’t been here a thousand times. Her cheeks are flushed, eyes glazed over with tears due to her intoxication.

At least, that’s what you tell yourself.

She points around the room with a soft hum. “Did you do something new with the decor or—”

“Vi, what are you doing here?” You cut off her joking manner.

You shut the door with a soft click and stare at her from a distance. Vi sucks in a sharp breath at your question, rubbing her heavy eyes with her thumb and middle finger.

“We ‘ave a project to do still, you know? You can’t-” she slurs slightly, raising her hand to your body that is keeping distance. “You can’t just ignore me out of nowhere for no reason. Ice me out and shit.”

You shut your eyes as you try to compose yourself, shaking your head.

“You know the reason, Violet.”

Vi takes a few steps forward, her pupils blown so wide you swear there’s only the thinnest ring left of that blue, that shade you would drown yourself willingly. Your arms stay wrapped around yourself, not for warmth, but to keep you from reaching out, from giving in to her touch.

“I wish I met you first.” Her voice is laced with misery, as one of her hands reaches for your face.

Your eyes prick with hot tears as you lean into her palm, giving in for a split second. You retract from her touch as if it's scorching, stepping away and walking around her, holding your hands up in defense. Vi sighs as you do so, turning her body to watch you.

“No. No. You can’t just show up to my place drunk and say that shit to me. I fucked up a friendship because of this, Vi.” You express, out of frustration.

Vi blinks and runs a hand over her face. “Because of this? W-What is this?”

You shake your head. She’s drunk and her knees are wobbling just standing in place, you tell yourself. You need to save this conversation for tomorrow.

“I can’t do this when you’re like this, Vi. Just– C’mon, let’s go to bed. You need to sleep.”

Vi takes a heavy step forward.

“I mean, you don’t miss me? Not even a little?” She questions, voice tight and vulnerable.

Your chest hasn’t felt this heavy in your entire life: facing a contradicting narrative over your life.

You sigh and shake your head. “Vi—“

“Because I do miss you. All the time.” She cuts you off, her voice cracking, exposing herself even more.

A deep cry settles in your throat, itching at the base, but you push it down. You can’t let yourself crumble from a few drunken words.

“Vi.”

She sniffles and breaths out a soft sigh, wiping over her dry mouth with one hand. Her eyes find yours as her bottom lip trembles for a second, before sucking in another deep breath.

You’re not sure what to make of the sight in front of you.

Is it real? Is it pathetic or an act of cowardice?

Maybe it’s both.

“Right. Sleep,” she smacks her lips. “I’ll jus’ sleep on the couch,” she waves you off as she attempts to stumble to the couch.

“Vi, please, just take my bed.”

“But where will you sleep?” She questions, blinking slowly at you.

The only thing you respond with is: “It’s a queen.”

Vi hums at that, before shrugging her shoulders, making her way to your bedroom and mumbling nonsense to herself. You follow behind her as you wipe the fallen tear that escaped from your tired eyes. Your eye catches Sky’s bedroom door slightly open and her head peeking out when Vi accidentally hits her hip on your door frame.

“Is that–” She begins to question.

“Yeah. She’s… drunk. I don’t want her going back home like that.”

Sky’s nods simply, seeming to hold back her true feelings about this situation.

“Okay. Just be careful.” Her curls fall a bit in front of her face as she shakes her head, sucking in a deep breath. “Night.”

You frown but nod back. “Night, Sky.”

Her bedroom door shuts with a soft click, making you sit with a bit of silence before walking over to your own bedroom. Stepping into the room, the first thing you see is Vi laying face first into your mattress.

In her outside scented clothes and shoes. Right in the middle.

You huff as you shut your door and lock it, walking over to Vi’s figure.

“Violet. I need to give you a change of clothes.” You tap her rising and falling back, ignoring the way she groans in frustration.

“Why?” She says into the mattress.

You sigh, rubbing your temple. “Because you’re getting your dirty clothes all over my comforter and I don’t want you sleeping in those.”

Vi rolls over on her back with a long grunt, smacking her lips and looking up at you.

“Like dirtier things haven’t been done on this comforter.” She snorts.

You feel your lips twitch into a smile because yeah, she got you there.

“Even so, come on. Stand up.”

Vi reaches for your arms to sit up and hoist off the bed onto her feet. You stare at her as you adjust your grip on her forearms to keep her upright.

“You okay?” You ask as you stare at her to try.

“Yeah, just… wanna lay back down.”

You blow out a laugh at that and shake your head. “Just give me a second and you can lay back down.”

You let go of her gently, turning toward your dresser to dig through the drawer where she used to leave her clothes, back when your routine was all fucking and studying, one bleeding into the other. You ignore the flashing of memories of you two clawing at each other the second you touch the clothes. You pull out one of her old band tees and a pair of joggers, clear your throat, and hold them out.

Her eyes are lazily blinking at you, in a daze like she’s trapped in her mind.

“I’ll turn around. Tell me if you need any help, okay?” You tell her softly.

Vi nods, eyes never leaving yours.

You tear yourself away from her and stand a few feet away with your back to her, wrapping your arms around yourself. A few seconds pass before the rustle of clothing being removed fills the still silence. That time period felt eerily long, Vi makes grunts of struggle but doesn’t ask for your help.

“‘M good.” Vi tells you after five minutes.

You turn to see her in the changed attire, her shoes now placed under your desk. She yawns and rubs a hand over her face.

“Okay, just give me a second. You can… go ahead and sleep, Vi.” You wave for her to lay back down.

Vi stares at you, eyes flickering over every inch of you. You suck in a deep breath at the intensity.

“You’re always beautiful, y’know?” She mutters before laying down with a grunt.

Jesus.

You refuse to acknowledge it for both of your sakes and watch her shut her eyes, relaxing into the mattress. You leave the bedroom for a second to enter the bathroom, shutting the door with a shuddering breath.

You need to recollect yourself before you face her again. You’re hoping she’ll be dead asleep by the time you come out.

Grabbing painkillers and nausea relievers, you tug the bathroom door open again to go to your bedroom again. Your eyes find Vi’s snuggled up body underneath the comforter now, her eyes shut and soft sighs leaving her lips.

A breath of relief leaves your mouth as you set the bottles on your bedside table, looking at her now relaxed figure.

Careful not to wake her, you shut off your lamp and lift the comforter and sheet to lay down next to her, your back to her. You believe she’s asleep until you hear her whisper in the dark.

“I promise ‘m not gonna throw up on you.”

You release a light chuckle at that.

“Violet, go to sleep.” You hum. “And you better not.”

Another minute of silence.

“Can I tell you somethin’? Before we go to bed?”

You hold back your irritated sigh, needing this sleep for you now.

“Yeah?”

Vi’s silent again, and you think she’s knocked out before she can get other words out. A trembling sigh leaves her lips before she mutters.

“I never liked Caitlyn,” she mutters with a long exhale. “But I like you so much… and I hate that I can’t fuckin’ say it when I’m sober.”

Neither of you move a muscle. A heavy silence falls over the moonlit room.

You open your mouth for a second before shutting it, knowing nothing you could say would make this situation any better. You purse your lips as you hear Vi shift from behind you, eyes prickling with emotional tears.

She’s quiet. She’s asleep.

You fall asleep next to her at last, your pillow damp with quiet tears. Hers is no different. Stained with guilt, softened by the weight of what neither of you can say.

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#wlw #sapphic #vi arcane #arcane show #vi arcane x reader #arcane violet #arcane vi #vi fanfic #vi #arcane vi x reader #vi x reader

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withwritersblock · 2 months ago

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More Hearts Than Mine-Their First Real Argument

~More Hearts Than Mine by Ingrid Andress~

Author's Note: so sorry (not really) for ruining the perfect couple image but I fear I needed some angst... ;) Summary: Luke makes a financial decision without Y/N and several arguments spiral out of it Warnings: raised voices, brief description of childhoods Word Count: 1,683 Luke Hughes x fm!reader

She’s been panicking since her last class ended. The entire drive home took nearly forty minutes for three different accidents on all three different routes back to their apartment. The rent was due today and at every hour on the hour, her half of the rent had yet to leave her account.

She thought that maybe her card was declining and that the money in her account was too low. She had a two hundred dollar buffer for the rent, she was fine. But somehow the money has yet to leave her account. She’s been living in that apartment complex since she started college; not once has she missed rent.

But now she has and she was on the verge of crying and having a panic attack over the money that should have left her account. She flew into the apartment, her breathing was heavy. Luke was eating a bowl of cereal when she walked in. His eyes widened as he instantly stood up from the barstool chair that was with their kitchen island.

“Hey baby, are you okay?” he asked as his mouth was still full.

“Did the rent come out of your account today?” she asked breathlessly. Quickly, swallowing his food he nodded.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s okay–”

“The whole thing? My half didn’t come out of the account,” she took a deep breath as she scanned his features.

“Yeah, you were talking about how you worried about buying coffee before class and how you didn’t want to waste money. So I thought you could use that half and save up some fun money or whatever,” Luke explained nonchalantly. Y/N nodded and blinked slowly as she delicately dropped her bag by the door. Carefully and silently, she took off her shoes and rested them beside the shoe rack.

“You did that without talking to me? Luke, I’ve been freaking out all day about thi–”

“Okay, yes, I probably should’ve said something first–”

“Probably? Luke, it’s eight hundred dollars! You can’t make decisions like that without me,”

“Well, I was trying to be nice, Y/N,”

“Luke, I appreciate that but you seriously cannot just assume that I would be okay with this,” she said while shaking her head. She tugged the jacket from her frame in the process. “When it comes to money, you cannot keep me out of the decisions. This is our life together,”

“Okay but Baby, you’ve been stressing yourself out with work and school and money. You deserve to treat yourself to coffee everyday. I have the money, so I wanted to give you a break. I just thought that if you cut back a little then maybe–” he trailed off as he met her gaze and noticed the furrowing of her eyebrows.

“What do you mean cut back, Luke?” She rested her hands on her hips. He took a deep breath as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Okay, this isn’t exactly how I wanted to have this conversation but–uhm. I was thinking that maybe I would handle all of the bills we have and you would just focus on school.” he offered to avoid her gaze for a few seconds.

“Sounds like you’ve already made that decision for me, honey,” she scoffed as she walked past him and faced away from him.

“No,” he drew out the word as he took a few steps towards her. “I am trying to have the conversation with you right now,”

“It shouldn’t be a conversation, Luke. Has the thought ever cross your mind that maybe that I like working, that maybe I like making my own money,”

“I understand, baby, I’m not saying never work again but maybe give yourself some time to have a life,” he explained as he rested his hand against the countertop.

She spun around quickly on her heels, a frown on her lips. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Luke dragged his tongue across his bottom lip as he took a hesitant breath. “Before I moved in, you were working almost full time and going to school full time. You were miserable, baby, so moving in helped but I hate seeing you push yourself so hard when you don’t need to. I have more than enough money to handle the bills and you could just focus on your classes,”

She nodded slowly while her bottom lip quivered. “Thank you, I’m so glad to hear that moving in together was out of convenience instead of starting our life together. That’s very reassuring, Luke,” she explained sarcastically.

“That’s not what I said, Y/N, and you know it,” he let out with a dry laugh leaving his lips.

“No, Luke, but that’s how you sounded.”

“You know that’s not what I meant, Y/N!” he let out while shaking his head.

“I am not going to stop working.”

“Why is that such an awful idea?” Luke let out with an exasperated sigh. Y/N walked away from him again.

“Because I don’t want to depend on you! I am not going to be one of those WAGS that stay at home and cooks and cleans and just waits for you to come home. I am not going to be one of those girls, Luke. I’m just not,”

“I’m not asking you to do that! I’m saying that you slow down for a few months. Then when you're done with school. We’ll revisit this conversation.” he said as if it was the most obvious thing ever.

“There is nothing to revisit. I am not going to stop working. I like being busy. I like having a job. I am going to start a career after I graduate. Luke, I am not going to change that,”

He shook his head, “Yeah, like teaching will be a huge pay increase,” he mumbled under his breath.

Her eyes widened as her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. “Oh, I’m sorry that I wasn’t handed my career by being born with the last name Hughes,” she shot back, not afraid to say it with her chest.

“Y/N, what is that supposed to mean?” he stepped towards her as he looked deeply into her eyes.

She took a deep breath as she raised her hand up and wiped a small tear that started to fall onto her cheek. “I’m sorry, Luke, that was out of line, I’m sorry,”

“It was but you said it anyway, so what is that supposed to mean?” Luke said while running his fingers through his hair.

“You were lucky to have parents that were able to give you every resource you could ever dream of. Luke, you didn’t have to think about money until you signed an NHL contract. You didn’t have to think about food on the table when you were eleven years old. You didn’t have to hear your parents worry about the heater turning off for missing one too many bills. You are so lucky not to have to get a job at fourteen to help your parents pay the bills.” she explained, pointing her fingers towards him.

“You are so lucky, so yes I like going to school and working. I like it because I earned it. I worked my ass off to get my career. I know it is a small fraction of what you’ll make. But I deserve to be happy about getting a degree and having a job. I deserve to be happy about what I have earned! I’m not saying you didn’t work hard because I know you did. You worked so hard to get where you are. I am so proud of you for that. But you don’t get to degrade what I want to do with my life because it barely pays the bills,”

Luke got his gaze low as he tilted his head to the side. Their eyes connected and Luke took a deep breath. “Y/N,” he let out barely above a whisper.

She took a step towards him while their eyes remained connected. “I am sorry that I implied that you didn’t deserve to be where you are. You and your brothers worked so fucking hard to get into the league. You deserve everything that is coming your way,” she rested her hand onto his chest. He looked down towards her, the corner of her lips curling upward.

“You should go sleep at Jack’s tonight,” she finished as she walked past him towards the kitchen. She took a bowl of the half eaten cereal and began draining the milk into the sink.

“What?” he let out harshly as he spun on his heel watching her movements.

She lifted her gaze resting the bowl onto the counter, their eyes connected again. “I never thought that you would belittle my future plans by saying such a thing. So I do not want you here tonight,” she explained through a teary expression.

“I wasn’t–”

“You haven’t apologized for a single thing that you have said in the last–half an hour. Which tells me that you don’t see a single thing wrong with what you’ve said or done. So please, pack a bag and go stay at Jack’s.”

“Y/N, I’m not going to stay at–”

“Your old bedroom still has a mattress, right?” she asked as she dumped the cereal into the trash before she placed it into the sink.

“Y/N,”

“Go use it, Luke,” she said as a sob rose in her throat.

“Y/N, please,” he let out as he walked towards her.

“I never thought that you would say anything like that to me. So please, I do not want you here tonight,” she let out as their eyes remained connected. She sniffled another sob as she walked towards their bathroom.

Luke stood in front of the kitchen island as he watched her walk away from him. He tilted his gaze towards the ceiling. He squinted his eyes harshly as he ran his hand across his eyes. He shook his head as he stared towards the hallway that she walked through. So much for being the perfect couple that never argues.

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eightmakesonebraincell · 2 years ago

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ateez as royals who fall for you (hyung line)

read maknae line here

genre: royalty!ateez x fem!reader, fluff, angst, smut, crack, a brainrot and smutfest of royal tropes

length: 12.8k

c/w: very nsfw scenes - mdni, explicit language (dirty talk, swearing, insults), death, violence, blood & injuries, weapons, heavy & mature themes (sex work, murder, assassination, execution, mentions of misogyny)

a/n: this has simultaneously been the pride and joy of my life and the bane of my entire existence for the last 2.5 months 🥴 and tumblr is an inept incapable CLOWN who cannot handle the full 24k worth of bullet points so here is the hyung line first - maknae line coming soon (yumi @sorryimananti-romantic can vouch for my unsuccessful 3-hour attempt at formatting them into a single post)

hongjoong

pov: you're the king's royal courtesan

“fuck,” hongjoong lets out a deep growl from within his chest as his head dips down to rest against the crook of your neck. “you’re just as tight as last time”

when your hips involuntarily buck from the pleasure, he nudges your thighs further apart and keeps your wrists pinned above your head

he can’t help but let out another groan when he feels your walls clench around his cock as you adjust to his thickness

“i thought- god,” a moan escapes you after he thrusts his hips against you, “thought you never fucked the same woman twice”

“i don’t,” he simply says

and it’s true

hongjoong is one of the youngest princes to have ruled during the kim dynasty, having risen to power after the previous king succumbed early to an unknown illness

he has the choice and selection of all the courtesans available within the palace and outside its walls

hongjoong also has a reputation of being highly sought after by everybody, not just amongst courtesans

it’s not only because he is devilishly handsome, knows how to properly fuck somebody dumb, and is the literal king

the main thing that makes him so desirable and unreachable?

he never sees the same courtesan more than once

“yet here you are,” you hook your legs around hongjoong’s waist to gain leverage and meet his thrusts with your own hips, “between my legs for the second time”

you smirk when he curses and throws his head back

his grip on your wrists tightens and his voice drops dangerously low

“the first time doesn’t count because i was meant to see lady chae. so really, this is the first time i’m requesting for your services”

he silences you from retorting by pressing a bruising kiss against you, lips messily attaching to yours before trailing down the sharp angle of your jaw to bite your neck

you are a courtesan for people of nobility and royal status

part of the ‘house of flowers’ and commonly referred to as ‘flower courtesans’, you and the other women are highly-sought after for the companionship you offer

you are well protected by the house of flowers though - the services of companionship that you provide is requested by your client, but is ultimately accepted or rejected by you

lady chae, another of the flower courtesans and one of your closest friends, is requested by the king for her services

it is quite clear what it is going to entail and you both spend several of the following nights giggling and whispering scandalously to one another

whether the rumours about his stamina will be true

whether lady chae will be the first to break his one-fuck rule

except when the day of the meeting comes around, she spikes a sudden fever

lady shin, the head of the house of flowers, takes all but one look at her before ordering her to bed rest despite both of your attempts to, albeit unconvincingly, persuade lady shin that chae’s fever would only serve to help make the king’s dick warmer

lady shin is not amused to say the least

with the last minute hitch, the king agrees for you to be sent out to him as a replacement instead

and you end up being the flower courtesan who he breaks his reputed rule for

(lady chae is initially jealous, understandably)

(but very quickly, she appears to be even more excited than you are as she combs through your undergarments for the “sluttiest set” that she can find)

your attention is brought back as hongjoong flicks his tongue over your hardened nipples, continuing to drag his length in and out of you while your back arches off the bed

you tease in between short breaths, “are you really bringing up another woman’s name while you have your cock inside me?”

“you brought it up first,” he reminds you, accentuating his answer with timed thrusts

you grind your hips against his, chasing more friction against your clit as you feel your high approaching

“why?” he snakes one of his hands down between your connected torsos to rub messy circles against your clit, smirking as he asks, “are you getting jealous already?”

for that, you clench down hard on his cock, immediately feeling the way it throbs inside of you as you bring him closer to his orgasm too

“as if. fuck off”

your words are hardly audible from the whines that are leaving your mouth due to the added pressure of another finger against your clit from your retaliation

“i’m close,” hongjoong releases his grip on your wrists so that he can straighten his body, anchoring his hand on your hip instead so that he can fuck you and rub your clit with his other hand with renewed vigour

when you hear him groan, “cum for me,” the string snaps and your whole body quivers in his hold as your orgasm washes over you

hongjoong’s hips gradually stutter to a pause, an occasional thrust inside your clenching pussy as he milks out the rest of his cum inside of you

he finally eases himself out of you and hums in satisfaction as he watches his cum slowly leak out of you

hongjoong drops down beside you, toned chest covered in a sheen layer of sweat as it rises up and down with his pants

when your fuzzy mind has cleared a little from the blissful haze of your orgasm, he strokes his fingertips along the side of your thigh, along the curve of your ass, and over the dip of your waist just under your breasts as he says, “you better not be jealous. first one to get jealous loses”

“if anyone’s going to get jealous first, it’s you,” you scoff back

he raises an eyebrow

oh yeah?

he shoves his leaking cum back inside of you and fingers you to another orgasm

now that shuts you up

for a man who barks, he sure has no bite, because you find yourself being notified by lady shin several days later of yet another request for your services under the king’s name

and another request turns into another

and every single time, hongjoong makes sure that the only word leaving your lips for those many hours is his moaned name

but at the same time, the more you and hongjoong meet, the more he just savours in your simple companionship

he asks you to teach him how to embroider because you’ve mentioned before it’s how you like to spend your free evenings

he rifles through your bag of materials that you bring

you smack his hand away at the carelessness with which he’s upturning everything

“what’s this?” he holds up a large, wooden hoop before trying to fit it through his head, “a necklace?”

“i wonder if people know they appointed an idiot to be king,” you say as you gently unscrew the hoops and demonstrate how to align a piece of fabric between the rings

he watches with interest as you screw the outer hoop tighter until the fabric is nice and taut and then repeat the process so you both have one to work with

you have to help hongjoong thread his needle too, because apparently the king’s fingers are only good for scissoring you open

you weave your own needle through the fabric at a slow pace whilst telling him the different names and uses of the stitches you’re showing him

except, when you look up to see if he’s following?

his own hoop has been abandoned to one side and he’s leaning against his hand as he gazes cheekily at you

“were you even paying attention?”

he sounds a little too confident when he answers not at all

in return, hongjoong shows you how to write hanja the next time you meet

he positions himself behind you with his hand over yours as he guides you through different characters stroke by stroke

he claims that there are specific ways of applying pressure to the brush so he has to be holding your hand at all times

you most definitely roll your eyes several times but you indulge him anyway

there are a lot of giggles and teasing pushes when you accidentally dip the end of your sleeve into the ink and you try to spread it onto his robes too

(the calligraphy may or may not become forgotten when hongjoong pins you down to stop your cheeky behaviour, because things naturally escalate whenever he has you under him)

you two do eventually manage to finish one decent-looking scroll of characters which he ends up gifting you so that you ‘don’t forget’ about him when you’re not with him

when you walk back into the house of flowers, the hanging scroll perks lady shin’s interest as you walk past

“hongjoong taught me how to write my name today”

lady shin waggles her eyebrows at you suggestively because of how casually you refer to the king, for which you nudge her with a shoulder

she laughs then asks to have a look

you unravel the paper to show her but then she makes a funny noise

“that’s not your name? these are the characters for- oh,” she cackles scandalously to herself, as if she has made a secret discovery

“what does it mean?” you hurry to clarify

you wouldn’t put it past him to have taught you a crude phrase instead, like ‘best tits’ or ‘biggest ass’

lady shin lets out an amused exhale, handing the scroll back to you

“it says, my flower”

you’re looking at those exact characters from where you lay on your bed when a knock sounds on your door several days later

lady shin steps into your room with a warm smile as you greet her

“you have an appointment with lord min tomorrow, but the king has just inquired about your service availability for tomorrow,” she informs you. “would you like me to give him the usual answer?”

this isn’t the first time a clash has occurred, particularly with the increasing frequency with which hongjoong requests to see you

you have always told lady shin to ask for hongjoong’s pardon and to offer him an alternative time or day, because in the end, you still need to maintain a professional and admirable reputation as a flower courtesan

and as you open your mouth to tell her ‘yes’, your eye catches the scroll hanging on your wall

my flower

you hesitate

“actually,” you look away from the hanja, “i’ll see hongjoong.”

lady shin gives you a motherly smile as she nods in understanding and closes the door behind her

the next day you see him, he excitedly points out the large tambour frame in his room that he bought just a few days prior, claiming you two can work on a big embroidery patch together now

you give him one look then demote him back to the small embroidery hoop because he still hasn’t learnt his basic stitches yet

(that’ll teach him to not pay attention when you’re demonstrating, ha)

you relent and end up going through the different stitches with him again anyway

and you find that he’s actually not that bad with embroidery once he’s actually focused on the task at hand

it’s nice, basking in each other's presence while he threads his little square of fabric and you work with the large frame you have now essentially claimed as yours

not that hongjoong minds; he did buy it solely to make you happy

and then you offhandedly mention that someone had gifted you a handkerchief with your initials embroidered on one of the corners the other day

“i actually have it on me, in fact,” and you take it out from where it’s tucked into your waist so that you can show him

he juts out his chin as he peers down at the delicate letters, huffing, “it’s pretty, i guess”

then as an afterthought he tacks on, “bet i could do a better job”

“are you jealous right now, kim hongjoong?”

said man is hellbent on avoiding your eyes as he picks up his needle and thread again

“no i’m not!”

“whatever you say,” you smirk

after that day though, you don’t receive another request from hongjoong to meet until two weeks later

which, in the grand scheme of things, really isn’t much

but in comparison to the frequency at which you are used to seeing him, the frequency at which your body is used to having him, it is much too long

you are almost beginning to wonder whether you shouldn’t have brought up the handkerchief gift

yet, he greets you with his usual teasing squeeze of your waist, dangerously close to your ass

you make a move to follow him through the doors to his chambers but he turns around to produce a silk cloth

he starts to blindfold you, whispering sultrily, “i have a surprise for you”

you feel the hairs on the back of your neck raise at his tone

guiding you inside, hongjoong gently pushes you down so that you sink into the plush duvet of his bed

“do you trust me?” he whispers

trying not to dwell on the urge to lick your dry lips, you answer, “of course”

you feel him tugging slowly on the string that holds the front of your corset together, loosening your dress with tenderness like you are a fragile gift

you shiver when your shoulders are suddenly exposed to the cold air

and then the sensation is followed by the warmth of hongjoong’s soft exhales along the expanse of your collarbones as he leans closer to fully disrobe your shoulders

you have to remind yourself to keep breathing

“you can look now,” he tells you

you remove the silk cloth from around your eyes, unsure of what to expect

it takes a few blinks to readjust your vision to the room around you but then your eyes finally focus

and you gasp

there, hung on the wall with its striking viridian green, shimmering threads and intricate swirls on glorious display, is quite possibly the most stunning dress you have ever laid eyes upon

“try it on,” he encourages

but as you step closer, you realise the lacing across the front of the corset and running down the sleeves of the top dress is in fact, not lacing

it’s patchy

it’s uneven

it has empty areas

but it is no doubt embroidery

“did you…did you make this?” you reach out a hand to lightly caress one of the embroidered flowers, not quite daring to believe that hongjoong would go to these lengths for you

“of course,” he wraps his arms around you from behind and presses a light kiss against your temple, “i’m not losing to a lousy handkerchief”

“is that why you disappeared for two weeks?”

you let out a laugh, sinking into his embrace, because the image of the great king holed up in his chambers for days on end, hunched over your dress with a needle, thread and frown on his face is just too endearing

he lets out a warning huff as he turns you around in his embrace to face him

upturning his hands, he shows you the tips of his fingers and grumbles, “i poked myself so many times for you and you laugh at me?”

you bring his hands closer to your face, pressing light kisses to his fingertips as you smile, “thank you, joong. i love it so much, i really do”

he looks at you impossibly soft

under his tender gaze, something suddenly rushes to your very core

you hold one his hands steady in front of your lips then swirl your tongue out in an experimental lick over his fingers

it’s almost captivating how quickly his pupils dilate and zero in on your tongue

so you dare to bring his fingers into your mouth

you suck on them a little harder

a little deeper

and then you moan around his fingers, “i want you”

he lets out a groan himself, feeling the front of his breeches tighten as his cock twitches

“i- fuck, i didn’t give the dress to you in hopes that it would lead to this,” yet despite his words he is stepping you backwards so that he can pin you against the wall

“i know, but i want you,” you palm his growing bulge, your knees going weak at how hard he already is. “and i need you. now.”

he doesn’t need further encouragement

he shoves the remainder of your clothes aside before inserting his fingers roughly between your folds

it doesn’t take long for him to bring you to your first orgasm, curling his fingers relentlessly as you ride them

he spreads your cum over your pussy and you buck your hips with a whine when he circles over your clit briefly

then he’s turning you around and bending you over, one of your hands bracing against the wall, your other arm held behind your back by hongjoong’s firm grasp

“fuck, you’re so wet,” his whole body shivers with pleasure as his cock slips right into you

the obscene sounds of his hips slapping against your ass and your slick being pushed back into your hole over and over again fill the room

and to the clenching of your pussy from another orgasm, hongjoong also cums into you with a guttural groan of your name

he gently carries you to his bed and lays you on top of the covers

he leaves your side for a moment and you listen to him rummage through something while you try to regain control of your quaking legs

when he comes back, you feel him gently spreading your legs and then the ticklish sensation of a soft cloth along your inner thighs

a whine escapes your lips when he rubs over your sensitive clit and hongjoong grips your thigh a little tighter

“be careful what pretty sounds you’re making if you can’t handle another round”

it isn’t until he finishes cleaning you up and lies down next to you to start wiping himself down that you look over and realise what it is that he’s been using this whole time

your mouth drops in disbelief

when hongjoong notices your expression, he smirks, “the man who gave you this has no idea his handkerchief is being used to clean my cum off your thighs”

“hongjoong!” you flush with a laugh. “you are definitely jealous, aren’t you?”

“yes, i’m fucking jealous,” he growls, “you’re the only one i want. you’re the only woman i’ve been requesting for since i’ve seen you. and i want to be the only one who gets to have you, too”

you confess, “well, you can have all of me. because i’ve started refusing other people just for you”

he looks at you for another moment before he’s suddenly straddling your hips

“change of plans,” he says breathily, “i need you again”

“very good plan,” you grind up against him

and then you pause, mirth starting to bubble in your throat, “one last thing though”

hongjoong looks down with amusement in his own eyes, wondering what could possibly be so funny

“that handkerchief?” you start, struggling not to laugh when his eyes immediately narrow, “i never said it was from a man. it was a gift from lady chae”

seonghwa

pov: you're his royal guard

as soon as you notice the movement out of the corner of your eye, your body reacts straight away

you murmur seonghwa’s name with a tight voice and move to position yourself in front of him, unwilling to risk the prince’s safety

one of your hands grasps the hilt of your sword, ready to unsheathe it at the first sign of danger, as your calculative gaze darts between the two young men stumbling closer on the dirt path and the line of forest trees from which they appear

they are wearing simple tunics and breeches with their colour faded and seams loosening from wear

from what you can discern, they are simply commoners, but that does not rule out the possibility that they are bandits

seonghwa seems to think otherwise, though

unsurprising but still grating

the prince places his hand on your shoulder gently in a silent reassurance and request for you to step aside

albeit reluctantly, you force yourself to move to his left

it becomes clear to you as the two figures stop just shy of a few feet away that the term ‘men’ was pushing it - their faces are young and they appear to be no older than seventeen or eighteen

the young strangers dip their head in greeting, one of them apologising as well as he pulls out a tattered map that he extends out for you two to see

“my companion and i are traveling to the village norshaw but seem to have lost our way. would you be able to point us in the right direction?” the one with the map asks

“of course,” seonghwa offers with a kind smile

you watch as the three of them step closer together to look more closely at the map

on high alert, and just as you are predicting, you see the companion shuffle closer to seonghwa, hand inching towards the leather pouch that hangs from the prince’s belt

you catch the subtle motion of seonghwa’s eyes flickering down just an inch

because of how well you understand his body language, you know that it means he has already noticed the thieving intention

but because of how well you understand seonghwa, you know that he isn’t going to do anything about it either

so you strike in his stead

your hand darts out to snatch the thieve’s wrist, twisting his forearm upwards so that he is forced to lean awkwardly towards one side to prevent his elbow from snapping

his partner drops the map, letting out a string of curses and hesitating for all but three seconds before he turns around to flee

scoffing, you threaten the one who is still in your hold, who then bolts with his tail between his legs after you release him

"did you really need to scare them off like that? it's not like i had any money in the pouch anyway," seonghwa chastises with a chuckle

"yes," you deadpan. "i did not spend the last two hours of our trip pausing every fifty meters to wait for you to pick up a rock because you thought it looked pretty, only for them to be stolen by a pair of petty thieves"

"it would have been funny to imagine their faces after realising what they stole," seonghwa grins

“mhm,” you hum, “and the next thing you know, you’ll wake up to your palace ransacked, because word in town is that you can steal from the prince and get away with it”

he levels you with a boyish scowl, “you’re so dramatic. what are you, my mother?”

“no, but i am your royal bodyguard”

“exactly. you are my bodyguard, not my brainguard. if i am to be swindled of my pretty rocks, then so be it”

you roll your eyes out of exasperation, but everything is swiftly forgotten minutes later when you point out a heart-shaped rock and seonghwa rushes over to pick it up

it has been like this ever since the incident occurred - him, the sunshine; you, the sunshine protector

it has been almost four years since it happened

somebody had attempted arsenic poisoning of not only seonghwa, but also those working under him

you had noticed strange discolouring of the silverware in the kitchen and on the table serving his dinner, which prompted an investigation and subsequent discovery of the perpetrator

an act of betrayal and treachery by one of his closest relatives - his very own uncle

seonghwa was - still is - too merciful and tender-hearted to punish his uncle, even if the severity of his uncle’s crimes warranted execution

to have his trust broken so shatteringly hurt seonghwa more than if he were to actually have been poisoned

you still remember like it was yesterday; the sight of the prince slumped against the wall, weighed down by chains of turmoil and despair as whispers fly through the palace of the weak-hearted prince who is unable to deliver fair judgement

it is the sight of the prince looking so small and lost that drives your feet forward to stand before him

as the soft draught coming through the windows tugs gently on your tresses and the flickers of candlelight illuminate the glint of steel in your hand, you make a decision

“i’ll be your sword,” you pledge

not just as his royal guard, but as his haven when he is forced to face corruption and wickedness

and when you see the way his shoulders immediately sag with relief at your declaration, the way he nods like a child who has been reassured that everything will be okay, you tell yourself that seonghwa will never have to dirty his hands as long as you are with him

you will be the dark to his light; the yin to his yang

quietly, you see to it that his uncle is executed for his crimes - your statement to the rest of the palace that prince seonghwa is not to be mocked

neither of you bring it up again, but seonghwa knows

he pulls you into a wholehearted hug, arms enveloping you securely as his chest shakes with shuddering breaths of thank you over and over again

you rub your hand up and down his sturdy back soothingly

it is an action that simultaneously reciprocates his embrace and his crossed line of professionalism

one that starts the shift in dynamic between you both, boundaries of sought comfort blurring with friendship and then something more

where seonghwa is too trusting and too soft-spoken, you become his skepticism and his voice

“you should be more wary of others,” you always remind him

“and you should be more trusty of others,” he’ll retort

yet, he will never make a decision that does not receive your input nor one that you do not agree with

where seonghwa is too gentle and too humble, you become his sword and his shield

you do not waver when you strike down foe, and friends turned foe alike

you speak up and establish firm boundaries when others take advantage of the respect he shows everybody regardless of their class or status

and yet, if you find yourself on the receiving end of someone’s condescension or discriminatory treatment, be it due to your rank as a guard or identity as a woman, seonghwa will be advancing forward to defend you before you can do so yourself

where seonghwa is too innocent and too bushy-tailed, you become his eyes and his caution

your morning walks together always last for longer than they are scheduled for

he stops to watch every butterfly and bumblebee that flutters along the flowery path, and he waits for caterpillars to crawl onto a leaf that he holds by the stem so that he can move the critters off the pathway

you love to watch him and his glittering eyes, his cheeks rosy from happiness and from the air still crisp with morning dew

but you also make sure to watch his surroundings with greater vigilance because the quiet peace that the freshly awoken sun brings simultaneously increases the likelihood of a targeted attack against him

as much as you rib him for being a marshmallow personified, however, and as much as he banters back that you are more than welcome to resign at any time, neither of you want it any other way

seonghwa carries out a lot of gestures that he justifies to himself as being eternally grateful for you and the things you do for him

he likes to gift you flowers he has plucked from his garden or the bushes he walks past that remind him of you

(“that’s actually just a very pretty-looking weed, but thank you, seonghwa,” you tell him on more than one occasion)

(it’s adorable, because the next time he finds a flower, he goes to the length of certifying that it is indeed a flower with the merchant who sells bouquets in the nearby town before presenting it to you, eyes gleaming with pride)

you stand still and let him tuck a flower behind your ear, sometimes braiding your hair gently so that he can weave and secure the stem into your hair, holding your breath as his features fill with the same enrapturement that he would admire a beautiful artwork with

after you voice this out one day, seonghwa supposes to himself that there is not much difference between an artwork and you

not that he’s attracted to you or anything - you just…have an objectively attractive face

yes.

especially when your usually-piercing expression is softened by fatigue, guard no longer up as you sleep slumped over a desk while accompanying him during his late night of studies

he does not realise his feet have moved until he is right beside your resting form, as if the soft exhales escaping from your slightly parted lips are a siren’s song

seonghwa tenderly brushes your stray locks away from your face and behind your neck

except he forgets to account for the fact that you are trained to sleep on the brink of consciousness

the squeal that leaves his mouth when your reflexes kick in and you almost slit his throat resounds at a frequency so high you almost believe it comes from your own mouth

you have a grand time watching his beet red face stutter out an excuse as to what exactly he was doing so close to you

needless to say, that is the last time seonghwa ever tries to do anything while you are sleeping

but as much as he bumbles around, he also reveals his perceptiveness when you least expect it

like now, as you accompany the prince to one of his meetings with numerous advisors and ministers

it is relatively dull and uneventful, mostly a cordial appearance to maintain amicable and loyal relationships with his subjects

conversation is limited to pleasantries and at one point, seonghwa even points out the calligraphy paintings hung at the back of the room

everyone nods with throaty laughs as if the paintings are indeed the most exquisite and tasteful artworks they have ever laid their eyes upon

when you and seonghwa arrive back at his chambers following the conclusion of the meeting, he walks over to his bed and shakes the sleeves of his robe over the expanse of his duvet

and out drops a neatly-wrapped sweet, followed by another, then another, until there are enough to amount to two handfuls

baffled, you look at seonghwa, because these are the very same treats that had been plated on the tables during the meeting

“you smuggled candy out of the room?” you try to keep the amusement out of your voice

he peers into his sleeves to ensure there are no more stragglers, before turning to face you as he waves his hands over the small collection of goods on his bed

as if they are-

“for you!” he exclaims almost proudly. “i saw you eyeing them during the meeting so i took some for you”

okay

most definitely proudly

you feel something tickling you from within, as if he has reached through your chest to directly caress your heart with a delicate finger

“when did you even…” your voice trails off when it comes out a little fonder than you are expecting it to

“remember the paintings i pointed out?” seonghwa giggles, and you think that the hand in your chest is now cradling your heart completely. “i swiped the sweets when everyone was looking back at them”

“thank you, hwa,” you settle on saying, because you do not trust yourself to say anything else

that is more than enough for him, though

which, of course it is - this is seonghwa, with his huge heart that fills easily with the smallest of things

he eagerly hands you one of the treats and you unwrap it to place into your mouth

you’ve had these before, but this one that he has specially grabbed for you tastes remarkably sweeter

you wonder if his lips will taste the same…

but then you accidentally bite your tongue, hard enough to draw blood, and you realise just how wrong you are for letting those fleeting thoughts into your mind

because while you navigate the world in thick droplets of red and sharp glints of silver, seonghwa sees the world in soft hues of pastel and gleaming rays of yellow

how could the two palettes ever blend together harmoniously?

so instead, you grant yourself one last moment of selfishness and pull him into a hug, a gesture that toes the already shaky borders of professionalism yet can still be excused under the guise of friendship

you realise that he has always meant much more to you, but that is what this will stay as - a mere realisation

seonghwa wraps his arms around your form as he relaxes into the way your bodies naturally meld together

it’s strange how easily you slot into his life, his thoughts, his heart

he wonders whether it’s possible for feelings of appreciation to run so deeply and potently within somebody, like a drug that he cannot get enough of

and when you take a step away from him, leaving his chest feeling physically and emotionally empty, he wonders if he is perhaps…

in love with you

following that incident, it is almost as if a switch flips - both of you take several steps away from the line that has been danced around

but neither of you notice the distance because you are both consumed by your own thoughts

until one of your usual morning walks around the castle walls of his palace

seonghwa is wondering whether the bushes you walk past remind you of the flowers he used to gift you and you are debating whether to reach out to brush a petal out of his half ponytail

then, like deja vu, your eyes flicker towards the burst of movement as a figure covered in black comes darting forwards with their blade raised intended for murder

you immediately start to unsheathe your sword, feet poised and prepared to defend-

until you are harshly tugged back and the prince steps in front of you to parry the strike that the assassin tries to land

it takes your lifetime of training and experience to snap back into focus and thrust your sword into the enemy’s exposed side

when you are sure he is dead, you whirl around to descend upon seonghwa with a voice trembling from both anger and relief

“what in the world were you thinking?” you yell

“i-”

taking a step forward, you toss your sword to one side, “no, actually. you weren’t thinking at all”

“i was afraid that you would get hurt!” he takes his own step closer

“that is my duty!” the volume of your voice raises even more. “i am willing to lay down my life to ensure your safety! i have been guarding you for years now and you have never acted this way. what has changed?”

for a moment, the only sound that punctuates the silence is your harsh breathing

seonghwa swallows

“my feelings…” he whispers, a stark contrast to the peak of emotions you have been riding. “my feelings for you have changed”

your throat tightens at his words

it is your turn to whisper, a noise of confusion leaving your lips

he takes another step closer, bringing himself to stand right in front of you as he looks down earnestly into your eyes

“i’d rather be the protector, and you be the protected”

“but…why?” your heart races with anticipation

“because i’m in love with you”

right at the invisible border that has been separating you two for as long as you have been his guard, seonghwa now stands, hands wringing together as he awaits a response

“then that makes the two of us,” you confess

you step forward to take your familiar spot on the other side of the line, except this time you do not stop

you stride over the boundary completely to stand by his side

raising yourself onto your tiptoes, you pull him down slightly by the front of his doublet so that you can press a chaste kiss to the corner of his lips

it stretches wider and curves upwards under the nurturing of your own smile

you can’t help but give him another kiss on the other side of his mouth to match the one you just gave him

“from now on,” seonghwa starts, “i’ll be your sword”

you wouldn’t really, and you will fight him to let you continue being his guard, but that doesn’t stop one last teasing question from escaping you

“does this mean i get to retire?”

yunho

pov: you're part of a rebel group

the crown prince is not in his fucking library

for the past three weeks, the crown prince has always been in the royal library at night

until today

under normal circumstances, his royal guards and staff would be alerted to ensure that the deviance in routine is a conscious decision and not an issue of the crown prince missing

except doing that would make your job significantly harder…

considering you have been ordered to assassinate him.

you’re part of the ‘red sun’, a revolutionary movement aiming to overthrow the current monarch

following the debilitating state of the king after falling ill and the subsequent coronation of queen jeong into power, she has since then established numerous royal decrees to keep everyone under her reign on a tight leash

a leash made of barbed wire

people are quick to become resentful and thirsty for an end to the dictatorship and bloodline

although he has made limited public appearances, the crown prince has also developed a reputation rivaling the queen’s

within the second year of the jeong dynasty, red sun has already amassed a multitude of supporters

the focus is currently on growing in numbers, preparing for an imminent revolution and picking off corrupt royals and noblists, be it through incrimination or assassination

dealing with those in positions of higher power is a task only completed by an elite selection of red sun rebels who have distinguished skills and traits that set them apart from peasants and commoners

and you are amongst the elite team

which is why you find yourself staking out on the tiled roof of the imperial palace, clothed in black with a mask and hooded cowl covering your face that blends you in with the darkness of night, on the orders of a higher-up to assassinate the crown prince

except the target is missing; the information you were given is wrong

which never happens

you can’t risk staying around for much longer, especially now that the crown prince has broken his routine

he could be anywhere and so could his royal guards

you shift your body to a crouch and place your hands on the cool tiles beneath you, ready to leave

only to spot a figure, crouched just like you are, on the opposite side of the roof

their face is a black hole of nothing within the shrouded confines of their hood, but you can feel their gaze piercing into you all the same

you run

you scramble to the edge of the roof and nimbly leap off the curved eaves to the neighbouring structure of the study room

when you glance backwards, you see the man - physique now obvious - is keeping up easily along the stepping stones of roofs

this game of cat and mouse isn’t going to work for long

if you don’t get caught by him first, you’re both going to get caught by the palace guards

so you make a split decision and alter your next trajectory lower

keeping your arms outstretched for the eaves, you grab on tightly when your fingers touch the edge of the roof and use your core to kick your legs up to stop your body from slamming into the wall from the momentum of your jump

you let go and drop to the ground like a feline, noiseless, and slink towards a line of trees

then you wait

he’s good, you note to yourself, when the only sound that alerts you to his presence is the quick scuffle of his feet as he softens his impact against the wall and the muted thud of his body landing on the ground

“state your purpose,” he demands, voice low yet firm

you ignore him to ask, “who are you?”

now up close, you can see that the man is wearing attire almost the same as you are, identity also hidden by the his bandana and hood-

wait

even the dark red stitching that subtly replaces the original seam on the right shoulder of his outer clothing is the same

the same as those on the elite team

“one of you,” he confirms your suspicions

except you don’t recognise his voice nor his build

being one of the earliest members of the rebel organisation, you are familiar with all the members who carry out missions like yours

he is not one of them; not one you can trust yet

when you don’t speak, he adds on, “we need to go. the safehouse might be in danger”

he refers to the two of you so easily, as if you and him are an unspoken team

you cannot trust this man until you know for sure he is part of red sun, so you ask him

“when is red most beautiful?”

it is a vague question with a fixed answer

one that reflects the heart of the revolutionary itself

during the sunrise of a new beginning

“during the sunrise of a new beginning,” the man says resolutely

the tension releases from your shoulders

“okay,” you opt to abandon your original mission. “let’s check on the safehouse”

the man offers you a hand to hike yourself up onto one of the outer walls of the palace before he jumps up himself with ease

you both flip over the top and land in unison

the moon illuminates the ground beneath your feet as you both sprint into the surrounding forest

the safehouse is really just a small hut situated far enough from the palace to stay inconspicuous, yet not close enough to the outer borders of the kingdom to risk discovery by the frequent border patrols

you both slow down as you approach the clearing, steadying your breaths and treading with cautious steps

and then you hear it

the shattering clang of a desperate parry

all it takes is a quick glance at the man by your side before your eyes harden with purpose and your steps are dashing in unison towards the hut

you’re both hit with the smell of a metallic tang in the air, and it’s not from your drawn swords

bursting through the door, you quickly take in the scene before you

several red sun members are scattered around the hut and slumped in varying degrees of injury

it’s easy to spot the intruder; they’re yanking their sword out of a body’s torso as they simultaneously turn to look at you

and it’s hard to miss the royal insignia of the jeong monarch on their chest plate

you have the element of surprise

but only for the next few seconds

you leap forward with the thud of footsteps of your partner following almost immediately, side-stepping once you close the distance to dodge a haphazard swing

there’s a brief break in defense when the enemy tries to aim for another strike that leaves the gap in the side of their armour exposed

you feel the slight resistance of your sword entering flesh as you thrust it forward into them

except when you try to tug it back out, a hand grasps your own and the hilt of your sword, stopping you from stepping away

the enemy has realised they are not going to make it out of this alive

but if they are to die, then they are going to take one last person with them

you.

you see glint of metal as they use their other hand to swing their sword down onto you, only for it to be deflected at the last second by another sword

the man you have met for barely an hour is now at your side with his towering protectiveness

in one smooth kick, his long leg sends the other careening into the wall of the hut with a mighty slam

you feel yourself jerking forward from the enemy’s grasp still on your hand

but the man next to you quickly tucks you into his side before you are also sent sprawling

“check on the others,” he briefly says, and then he is striding towards the fallen intruder

you only spare him another quick glance and then you rush to the nearest figure on the ground

you go around checking for pulses, and for those who are still breathing, the extent of their injuries

there are several casualties but nowhere near as many if you and the man had not come to check on the safehouse

which suddenly makes you pause in your tracks

how did he know about the attack in the first place?

you stretch your legs from their squatted position next to one of the red sun members and turn around to confront him

except…the man has disappeared

and so has the intruder’s body

days later, the question of whether you will chance upon the man again tonight flits through your mind when you find yourself perched in the very same spot on the tiled roof of the palace that gives you a clear view of the royal library

you have received another order to assassinate the crown prince as soon as you see the opportunity arise

this time, the note is accompanied by a cyanide capsule, a non-verbal message that this mission is to occur with your life on the line

you spot him

he’s preoccupied by the scroll in his hand as he makes his way through the shelves of parchments

you wait until he’s walked far enough into the library before you drop down from the roof, keeping your stance low to ensure you stay hidden as you silently move closer

you take out the jagged dagger from its sheath by your waist as you anticipate it will be too difficult to wield your long sword in the narrow aisles

and there the crown prince stands

he has his back to you, exposing him to your mercy

mercy that you have no intention of showing him

the cruel heir to the throne of an even crueler dictatorship deserves none

“it’s you again, isn’t it?”

you freeze

the crown prince still has not turned around to address you, but you can feel the dark gaze of his eyes on you as if he were looking at you

“you were here a few days ago”

fuck

how he knows you have no idea

what you do know though is that you have about two seconds to make a move before you lose this chance to assassinate him completely, and quite possibly, lose your life as well

the pill you have hidden in the breast of your tunic feels heavy

“you are part of red sun, are you not?”

this time the crown prince does turn around to face you, but it isn’t the nonchalance with which he reveals your identity that makes your head reel

it is the warmth and softness in his gaze and the hint of a smile on his face that does

what the actual fuck

you’re convinced that the crown prince is not only heinous, but also batshit crazy

“i am,” you spit out at him, “with orders to assassinate you, in fact”

his mouth thins into a tight line, “the orders you have received are false”

“sounds exactly like something a crown prince would say to avoid being assassinated,” you scoff

but then his next words change everything

“red is most beautiful during the sunrise of a new beginning”

before you have time to fathom the bomb that has just been dropped, your heads swivel simultaneously towards the entrance of the royal library when a voice calls out for the crown prince

“hide,” he hisses urgently

and then he’s stepping further away to conceal your presence as best as possible

you hear the shuffle of footsteps approaching before they stop, dangerously close to where you’re crouched behind a bookshelf

“apologies for interrupting your time, crown prince,” they say

from where you are you can see the crown prince’s expression clear as he lets out a small huff, “i have told you many times to just call me yunho”

“of course, crown prince yunho”

even though you can’t see the other person’s expression, you can hear the amusement in their voice

they continue, “i have the information you have requested for”

“thank you,” you see him - yunho - receive a small scroll. “the queen does not know?”

“no, i made sure to be as discreet as possible”

yunho thanks the other once again and your eyes nearly fall out of their sockets when he bows his head in appreciation as he dismisses them

is this the same crown prince as the rumours?

and what is he doing behind his mother’s back?

you don’t realise you’ve been staring dumbly at him until he’s back in front of you with amusement on his face

he stands tall and proud, robes accentuating his stature and nobility

“who exactly are you,” you dare to ask

your voice is small - you feel small, crouched at his feet like a stark physical representation of the power he holds over you

but then he takes yet another step closer and kneels down so that your eyes meet at the same level

“i am the leader of red sun. the creator of the whole revolution”

your ankles actually do give out at that and you have to seat yourself on the floor

because how is any of this possible?

you must have voiced your thoughts out loud, because before you know it, yunho is crossing his legs and making himself comfortable on the floor right in front of you

it makes you feel so strange

the crown prince’s willingness to make himself an equal before you - and even to his staff from earlier

yunho starts to explain

a change in monarch, particularly one of such dictatorship, requires massive momentum and synergy; something he cannot produce alone nor without the support of the people

thus, red sun came into existence for the exact same reason you and all the other supporters have joined

in hopes of a sunrise one day that marks a new beginning

a new leadership

except recently he has had growing suspicious of the presence of a traitor within the organisation, which were confirmed the night the safehouse was attacked

“that night…that man was you,” you realise, “and that’s how you know who i am”

he nods, “and that’s also how i know your orders are false.” yunho nudges you playfully with his knee, “pretty sure i never ordered for my own assassination”

yunho continues to explain that he had taken the intruder back for interrogation, but then you frown when he reveals the enemy had swallowed a suicide pill before any information could be gained

he has an inkling that someone in a high position of power is involved, since the pills are almost impossible to gain access to, but it cannot be ruled out as a coincidence

“hang on,” you pull down the top of your tunic in a hurry

yunho scrambles to cover his eyes and turns his head as he jokingly sputters out, “woah okay, this is moving a little fast don’t you think?”

you tug impatiently on the sleeve of his robe, telling him to look

yunho hesitates for another second before lowering his hands and realising you have-

“a suicide pill?”

you look at each other, because this can only mean one thing

the pills are not a coincidence; the enemy is much closer than yunho would like

you’re both unsure how much time there is until the traitor decides to order someone else to assassinate yunho, or worse, decides to finish the job off themselves

but from that very night of discovery, you and yunho work together incessantly against a ticking time bomb

it’s a delicate balance between finding as many leads as you can and spreading out your investigations to stay under the radar

yunho tries to look further into the cyanide pills while you try to uncover any information regarding the order you had been given

whoever is behind it all has kept their tracks hidden well

there isn’t much to report from either of your ends whenever you sneak into the palace to meet up with yunho

but he makes it very hard for you to feel discouraged when he makes your meetings seem like casual catch ups between - you dare say - friends

you have yet to catch him by surprise whenever you drop down from the roof in front of him in an attempt to scare him; he has an uncanny ability to sense your presence

except, you think you prefer being unsuccessful, because your indignant grumbles never fail to bring out his toothy grin and an excited body jiggle

other times he is the one trying to fluster you

“remember that time you literally tried undressing yourself in front of me-”

“i was taking the pill out to show you!”

you bring your thumb and index finger closer together in front of your face and squint at the gap

“i am this close to changing my mind and assassinating you after all”

he gets a kick out of it, pretending to beg for your mercy, “oh please spare me, your majesty”

other times, yunho teases you for always keeping your cowl and mask on

“bet it’s because you’re ugly or something,” he jokes

and you bite back that he had his face covered too when you both met, so you’re one to talk, ugly

“but since then i’ve always shown you my face as the crown prince. you can see me nice and clear,” he suddenly leans forward, so close you can see the dip of his cupid’s brow. “what do you think about me now?”

you swallow hard

you’re glad you have your mask on because you can feel your face rapidly heating up

“i think…” you gently cup his jaw, “you look better with your mask on,” as you nudge his face to the side

you cannot help but join in with your own chuckles at his laughter and boyish glee

and eventually, you two have a breakthrough

yunho manages to trace the cyanide back to a traveling merchant operating under the guise of selling rare herbs and medicine

in the transaction ledger, there is an unusually large purchase under the name of ‘lee minjun’

“i’m sure i’ve seen the name before somewhere, but i can’t remember where,” yunho huffs

you let out your own huff at his elbow that has very naturally taken a rest on your shoulder

pulling out a stack of paper, you spread it out onto the table before you two

they are past records of certain red sun missions that, upon looking back, seem suspicious

“i noticed a mark on a couple of them, a drawing or character perhaps? except none of them are fully intact. it’s almost like the paper was accidentally marked”

you point them out to yunho in hopes that he will have a better idea

he doesn’t - not at first

not until he chances upon two that vaguely align with each other to form a clearer image

“this-” yunho runs his hand through his hair, “this is butler lee’s stamp. my father’s butler.”

the king’s butler?

lee?

your eyes snap to yunho’s, just as his meet yours

“lee minjun”

you sink back in your seat

there’s now definite proof that the king’s butler is at the very least involved

the question of why and what for remains

in fact, you and yunho would not put it past the queen either to be involved too

there is a long moment of shared silence as you both mull over what this means for the future

yunho breaks the silence first

“after this all ends…do you want to work for me, officially?” he clears his throat, “will you stay by my side?”

after this all ends

you two must still uncover butler lee’s motives; likely part of a much grander scheme involving queen jeong too

you two must still bring down the whole monarch; with the support of red sun, yunho needs to sit on his rightful throne

the sun has yet to rise but you can see the faint hues of orange and twilight blue in the horizon

the new beginning is close

and at that, something in you relaxes

crumbles and disintegrates with utter relief

“it would be my honour to stay by your side forever, yunho”

and then you are removing your hood and mask, daring to breathe and feel alive and hopeful for once

ironically, yunho chokes on air

you glance at him to find that he is unable to meet your eyes

you think your eyes are deceiving you because-

the tips of his ears are a glowing red

you could definitely get used to seeing the usually calm and collected crown prince become a shy, blushing mess

the corner of your mouth rises with smugness, “like what you see?”

“you should really keep your hood and mask on,” he mumbles

“and why is that?” you humour him

he finally looks at you

and when he sees the shit-eating grin plastered across your face, his shoulders suddenly fill out again with confidence and cockiness to match yours

“because,” his voice deep and flirtatious, “with a pretty face like that, you’re going to distract me from my duties”

yeosang

pov: you're in an arranged marriage with him

ever since you could understand the words coming out of your parents’ mouths, you have known that you will be married to yeosang

it just made sense

for the respective princess and prince of two powerful kingdoms to join together, leading to increased power and stronger allies

it is tradition for the pair to meet their chosen spouse for the first time only when both parties have turned sixteen, and even then, subsequent meetings are rare until the time of the actual wedding

so you spend the first sixteen years of your life infatuated with the idea of your prince charming - of prince yeosang - wondering what he looks like, what his personality is like, and how you two will fall in love

and when you finally reach that long-awaited first meeting, prince charming is everything and more than what you have envisioned

if angels with broken wings were exiled to earth, they would look like yeosang

he is soft-spoken and slightly reserved, as any awkward teenager meeting their future spouse would be, but you don’t miss the way that his eyes overflow with adoration and his shoulders shake with exuberant giggles whenever his little sister, yeoreum, comes tottering into the room

he always bends down onto one knee to match her eye level, uncaring of the stains that mark his pants even as his mother narrows her eyes in disdain, and he listens with utmost sincerity when yeoreum tells him about the secret pink and glittery fairy she spotted in the courtyard

they remind you of the relationship you share with your own little brother, juwon, who is barely half your age and height, yet has you wrapped around his little finger

you lean down closer with a hum at the soft tug on your dress to hear your little brother whisper conspiratorially into your ear, “he looks stupid”

if looks could kill, yeosang would be dead right now

you stifle a laugh as you flick juwon’s chin affectionately at his sudden display of childish jealousy

if anything, you’re pretty sure you are the one who looks stupid

stupidly in love

because walking away from that first meeting with yeosang and his family, you know that you are absolutely smitten for the prince

unable to quell the restlessness of having to wait until the next unforeseeable meeting, you pick up a quill that very same day you return to your palace and start writing

it takes you all night, the gentle gleams and winks of the stars keeping you company until they rotate shifts with the songs of the waking world

but by the time you have crossed out and scrunched your way through rolls and rolls of parchment paper, you are satisfied with the letter you have written

the letter addressed to prince yeosang, which you task eunju, one of your maids, with passing it to the royal couriers for delivery to the kang palace

it is a simple letter, thanking him for the enjoyable day, yet it holds the deeper message that you are interested in him and would like to become better acquainted before your marriage

you wonder whether his cheeks will flush a pretty red as his butler hands him your letter

whether he will trace his fingers delicately over the curve of your words

whether he will bite back a smile as he pictures you saying the words to him

two weeks pass, and you approximate the letter to have just been delivered to his kingdom

and although you desperately wish for him to immediately sit down with a quill in hand to pen out his reply, you wait and give him a week before you eagerly start counting down the days until the arrival of his letter

your whole life you have been able to wait patiently

you wonder what has changed now that mere weeks feel like an eternity

the day yeosang’s letter is due to arrive, you are sporadic bursts of giggles, twirls and skips throughout the palace

even juwon is starting to become sick of getting swept up into a crushing hug to the cheery tune of i loveee youuuu every single time you pass him

nothing can bring you down from cloud nine

only…the letter never comes

not the day after, not the week after, not the month after

you’re disappointed, of course, but you busy yourself with reasons why yeosang has not replied, and you don’t give up

you send him another letter, and then another, and another

sometimes you just tell him about your day - what made you smile, what made you sad, something interesting you saw, something your little brother said

other times you tell him about yourself - your hobbies, likes and dislikes, aspirations, fears

and you also wonder about him

you ask what he likes, what he smiles at, what makes him sad, what his dreams are

with each letter that you hand over to eunju to be delivered, it becomes harder and harder to stay optimistic - not even the words of encouragement from your favourite maid lifts your spirits

you continue like this for over a year, still yet to receive a reply

until-

you do.

it feels like you are brought back to that very night of your first meeting, feeling so very alive as hope and excitement cascade into your body the moment eunju hands you a letter with a smile

with shaking hands, you fumble to unpeel the wax seal and free the envelope’s contents - a single piece of paper, neatly folded

your mind races with anticipated words and explanations

perhaps he had been too shy to reciprocate your letters earlier

or perhaps your letters had been lost in transit

you unfold the parchment as the hairs on your skin raise in anticipation, only to find it blank save for one scrawled sentence in the middle of the paper-

stop sending me letters.

and just like that, the clock strikes twelve

your carriage reverts into a pumpkin

and your carefully curated story of prince charming disintegrates into ashes

you don’t write to him again.

years later, the stacks of parchment scrolls on the wooden desk of the guest room you are currently residing in feel like a fresh slap in the face each time your eyes land on them

they are a stark reminder of your very own letters, the cold rejection you received, and the irony of the only letter you ever received again following his being one from the kang monarchs, announcing the proceeding of the royal wedding between you and their son

now, only a few days newly-wed to yeosang, the king and queen are gracious enough to let you sleep in one of the guest rooms temporarily, under your claims of adjusting to a life in a new kingdom and as a wife

really, you are trying to avoid yeosang for as long as you can

you spend your time instead getting to know his little sister better, which is why you find yourself sitting side by side with yeoreum, legs dangling off the edge of your bed

she eyes the vase of flowers on your bedside table curiously, “did you buy that?”

“no,” you reach out to touch the baby’s breath, “someone delivered it to my room”

you had offhandedly mentioned to some of your staff the other day that flowers would make your room look more homey, and you had woken up the morning after to find the beautiful vase teeming with flowers next to you

“why?” you ask yeoreum when she hums thoughtfully

“it looks just like the vase in my brother’s room, but he’s weird about it. yeo never lets anyone touch it, much less have it”

you blanch a little, “in that case i’ll give it back to him later then”

“you don’t like it? or…you don’t like my brother? my brother talks about you a lot, you know,” she reveals

caught off-guard by her perceptiveness, you reveal that you have been hurt before

you don’t specify by what exactly or who it is that you’re talking about, but she seems to understand regardless

later that night, sweet yeoreum barges into yeosang’s room and with as much feistiness as she can muster, she glares at her brother and interrogates, “what did you do to make her upset?”

before he can so much as blink, yeoreum concludes, “you boys are dumb. go talk to her and fix it or something,” and then walks out with a huff

there’s no one there to witness it, but yeosang nods anyway

heart feeling a little heavy after your conversation with yeoreum, you head towards the kitchen to seek solace in the sweet pastry you are usually served each morning

the first time you tasted the danish pastry, decorated with strawberries and cream cheese, was when you had traveled to yeosang’s palace at the age of sixteen for your first meeting

you remember the blissful expression that had bloomed across your face with your initial bite, and no dessert ever captivated your tastebuds quite the same way ever again

if there is one good thing out of this arranged marriage with yeosang, then it would be the reunion between yourself and the strawberry danish

“your highness,” the head chef bows, followed by the rest of the staff in the kitchen, “how may we help you?”

when you ask for one of the pastries, the head chef apologises that there are none

“but we can make you one now, if you do not mind waiting”

you tell him not to go to the trouble and ease his worries, “i just thought there may have been leftover pastries”

“we make only one fresh every morning, specifically for you,” the chef explains, and confusion must settle across your features because he adds on, “his highness has expressed that you may like them”

oh?

flustered, you can only muster a short response of, “i do, thank you,” before you smile once more and excuse yourself

because of all people to notice and remember such a small detail, and then to go out of their way to put in the request with the kitchen on the off chance that it was still true, it was yeosang?

first the vase, and now this

you feel something deeply buried inside of you start to stir but you rush to nip it in the bud

your head and your heart are beginning to wage war against each other and suddenly everything feels like it’s too much

when you reach your bedroom, you throw open the double doors to step out onto the balcony, welcoming the chilling breeze of the darkening sky

you’re tired of fearing rejection if you open up

you’re tired of questioning yeosang’s intentions

and on top of it all, you suddenly miss home and you miss your parents and you miss juwon and-

“are you okay?”

yeosang’s soft question startles you, having missed his knocking at your door

he walks closer to join you out on the balcony when he sees that the answer is obviously a no, and he prompts you again, “what’s wrong?”

thoughts of vases and strawberry pastries flit across your mind

you start with half truths

“just missing my little brother”

“you love him a lot, don’t you,” yeosang smiles sweetly, “i can see it in the way you take care of yeoreum”

you can’t help the heat that slowly creeps up the back of your neck and to your ears, because it implies that he’s noticed all the times you’ve showered his little sister with the same love you give to juwon

it implies he’s noticed you

“what’s your fondest memory of juwon?” he asks when you nod

something within you thaws slightly at the fact that yeosang remembers your little brother’s name

you step closer to the edge of the balcony so that you can overlook the garden outside your room a little clearer, resting your hand on the railing as yeosang waits patiently

“we used to have this game we played. we had a lot of gardenia flowers growing around our courtyard and juwon loved cutting some to make me a mini bouquet,” you pause to shake your head with a chuckle, “it drove our mother nuts”

“doesn’t sound like it stopped him from continuing though, did it?” yeosang questions with mirth

“no, it didn’t,” your heart aches with fondness. “he would use a certain number of gardenias and make me guess what phrase containing the same number of letters he had in mind”

it never failed to tug your mouth into a smile whenever juwon giggled at your attempts to guess the flower phrase, even when most times he would bound away whilst singing answers like y-o-u s-t-i-n-k or d-u-m-b d-u-m-b

yeosang supports himself on the railing with one hand as he nearly folds in on himself in laughter, and before you know it, you too are gasping for air and wiping away tears from your eyes

when you both calm down relatively enough, only intermittent chuckles leaving your lips, yeosang clears his throat and scratches his neck awkwardly

“i know it might not be much, but maybe we can go out into town tomorrow and it might take your mind off things? and we can bring yeoreum along if that makes you feel more comfortable, because you’ve probably spent more time alone with her than you have with me?”

you don’t admit it, but you’re already feeling a little better, so you decide to tease, “are you asking me out on a date right now, kang yeosang?”

“oh, well, we’d be doing things a little backwards since we’re already like, married…but, yes? maybe? is that okay?”

it’s yeosang’s turn to flush a deep red as his usually composed demeanor is reduced to stutters, but you don’t notice under the faint glow cast by the moon now reigning the sky

“yeah, that’s okay”

you and yeosang smile fondly as your little trio stroll through a nearby town the following morning, his younger sister skipping ahead to peer at the colourful trinkets being sold at the market stalls, and your own small squad of royal soldiers following behind at a respectful distance

it’s kind of endearing how yeosang points out item after item, asking whether you like it or whether you find it pretty, in a not-so-subtle attempt to learn about your preferences

you have to stop him from buying you something from every second stall you both pass, but you’re unable to convince him from purchasing a small wooden toy as a gift for juwon, insisting that you give it to your little brother the next time you see him

the more you actually interact and talk with yeosang, the harder you find it to associate him with the memory of the yeosang in your rejected letters

because the equation of the letters, the vase and the pastries just does not add up

as you two sit under the awning of a small shop, watching yeoreum play with the shopkeeper’s dog, you find yourself unable to hold back anymore

“why didn’t you reply to my letters?” you break the silence, trying to hide the hurt laced in your voice

yeosang looks at you with wide eyes as his mouth stutters open

and in the smallest voice you have ever heard him speak with, he says

“you wrote me letters?”

your eyebrows knit together as your eyes dart back and forth between his, searching for any hint of deception

“too many to count,” you confess, “until you sent a letter telling me to stop…”

“impossible. i never got your letters”

your head recoils back as you try to make sense of his words, “but-”

“wait,” he interrupts

yeosang reaches into his robes, pulling out a small, wooden block, extending it out closer to you as he asks, “do you recognise this?”

upon closer inspection, you realise it’s a square seal stamp

it has the character ‘姜’ carved into it and you’ve seen it enough times to know it represents the kang family name - but the inscription that stylises the border is unfamiliar

“not the seal, no”

he swallows apprehensively, “i stamp all my letters with this to certify authenticity”

you let his words sink in as they throw you into a sandstorm of bewilderment

“but then-”

but then who wrote the letter?

and where did all your letters go?

the only people who would have known about them would be the royal couriers and…eunju

a memory flashes through your mind - the moment she handed you a letter with a smile

no, not a smile, you realise

a smirk

you are simultaneously overwhelmed with betrayal, guilt and apologeticness

yeosang doesn’t push you for a response, and you come to recognise that you are also grateful

“i’m sorry for doubting you,” you tell him

it’s nowhere close to the amount of things you want to confess, but it is a start, one that yeosang picks up on and understands immediately

“no, i’m sorry you felt the need to doubt me,” he offers. “that i didn’t make you feel loved enough”

“but i did, actually. the vase and the pastries, then our conversation last night…and even today”

he blushes a deep red as you list the things off with your fingers

“you weren’t meant to find out about the first two,” yeosang admits as he ducks his head shyly

then he suddenly perks up with a sudden thought

he ruffles inside his satchel that had been abandoned to one side, mumbling, “my sister said i did something to upset you…so i um, got you these”

he turns around to reveal a bouquet of flowers, looking a little rough for wear after being hidden in his bag all morning, but his clumsy consideration only serves to makes your heart skip dangerously

“forgive me?” he asks cheekily, and you both giggle at the absurdity of his question because it should very well be the other way around

“if you insist,” you take the bouquet into your hands

and finally, you allow the chains around your heart to fall away, “i can’t say no to my husband, can i?”

yeosang lets out a little squeak as you look at the bouquet more clearly, counting the number of flowers

you turn to ask if he remembers the game you told him about, but the way yeosang suddenly finds the patch of dirt near his foot absolutely fascinating tells you everything that you need to know

eight flowers

eight letters

i l-o-v-e y-o-u

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