#anyways i'm never moving on and never forgetting

[lanadelspray02]

HOLD ME ANYWAY: CHAPTER 22

paige x azzi

Hey guys, I'm so sorry for the long wait. This chapter isn't the longest, but I think you'll still enjoy it. I'll be back to posting frequently again. I hope y'all like the chapter :) let me know ur thoughts

if we lose to the fever.... im crashing out.

crossposted ao3 here

masterlist here

wc: 4052

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The sun wasn’t even fully up yet, just brushing the edge of the horizon in pale watercolor streaks, when Paige zipped the last duffel bag shut. The house was quiet around them, soft and dark in that familiar way of early morning, where the walls seemed to exhale sleep and the silence felt a little sacred. Ruby was curled up in Paige’s sweatshirt on the couch, Sparklehorn clutched under one arm, the ends of her hair curling damply around her cheeks from last night’s bath. She stirred every so often but didn’t wake, one leg flopped over a pillow like she owned the whole couch.

Azzi moved through the house with slow, quiet steps. She hadn’t slept much, though she’d pretended well enough when Paige curled around her in bed a few hours earlier. Her mind had been too loud. She’d checked her phone three times between midnight and four, staring at the same message each time.

Darshay: I know I messed up. But I want to talk. Please.

She hadn’t responded.

Bob was already up when they came downstairs, his hoodie sleeves pushed to his elbows, coffee mug in hand. He didn’t say much, just offered Azzi a nod and Paige a warm smile, and helped them carry the bags out to the car while the morning stayed quiet.

Drew emerged right before they were about to leave, rubbing sleep from his eyes, his pajama pants twisted like he’d fought a blanket in his dreams. He hugged Ruby goodbye with dramatic flair and gave her a folded piece of notebook paper with a big crayon drawing on it, the five of them in front of a castle, Sparklehorn huge and smiling in the sky.

"So you won’t forget us," he said, very seriously.

Ruby nodded solemnly. "Never ever."

Bob pulled Paige in for a hug, murmured something in her ear that made her eyes go soft, then turned to Azzi and wrapped her in the same kind of quiet strength.

"Anytime," he said. "You don’t need a reason."

Azzi swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. "Thank you. For everything."

The drive to the airport was sleepy and uneventful. Ruby dozed again in the backseat, her hoodie pulled over her head, feet curled beneath her. Paige sat beside Azzi with one hand rested on her thigh.

"You okay?" Paige asked eventually, voice low.

Azzi hesitated, then pulled her phone from her pocket. She turned it screen-out toward Paige.

Darshay: I know I messed up. But I want to talk. Please.

Paige's jaw flexed. She didn’t speak for a beat.

"When did he send that?"

"Yesterday. I didn’t want to ruin our last day."

"You didn’t ruin anything," Paige said. "He doesn’t get to have that kind of power anymore."

Azzi looked out the window. Her voice came out quiet. "What if he tries something? Like showing up? Or going to court? He’s not on the birth certificate, but still."

Paige squeezed her hand. "Then we fight. And we don’t do it alone. You have me now. And Ruby has both of us."

Azzi didn’t answer, just nodded slightly and turned her gaze back to the window.

At the airport, they moved through security slowly, Ruby still groggy but cooperative, Sparklehorn getting her own bin at TSA. Paige got them coffee and orange juice while Azzi sat with Ruby tucked into her lap at the gate.

When Paige returned, Azzi was staring at her phone again.

"You thinking about responding?" Paige asked.

Azzi shook her head. "I don’t know. He might not stop unless I do."

"Then let’s hear what he wants. On our terms."

They boarded the plane in quiet coordination, Ruby taking the window seat and immediately plastering her drawing to it with the little roll of tape Paige had stashed in her backpack. Halfway through the flight, Ruby fell asleep with her head on Paige’s lap, Sparklehorn tucked like a pillow under her chin.

Azzi leaned close, whispering. "He didn’t want her when I begged. But now that she’s growing up, now that she’s happy… now he’s curious?"

"You built a world without him," Paige whispered back. "He doesn’t get to step into it like he’s owed something."

Azzi rested her forehead to Paige’s shoulder. "I want to believe that."

"Then start here. With me."

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

By the time they landed, the light outside had turned gray and overcast. Familiar.

The drive back to Azzi’s house was quiet, Ruby dozing in her car seat with Sparklehorn hugged tightly to her chest. The clouds hung low, and everything outside the window looked washed in silver.

When they pulled into the driveway, the porch light was already on even though it was still afternoon. Katie opened the front door before they even rang the bell, a warm smile on her face and her arms immediately reaching for Ruby.

"There’s my girl," she whispered as Ruby melted into her arms. "And Sparklehorn too, of course."

Tim appeared a second later, taller than the doorway, his smile soft. "Welcome home."

Azzi hugged them both, lingering longer than usual. Paige followed, quiet but present, and received hugs of her own, Katie holding her tight like she’d always belonged, Tim ruffling her hair with a quiet chuckle.

Inside, the house smelled like roasted vegetables and something sweet cooling on the counter. It was warm in the way only homes lived in by love could be. Azzi helped Ruby out of her coat while Paige dropped the bags by the stairs.

They all moved into the kitchen, exchanging travel stories and small laughter, the kind that covers the quiet beneath. Ruby curled up on the couch with a blanket and was out within minutes, Sparklehorn tucked under her chin.

After a while, Katie took Tim by the hand and said they'd let them rest, leaving the girls in the kitchen alone.

Azzi stood by the counter, phone in hand, staring at the voicemail icon.

Paige entered silently, watching her.

"You gonna listen?"

Azzi nodded once, barely.

She pressed play.

Darshay’s voice came through low, clipped, and defensive.

"You’ve kept her from me long enough. I don’t care what excuses you’ve made. She’s my kid too. I got a right to see her. Don’t think I won’t do what I have to if you try to keep playing house without me."

The message ended.

Azzi stood still. Then slowly, she set the phone down on the counter.

Paige crossed the room and pulled her into a hug without saying anything.

Azzi leaned into her, breath shaky.

"I don’t know what I’m going to do."

"Whatever it is," Paige said, steady, sure, "we do it together."

Azzi closed her eyes. Her arms came around Paige like muscle memory. Like home.

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

The house had quieted after dinner, the kind of hush that settles after too much food and just enough warmth. Ruby was upstairs in the bath with Katie, her voice floating faintly through the floorboards in high-pitched little bursts of song. Tim had disappeared into the living room with a blanket and the remote, mumbling something about his nightly routine. Azzi stood in the hallway near her old bedroom, arms crossed, staring at the floor like it owed her answers. The air felt thicker here, maybe because it still held pieces of who she used to be. Maybe because the voicemail still hadn’t left her body.

Paige moved softly down the hall, slow like she knew how easily the wrong step might shatter the quiet. She didn’t say anything when she reached Azzi, just slid in behind her, wrapped both arms around her waist, and rested her cheek on Azzi’s shoulder like they’d always fit this way. Azzi leaned back without hesitation. She didn’t need to say thank you. Paige already knew.

“I’m fine,” Azzi murmured, voice low and thin.

“Sure,” Paige replied, not letting go. “And I’m training to box.”

Azzi blinked, half-turning her head. “You’re what now?”

Paige didn’t miss a beat. “Boxing. Gonna join a gym. Learn to punch. Maybe get one of those mouthguards that makes me look cool but also slightly unapproachable.”

Azzi tilted her head. “For what purpose?”

Paige’s voice dropped into a dry mutter. “For when certain people forget how replaceable they are.”

Azzi huffed a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh but wasn’t far. “You’re gonna beat up a grown man?”

“If I have to. I already play forty minutes a game and lift three times a week. All I need is footwork.”

Azzi turned fully this time, hips still pressed to Paige’s as she faced her. She didn’t smile yet. But she did let her hands slip up, palms skating under the hem of Paige’s hoodie until they found warm skin and the hard lines of her stomach.

“These abs,” she said softly, brushing her fingers along them, “are not for boxing.”

“They could be,” Paige said, chin tilting up a little smug. “They’re functional.”

Azzi’s hands lingered, slow and deliberate now. “They’re dangerous.”

“I hope so.”

“Just not in a boxing way,” Azzi said, thumbs brushing slow circles against Paige’s ribs, her voice a little lower now, a little warmer. “More in a… you walk into a room and I forget how to think way.”

Paige leaned in, forehead almost touching hers, smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. “Is that what happens?”

“Frequently.”

“I like it when you flirt with me,” Paige whispered.

Azzi’s voice was barely audible. “I like it when you let me.”

Paige was already leaning in when the soft sound of footsteps padded down the stairs. Both of them stilled, heads turning as Ruby’s small figure appeared at the bottom step. She had damp curls sticking to her forehead, pajama pants that nearly swallowed her feet, and Sparklehorn tucked beneath one arm like a personal bodyguard. She blinked at them, sleepy and pink-cheeked, before padding over with the kind of gentle certainty that only toddlers and house cats could get away with.

“I done with bath,” she announced softly. “Can we all cuddle now?”

Azzi dropped to one knee immediately, arms opening. “Of course we can, baby.”

Ruby folded into her like she’d been waiting to all day, Sparklehorn squished between them. Paige crouched beside them, brushing a damp curl off Ruby’s temple, and watched the way Azzi’s whole body softened when she held her daughter close.

Ruby looked up at both of them, voice smaller now. “We can cuddle in the bed?”

Paige kissed the top of her head. “Wherever you want.”

Azzi didn’t say anything. She just stood slowly, Ruby balanced on her hip with an ease that looked effortless but wasn’t, not really. It had taken years to make it look like that. Paige followed them into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her with a soft click, the kind of quiet that made the room feel like a secret.

They curled up together without words, all limbs and blankets and Sparklehorn somewhere in the middle. Paige’s arm draped over both of them, fingers resting lightly against the curve of Azzi’s hip, and Azzi didn’t even pretend she didn’t need it. Ruby squirmed once, then settled, sighing like a content little furnace tucked between their bodies.

Paige didn’t say anything about the voicemail. She didn’t ask for more or try to fix it. She just stayed close, her touch steady, the rise and fall of her breath anchoring the space between them.

And when Ruby reached out in her sleep and curled one small hand around Paige’s shirt, neither of them moved.

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

The morning was already moving too fast. Katie had packed their breakfast into foil-wrapped bundles for the road, handing them off with a kiss to Azzi’s temple and a reminder to breathe. Tim had offered a silent nod and a thermos of coffee. Ruby was in the backseat, humming to herself, one sock half-off and Sparklehorn buckled in beside her with her own seatbelt looped around a glittery horn. Paige drove. Azzi sat beside her, scrolling through texts she wasn’t reading, occasionally glancing over her shoulder to check on Ruby. The car was quiet in that way mornings often were — everyone halfway between asleep and alert, the day still waiting to fully begin.

They pulled into the small gravel lot beside the daycare just before eight. A couple of other parents were walking toward the entrance with lunchboxes and sleepy toddlers. Paige was halfway into a gentle hum when she saw him.

Darshay.

He was standing near the gate, hoodie pulled low over his head, arms crossed. Like he belonged there. Like he had the right to be there.

Paige’s whole body stiffened. She slammed the gearshift into park and sat frozen for half a second. Azzi followed her gaze and immediately went still. Her breath caught with an audible hitch.

Ruby, oblivious in the back, was singing quietly to herself, stringing together lyrics she didn’t understand.

Paige was already reaching for the door handle. “Stay here,” she said, low and tense.

Azzi opened her door before she could finish the sentence. “I can’t stay here.”

Paige rounded the car fast, meeting her on the other side, voice still low but urgent. “Azzi, you don’t have to talk to him. He has no right”

“I know. But Ruby—he’s here for her.”

They both turned as Ruby climbed down from her car seat, dragging Sparklehorn behind her by the tail. “We here?” she asked, still yawning. “I bringed my backpack.”

“Yeah, baby,” Azzi said softly. “We’re here.”

Paige stepped in closer, putting herself slightly ahead of Azzi and Ruby as they walked. She didn’t make it obvious, she just shifted forward enough to be between them and Darshay.

He saw them immediately. Started walking toward them like he hadn’t vanished for three years. Like he hadn’t missed birthdays and fevers and first words. Like this wasn’t trespassing.

Azzi stopped walking.

Paige mirrored her.

Ruby tugged on Azzi’s sleeve. “I go in now?”

Darshay’s voice cut through the air like a knife. “So you just gonna keep pretending I don’t exist?”

Paige stepped fully in front of them now, squared her shoulders. “Back off.”

“I’m talkin’ to her,” he said, nodding past Paige. “She’s the mother of my kid.”

Ruby blinked up at them, confused. “Mama? Who’s that?”

Azzi knelt down beside her. “It’s okay, baby. Just stay close to me.”

But Darshay kept coming. “You kept her from me long enough,” he snapped. “I don’t care what lies you told. She’s mine too.”

Paige moved again, blocking his path with her whole body. “Leave. Now.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” he spat. “You’re just playing house. You think because you wear the jersey and sleep in her bed, you get to be her daddy now?”

Azzi stood slowly, her hand holding tight to Ruby’s.

“Stop it,” she said, her voice shaking. “Just stop.”

Darshay looked down at Ruby then, and it was like a bomb went off.

“Ruby,” he said, loud and deliberate. “I’m your daddy.”

Everything stopped.

Ruby’s little body stiffened.

“No,” she said, voice small. “No you not.”

Darshay kept talking. “Yes, I am. I’m your real dad. I’m supposed to be—”

“No!” Ruby screamed. Her face twisted up like she didn’t have words for the panic surging through her. “No! No! I don’t got no daddy!”

Paige reached for her, but Ruby jerked away, tears already rolling down her cheeks. “I got two mummys! I don’t want you! I don’t want you! Go ‘way!”

People were looking now. Other parents slowing. Teachers coming out to the curb.

Azzi dropped to her knees and pulled Ruby into her chest. “Shh, baby, shh, I’ve got you, it’s okay, it’s okay, he’s leaving.”

“No!” Ruby sobbed, fists pounding against Azzi’s chest. “He scary! He lie! He not my daddy! I got you and Paigey, that’s all I got!”

Paige stood frozen for a second. The words, two mummys, echoed in her head like a siren. Not because of what they meant, but because of how Ruby had said them. Screamed them. Claimed them.

Azzi was rocking now, whispering into Ruby’s hair, trying to breathe through the storm.

Darshay looked around and realised everyone was watching. He backed up, muttered something under his breath, and then he turned and walked down the street, around the corner, gone like smoke.

Paige blinked, came back to herself, and dropped down beside them.

“I’ve got you,” she said, voice trembling now. “I’ve got both of you. Let’s go.”

She helped Azzi lift Ruby, who clung to her with desperate, shaking limbs, her face buried in Azzi’s neck. Paige wrapped her arms around them both, pressing a kiss to the back of Ruby’s head, and another to Azzi’s temple.

“C’mon,” she whispered. “We’re going home.”

Azzi nodded, eyes still locked on the space where Darshay had disappeared.

Paige didn’t look back.

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

The drive back to Azzi’s house was quiet, the kind of silence that didn’t ask to be broken. Ruby was tucked into Azzi’s arms in the backseat, her face pressed into her shoulder, one small fist still clutching Sparklehorn’s mane like a lifeline. Her sobs had faded into hiccups, then into breathy whimpers, but her body stayed curled tight, like she was trying to shrink into safety.

Paige didn’t say a word the whole way. She drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on her thigh, fingers twitching now and then like she didn’t trust herself not to fall apart. Her jaw was clenched the entire time, but her eyes kept darting to the rearview mirror, checking on Azzi, checking on Ruby. Every glance only made her chest hurt worse.

Katie opened the front door before they even knocked, Tim appearing just behind her, concern already carved into both of their faces. Katie took one look at her daughter holding a trembling Ruby and didn’t hesitate, she reached out, arms wide.

Azzi didn’t speak. She just stepped into her mother’s arms and let herself be held, Ruby still wrapped tight between them.

“It’s okay, baby,” Katie whispered, rocking both of them gently. “You’re safe now. You’re home.”

Tim looked at Paige, who gave a short, stiff nod. “Darshay showed up,” she said, voice flat.

Tim didn’t respond with words. He just exhaled hard and gave a slow, heavy nod. He didn’t ask for details. Didn’t need to.

Katie coaxed Ruby from Azzi’s arms like it was second nature. “C’mon, little one. Let’s get you cozy. You wanna sit with Grandma on the couch? I’ll put Sparklehorn’s blanket in the dryer so she warm-warm, yeah?”

Ruby nodded into her chest without speaking, eyes still glassy and tired.

As they disappeared down the hallway, Azzi turned to Paige, but Paige was already gone.

She’d slipped away sometime in the hand-off, and by the time Azzi noticed, her bedroom door was already shut.

Paige sat on the edge of Azzi’s bed, both hands pressed hard to her eyes, trying to breathe through it. The moment had been too much. Seeing Azzi like that. Hearing Ruby scream like she’d been betrayed. Watching the man who caused it all walk up like he had any claim at all. She hadn’t cried when it happened. Hadn’t blinked. Hadn’t breathed.

But now that they were safe, now that Ruby was tucked into Katie’s arms and Azzi had let out that first, broken exhale. Paige couldn’t hold it anymore.

She pressed her fists to her eyes and curled forward, elbows on her knees. The tears came fast and hot, burning her throat, tightening her chest. She didn’t sob. She just shook, silently, shoulders trembling under the weight of everything she couldn’t say out loud.

She didn’t hear the door open.

Didn’t hear the tiny footsteps.

She only noticed Ruby when she felt a small hand brush her knee.

Paige jerked her head up, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve, trying to gather herself. “Hey, Roo, hi, baby sorry, I just needed a minute—”

Ruby looked at her with big, worried eyes, then silently climbed into her lap.

Paige froze. “You okay?” she whispered.

Ruby nodded, then reached up and touched her cheek with a still-damp hand. “You cryin’?”

Paige swallowed. “A little.”

“You sad?”

“Yeah.”

Ruby snuggled in closer, resting her head against Paige’s chest. “I sad too.”

Paige wrapped her arms around her instinctively, holding her tight, letting Ruby’s warmth ground her.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Ruby lifted her head, peered up at Paige, and asked, quiet and careful, “Paigey… you my mummy too, right?”

Paige blinked, caught between breath and something breaking open. “What?”

Ruby nodded, serious and small. “I got two mummys. You and Mama. That’s right, huh?”

Paige stared at her, the breath gone from her lungs. “Yeah,” she managed, voice shaking. “Yeah, baby. That’s right.”

Ruby leaned in again, arms wrapping around Paige’s neck like she’d done it a thousand times. “Okay. You don’t be sad, ‘kay? We safe now.”

Paige held her tighter, kissing her head, tears slipping silently down her cheek. “Yeah, baby,” she whispered. “We’re safe now.”

She didn’t notice Azzi standing in the doorway.

Azzi hadn’t meant to follow. Had only stepped down the hallway when something in her chest said Paige had been gone too long. But when she reached the door, slightly ajar, she froze.

She heard it all.

Saw the way Ruby curled into Paige’s lap like she belonged there, like she always had.

Heard the softness in Paige’s voice, the way it broke and steadied in the same breath.

She didn’t move. Just stood still, heart in her throat, watching the love of her life be called something she’d never dared say out loud, not even in the safest moments.

“Mummy.”

And then Ruby looked up and saw her.

“Mama!” she shouted happily, bouncing in Paige’s lap like she hadn’t been crying an hour ago. “Mama, I told Paigey somethin’!”

Azzi stepped in, her voice gentle. “Yeah? What did you tell her?”

Ruby grinned, proud and wide-eyed. “I said she my other mummy! ‘Cause I got two!”

Azzi’s chest ached with the force of it.

She knelt beside them, resting a hand on Paige’s back, pressing a kiss to Ruby’s forehead. “You do, baby. You really do.”

Paige looked at her, eyes still shining, lips parted like she didn’t know what to do with the moment.

So Azzi kissed her too, soft, grounding, forehead to forehead. No words. Just breath.

Then Ruby wiggled between them and announced, “Cuddle time!”

Azzi let out a short laugh and slid into bed beside them. Paige followed, letting Ruby climb onto both of their chests like she was the bridge keeping them upright. Sparklehorn was wedged between pillows. Ruby yawned and stretched and then sighed like she had solved every problem in the universe.

And then Azzi turned toward Paige like she couldn’t hold it in anymore. She kissed her cheek. Then her jaw. Then the tip of her nose. “I love you,” she whispered between each kiss. “So much. You’re—God—you’re everything.” She kissed her again, longer this time, lips pressing warm and sure against Paige’s as her hand slipped up her back.

Ruby giggled. “More kisses!”

Azzi laughed into Paige’s mouth, then pulled back just enough for Ruby to wiggle up beside her.

“Mwah!” Ruby declared, planting an exaggerated kiss on Paige’s cheek. “One more!”

“Mwah!” Another, right on Paige’s forehead.

Paige was laughing now, breathless, wrapped up in the weight and joy of both of them piled on top of her, covered in kisses and the kind of love that left no room for doubt.

“Okay,” Paige said between laughs. “You two are gonna smother me.”

“Love smother!” Ruby yelled.

Azzi leaned in again and kissed the side of her neck. “We’re not sorry.”

“I don’t want you to be.”

They lay there tangled up, warm and full and clinging to each other like the storm had passed, like they were still alive inside the eye of something beautiful.

And if Paige cried a little more with both of them in her arms, no one said a word.

Because now it wasn’t fear. It was a relief. Ruby had said it out loud. She saw Paige as her mummy. And that was everything.

[parnashiamparapio]

Forever their's.

Pairing: vminkook x reader.

Contains: psychotic behaviour, a lot of smut, possessiveness, obsession, yandere behaviour, gore, killing, oral sex, rough sex, threesome, three men sharing same woman. Rich vminkook, countryside girl. Forced proximity, clit play, riding, possessive behaviour. Mention of death.

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Summary: A young woman from the countryside, comes to the city of seoul for study - at her aunts and beckmes an obsession not only one but three deadly, insanely handsome and rich bachelors. They will do anything to make her theirs. Either With their wealth, charm, and determination. They will stop at nothing to bring her into their lives, even if it means shattering her innocence and leaving her forever changed. Forever their's even if it includes - killing people.

Chapter eight.

I stretched my arm softly, a soft groan left my mouth. My back is hurting badly. I have been typing on my laptop for three hours, writing down the project. The deadline is near and I wanted to give the best. I shared a mutual conversation with jungwoo — only slight conversation.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

I know the fact that I do anything stupid then others will face the consequences. And I don't want that.

My grandma is still being treated and her surgery is going on. They have been keeping checks on her and I'm glad. At least they are good at this. Knowing the reason I can't rely on anyone except them. They can handle the expense and everything. I want to work hard so i can pay them off. I feel burdened.

Not to mention, their small touches never stop. Sometimes they throw me on their bed and devour me until i forget how to breathe.

They would touch me and clean me gently, they would cuddle me after the sex. Taehyung mostly stays in the mansion with me. He would touch me, shower with me and clean me up. He asks me about my day and has a small talk with me.

    He always listens attentively to what i say. Even my words are hatred.

Whenever Jungkook sees me, his lips are on mine. Jungkook doesn't care about his own pleasure, he doesn't care if he comes first— he cares if i did— several times. He also never leaves me dirty, he washes me up, dresses me up, and brushes my hair.

Jungkook makes amazing hair styles.

Taehyung would call the maids to bring food when I'm too sore to move.

Recently i got to know from Jimin that aunt and min-ah has been shifting to New York. And they have been dealing with their business there. I don't know if it's true or not.

But I don't think they care about their mother at all — let alone the sister.

No matter how much i run, from myself and my feelings for them. In the end it's always me and my thoughts. I can't help but feel a little vulnerable when I'm with them.

Not all girls like heroes. I was fated to be bonded with the Villains. Who'll put me ahead of everyone — including themselves.

They are extremely compulsive, their emotions, temper and love.

I sighed softly, and rubbed my temple feeling a headache forming. I grabbed menstruation cycle pills — i feel like I'm close to my periods. Which is good.

I have been taking pills.

Birth control.

These bastards whenever they are intimate, they fill inside me. If i get pregnant then it's worse, worse to leave them.

I opened YouTube and saw a few slides of cupcakes. I love cupcakes — back then i used to make it with my grandma. The sudden cravenness was overwhelming.

I opened my desk and take out a small diary, i wrote so many small recipes to make instead of eating snacks. I went downstairs. I was currently in black soft sweater and a pair of grey sweatpants. 

I greeted the maid softly not wanting to scare her as her back was facing me. "Can you tell me where the baking things are?" I told her specific things about the cupcakes. She smiled softly and nodded. She placed all the things on the kitchen marble.

It was almost 7:45 pm, but anyways.

I gently talked with her while baking and mixing the batter. Asking how long she has been working and other things she loves to do etc etc.

"Can you pass me the butter miss?" I spoke softly without turning around. When i heard nothing i frowned and looked behind.

"Want this?" Jimin held the butter in his hand. I nodded and looked at him. Jimin walked towards me. Jimin was in black simple black t-shirt and a pair of black skinny jeans. And black cap on his head. His silver chain showing.

"Why are you dressed in all black?" I couldn't help but ask, Jimin handed me butter and put it inside the bowl. Mixing the cupcake batter. Jimin said nothing and leaned on the kitchen marble and looked at me.

"You know what time is it right?" He asked looking at me.

"Yeah? Around 8?" I said like a matter-of-fact tone.

"It's time for dinner and You're eating these cupcakes. "

"I was craving it."

"Crave me, instead."

I glared into his dark eyes and he smirked.

"I'd rather crave cupcakes than you." I grumbled under my breath and mixed the batter. I cracked an egg and mixed it. Jimin came behind me sneaking his arm around my waist pulling me closer to his chest — snuggling against my neck. Inhaling deeply.

"You smell so good, always do." Jimin mumbled against the skin of my neck. "Jimin, let go. I'm working." I tried to wiggle out from his grasp.

I can feel him grinning against my neck. "Am i distracting you, angel eyes?" He pressed my bottom against his bulge. I take a sharp inhale. "Feel that?" He whispered against my ear, kissing the back of my ear.

These guys are always horny.

I slightly pushed him away, and grabbed the baking container. Applying oil and butter paper, i pour all the batter inside the container and put it inside the convection microwave. And applied the limit — i hope it turns out yummy.

Jimin opened the chocolate, he was about to eat it. I gasped softly and snatched it away — "hey, you can't eat this. This is for the cupcake topping." I frown softly. "

"Well I'm craving something sweet." He murmured leaning down staring at my lips. "You can help me tho."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"No."

"Yes."

Dammit.

He smirked. "Now now you can't back off can you, in the end you always end up what we want anyways." He smiled, and licked his lips. His eyes kinda vanished the way he smiled.

"Too bad I don't want you, nor I'll help you to feed you for your 'sweet treat' nor I'll share my cupcakes with you." I crossed my arms and looked at him.

Jimin yanked my closer with the hem of the collar shirt, i gasped softly.  I could smell his musk scent with a hint of something sweet. I looked up at his eyes.

"Aren't you talking back way too much?" He murmurs against my lips. He caressed my lower lips softly. "How's your project going?"

"It's going good." I said barely over the whisper, too bothered by the closeness. "Just good?" He demanded an answer, and wanted to know more. I nodded and gulped.

I nibbled my lower lips softly looking at him.

"Don't do that unless you want to be fucked in this goddamn kitchen." His jaw clenched and his voice came out strained and i know he wasn't joking around.

"You guys know nothing except that."

"When we have a woman like you in our life. We can't think of straight, baby."

"I wish I'd never met you, and them." I whispered, Jimin tucked loose strand behind my ear and caressed contour of my cheeks softly. Caressing them gently like I'm some delicate doll.

Jimin's lips brushed against my forehead "I'll meet you again and again if i have to. To see you, to look at you, to touch you, to drown in your hazel brown eyes. "

My heart thudded at uncontrollable speed.

I'm afraid he'll hear it, it was so loud. I could hear it in my ears.

"Can't stop thinking about you." His lips brushed against my cheeks. "Can't stop wanting you." He kissed my jaw. "Can't stop watching you." He kissed my eyelids. "You don't know what you're doing to me do you?"

"If you like me so much, then why do you and the other two act like this?" I asked softly and looked at him.

"Act like what?"

"You know what jimin."

Jimin looked away, not meeting my eyes.

"You guys act like extreme possessiveness, act differently then being gentle all of sudden. I feel suffocate, watched. Threatening me, and people who are trying to get close to me. Why?" I can't help but ask about these things, voice my thoughts that I always wanted to escape.

"You think we choose this? We chose to be like this? It happened angel eyes. Since the day you came — everything changed. And i know one thing. We are never letting you go. Ever."

Tears gathered in my eyes.

Gosh, i hate being so vulnerable all the time.

Before i controlled them, it rolled down my cheeks. Screw these hormones. Being vulnerable In front of this possessive jerks will only give them more power over me.

Jimin dropped his forehead against my mine, our breaths mingle together. "Always so pretty when you cry."

I gulped at his words.

"You're sick." I spat.

"Tell me something I don't know."

There was a small voice in the microwave, the cupcakes were baked. I wiped my wet cheeks and opened the microwave. I was about to take the container.

"Stop." Jimin suddenly said.

I looked at him with a frown.

"Where is the your fucking mind. Wear gloves, you were about to burn your hand." Jimin wore the baking gloves and took out the hot container.

The cupcakes were perfectly baked and smelling good. I sigh in relief and take out slowly each of them.

And Jimin watched me getting excited over the cupcake.

——

I was currently in university, me and Jungwoo were sitting together in our university class room hall. I was kinda nervous about our project - i just really hope that we pass and get points in our upcoming semester. It's almost like free marks and good for our GPA.

The professor was actually in a very sour mood today, he wasn't passing the students that easily. And i was really scared that he wouldn't pass our project either. Cause this is actually free marks.

And he even said if he liked one project a little too much, he'll add some extra marks with an announcement. I looked at jungwoo and he looked at me. He gave me a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, partner. We got it." He said softly leaning onto him, showing his fist bump.

I joined my fist with him with a soft bump.

"This was the easiest assignment i gave you - everyone. And this is actually a very poor result. Only if you guys actually focused on it instead of doing the parties."

The professor tsked with annoyance. Everyone looked either disappointed or they didn't care. This university of Seoul is basically the university of 'brats' no one really takes study seriously here.

Except for scholarship students.

Me.

"Anyways, this student actually preformed pretty well. The names are."

I felt my heart thudding.

My heart on my throat.

"Soohee and kang minjung, Min-Hyuk and won-woo, Cyra and Jungwoo and jung minho and jihyun."

A gasped escape my lips.

Oh my god we passed?

I looked at jungwoo, who was pumping his fist in air.

"See i told you" he nudged his shoulder with me gently. "Yeah, you told me" i nodded. "Great work, partner." I smiled at him.

He flipped his imaginary hair.

A giggle left my mouth.

"Sohee and kang minjung and Cyra Maevie and Jungwoo lee. You guys did more than better work. And according to principal as we said about the extra marks for your GPA. He'll decide it." The professor spoke.

All of us nodded.

"For the winners, sir?" Jungwoo asked, and the professor nodded.

"I don't get the concept of this competition." I mumbled.

"It's just a free marks, some people don't give a shit about it either. I don't too, but being you as my partner. Now i do."

I smiled at his words.

"And why is that?"

"You're a nerd." He teases.

I frown. "Whatever you say, I'm better than you."

He gasped and mocked hurt placing hand on his chest. "You wounded me, partner."

"By the way - I'm kinda nervous." I spoke softly looking at him.

Jungwoo frowns and crossed his arms.

"Why? We passed anyways."

"Yeah, i know but standing in front of the hall and they announce the result. It's very - urm i don't know."

Jungwoo held my hand under the desk, interwining hands with me. I gulped softly and looked at him.

"You don't have to worry okay. We are together in this, and trust me. We'll win."

Why this whole thing over a small project. I don't get it.

I heard from other students that, they have to announce some other things too. That's why they are doing this all together.

Makes sense.

Two our teams were standing on the stage, with everyone eyes on us.

I looked around and my eyes locked on Taehyung's.

He was sitting.

On the back, his both arm on his each thighs staring into my soul.

I gulped softly.

Jimin and Jungkook wasn't here. I don't know why tho.

I quickly averted my gaze.

"Good morning students", the principal spoke. The principal continued to speak, but my mind drift backwards to that incident of min-woo case scene.

I'm still very terrified, but I'm more terrified the fact. No one said anything about it. Not even principal. They brushed it off like it's just a normal thing.

No scandal, nothing.

I remember hearing a small news about it, that was an incident and other's were strictly forbidded to not talk about it any further.

An accident.

Nothing more.

That's what they all said.

"We won." Jungwoo shake me gently, i snapped out of my thoughts and looked at him.

"What?"

Jungwoo smiled widely and looked at me. "We won silly - we even won a laptop!"

I blinks slowly and looked around.

We won, we won.

I squealed left my mouth and my actions were impulsive.

Oh no.

I jumped in jungwoo's arms, wrapping my arms around his neck. Smiling, i felt him tensed in my arms by my sudden display of affection. I felt his breath caught in his throat.

Even my own heart skipped a beat.

Before i realized what i was doing, jungwoo's arm instantly wrapped around my waist and he lifted me from the ground with ease.

He chuckled softly against my ear. "We won."

I quickly snap out of my excitement Zone, i slowly get down and he gently puts me down. I brushed my bangs out of my forehead softly.

My cheeks flame. I can feel the exact heat.

Jungwoo showed me his palm, for a high five. Easing the awkwardness from me. I smiled gently and high five him.

My eyes locked on Taehyung's once again.

His eyes were darker than usual.

His jaw clenched. And eyes on mine.

I felt his lips moving forming some words, he mouthed.

"You're so fucking dead."

And i gulped.

My movements were quick and frightening. The ceremony continued to begin. I could still feel his eyes on me, but i just ignored it. I completely tried not to acknowledge his gaze that was leaving me bare and exposed.

I standing on stage with Jungwoo, couldn't help but feel the weight of Taehyung's dark gaze on me. As i remember my arms wrapped around Jungwoo in a spontaneous hug, i couldn't shake the feeling that her actions were leading them all down a dangerous path.

In the audience, Taehyung still watched my every move, his eyes filled with a darkness that both frightened her.

I know, deep down, that he was capable of great harm, his presence a constant reminder of the danger that lurked just beneath the surface.

My heart raced as i imagined the consequences of my own actions, the safety of Jungwoo hanging in the balance as i stood there, bare and vulnerable to Taehyung's consuming gaze.

As the performance continued, i felt naked, exposed, and entirely at the mercy of Taehyung's dangerous desire. I knew, in that moment, that i was in over my head, the consequences of my own actions too great to bear.

The students came down, and other students ceremonies began about their own other projects according to their majors. My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I took it out and read the message.

<I won't say it nicely again, be a good girl and meet me in the car. We are going back home.>

My chest heaved, i looked across the room looking at taehyung. Who was staring at me with deadly eyes - there was no hint of any emotion inside his eyes. They were dark and drooling.

"Hey, you okay?" Jungwoo's worried voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I looked at him. He looked down at me, i nodded and tried to smile.

"Jungwoo, i-i have to leave. Something came up." I quickly took a step back, not caring to explain anything. Before he asks any other questions. I turned around leaving the venue of the university hall.

I was walking down the hallway.

I was yanked off.

I bumped on his chest and looked up at him. Taehyung's grip on my waist and wrist tightened. I gulped and looked at him.

"Taehyung lis-" i was cut off by his walking, and yanking me off with him. "Taehyung, you're hurting me." I winced softly, trying to remove his grip from my hand.

"That's the point, flower. You love to get hurt right? - I'll show you."

We reached taehyung's car and he shoved me inside the passenger seat and buckled my belts.

Taehyung walked towards his driving seat, staring at the engine. He roared. He was practically driving so fast. Everything was so blurry around us, and so was my vision.

"Slow down" i whispered and looked down, tears rolled down my cheeks. I held the handle. Taehyung didn't slow down. Not even a bit.

I could feel his veins popping on his neck and forehead.

His veiny hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. "Please, slow down." I choked out.

He's mad.

We might die – the way he was driving.

there was always a weird kind of assertiveness in taehyung's voice whenever he voiced his love and craze for you. Almost as if this was normal, always as if he believes in his bones that you were meant to be his.

Like there was nothing wrong with the way they keep you. The way they treat you, locking up, every single thing. It was normal for them.

Taehyung wanted to set the world on fire, he will set that boy on fire, but what was he to do to you? Nothing? I mean why would he hurt his pretty little naive flower.

he was gonna teach you a lesson. And you got the hint of that with him speeding through the streets of Seoul like he owned them. He does own them.

"You're crazy."

"You make me crazy."

His voice was icy, not even a hint of mock, mischievous or anything. It felt like it was coming from a dead person.

As soon as we reached, taehyung dragged me inside. Taehyung shoved me on his bed, i clutched on the white sheets in the palm of my hand.

I looked at him, taehyung locked the door. He looked at me and smiled. That smiled terrified me - "why don't you smile and hug me too, flower?"

I crawled backwards, he grabbed my ankle and yanked me closer to him. "You never listen do you? We tried everything. We tried to be polite, gave you space, freedom - treating your fucking grandma."

Ny lips trembled.

Only if i could fight, slap or do anything but i can't.

My grandma was under their protection.

"What if i told them to stop the surgery and let your grandma die?" He whispered in my ear, kissing my temple.

No, no.

"P-please, don't." A choked sob left my mouth, "she's the only one i have." I whispered, taehyung licked my tears that were rolling down my cheek.

He hummed, pretending to think.

"You don't want that, right?" He raised his eyebrows. Looking down at me. I nodded almost pathetically.

"Spread your legs for me."

It's always give and take.

Always.

"Beg me to fuck you, beg me to make love to you. Show me your fucking affection. I crave it like a fucking starving man." He growled against my lips, and bit my lower lips.

I gasped softly.

Taking the chance, his tongue slipped inside my mouth. His lips moved fiercely against my lips. He devoured me furiously and angrily. Pouring out his pent-up frustration, jealousy.

His kiss consuming. Taking out every breath inside my mouth, leaving me breathless.

Deadly.

My hand quickly flies towards his chest, trying to push him. But he grabbed them pinning them over her head.

Taehyung spread my legs, his cloth hard bulge pressed on my clothed core. I nibbled my lower lips softly and breathed softly arching my back.

Taehyung kissed my throat.

"You make me go crazy, flower. I can't think of anything else. I can't do anything. I can't eat, i can't think. You. Fucking. Consumed. Me."

I closed my eyes, I don't want to think of anything else right now.

Taehyung's hand went to my pants, he leaned down slowly. He pulled my zipper down with his teeth and whispered kissing my clothed core - "this is mine, you're mine."

He yanked the pants off discarding them on the floor.

"I want your time, i want your affection, i want you to smile at me like you were smiling at the fucking jungwoo." He rasped, his hand went to the hem of my shirt.

"I want to feel your body on fire, i want to feel your heart racing. I want you to kiss my cheek, kiss my lips, kiss my body." Taehyung desperately kissed me again.

Taehyung's voice shaky "I'm so fucking in love with you, cyra. So desperately - so so desperately." He whispered.

"This isn't love." I pants softly against his lips. Looking at his dark eyes with my teary one.

"Call whatever you want. i desire you" taehyung removed my panties and slid his two fingers at once. I whimpered. "I need you." He said desperately.

"I burn for you." He kissed my cheeks, and temple. Burying his face in my neck. His actions were furious with gentleness as well.

"H-hurts."

"That's the point." He whispered in my ear, licking the earlobe.

"You know what? Jungkook was right — we should have killed him long ago. We were being patient." He said calmly like he isn't talking about murdering someone.

This is the last thing i want.

Someone being killed because of me.

I looked into his eyes – "don't do this, please."

He smiled tilting his head left almost dangerously staring into my eyes. "You're sexy when you beg." He placed a gentle chaste kiss on my lips.

Almost like a caress.

He worshiped my body, on his knees. His curled his fingers inside my pussy along sucking on my clit. My mouth fall open softly, my chest heaved as i stared at the ceiling.

Taehyung's hand continuously moved in and out curling inside — making me go towards the edge. A breathy moan left my mouth, no matter how much i control it. He sucked harder on my clit making my hips buckle again on his face.

"T-taehyung i-i-" I couldn't even complete my own sentence, my abdomen churned. I was close to an unknown pleasure threatening to come out.

"Come for me, flower." Taehyung whispered against my pussy. And i let go. My chest heaved, desperate pants left my mouth.

Taehyung sucked me off.

Every. Single. Drop.

He crawled upwards. "Taste yourself." He smashed his lips, kissing me fiercely. I could taste my own arousal on his lips. On his tongue. My sensitive pussy suddenly ached. More.

I want more of him.

He rubbed the tip of his angry cock on my clit up and down. His own pre-cum meeting my sensitive pussy making me arch more.

He pushed inside.

A loud mewl left my lips. "N-no pull out p-please." I pleaded, more like above the whisper. But my pleas went deaf to his ears.

"We're not even half inside, flower." He chuckled darkly against my ear.

Suddenly.

He thrust all one go.

My scream got muffled by his kiss, he instantly grabbed my legs putting over his shoulder. And groaned loudly. Taehyung thrusted in and out in animalistic speed.

His hand went to my nipples, flicking it. His mouth captured the right one.

I gasp.

He squeezed the left one, giving the same attention as right.

He placed another kiss on my throat, inhaling deeply.

His cock didn't stop going in and out, he slowed down his movement then going back in with deep and powerful thrust. Making me arch back.

A sob left my mouth.

Taehyung, filled with rage and a twisted sense of possessiveness, drove himself into me, his anger coursing through his every move. He lied against my neck, his hot breath a stark contrast to the cruelty in his words as he spoke of a love that was anything but pure.

His actions were not a result of love but a mere manifestation of his dangerous obsession. His large cock, thrusting in and out of my pussy with savage intensity, punishing me for even daring to look at other men, let alone hug one so intimately.

He drove himself deeper, using the memory of her affectionate embrace with Jungwoo as fuel for his unwavering anger.

  Despite the pain and shame, i couldn't help but feel a twisted sense of regret for her previous actions, knowing that they had led her to this dark and dangerous place.

Taehyung grabbed my hair yanking me up on his lap, i yelped softly against his lips as he settled me on his lap. His cock was still buried inside me. "Ride me." He rasped, he grabbed my hips and made me move back and forth.

He did all the positions. Every single one.

Our breaths mingle together.

Taehyung joined forehead against mine, staring at me.

Locking my every expression, every tear in his twisted, unhinged mind.

He left a mark on neck, dark and prominent. Clearly showing everyone that she's his — and theirs.

"I." Thrusted upwards. "fucking." Thrusted upwards. "Love." Thrusted upwards. "You."

We both came together.

His seeds filled inside me once again. They will leave me pregnant for sure.

Making me carrying another monster like them.

My eyes slowly drool, exhaustion took over me like a warm blanket. I whispered my last words. "Don't hurt him please." It was a mere whisper, above it.

"We won't — not yet."

And everything turns black.

[adcmpcrrish]

i have finished reading the raven king yesterday (for the first time since it came out all these years ago) and honestly i don't know how i'm supposed to live my life now that i have no more TRC to read after 10 years

[valyrfia]

exactly if I wanted best friends I would be into piarles which is probably the charles ship i'm least interested in even tho pierre is very obviously the driver charles is closest to in real life

I'm simply not compelled by Piarles, but I've never been compelled by friends to lovers type ships because that's not what I enjoy. I think Piarles makes for an excellent friends to lovers, as does Maxiel but considering my taste in ships outside of F1 is all Rhaenicent, Drarry, Stevetony–Lestappen was going to be a no brainer for me. If I thought their dynamic was just 'best friends', I wouldn't enjoy it. Simple as.

[wammys-house-official]

MELLO IS THE ONLY PERSON WITH STYLE IN THIS INSTITUTION!!!!

HELL YEAH THIS ANON HAS TASTE! I WILL COOK IN THIS LEATHER IF NEED BE, I WILL DIE IN IT IF NESSECARY AND NO TEMPERATURE NOR ROGER CAN MAKE ME REMOVE IT

[jils-things]

me when i stop caring too hard

[adcmpcrrish]

since it's been almost 10 years since i've read the raven cycle (minus the last book bc i still haven't read it yet XD) and there hasn't been a week in my life that ii have not been thinking about adam parrish, i've decided that in 2025 i'm gonna reread the first three books and then to finally read the raven king (that i've actually purchased back in 2017 but was too scared to read lmao) and it's actually ruining my life rn XD like i am still as obsessed as i was in 2015, i love this series and the characters so much

[legendary-assassin-stance]

oh i'm sorry, i didn't realize we were taking moral standing points from the asura now. y'know. the race that full-hog experimented and ripped apart sylvari even after knowing they were wholly sapient beings (and it wasn't even inquest! it was regular fucking asura! the arcane council most definitely okayed those experiments! never mind the fact that the council TO THIS DAY fucking openly allows inquest to do as they please so long as they don't cause trouble in rata sum) and have done little to nothing to apologize for that fact to their sylvari allies.

but no, you're right, the humans are the worst race in tyria just by way of existing and trying to find a place for themselves. how could i have ever thought different?

[sol-flo]

it's kinda hard because it's nonlinear but i wish there was like. a single pseudoregalia walkthrough. do i have to learn speedrun strats just to complete this game. do i have to invite a friend over hand them the controller and see if they figure out this jump.

[muntitled]

Tic-Tac-Toe

Pairing: The Salesman x Fem!reader

Summary: Every Wednesday your schedule consisted of attending classes during the day, and satisfying the needs of a sadist through the night.

Warning: Dead Dove Do Not Eat, Violence, Kidnapping, Isolation, SociallyAnxious!Reader, Blindfolds, Stalking, Knives, Blood, Gore, Stockholm Syndrome, Smut (+18) mdni, Degradation Kink, Praise Kink, Insertion, Fingering, Rough Sex, Erotophonophilia, Dom!Salesman, Sub!Reader, Dacryphillia, Sadomasochism, Gunplay, Deepthroating, Breeding Kink, Unprotected sex

A/N: Hell is empty

4k Words

You're strapped in a chair, like always, and you are blindfolded because he doesn't trust easily.

It's terribly annoying.

At any point of during and after your little 'arrangement' you could have called the cops. Doesn't he understand that?

Every Wednesday, you're taken from the warmth of your apartment, and you're delivered right back at 00:00 on the dot, every Thursday with barely an inch of life left in your bones. You'd either always come back wet, with semen sliding between your thighs, or with mysterious marks- old and new- crawling underneath your sweater. Whatever mood he was in, he'd always leave you feeling sore.

It should have bothered you.

The thought of seeing this large, domineering shadow-in-a-suit every Wednesday should not overwhelm you with all these feelings of excitement. Instead, you should do like all the mentally ill girls do and just get some fucking help.

But you want him to trust you, for some reason.

Which was utterly ridiculous considering the fact that to him, you were something akin to a porcelain wind up toy for his amusement. You had no business requesting he remove the blindfold aspect but still, you asked anyway. Toy's couldn't be trusted, could they?

"I'd really appreciate it if I didn't have to wear one of these everytime I visit your place." He removes the blindfold, and in a second, your vision is filled with nothing but him. One moment you were in the cozy warmth of your dorm room. Curled up on the couch while your roommate spends her youth effectively- out with boyfriends and friends and everything you didn't have. You answered the front door when you heard his special knock, like you always do. You walked with him to the cab. You let him put on the blindfold. You said 'I'm fine’ when the taxi driver got a little too nosy and you let him lead you away from your boring life.

If only for a few hours.

You'd let him do whatever he wanted for those few hours because such surrender was almost sacred. You forfeited your safety in his hands, to do with it whatever he pleased and in that, you found rest. Whatever happens, happens.

Forget this room- what was essentially his personal dungeon, windowless, red and boasting various torture objects- your eyes are only on him.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't feel the need to kidnap me anymore? We do this every Wednesday," You become more childish around him and he lets you. Like you forgot you are a fully autonomous university student. There was power in that too. "Surely we've established some sort of trust?” He doesn't respond to you immediately. You crane your head up at him, hungry to lock eyes with his cold, empty slits that enchanted you body and soul.

You are in love with him, perhaps.

That's a logical response isn't it?

You laugh almost.

Listening to yourself try to rationalize your fondness for such a horrible man.

Said horrible man is silent. All you hear is the clicking of his dress shoes as he moves to the leather seat directly across from yours. Your eyes scan over all his movements.

The right corner of his lip quirks up. A small coffee table creates the only distance between you and he bends over to pour you both a generous glass of Brandy on the rocks. You don't drink it. Ever since he's been bringing you here, you never do. He knows this, yet still he pours.

"This relationship isn't about trust." He says finally. Something inside you, that is perhaps a little broken, actually purrs at the sound of his voice. You're hyperaware of your thighs squeezing together on the leather seat. They're spilling out of the sundress you purposely wore today.

Lots of your clothes were for the function of comfort. Your body was full and curvy and not always something to be advertised, unless you wished it to. Tonight, you wanted to show off as much as possible.

A thick leather band is keeping both your wrists locked to the armrests, while he sits back, free and so irrevocably in charge it should scare you. It should. But the sick and incredibly deranged thing is that it doesn't.

Outside, the rain is beating down on whatever building you're in, casting a thick veneer of grey all across the city.

But inside this velvet room... your heart is hammering inside its cage as you watch him undo the buttons of his crisp suit. A black one today. Jet black like his hair.

Although-

"You've got more grey in your hair than last week." You can't help but say.

He tilts his head in inquisition. "Are you insulting me or complimenting me?"

"I'll leave that up to you to decide," you shrug your shoulders as much as you can under these limited restraints. At least he hasn't restrained your ankles this time. Progress. "In here, you're the boss. Right?"

He takes a sip of his drink until finally, you've finally locked eyes. Your bare toes curl and your back arches slightly as you sit a bit straighter in your seat. Like you're in a lecture hall, although he is far more interesting than any of your professors.

"I'm not as young as I used to be," he finally says as he takes one more sip of his drink before bringing his briefcase onto the coffee table. Its presence is ominous and so horribly loud for an inanimate object. It kickstarts all your dormant nerves, revving up all the rest of your senses that have yet to catch up to the fact that you were facing the man of both your desires and nightmares once again.

"Who have you told about our arrangement?" The question causes you to roll your eyes. He watches the petulant movement with that same, silent smile and blank eyes. He unclicks the briefcase. Your stomach lurches and your thighs squeeze together. Pavlov's dog.

"Every time you ask me-" an object clinks onto the table. A butcher knife.

You try to pull your eyes away from the objects he's placing on the table, one by one. "Everytime you ask me if I've told anyone about our arrangement-" another object. A wooden spoon beside the knife. "Everytime I tell you the same thing."

Your throat closes when he uncovers a dildo. Bright pink and fucking menacing. "Carry on talking." He says, snapping your gaze away from the objects lining the table.

"I don't have any friends." Your voice is wobblier. You try to deny the sight of the rabbit vibrator, "It's the reason you picked me." You clear your throat as you hoped to clear all the nerves beginning to fog your mind. "Someone could've followed me here. B-But I don't really know anyone enough to care." The final object that clunks onto the glass coffee table and this time, you're unable to look away.

"Are we ready to begin?"

The metal revolver laying quiet and undisturbed beside the rabbit vibrator makes everything else on the table look like children's toys. Even the butcher knife.

You pull at the restraints, your legs quivering slightly as you shift and writhe in the seat. He studies you as closely as you were once studying him. You can see the excitement begin to flood his eyes at the physical manifestation of your discomfort.

"Now you're getting it." He nods sardonically, taking another sip from his glass before placing the briefcase on the floor beside him. "You were a little too happy to see me," he joked, letting out an airy exhale of laughter.

"You wanna hazard a guess as to what we'll be playing today?" He's smiling, genuinely. With that look in his eyes you can tell he's hovering in the clouds. Meanwhile you've begun to feel real fear. No matter how regular these visits might become you'd never get used to him. It's impossible. Not when he found new and daring ways to torture and pleasure you every single week. You couldn't get used to something as brash and unconventional as him. Like the conditions of a child in a broken home, he kept his tactics inconsistent so that every week is a new hell or perhaps- depending on his mood- heaven.

"If I guess wrong?" You swallow thickly and something dark in him settles. He spreads his legs more, there's a twitch inside his lips before he smiles again.

"Well, guessing isn't the game, so you'll be fine."

You nod your head... assessing the objects. There's menacing objects and household objects. Even just looking at them you can tell what they all have in common.

"Am I going to have to insert-"

"You're not guessing." His voice booms. He rests his elbow on the armrests, his hands corded with veins seem itching to do something, you're not sure what. "I said guess." He commands.

"Hide and seek?"

He snickers, "A favourite-"

"More like your favourite." You snip back, "I couldn't sit down the whole week." You frown at the memory. That week he'd brought you to an abandoned warehouse, letting you run the entire perimeter full.

"It's in your best interest to keep coming to our sessions-" he reminds you, snapping you back into the present.

"You're paying my university fees, I'm not complaining." You nod, before plastering a thin smile on your face, "All I have to do every week is prostitute myself to a literal sadist-"

"Have you given up on guessing today's game?" He didn't like you making him hyper aware of the fact that this dynamic, whatever it is, is considered objectively bad. And so you're not surprised when he swiftly moves past the topic.

He leans forward. His large hand disappears under his chair before uncovering a small whiteboard. Four lines- 2 horizontals are running across 2 verticals, creating 9 blocks. He stands up, while your eye is still focusing on the board. From your point of view it sits underneath the row of objects on the table. You don't even realize your right wrist strap is being untied.

"Colour?" He asks, pushing a crate of whiteboard markers towards you. With your now free hand you pick the pink one.

He snickers. "Predictable." He whispers before placing a large, domineering hand on your head. He presses down your braids, patting you like a stray he's rescued from the cold. You stare aimlessly ahead, fearing you won't be able to contain everything you've begun to feel for him if you lock eyes now.

"We're playing tic-tac-toe," he relents. His hand lingers on your head a bit longer before he's stepping away.

"With a twist, I presume?"

"Clever girl," he nods, walking back to his seat. "So you're aware of the objects."

"Place a gun in front of a girl and she's going to notice."

"Paranoid girl." He tsks before leaning forward.

"You want to start or should I?"

"Wait-" you swallow, "What happens if I win?"

He smiles that dazzling, debonair smile.

"You pick which one goes inside you."

Lightning cracks across the sky. A chorus of thunder roars all at once like some kind of phenomenon and your lips stutter open.

"Th-That's insane I-"

"I shouldn't have to remind you that you came here out of your own volition. "

"What happens if you win?"

"Then I choose." He says.

Your eyes skate over the object. It doesn't take an ivy league graduate to hazard a guess as to which of the objects he's itching to stick inside you.

"There's a fucking knife here-" You're trembling. Tears are pooling in your eyes. It doesn't even matter that you're a somewhat decent tic tac toe player. It doesn't matter that you're confident in this game. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters.

"And there's also a spoon," he nods, neutrally, "And a vibrator, and a dildo. Etcetera. Etcetera." He leans forward, unclicking his whiteboard pen, "your words are just words, Darling. You're just listing things. Start," he says, with a deadly lilt in his voice. "Or I will."

You scramble to uncap your marker with one hand, all while he watches with dead and black eyes. You knew that whoever starts the game was placed at a big advantage and so you're nearly scrambling to place that dignified X in the center block.

"Clever girl." He says once again, drawing his blue 'O' directly beside your pink 'X'. You aim for the block above him. He blocks it. You aim for the block beside the center. He blocks that too.

Your victory comes too quickly. You barely feel it as you strike a line vertically through the blocks. 3 X's.

Relief washes over you but it's overcast with doubt. Like you're celebrating in trepidation as you watch him stand up.

"Congratulations! Which do you choose?"

"I can pick anything?" You ask, staring up at him, bright eyes wild with the adrenaline that comes with wanting to preserve your organs.

"Anything you want, my little winner."

You begin to lean over. His eyebrows quirk up when you wrap a small hand around his wrist.

"I pick that." You say breathlessly. Your eyes zeroed in on his hands at his side. And you watch as he walks towards you, as if compelled by an unforeseen force. His palms are calloused underneath yours and you blow out several unstable breaths as he stands above you. So imposing it's breathtaking.

"You sure?" It's the way he asks it that has you second guessing. And perhaps he sees the caution seeping into your eyes because there's excitement lurking in his. Before you're even able to formulate a response, his hand is locked tightly around your esophagus, vacuuming all pathways shut until you're writhing for air.

"A fine, fine choice," He's becoming more and more riled up the more you writhe in your seat, trying to scrounge for a single breath of air. He doesn't let you. Instead he moves behind you, before leaning down.

If you could breathe, you would shiver at the feeling of his lips behind your ear. "Here we go-" he whispers, before reaching around your torso with his free hand before forcing your legs open. The second he lets his three digits stab into your cunt, he uncurls the grip on your throat as you make a horrid sound somewhere between a moan, a scream, and a haggard gasp. "FUCK- Sl-Slowdown-" you knew better than to request something like that. All you hear is a snicker from behind you as pain blossoms all across your nether regions. He's not gentle. He's not kind. He doesn't allow you to adjust to his fingers before he's scissoring them inside you, causing a blood-curdling scream to rip itself out of your throat. Your back is arched and you're trying to get away from him but the fucking persists.

"You've been wet like this for me the entire time?" He sounds absolutely demented, behind you, "You wanted this didn't you?" He bites at your ear as the first tears begin to pool at your eyes, "My little winner."

"P-Please stop-" His fingers are restless inside you. Curling and uncurling. Scissoring and stabbing as if wanting to open you up and split you all the way in half.

"What a pretty little pussy, huh? Look at what a mess you're making."

"When-" you can't form words. "When- Stop?" It's all you're able to say as your nails dig into the material of his suit.

"The sooner you cum the sooner it stops."

You doubted your ability to cum under these circumstances. He's setting an ungodly pace and it's all so hurried and in a frenzy, it's like your brain does not have time to understand if you even like what's currently being done to you.

"What- Do you want you want my help?" you begin to shake your head. "I'll help you, baby-"

His other hand reaches over and pinches your clit.

Your eyes roll to the back of your head as your orgasm is quite literally forced out of you. Your hips writhe and your ass tries to leave the seat as the first feelings of pleasure rip through you by force. "That's it, Clever girl," he coos, still curling his fingers inside you, "That's my Clever girl." He says once more before stilling his movements. For a second you just sit there, trying to collect your breath while he's still inside you. All at once, his hands are removed from your body.

He grabs a handkerchief from his breast pocket and you watch him clinically wipe his hands before erasing the marks on the board with the same cloth. A very clear boner pushes against his black slacks yet still his face is calm.

"Alright, My turn to start-"

"WHAT!? B-But I won." You scream, absolutely seething with desperation.

"You know everyone who plays 'X' has a significantly higher chance at winning-" You say with your eyes narrowed. He nods.

"And you know that too, which means we each should be granted alternating times to play ‘X’. Regardless if you won or not." You slump in your seat, suddenly far too aware that your bare cunt is exposed.

"Don't mope." He says, "It's not cute." Before drawing his 'X' in the center.

You close your legs, sitting upright with a new zeal of self preservation as you grab ahold of your marker.

You draw your pink 'O' underneath his.

You both play many more rounds. All ending in ties. This is how you play- with a frazzled grip and closed legs. A shiver every now and then overcomes you with the gravity of your aftershocks. His snickers bring your eyes up to his. He speaks as he makes his move.

"You're so focused on blocking," he sighs, "You're not even trying to win anymore-"

"I'm not letting you stick a knife in my cunt." You nod in finality before blocking another move.

"Not even if I say please?" He asks, making a faux pout.

"Fuck off."

"In that case, I have to win."

Your heart kickstarts as he pushes his pen to the board. Images flash across your mind. Blood splattered across his gorgeous face. Your blood as he fucks the sharp end of a knife inside you. You nearly vomit while he speaks. “Easy as-" you block him.

"Tic-" you block him again.

"Tac-" you block him some more

"Toe- I Win."

A victory that somehow escaped your vision. He strikes a line diagonally through the squares and your stomach sinks. He stares at you from across the room. His eyes so deeply satisfied you can feel it radiating off of him in waves.

You lower your teeth to the other restraint, violently trying to free your left wrist from its oppressive hold. And you watch as the devil slowly rises.

Your heart aches. Your brain is sent into complete alarm as your flight or fight kicks in and your sympathetic nervous system fires.

"Now, which one would look pretty inside you?" He drags his fingers along the objects, undoubtedly an act of taunting. You stomp your feet on the ground. You try to push the chair underneath you but it's plastered to the floor.

"Please!" Tears are running thickly. They cloud your vision. You don't even see the way his smile falls enough for him to rub over the bulge in his slacks.

"Fuck," he says gravelly as he relents and picks up the gun. "You're so fucking pretty when you're scared out of your fucking mind. You know that?"

You shake your head as he nears, wondering if this might really be the end. Has your body become too worn out by his games? Has the time for him to discard his toy finally dawned on you both? Is he all grown up with no need for such things as toys?

"PLEASE-NO-"

"Open your mouth." He's standing in front of you, your head directly in front of his raging bulge.

You shake your head, trying to move away but he rips your face towards him. "Listening to me is the only choice you have to make it out alive, Baby. You wanna live, don't you?" He's nothing but a tall figure, with the overhead lights shining around his head like a halo. Your face right by his bulge.

"Little girl needs to go to school." He nods, eyes fluttering shut, "She needs to complete her studies and get a good job so she wouldn't have to meet with scary men like me- Fuck-" it riled him up to no end to have you scared of him. You suppose it triggered a part of him that craved attention. He needed to feel like he existed and if that was reeped from fear then so be it.

"Stick the barrel in your mouth," the bottom of his hand coaxed open your jaw, and, as if on autopilot, you listen. Perhaps there is a way out of this. Perhaps you should just listen.

"That's it... Fuck," he brings your free hand up to rub his erection "That's it, Baby, stick it inside your mouth." Cold metal hits your lower teeth, "Stick it in like you would a cock." He says, looking down at you intently as your tongue unfurls and you suck the barrel in. "Shit-" he places his other hand on the back of your head before forcing you to take the gun deeper down your throat. He's trembling. Far too badly. And so is his finger on the trigger.

"Fuck, you're such a fucking whore, you know that?"

You're gagging and flailing around the barrel, saliva slides down.

So desperate to please him.

In your hast you don't even realize your left hand that had been restrained is now free. Your eyes are closed.

Please him.

Just please him and you'll live.

"That's my brainless girl..." he praises and that rouses something in you. It has your hips bucking against nothing.

"Such a stupid girl..." he continues, "You're gonna ride me, aren't you? You're gonna fuck me so good-" You're not about to tell him that sex wasn't supposed to be apart of this game. You're not stupid.

You faintly hear the sound of a belt unlooping. A zipper siding down. "You're making me so happy, baby." He admits before effortlessly lifting you from the chair until you're straddling him.

You're free.

When did that happen?

"F-Fuck, I need you to ride me." His head is leaning back against the chair. His tie hangs messily from his shirt that has two buttons undone.

You're free.

"Don't try anything," he warns, as he lifts you enough to pull his cock out of his pants. "Matter of fact. Keep it in your mouth while you ride me-" He slams you down onto his cock the very second those words leave his mouth. He's fucking into you with recklessness and fury and violence. His hair falls in his face but the gun is too heavy, without a hand there, it nearly slips from your mouth.

He's careful to catch it, forcing the barrel back in your mouth as he places a hand on your ass, controlling how your ass bounces on his lap. The gun offers motivation like no other. It has you arching your back and swirling your hips as you tighten your cunt around him.

He sticks the gun down too far and you gag. "You trying to get me to cum, huh? You little slut-" you nod, the tears still spilling as pleasure begins to stream through your brain. It has you excited by the prospect of being held at gunpoint. You realize with grave certainty that you've arrived at the point of no return.

"What a good girl- fuck-" he's ramming up into you, his hand on the gun twitching like his cock does. "I'm gonna fucking cum- FUCK-" he does and your orgasm immediately barrels into you at the exact same time. You try to ride him, to milk it as much as you can, to continue to make him happy.

"Such a stupid fucking slut-" he whispers, eyes hooded as his hips still spurt cum into you.

Your ears perk. You see his finger on the trigger move. You squeeze your eyes shut as you hear a click.

"Such a silly girl." You hear him say. "Don't worry, Baby, it isn't loaded." You're still in your body. You're still alive, on his lap, your sundress unfurling around you both.

"Not yet anyway."

© to @muntitled on tumblr; do not repost

[thatdisasterauthor]

👀 i would be interested in hearing the deviantart points rant

Alrighty, the deviantART points rant. For context, I had a dA account from the time I was 12 and used it steadily until I was about 20. I was also a volunteer moderator with them for about a year, and they even offered me a job at one point. (But there was no way in heaven or hell they could've paid me enough to move to southern California, and god forbid they offer remote work.)

dA was one of the original social media behemoths. Never quite to the level of Twitter or Facebook, but if you were an artist you were on deviantART. It was a fantastic site back in its heyday. Artists got their start on there, recruiters were on there, art directors were on there, the community building features were fantastic. Yeah, it had its share of weird shit, but point me to a website that doesn't.

Multiple famous artists got their start on deviantART. Back then, it was a place you got real, legitimate work from. A place you could use to build a real, legitimate audience. The titans of early 2000s digital art that pretty much everyone knows (in the West, anyway), the ones who still have a massive effect on art styles today, basically all got their start on deviantART. It influenced the entire western culture of what art looks like on the internet, and that bled out into what art looks like everywhere else because these people made beloved shows and comics and movies and books and everything else.

But one of the best things about deviantART was that it was created at a time before everyone decided social media had to be slimmed down to its barest bones. It was a complex site, and there was a lot to it. That made it really easy for all levels of artists (and just plain art enjoyers) to use, and easy for them to make it function in a way that worked for them. This fostered a great environment where people of all skill levels could interact, share knowledge, and just absorb skills from one another.

Now, one area deviantART didn't initially cater to people was built-in payment options. They had a print shop you could upload your work to, but it was like Redbubble or Printful; merch selling, not custom work selling. So if artists wanted to offer commissions, they'd have to take payments elsewhere. (Usually Paypal.) Which was fine! That worked great!

But, well. Corporations gonna corporate. I forget the exact year, but one day they launched a new feature called Points. Points were a site specific currency, and they were one of the first (if not the first) to have such a thing. There were also some other things launched with it, including the ability to accept commissions with points as payment. You could also use points to buy site subscriptions, badges, stuff from the print shop, etc., or you could gift them to other people. You could also cash them out for real currency, for a fee (I wanna say the fee was 10%, and less if you were a subscribed user, but I can't remember exactly).

The conversion rate for Points was 1 Point=1US cent. Which seems fine on the surface! But the problem was psychological, because what they didn't do was actually make it look like that. Points instead looked like dollars, because there was no equivalent to actual CENTS in the Points ecosystem. So, for example, lets say you want to charge one dollar for something. That would look like this:

$1

P100.

Or ten dollars for something:

$10

P1000

Or a hundred dollars for something:

$100

P10000

See the problem? They're the same VALUE, but points just look massively bigger. This was especially a problem for people who didn't know what the conversion rate was because they just didn't know, or they were from other countries and REALLY didn't know because it wasn't related to their own currencies at all. (I think there was also a max amount of points you could charge for a commission, like a couple hundred dollars worth maybe? It was low when you converted it to real currency, if I'm remembering correctly.)

It devalued the art market like a knife to the gut. People were suddenly taking commissions for literal pennies just because the numbers LOOKED bigger. And because deviantART was such a hub for the art community, it bled out elsewhere. Prices started to dip other places too, because people who DID understand the conversion rate knew they could go on deviantART and get shit for super cheap from the people who didn't know or care. Which made other people lower their prices to compete, and it just resulted in a spiral to the bottom.

Would the art market have still tanked in the same way without the introduction of Points on dA? Maybe. But Points were the first domino to fall, and they were a massive one. The art market has never recovered even though deviantART has been 90% dead for going on a decade.

So yes. There's my internet history rant on Points and art values. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[mariasont]

A Puddle in Running Shoes A.H.

summary: your boyfriend finds out you have a praise kink and is having way too much fun with that information

masterlist

pairings: aaron hotchner x fem!reader

warnings: some suggestive content, hotch being a menace, reader having a praise kink, end suggests something may happen but nothing explicit in this one folks im getting my libido under control swear, also count how many times r refers to hotch's face as stupid im crying

wc: 1.9k

You hated running. No, correction, loathed it. Detested it. Despised it with every fiber of your being. If there was a stronger word, one that captured the burning, irrational rage you felt whenever someone suggested going for a jog, Spencer might have known it, but you couldn't bring yourself to care enough to ask. Simply put, running was not your thing.

But when Aaron, your boyfriend and somehow the most persistent man alive, asked you to join you on a run, you couldn't exactly say no. He didn't beg, Aaron Hotchner did not beg, but his version of asking, that soft it'd mean a lot to me paired with an encouraging smile, was close enough to begging in your book. Besides, you figured there'd be some sort of reward when you got back home. Aaron was good at those.

So here you were, contributing absolutely nothing to your marathon-obsessed, fitness-loving FBI boyfriend's training. Sweat coated every inch of your body, your legs felt like lead, and your lungs burned with every ragged breath you managed to suck in. The sun blazed overhead, making you feel more like a roasting chicken than a willing participant in this so-called fun activity.

Aaron, on the other hand, looked like he'd stepped out of a fitness ad, shirt clinging to him in ways that felt outright scandalous. Even the sweat on his face somehow made him look even more attractive.

He was at least ten paces ahead of you and every few steps, he'd glance over his shoulder, probably checking to make sure you hadn't spontaneously combusted or snuck off to find an air-conditioned cafe. Honestly, both were real possibilities.

Aaron's pace slowed until he was running beside you, throwing you a smile so unfairly handsome it made your legs feel weaker than they already did.

"How are you feeling?" The question felt retorical, anyone, profiler or not, was sure to be able to read you like an open book right now. "Still alive, or do I need to start figuring out the best way to carry you home without breaking any traffic laws?"

"I think I'm alive," you managed between gasps, wiping sweat from your brow. "But if carrying me is on the table, I'm not above playing dead to make that happen."

"Not necessary, I'd carry you anyway, if only to reward you for keeping up this long. You're doing great."

You foot caught a crack in the pavement, nearly hurling yourself into it, but Aaron's hand was there quicker keeping you upright as you tried to ignore the terrifying way your body had reacted to his compliment.

"Okay you can't just say stuff like that while I'm trying to run," you blurted out, avoiding his gaze. "You're trying to kill me, I swear."

You planted your hands on your hips, still trying to catch your breath, secretly relieved to have a break, even if it almost involved a face-first meeting with the sidewalk.

"Stuff like what?" He tugged at your ponytail and you swatted his hand.

"Nothing," you said way too quickly, shaking your head like you could physically toss what you said aside. "Forget I said anything. Let's just... keep running."

You quickly realized your mistake as soon as you started jogging again. You would never willingly suggest to keep running. Unfortunately, Aaron was actively aware of this, moving to come up beside you. You didn't need to look at him to know he had the stupidest smirk on his face.

He didn't say anything at first, to your immediate relief, just kept jogging beside you. The silence stretched on, his calm breathing only seeming to make your wheezing sound worse.

"You're breathing too shallow," he said after a moment, his tone completely casual like he wasn't even winded. "Try to take deeper breaths, match them to your strides. It'll make it easier."

You glanced towards him out of the corner of your eye before attempting his suggestion. You had no intention of letting him know that it worked. His ego was far too substantial for that.

"See? You're a natural," he said, shooting you a sidelong glance. "Atta girl."

Your brain flatlined and you almost tripped over your feet again, every rational thought replaced by static. What was wrong with you? You vaguely remembered reading somewhere that people with unresolved daddy issues were prone to developing praise kinks. Was that what this was? Whatever the reason, hearing Aaron talk like that shouldn't make you feel all gooey inside, but here you were, a puddle in running shoes.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, yup, fine!"

You stared at the ground so intensely, it was a miracle you didn't bore a hole into the pavement. Your voice had betrayed you, far too shaky and way too rushed, and you knew Aaron was probably filing away every bit of your reaction.

"Hey," he said softly, his hand brushing against the back of your neck as he spoke. "Stop staring at the ground. You'll run better if you keep your head up, it'll open your chest so you can breathe easier."

His hand lingered for a second too long than what your body could handle, leaving you completely flustered and fighting every urge to do exactly the opposite of what he said.

"There you go," he murmured, a small, approving smile tugging at his lips. "That's good, honey. Just like that."

His voice, his god forsaken voice, was like lightning to your system, and not in a good way. Or maybe it was a good way, which was the problem. It was bad enough to hearing it out here, on the jogging trail, but your brain decided to replay it in an entirely different inappropriate context: one that involved you, him, and a bed.

Your face burned, and you couldn't tell if it was from the exertion, or the very real possibility that your body was too receptive to those words. And now, not only were you fighting for every breath, but you were trying to figure out if the dampness between your legs was entirely from sweat. Surely it was sweat. Right? Gods, you hoped it was sweat.

You stopped so suddenly that Aaron jogged a few steps ahead before he realized you were not longer beside him.

"Okay, I'm calling it. I'm done. Can we please go home now?"

He jogged back to you, an easy smile on his face, and placed his hands on your shoulders as he reached you.

"Alright, we can be done," he teased, thumbs brushing lightly over your collarbones. "You survived, and you did great. I'm proud of you."

He leaned down then, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your lips that made the ache in your body a little easier to ignore.

When he pulled away, you barely managed to keep standing.

Aaron let out a low laugh, his hands squeezing your shoulders. "Alright. What's going on? What's wrong with you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," you said over your shoulder, practically power walking towards the car.

Aaron's laugh deepened and you ignored the funny feeling curling in your chest.

"Sweetheart," he said, gently tugging your elbow to slow you down. "Come on, talk to me."

"There's nothing to talk about, I'm fine!" You avoided his eyes as you tugged your elbow free. "I'm just tired, and, uh, need a shower."

A cold shower, your brain screamed, but you shoved the thought down.

"I know, I know you're tired," he said, lips curving into a smile, "but that's because you actually pushed yourself. I'm proud of you for sticking with it."

You were pretty convinced you were you were about to go up in flames. Your obituary would read death by too many unnecessary compliments. When your heart inevitably gave out, Aaron would have to explain to Rossi and the others how his dumb smile and sweet words had resulted in second degree manslaughter.

But then you saw it, the smirk. The one that said he absolutely knew what he was doing.

"Oh my gosh, you know!" You groaned and threw your hands in the air. "You know, and you're enjoying this!"

Spinning away from him, you stormed to the car, and slammed the door like it might shield you from his stupidly smug face.

You barely had time to exhale before the passenger door swung open, revealing Aaron, casually leaning against the car.

"You know," he said lightly, his tone far too casual for your liking, "slamming car doors isn't a great habit. You could hurt yourself."

"And you know," you snapped back, pointing at him, "torturing your girlfriend isn't a great habit either!"

He leaned in slowly, his fingers brushing against your shoulder as he grabbed your seatbelt. As he clicked it into place, his face lingered close to yours.

"I wasn't trying to torture you, baby. Just wanted to give you the chance to admit it, that you liked it."

Before you could muster a reply, Aaron's hand slid up to cradle your face, his thumb moving along your cheek. He leaned in, capturing your lips in a kiss that was so deep, leaving you no choice but to sink into it, even as the faint remnants of your annoyance tried to surface.

By the time he pulled back, you felt like you were under his spell. Then, without another word, he shut your door and headed to the driver's side.

"That's not fair," you muttered, crossing your arms and pouting as you stared out the window.

Aaron's hand found the back of your neck as he backed out of the parking spot, rubbing gently into smooth circles.

"I don't mean to be unfair," he said with a small smile. "I just needed to hear it, because sometimes people don't even realize what they need until they say it out loud. And I wanted to make sure I didn't misread anything, though I'm rarely wrong, as you know."

"Trust me, you remind me every chance you get." Your tone was dry, but you were well aware that the twitch in your lip was giving you away.

"Alright, smartass," he said, chuckling as his fingers pressed a little firmer into your neck. "Now tell me, how does it make you feel when I say those things to you?"

You groaned, burying your face in your hands. "I don't know, okay? I just... like it! Do I have to explain it?"

"You don't have to explain it if you don't want to," he said, "but I'd like to know what it is you like so much."

Aaron's hand moved from your neck to your hand, his fingers sliding between each of yours while his eyes stayed glued to the road, a thing that only came from months of familiar motions.

You let out a long breath. "I don't know. I just like hearing it. It makes me feel good. Special, I guess."

"You are special, sweetheart." His eyes flicked to you before returning to the road. "You're my best girl."

Your stomach flipped violently. You shifted again, trying to disguise the way your thighs pressed together tightly as your face burned hotter than ever. The debate earlier in your head was officially over, absolutely not just sweat, you thought miserably.

Aaron let out a soft chuckle, fingers brushing over your knuckles. "Something I said?"

You swatted his shoulder, your glare losing all its bite thanks to the flush all over your body. "You're enjoying this way too much."

"I can't help it," he murmured, voice dipping just enough to get you on edge. "But don't worry, I'll take care of my best girl once we're home."

You slumped in your seat, muttering something unintelligible that made Aaron chuckle again. And even though you wouldn't admit it, you found yourself smiling, already dreading and anticipating whatever he had planned when you got home.

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join my taglist here!

[forresttfirre]

— the “informant” (jason todd x reader)

Summary: You mark up one of Jason's case files, and it slips both of your minds the next day. So, when Jason brings the file with him to the cave, everyone quickly catches on to the fact that Jason is working with someone. He's able to pass it off as just an informant, but one sibling stumbles upon the truth. Word count: 1.1k

Jason lands as quietly as possible on the fire escape attached to his apartment — top floor corner, adjacent to an alley with almost zero lighting and a building with no windows. Great for a vigilante at least.

He crouches down by the window, pressing a disguised button to disable the alarm attached. After the soft popping sound, he pushes up the window and steps through into his apartment. His boots land on scuffed hardwood with a thud and he quickly shuts the window, turning the alarm back on while doing so.

The apartment is silent besides the soft rush of air coming from the air conditioner. As he moves into his kitchen, he hears a mug be placed on the counter gently, then the scratch of a pen against paper. A small fond smile forms on his face, hidden by his helmet, which he takes off as he passes through the archway.

You're sitting at the counter, a cup of tea to your right and a file in front of you. "You snoopin' through my stuff now?" He teases. You pick up your head just the slightest, and he can make out your sheepish smile. "You seemed a little stumped, thought I could offer my expertise." Jason is reminded of the past you once held, following your "mentor" around the world as they battled assassins and the like. You had a similar life to him, but you left your cape behind for a new start in Gotham of all places. He got lucky meeting you.

Jason watches as you twirl a glittery, purple gel pen in between your fingers. He silently removes the rest of his getup as you return to making small notes in the margins of the case profile. Being with you is easy, because sometimes his presence in the room is enough. No words have to be exchanged even as time passes.

He peels off his mask and washes away the 'glue' on his face. Jason can feel your eyes on him, watching as he shrugs off his leather jacket, then his gloves. "You joining me?" He asks when he turns around, tipping his head toward the hallway that leads to the bathroom. Sometimes, when he arrives home and you're awake, you'll join him in the shower. It's never anything sexual, but relaxing nonetheless; with your hands gentle as you run the soap through his hair, and your soft words. "Mmm...sure. I'm about done, anyway." You slip off the stool silently, closing the file before stretching your arms above your head.

A moment later, Jason is in front of you, placing a kiss on your temple, your cheek. "I think they might be selling to Scarecrow, some of the chemicals are similar to what he's been using lately." Jason groans at your statement and his head falls to lean against your shoulder. "Not now, I do not need more motivation to go back out there."

"Later, then."

Later never comes; Jason picks up a shift at the auto shop near the edge of Park Row, and you go into work as you usually do. He completely forgets about your 'annotations', so he brings the file with him when he visits the cave later that night.

"Since when do you own a glitter pen?" Tim teases from his spot by the computer, Jason's file open in front of him. "What— Gimme it." Jason springs forward, memories from the previous night coming back to him. Tim quickly grabs the papers, holding them in the air and leaving the manila file folder on the desk.

"What's going on?" Steph questions, eyes narrowed as Tim stands on his chair to get a height advantage over Jason. "Todd uses a glitter pen." Damian rolls his eyes before going back to sparring against a hologram.

"It's purple," Tim grins and laughs as Steph gasps dramatically. "You do like purple! I knew it!"

"I do not! Give me the file, replacement. I'm serious." Jason wraps his arm around Tim, pulling off the chair and into his arms. Tim squirms, then falls to the floor with the papers still in his hands. He scrambles up quickly, and extends his staff. "This isn't your handwriting...you're working with someone!" Tim exclaims, poking Jason away from him as he quickly reads through the top paper.

"Jason, we should talk before you let anyone else read our case files," Bruce comments as he easily grabs the papers from Tim's hands. "I'm not working with anyone," Jason grumbles, rolling his eyes behind his mask. However, his cheeks are red hot, thankfully hidden by his helmet.

Dick peers over Bruce's shoulder, reading as well. "Tim's right though, this isn't your handwriting," He grins brightly, walking over to Jason with a giddy smile. "Did you make a new friend, Little Wing?" Jason can hear Steph and Tim laugh in the background as he groans.

"It's— They're just an informant, I did background checks and I've known them for a bit. I trust them." Everyone goes quiet for a bit, staring at him like it's hard to believe that he'd let anyone else get that close. "That's good," Dick comments, and everyone murmurs their agreements. It's awkward, because they still step around like he'll snap at them any second.

"I'm leaving." He stomps over to his bike, the engine roaring loudly as he starts it up. There's eyes on his back until he's out of the cave.

After Bruce and Tim read through the papers annotated by Jason's informant, Cass grabs them. Tim had taken pictures to try and analyze the handwriting, and she could see Bruce's silent questions about who the informant could be. Whoever Jason gave the file had insight even Tim missed the first time, and they added funny little comments on the side. When she goes to put the papers back in the file folder, she finds a sticky note on the inside in the same glittery purple pen. You're welcome Jay; I <3 U :).

Cass smiles softly, taking out the sticky note carefully and putting the papers back. When she goes out, she starts in Crime Alley first, even if it's Jason's territory. He finds her quickly.

"What're you doing here, Bat?" Jason asks, arms crossed over his chest. Cass opens one of the pockets on her belt, and pulls out the sticky note. She unfolds it before handing it to Jason. He reads it, then quickly looks at Cass again. "You didn't show anyone, did you?"

She shakes her head and Jason sighs in relief. "Thanks." Cass nods before leaving the rooftop just as fast as she came.

Jason folds the note back up with a smile. He'll have to delete some of his mask footage tonight.

my first time writing for jason, i hope you enjoy ☺️

[hatethysinner]

if you take little prompts, could i propose a jealous remmick drabble with a breeding kink? 👀

"I’m gonna fill you up, make sure you carry somethin of me forever"

ᴍᴇᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀꜱ

ᴡᴄ: 6.9k (i giggled too)

ᴀ/ɴ: the title choice... if you know you know. anyways, i needed to get my freak on and god damn did i do just that. i adore fluff but sometimes i just can't say no to my pussy. please don't talk to me about the mental state i was in while writing this. i simply have no excuses, take me to horny jail. though i will say i feel WAY more confident about writing smut now. i think i should do these more often because it's kind of an outstanding way for me to stretch my legs if you will. THAT SOUNDS SO CRAZY LAMFJDJHVHBJDV but i even got over my fear of em dashes just a tiny bit. also, this was a combination of like 3 asks in 1 and you'll definitely SEE which ones i'm talking about when you check the warnings. anons, you know who you are!

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: 18+ MDNI (!!!), filthy disgusting shameless smut, minimal plot all porn, exes, stalking, very rough sex, p in v, cunnilingus, fingering, spit kink, degradation kink, breeding kink, dumbification, sadism, masochism, choking, spanking, biting, dacryphilia, overstimulation, eye contact, drooling, cuckolding, infidelity, bloodplay, threats of violence, fantasizing about violence, graphic violence, murder, dark!dom!remmick, sub!fem!reader, reader is just as freaky, vague setting, excessive use of pet names, excessive use of italicization, read at your own discretion

The night was quiet. Too quiet.

Not the kind of quiet that came with peace. Not the softness of contentment or rest. This was the kind of silence that felt like it was waiting. Like something pressed against the windows, unseen, watching the curve of your back as you moved through the hallway in your robe, your bare feet barely whispering against the floor.

You should’ve been asleep. But the bed felt too big tonight.

Your husband was out, running one of his rare late-night errands. Something about a friend’s stalled car, a favor owed. He’d apologized for leaving, pressed a kiss to your forehead, a hand brushing the side of your face like he always did. “Won’t be long,” he promised. “I hate sleeping without you.”

And he meant it. He always did. He was that kind of man.

You loved him. You did. He was good. Honest. Steady. The kind of man who brought home your favorite pastries without being asked, who offered to do the dishes before you even touched your plate. You didn’t marry him expecting fireworks. You married him because you were tired of chasing smoke.

But some nights, like tonight, you still missed the fire.

You leaned against the kitchen counter, sipping lukewarm tea you’d already forgotten to drink, robe slipping off one shoulder. The tile was cool beneath your feet. The hum of the refrigerator filled the space like static, soft and constant.

And then, like it always did when you let your mind wander too far, the memory of him crept in.

Remmick.

A name you hadn’t spoken in years. A man you hadn’t touched in longer.

You cut him off like you were supposed to. You did it for your own good. Your sanity. Your future. But Lord, if there wasn’t something in the way he ruined you that no one else had been able to match since.

He didn’t beg. He didn’t need to. Just looked at you in that way that made your stomach knot and your thighs press together. He touched you like he was claiming something. Deep, slow, maddeningly precise. He didn’t fuck fast. He fucked full. He filled you, stretched you, split you open in ways that made you forget your own name. And when he looked at you—

God, when he looked at you.

It was like you were his favorite meal. His last drink. His only prayer.

Your husband never looked at you like that. He looked at you with kindness, sure. But never hunger. Never need. Never like you were something to be devoured.

You closed your eyes, set your mug down. The ache between your legs pulsed, low and steady, like a bruise remembered. You shouldn’t miss him. You shouldn’t want him.

But you did.

You always had.

And it had been so long since someone made you come the way Remmick used to. Effortlessly, endlessly, like he knew every part of you before you even touched yourself for the first time.

You shivered.

Outside, thunder rumbled low in the distance.

Somewhere, not nearly far enough, Remmick was still out there.

Waiting.

And, of course, it had to be tonight when he came.

The knock was sharp. Not loud. But sure. Like whoever stood behind that door knew you were already halfway toward it, breath stuck somewhere between your ribs. You froze in the hallway, mug still warm in your palm, heart already catching on a beat you hadn’t felt in years.

Three more taps followed. Firm. Even. Familiar.

You didn’t need to check the window. Didn’t need to ask who it was.

Your feet moved on their own.

When you opened the door, there he stood.

Remmick.

Older, sharper, polished like glass but dangerous like a blade. He leaned against the frame like he owned it, like he’d been here before and would be again. That light blue shirt was pressed clean, top buttons undone just enough to show a sliver of white undershirt and the chain you remembered. Gold, delicate, glinting faint in the porch light. Black slacks. A belt with a gold buckle. Suspenders hanging easy off his shoulders.

His hair was slicked back, still dark, still wild in places where the waves refused to be tamed. But it was his eyes, those deep sea-blue eyes, the unmistakable red glow, that made you forget how to breathe. That looked at you like you were the only thing that had ever made him feel.

He didn’t just see you.

He devoured you.

“Well, hey there, darlin’,” he said, low and slow and unmistakably him. He didn’t bother hiding the curve of his grin. Fangs bared. Sharp. Bright. Gorgeous.

Your pulse tripped over itself.

“What…” You swallowed. “What are you doin’ here?”

That smile stretched wider, lazier. He stepped forward just enough for the porch light to catch the edges of his collarbone, the hollow of his throat.

“Y’know damn well why I’m here.”

There wasn’t an ounce of shame in his voice. Not one drop of hesitation. Just velvet certainty, dragging you backward into something you’d spent years clawing your way out of. Something you never stopped missing.

You blinked at him, trying to level your tone. “My husband—”

“Ain’t here,” Remmick said quick and flat, like it was obvious. He glanced down the street. “Car’s gone. Bedroom light’s off. Not a single trace of that man in this house ‘cept that little ring you’re tryin’ to hide behind your fingers.”

You dropped your hand before you could stop yourself.

He tilted his head. “Still nervous, huh?”

“Remmick—”

“You alone?”

Your lips parted, but the truth had already settled between you like smoke. You knew the question was redundant. That he was simply trying to drive home the point.

“…Yeah.”

His mouth twitched. Not a smile. Not exactly. Something darker. Warmer. Hungrier.

“Knew it,” he murmured. “Knew he didn’t know what to do with ya.”

Your breath hitched.

He leaned forward, just a few inches, but it knocked the air right out of your lungs. The air between you changed. Heavy. Hot. Close. The kind of air that pulled your thighs tight and made your stomach knot with something sharp and sweet and old.

“Ya look beautiful,” he said, his eyes raking over you. “But y’knew that already.”

You should’ve closed the door. Should’ve told him to leave.

But you didn’t.

Remmick’s voice lowered, slow and syrup-thick. “Let me in.”

It wasn’t a question.

The muscles in your arms tensed, fingers still on the knob like you weren’t sure who you were anymore. Every part of you said no. But your body, your breath, your blood? All of it whispered yes.

He waited.

And waited.

His eyes burned into you, red flickering hotter now. Not loud, not angry. Just patient. Starved.

“I ain’t gonna ask again,” he said, voice soft, almost sweet. “Don’t make me beg, baby.”

Your throat went dry.

You didn’t shut the door.

You didn’t step back.

You didn’t even breathe.

“…Come in,” you said. Quiet. But clear.

And he did.

The moment he stepped inside, the door shut with a thud behind him.

Remmick laughed.

Not a sound you’d heard from him before. It wasn’t warm or familiar. It wasn’t charming or even cruel. It was cold. Final. Like something had been waiting, watching, for the moment you said Come in, and now that you had, it didn’t have to pretend anymore.

“You’re just as desperate as I remember,” he said, still smiling as his boots landed slow and heavy on the floor. “Knew y’would be.”

Before you could even blink, he had you. A searing kiss, full and crushing and greedy. No warning. No space to breathe. His hands gripped your jaw, thumbs pressing your cheeks, mouth sealing over yours like he’d gone too long without it.

You should’ve pulled away.

You should’ve shoved him off, reminded yourself of the ring still sitting on your finger.

But your lips parted.

Your breath caught.

And when his body pressed against yours—hard chest, long arms, belt buckle cold against your stomach—you melted into it with a sound that betrayed every shred of shame you still had left.

You hated how much you missed this.

How much you’d been starving, too.

Remmick’s hand slid down the front of your robe. He didn’t waste time. Not even a little. Fingers traced the curve of your stomach, the ridge of your hip, and then dipped between your thighs like he already knew what he’d find there.

When he felt how wet you were, he growled.

Actually growled.

“Slut,” he muttered, dragging his mouth along your cheek, jaw, ear. “My married girl, touchin’ herself to the thought of me. Makin’ them soft sounds every time y’say my name.”

You trembled.

“I heard ya,” he whispered, voice all breath and bite. “Every damn night. Ya don’t know how many times I nearly came through that window just to shut ya up the way ya wanted.”

His fingers were still there, not moving much, just resting. A threat. A promise.

You could feel your heartbeat in your throat, in your fingertips, in your thighs. Your robe slipped further open, the air cool against your chest where the silk parted.

“I didn’t—” you tried, but the words caught somewhere deep. You couldn’t lie. Not to him. Not with your legs shaking and your lips kiss-bruised and your entire body leaning into him like it had never wanted anyone else.

He chuckled again, quieter this time. Darker.

“Ya did,” he said, kissing the side of your neck, lips soft now. Tender, even. “And I ain’t mad, darlin’. Y’think I don’t dream ‘bout this too?”

His other hand came up to cradle your face, thumb brushing beneath your eye like he hadn’t just dragged twenty years of buried longing to the surface in a single kiss.

“I just didn’t think,” he murmured, eyes glowing as they flicked to yours, “ya’d open the door so easy.”

And then his hand moved.

Two fingers, thick and slow, slipped inside you with a precision that made your knees lock and your breath shudder out in a gasp you didn’t mean to make. No warning. No teasing. Just in, to the knuckle, deep and deliberate, like he’d never forgotten the exact shape of you.

You jolted forward against his chest, hips stuttering, thighs pressing shut on instinct. But his arm wrapped firm around your waist, locking you there, helpless and pinned against him as he crooked his fingers just right and pulled another sound from your throat you didn’t recognize.

He groaned low. “Still so fuckin’ soft. Still open for me like I never left.”

Your hand slapped the doorframe for balance, fingers scrabbling, mouth half-open, trying to find air. But Remmick wasn’t giving you space. Not anymore.

His mouth brushed your ear. “He ever touch ya like this?”

You didn’t answer.

His fingers stopped.

Completely.

The stillness was brutal.

Your body rocked against him, desperate, aching, but he didn’t move. Not even a twitch.

“Answer me,” he said. Calm. Almost bored. “Your good man. Your sweet husband. He ever make ya feel like this?”

“…No,” you whispered, too soft.

Remmick clicked his tongue.

“I said speak up, baby. Y’know better.”

You swallowed hard, voice shaking. “No. He—he doesn’t.”

A satisfied hum rumbled from his chest. “Didn’t think so.”

He thrust his fingers deeper, slow and grinding, pressing against that spot that made your spine curve and your mouth fall open.

“Ever make you soak through your sheets just from thinkin’ ‘bout a look?” he asked. “Ever make your legs shake ‘cause you wanted it so bad you thought you’d die from it?”

You whined. Tried to shake your head. But again, he stopped.

Not a flex. Not a curl. Nothing.

“Remmick—please—”

“Answer me.”

Your voice broke. “No. Never. Not once.”

His mouth split into a grin so wicked it made your whole body clench around him. “Didn’t think so.”

He fucked you slow, fingers curling in a rhythm that felt like a secret being pulled from your bones. His hand on your waist held you still, anchored you to him as he worked you open with ease, with arrogance, with that goddamn patience that made him feel like punishment and prayer in equal measure.

“Y’ever beg for him?” Remmick murmured. “Cry for it? Lose your fuckin’ mind just ‘cause he looked at you the right way?”

You didn’t want to answer.

You didn’t want to admit any of this.

But the pause was longer this time. The stillness unbearable. Your body was screaming for it.

“No,” you gasped. “Only you.”

“That’s right.” His smile pressed into your neck. “My good little wife, moanin’ for the wrong man.”

His thumb found your clit and circled it once, just once, enough to make your legs buckle.

“Ya feel how wet you are?” he whispered, nose brushing your cheek. “This for him?”

You shook your head. “No.”

He paused.

You whimpered.

He pulled back just slightly. Not out. Just enough to make you feel the empty stretch behind it.

“For who?”

Your voice cracked. “You.”

“Say my name.”

“Remmick.”

He groaned against your throat, fingers thrusting again with filthy, exquisite control.

“Fuck, that’s it. That’s my girl.”

You couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. He didn’t just touch you, he worked you. Drew out every forgotten ache, every unsaid word, every damn piece of yourself you’d buried under decency and dishes and folded laundry.

“Ya ever fake it?” he asked, lips at your jaw. “For him?”

You nodded.

He stilled again.

You whimpered, panicked. “Yes! Yes, I—God, I have, I did—”

Remmick chuckled darkly, fingers starting to move again, slick and obscene.

“Course ya did. Poor thing. Never stood a chance.”

You clenched around him, helpless against it. Your head dropped back, vision fogging.

“That’s it,” he cooed. “Y’remember how this ends, don’t you?”

You couldn’t answer.

Didn’t need to.

He already knew.

And so did your body—traitorous, needy, too honest for its own good.

You were close.

You were so fucking close.

And just for a moment, you let yourself believe he’d let you finish.

Just as your stomach curled, breath catching, thighs beginning to tighten—he pulled out. Abrupt. Cruel.

Your whole body jerked like he’d ripped something vital out of you. A desperate, broken whimper escaped your throat before you could bite it back.

And Remmick laughed.

“Oh, baby,” he said, voice thick with mock-sympathy, “that little sound right there?”

He licked the tips of his fingers slow, eyes never leaving yours.

“That’s the sound of a girl who forgot who she was dealin’ with.”

You hated the way your body trembled. Hated that your pulse was still stuttering out of control. Hated that he was right. That your cunt was still clenching around nothing, already grieving the loss of him like he’d been inside you for years instead of seconds.

Before you could think to curse him, slap him, beg him, he moved.

Remmick grabbed you by the hips and lifted.

Effortless. Like you weighed nothing. Like this wasn’t the first time he’d thrown you around.

Your legs wrapped around his waist on instinct. Old muscle memory. Dangerous muscle memory.

Your arms clung to his shoulders as he walked, carrying you like a man on a mission.

And you knew.

You knew where you were headed.

The moment you saw the edge of the dining table come into view—solid oak, the one your husband insisted was “too nice to actually use”—your breath hitched, legs squeezing tighter around his hips.

“Still remember, huh?” Remmick muttered against your jaw, setting you down with zero gentleness. Your back hit the wood hard enough to knock a gasp out of you, the cool polish biting into your skin through the robe’s thin silk. “Told ya once I’d take you on every fuckin’ surface of that house. Never broke that promise.”

You barely had time to adjust before he gripped the hem of your robe—what little of it still covered you—and ripped.

The bottom half tore clean off, jagged and loud, silk whining in protest before it fluttered to the floor.

You were bare beneath it.

You always had been.

Remmick groaned like he was seeing it for the first time. “Goddamn, darlin’.”

Then he dropped to his knees.

Didn’t say another word. Didn’t tease. Didn’t breathe.

His mouth found you like it belonged there.

Hot tongue, open mouth, greedy hunger.

No hesitation. No warm-up. He dove in like he was starved, like he’d been dreaming of this every goddamn night since the last time he tasted you. His hands gripped your thighs, spread them wide, fingers digging in like bruises he meant to leave.

And his mouth—

You screamed.

Low and sharp, head tossed back as he licked through your folds with the kind of practiced ruthlessness that made your vision blur.

He devoured you.

Sloppy. Loud. Wet.

His tongue flicked against your clit with obscene precision, slow and steady until your hips bucked. Then he sucked it between his lips and groaned like it was his favorite flavor.

You clutched the edge of the table with both hands, knuckles white, legs already shaking against his shoulders.

“Oh my God—Remmick—”

He didn’t slow.

Didn’t stop.

Didn’t even look up.

You felt him groan into you, like your taste alone was something holy. One hand slipped down to grip your ass, yanking you closer to the edge, forcing you to take it, to feel every roll of his tongue like a punishment you’d begged for.

You wanted to run.

You wanted to cry.

You wanted to come.

You could feel it, spine curling, fingers digging into the table hard enough to leave crescents. Your breath came fast and ragged, hips rolling helplessly against his mouth as he sucked and licked and fucked you with his tongue like he meant to ruin you.

And he did.

Because he always did.

The orgasm hit you like nothing else ever had. No slow climb, no gentle crest. Just an eruption, pure and bright and violent, ripping through your entire body like lightning set to music. You screamed. You sobbed. You shook, thighs squeezing around his head as your back arched clean off the table.

You came so hard you forgot your name.

And still, Remmick didn’t stop.

His hands held you open, mouth insatiable, tongue dragging through the aftermath like he was trying to clean you out, like he couldn’t stand to waste a drop. You cried out again, voice cracking, body too raw and too sensitive, but he kept going, sucking and lapping and groaning like he’d never get enough.

You tasted yourself on the air. Felt the heat dripping down your thighs. Felt your soul start to float.

Until finally—

“Please,” you gasped, sobbing now, voice broken. “Please, Remmick—s-stop—‘s too much—please—”

You were crying.

Tears streaked your cheeks, your chest heaving as your hands tried and failed to push his head away.

And that’s when he looked up.

Face soaked.

Neck wet.

Shirt clinging to his chest, sheer with your slick.

But it wasn’t just you.

There was drool.

An obscene amount.

Slipping from the corners of his mouth, glistening down his chin in thick, silvery ropes. So much spit you couldn’t even understand how it kept coming, gluing him to you, shining like filth made holy.

He stared at you.

Eyes glowing—red, hungry, starved.

And then he smiled. Real slow. Real soft.

“Ya always look the prettiest when ya cry.”

That broke you.

Something in you cracked wide open. You whimpered, too weak to fight, too full of him to think.

And then he moved.

He stood in one smooth motion, grabbing you by the waist, and lifted you off the table like you weighed nothing. Again. And you went, limp and ruined, legs instinctively wrapping around him, arms slung over his shoulders.

This time, his tongue shoved its way into your mouth the second he caught your lips.

And you drowned.

In yourself. In him.

The taste was unbearable. Your come and his spit, mingled and messy, wet and wild. It filled your mouth, coated your tongue, slid down your throat as he kissed you with open-mouthed desperation, feeding it to you like it was a gift.

You choked on it.

You loved it.

Your fingers curled into his shirt, still damp with what you’d given him, and he kissed you harder, tongue claiming you like he needed it to live.

Then, he turned.

He walked.

Straight down the hall, not even breaking the kiss.

And you knew where he was taking you.

The bedroom.

Your bedroom.

Where you and your husband lay in false comfort night after night.

Where your hand slipped between your thighs in silence after the lights went out, tracing your own skin as you bit your tongue to keep from whispering the name of the man you really wanted.

Remmick didn’t speak as he pushed the door open with his shoulder.

Didn’t look around.

Didn’t hesitate.

He set you down hard on the edge of the bed, the marital bed, the sacred shrine of everything you pretended was enough, and looked down at you like he was ready to burn it to the ground.

You were on him the second your back hit the bed.

Fingers trembling but fast, grabbing for his belt buckle like it was the only thing tethering you to sanity. You needed him out of it. Needed him inside you, now, needed to feel every inch of him stretch you open until you forgot the name of the man who actually slept in this room.

The metal clinked once before you got it undone, hands sliding down to shove the leather free.

Remmick chuckled.

Not the amused kind.

The mean kind.

“Christ, slow the fuck down,” he snapped, voice a blade slicing through the haze. “Ya always were a needy little thing. Sloppy hands, pantin’ like a bitch in heat.”

The words should’ve shamed you.

They didn’t.

They burned.

Hot. Dirty. True.

You didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. But you heard the rustle of his slacks hitting the floor, his boxers following quick after. He didn’t bother with his shirt. Didn’t even unroll his sleeves. He climbed on top of you half-dressed, his chain swinging low and his breath heavy as his body pressed yours into the mattress like he was settling back into something he’d missed.

He didn’t have to try. Didn’t need force.

His weight alone pinned you down.

One arm slid beneath your back, the other caught your wrists, locking them overhead with no more effort than it took to breathe. You couldn’t move. Could barely think.

And God, it was familiar.

The ache of it.

The sheer rightness.

The feeling of his body covering yours, his mouth close enough to taste your thoughts, his cock heavy against your thigh as he lined himself up with no warning, no softness, no pause.

This was love, wasn’t it?

Not the gentle, tepid kind your husband gave you—bedtime kisses and surprise bouquets.

This was Remmick love.

Cruel. Honest. Brutal.

“I shouldn’t let you fuckin’ have it,” he muttered, eyes burning into yours, “after the way ya ran. The way ya begged me to stay, then slammed the door like ya meant it.”

You squirmed beneath him, already gasping at the feel of his tip pressing just there, your cunt still soaked, still trembling, still too raw from what he did to you on the dining table.

“But y’want it so fuckin’ bad, don’t you?”

He didn’t wait for your answer.

He slammed into you.

One sharp, vicious thrust.

You cried out, body arching up as your walls struggled to take him, stretch for him, remember him. You weren’t ready. You couldn’t be. Not after what he’d already done to you. But that didn’t stop him. Didn’t even slow him.

“Fuck,” Remmick growled, hips pulling back only to rut forward again, deeper this time, harder. “Still tight. Still fuckin’ perfect. Like this pussy never forgot me.”

Your eyes rolled back.

Your hands clawed uselessly at the sheets, wrists still pinned tight in his grip. His other hand caught your jaw, forcing your face toward his, making sure you didn’t dare look away.

“Ya let him fuck you in here?” he hissed, voice venom. “In this bed? These sheets?”

You whimpered.

Remmick’s thrusts got rougher. Barbarous. He was fucking you like he owned you. Like he was carving himself back into the spaces time tried to seal shut.

“Answer me.”

Your voice came out a rasp. “Y-yes.”

He spat, not even trying to hide his disgust. “Bet he couldn’t even make ya come.”

You shook your head, biting back a sob.

“And now look at ya,” he snarled, dragging his hips slow this time, a deliberate grind that made your body sing. “Lettin’ me fuck the truth outta ya like always. Like nothin’s changed.”

Tears welled again.

Because nothing had.

Because it had always been like this with Remmick. Not gentle. Not sweet.

But real.

He fucked you like he was never going to stop.

Eyes locked on yours.

Not blinking. Not flinching.

Just watching as your mouth parted, as your body opened for him, as the ruin of you spilled across the sheets that had never seen this kind of worship.

And still, Remmick didn't slow.

Not even close.

Not when your eyes rolled back. Not when your body clenched tight around him like you’d never learned how to let go. Not when the air left your lungs in staggered, helpless sobs.

Remmick fucked you like he hated you.

Like he’d missed hating you.

And then—

His hand let go of your wrists.

Only to move to your throat.

Fingers curling slow around your neck, the pads of them warm, calloused, unforgiving.

Your body froze beneath him.

Not in fear. Not exactly.

Something darker. Deeper.

You looked up into his eyes.

And he looked back like he wasn’t really there anymore.

“Y’know,” he said, voice calm, like he was talking about the weather, “there were so many nights I thought about killin’ ya.”

Your breath caught.

His grip tightened.

“After ya left,” he murmured, hips still driving into you like punctuation, “after y’said all that pretty shit and slammed the door—when you thought ya’d won—I used to lay awake, hand on my dick, thinkin’ about wringin’ your pretty little neck.”

You whimpered, legs trembling around his hips.

He leaned closer, chest flush to yours, breath hot against your lips.

“Not just ya,” he added, almost like an afterthought. “That man of yours, too.”

Your stomach flipped.

“I thought about what his blood would look like on your white fuckin’ comforter. What your scream would sound like. If ya’d still cry my name with his body lyin’ cold at the end of the bed.”

His fingers pressed harder. Just enough to make your vision shimmer.

“Y’don’t believe me,” he whispered. “But I still think about it.”

Your heart stuttered.

“And right now?” he said, grinning. “Right now, I could do it. So easy. You’re lettin’ me fuck you raw in your husband’s bed, cryin’ beneath me, beggin’ for it. What’s one more sin, huh?”

His grip cinched tight.

Your breath stopped.

The room swam.

He didn’t blink.

Didn’t move.

Just held you there, trembling beneath him, his cock still buried deep inside you as the world slipped sideways.

Your pulse pounded in your ears.

Your fingers spasmed.

And just before the edges went black—

Smack.

A vicious slap to your thigh, loud and hot, snapped the air back into your lungs. Then another, this time across your ass, hard enough to sting. Your throat opened on a strangled gasp, your back arching as your body reeled from the sudden shock.

“There she is,” Remmick said, laughing low. “Didn’t want ya driftin’ off just yet, darlin’. We’re just gettin’ to the good part.”

You choked on your own breath, eyes wet, chest heaving.

He let go of your throat, dragging both hands down your ribs like he hadn’t just threatened to kill you. Like the idea still wasn’t sitting there behind his eyes, twitching like a secret.

You were dizzy. Raw. Split open and trembling and soaked.

And Remmick looked like he'd never been more in love.

Which is exactly when the front door opened.

Just a quiet creak. A shift of hinges.

But it shattered the world.

You went still.

So did Remmick.

The sound of keys hitting the bowl by the entryway echoed like a gunshot through the hallway. A low thud as shoes hit the mat. A familiar voice, soft and unsuspecting, humming the tail end of some commercial jingle. Your husband.

Your husband was home.

And your heart plummeted.

The blood in your veins iced over. Your breath caught. Every nerve ending snapped taut, your body trembling beneath Remmick in frozen disbelief. You were still spread beneath him, raw and soaked and filthy, your thighs trembling and your breath caught somewhere between a sob and a prayer.

Remmick blinked.

Once.

Then again.

Then he looked at the door.

Then at you.

Back to the door.

Then you again.

And then that grin split his face.

Wide. Sharp. Wrong.

It wasn’t the cocky, teasing smile he wore when he knew you’d already given in.

This was different.

This was a grin that made something ancient and terrified curl up inside you and scream.

“Y’ain’t tell me he was gonna be early,” he whispered, voice light, sing-song. “How rude.”

You couldn’t speak.

Could barely breathe.

But Remmick moved with purpose now—sat up, still inside you, dragging your body with him. He flipped you like he owned you, like you were just a doll to be repositioned. Hands grabbed your hips, yanked them up beneath him, forced your knees into the sheets until your back arched and your cheek was pressed flat against the mattress.

Doggy style.

Exposed. Helpless.

His cock dragged out slow before slamming back in with a wet, brutal sound.

You gasped, eyes squeezing shut.

“No no no,” Remmick said, voice a low hum as he gripped your face, twisting it until your eyes were pointed toward the bedroom door. “Keep ‘em open. He deserves to see it.”

Your name echoed from down the hall.

“Honey?” your husband called, so painfully unaware. “You home?”

Another thrust.

Louder this time.

Obscene.

The slap of his hips hitting your ass echoed off the walls like thunder.

You whimpered. You couldn’t help it.

“Sweetheart?” the voice came again, closer now. Footsteps.

Remmick picked up his pace.

Flesh on flesh. Sharp. Wet. Merciless.

You heard a pause outside the door.

Then the knob turned.

Then the door opened.

Your husband stepped into the room.

And froze.

His eyes landed on yours first—your face, contorted in shock, shame, raw pleasure.

Then his gaze moved.

To where Remmick’s hands were fisted in your hips.

To the way your body shook with every loud, violent thrust.

To the way your mouth hung open in a sob you hadn’t let fall yet.

The look on his face could’ve killed you.

Confusion.

Betrayal.

Then—horror.

Like something inside him snapped.

And still, Remmick didn’t stop.

He slammed into you again, harder than before, dragging your face further toward the edge of the bed, forcing you to watch.

“Smile for him,” he said, voice thick with a darkness that made your stomach turn. “Show him how happy ya look when you’re finally bein’ fucked right.”

You looked into your husband’s eyes.

Wrecked.

That was the only word for it. Wrecked in a way you’d never seen before—like someone had cracked open his ribcage and yanked his heart out with their bare hands. He looked lost. Pale. Mouth parted. Staring at you like he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.

And for a second—for one brief, trembling second—you wanted to believe in him.

Wanted to believe he’d fight.

That he’d do something.

That he’d cross the room, fists swinging, screaming, snarling, crying, clawing Remmick off of you like the man he was supposed to be. Like the husband he was supposed to be. That he’d fight for his wife, no matter how futile, no matter how ugly, no matter how late.

You wanted to believe he’d choose you.

But instead—

He covered his face with both hands.

And sat.

In the chair at the corner of the room, opposite the bed.

Chest heaving.

Shoulders shaking.

Not saying a word.

Not making a move.

And just like that—

Every drop of love you had left for him died.

Turned to ash in your mouth.

It wasn’t just disappointment. It wasn’t just betrayal.

It was hatred.

Hot. Immediate. Unforgiving.

And Remmick saw it happen.

Felt it bloom in your body beneath him.

He laughed.

Not playfully.

Not even cruelly.

It was disgusted.

A laugh like spitting. Like rot.

“That’s the man ya chose over me?” he said, thrusts still pounding into your cunt, hands bruising your hips as he snapped his hips against you with brutal rhythm. “That little fuckin’ coward?”

You didn’t answer.

Didn’t need to.

The silence screamed.

“Jesus Christ,” Remmick muttered, breathless and gleeful, “he can’t even pretend to care. Ya ruined him, darlin’. Just like I knew y’would.”

He pulled out of you without warning, grabbing you by the waist and flipping you again, dragging you half off the bed until your head dangled over the edge, hair brushing the floor, throat exposed, everything upside-down.

And there he was.

Remmick, towering above you, cock flushed and leaking, sliding back into your wrecked cunt with a force that rattled your teeth. The angle sent lightning up your spine, your toes curling, vision swimming. He gripped your thighs and pushed them wide apart, spreading you open, fucking you down against the edge of the bed like you were just a hole to conquer.

But your eyes?

They were locked on him.

Your husband.

Still sitting there.

Hands still over his face.

Until they weren’t.

You saw the moment shame turned to something else.

Curiosity.

Then heat.

One hand dropped to his lap.

You didn’t want to believe it.

Didn’t want to see it.

But you couldn’t look away.

The outline of his cock, straining against his jeans. The way his chest rose and fell faster. The way his fingers hesitated—then unzipped.

Remmick saw it, too.

“Oh fuck me,” he laughed, cruel and delighted. “You’re hard, aren’t ya?”

Your husband flinched.

Remmick leaned over you, one hand grabbing your jaw, tilting your face so you couldn’t look away, even though he knew you weren’t.

“He’s hard, baby,” he sneered. “Your good little husband, sittin’ there watchin’ another man ruin his wife and he’s got his fuckin’ cock out.”

You whimpered.

Remmick thrust harder.

“Go on,” he said over your shoulder, loud enough to sting. “You’re already sittin’ there. Might as well enjoy the show, huh?”

And then, your stomach dropped.

Because your husband did it.

He pulled his cock free.

Hard. Strained. Already wet at the tip.

And he started stroking himself.

Right there.

Right fucking there, watching you be destroyed.

Something inside you shattered.

But Remmick’s grip only tightened.

“See?” he breathed, voice low in your ear, hips pistoning into you like he wanted to leave dents. “Told ya no one would ever love ya the way I do.”

And as your tears slipped backward into your hair, as your cunt pulsed around Remmick’s cock and your husband’s soft, broken moans filled the room—

You realized something sickening:

You believed him.

And the second you did, everything shifted.

Remmick’s voice fell away.

Replaced by sound.

Raw, filthy, feral sound.

The slap of skin against skin. The wet pulse of your cunt around him. His groans—deep, guttural, half-choked—as he rutted into you with a new kind of desperation. Like something had cracked inside him too. Like he was breaking right alongside you.

His hips lost rhythm.

Gained need.

The drag of his cock turned erratic, heavy, slick. His breath stuttered against your neck, hot and shallow, teeth grazing skin in the warning way. And you felt it—his weight pressing down, arms sliding beneath your back, legs shifting to cage you in, his entire body wrapping around you until there was no air between you, no space left untouched.

He was everywhere.

Crushing.

Consuming.

Yours.

“Gonna fill ya up,” he slurred, voice strained, drunk on you, on this, on everything he hadn’t let himself say until now. “Gonna—fuck—gonna put a baby in ya, darlin’.”

You gasped, eyes wide, your arms sliding up around his back without thinking.

He didn’t stop.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t care.

“Make ya a momma,” he panted, forehead pressed hard against yours, sweat dripping from his brow to yours. “My fuckin’ housewife. Keep ya barefoot and full for the rest of your goddamn life.”

Your thighs clenched around him.

Your fingers dug into his back.

“Just how y’should be,” he growled, pace stuttering. “No more runnin’. No more pretendin’. Just me with ya and a whole house full’a kids with my fuckin’ eyes.”

You cried out, your body already tightening again, trembling.

And then, one last thrust.

Devastating. Bone-deep. Final.

He came with a groan that barely sounded human, hips locked in place, cock pulsing inside you, spilling heat deep into your cunt like it was a claim. Endless. Relentless. It spilled out around him, a mess between your thighs, and still he didn’t stop.

And with it—

His fangs sank deep into your neck.

No warning.

No care.

Just sharp, precise, possessive puncture.

You screamed—and came. Hard. Wrung-out, shattered, blinding.

The orgasm ripped through you like it had teeth. Your walls fluttered around him, milking every last drop. Your back arched, pinned and blood-warm, as his mouth sealed over your skin and drank. Long, greedy pulls. Like he needed it more than breath.

Your heart stuttered. Your eyes rolled back.

And in the haze of it, another sound.

A choked gasp. The sharp, wet rhythm of a fist meeting skin. Then a broken, pathetic groan as your husband came too. Facing you both, cock in his hand, shame on his face, guilt dripping down his knuckles.

Remmick pulled back from your neck, blood staining his lips, breath heaving.

Then he angled to look.

Smirked.

Spat.

“This the first time y’ever came with her, huh?”

He thrust once more into your ruined cunt, slow and deep, just to emphasize it.

“Had to watch me do it for ya. Pathetic.”

And you?

You didn’t even blink.

Didn’t even look at the man you once thought would love you right.

Because Remmick was right about that too.

This was where you belonged.

He stayed inside you for a moment longer, just long enough for you to pretend it would never end. Your walls still fluttered around him in soft aftershocks, your body unwilling to believe it was over even as your mind tried to catch up.

Then—

He pulled out.

Slow. Measured. Intentional.

A sound escaped your throat—broken, needy, trembling. Not quite a sob, not quite a plea.

Your hands caught his hips weakly, as if you could keep him, tether him, keep that full warmth inside for just a moment longer. "Please…"

“Shhh,” Remmick cooed, brushing a thumb beneath your eye where your tears had dried and cracked. “It’s alright, baby. You’ll get it again.”

The emptiness hit harder than anything else had.

A cavernous ache. Raw. Desperate. A void nothing else could fill.

You didn’t realize you were crying again until your vision blurred.

You watched as he stood.

Watched as he moved across the room toward the man still sitting dumb and wide-eyed in the chair.

Your husband.

Your witness.

There was a single second.

A flash of recognition.

His eyes met Remmick’s.

And that was all.

The claws flashed.

Once.

Ripped.

There was no scream. No fight. No time for last words.

Just a sound, wet and ugly, as his throat was torn open. Gutted clean from beneath the jawline, near-severed, a geyser of arterial red splattering across the walls, the chair, the floor.

And still, for one sickening second, his body twitched.

You screamed.

You screamed with everything you had left, dragged yourself backward across the soaked sheets until your spine hit the bedframe, until your limbs locked up with exhaustion and fear and your own slick still coating your thighs.

Remmick turned to face you.

Blood painted his chest, his jaw, his hands, dripping from his fingers like it had always belonged there. His eyes were gleaming, that familiar, terrifying red turned brighter now, like it fed off what he’d just done.

And then he crawled.

Across the bed.

Staining the sheets with long streaks of crimson, smearing every part of the room you once thought of as yours. As his.

Now defiled.

Claimed.

Ruined.

His hands—slick, sticky—cupped your face with impossible tenderness.

And then he kissed you.

Slow.

Deep.

Unforgiving.

Spit. Blood. The coppery tang of death. And beneath it all, still the faint, almost-sweet taste of you on his tongue.

It coated your teeth. Filled your lungs.

You let him.

You kissed him back.

When he pulled away, his voice dropped low, affectionate, almost reverent.

“Guess it’s just us now, darlin’,” he whispered. “Us. And our little thing growin’ inside ya.”

Your mouth parted, but no sound came.

He leaned in again, brushing his blood-wet cheek against yours, dragging his tongue slow along the edge of your jaw.

“Gonna make sure y’never forget who you belong to.”

You didn’t speak.

Couldn’t.

There were no words left.

Just slick cooling on your thighs.

Just sheets ruined for good.

Just the memory of your husband's eyes, wide and broken, moments before he died doing nothing.

And a part of you—that sick, lost, unredeemable part—knew:

That was exactly how you wanted it to be.

Forever.

[dwobbitfromtheshire]

Eddie seemed to have zero impulse control when he's not actively thinking about it. After Vecna Eddie moved in with Steve because he and Wayne didn't have a new place yet, plus, Wayne was living out of a motel. It was not a place for someone with wounds like his. Also, he was still waiting to be cleared of all charges. Steve was well enough to take care of Eddie. The metalhead was still in a lot of pain and on as many painkillers as he was allowed the first time that it happened. Steve was leaning over to fluff his pillows, and his lips were close to Eddie's face. It was all Steve’s fault, really. Eddie was thinking about how pretty his lips were when he decided to grab Steve by the back of the neck.

"What are - MMHH!"

Eddie brought his lips to his, and it was the sweetest kiss that Steve had ever experienced. It had left his lips feeling all tingly. Steve could easily pass it off on the fact that Eddie was high, and that was exactly what he did do. He never brought it up or told anyone about it. . .not even Robin. He really couldn't ignore it, though, when it happened a second time.

Eddie was feeling a lot better and could move around the house a lot more. Steve had finally been able to cook dinner for the both of them after living off other people's cooking and takeout while they both healed. They had finished eating when Eddie lumbered over to him and spun him around, cupping his face.

"That was the best home-cooked meal I've ever eaten - MUAH!" Eddie exclaimed, kissing him square on the mouth. "You go settle down. I'll handle the clean-up, big boy."

Steve had frozen a little. Surely, Eddie knew what he was doing? Since he hadn't brought it up, Steve decided not to bring it up either. . .except when it happened a third time. Eddie was completely healed, and he was able to be let out of the house since he was he officially cleared of all charges. He wanted to meet up with Corroded Coffin at Gareth's since they refused to come over to Steve's house despite the fact that Steve had told them they were welcome anytime. Even though he understood where they were coming from, it still stung that they refused to even try to get to know him. Anyways, Eddie was on his way out the door except for the fact that his keys were lying on the counter.

"Hey, did you forget something?" Steve asked.

"Oh, right," Eddie said, twirled around and kissed him while scooping up the keys. Then he was gone.

Okay, he really couldn't ignore it this time. Steve really needed to talk to someone about the kisses and about how much he liked them. He needed to know what that meant, and he knew exactly what kind of conversation this would turn out to be.

"Eddie keeps kissing me," Steve said as soon as Robin got in the car.

"I'm sorry, what?" Robin said, blinking.

"You know how Eddie's really affectionate," Steve replied. "Does it bother you when he kisses you?"

"Oh, you mean like kissing on the forehead and the cheek? No, I think it's sweet, actually," Robin said and rolled her eyes. "Are you feeling a little insecure in your masculinity because a man is getting a little affectionate with you?"

"What?! No, I don't mind getting affection from a man, Robin. You know I hug Argyle all the time," Steve said. "I'm just wondering why Eddie kisses me on the mouth and he doesn't do that with anyone else."

"Stop the car!" Robin screamed, and Steve pulled over the side, parking the car.

"Jesus, Robin!" Steve exclaimed.

"Eddie's been kissing you on the MOUTH?!" Robin asked.

"Yeah. He doesn't do that with you?" Steve asked.

"No, I think that's a treat only for you," Robin said.

"But why? We're both straight," Steve said. "I mean, I'm not trying to complain or anything, it's nice but why is he doing it?"

"You like it when he kisses you?" Robin asked.

"Yeah," Steve shrugged. "If I were into men, I'd be asking him on a date, but I'm not gay, Robin. . .well, maybe just for Eddie. Is it possible to be gay just for one person?"

"I mean, maybe, but I doubt that it's the case here," Robin said. "Usually, I would probably let you figure this out for yourself, but considering how long you kept it hidden that you like Nancy Drew, it might just take a while. . .do I have permission to rip off the band-aid?"

"Uh, yeah. I guess," Steve asked. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh, how the hell were you so sure about Vickie and completely clueless about yourself?" Robin asked.

"Are you still on it that I totally called it about Vickie being a lesbian before you did?" Steve asked.

"She's not a lesbian, dingus," Robun said.

"Okay, I was pretty sure that you two were dating. Robin, she's clearly into you, so I'm pretty sure you have a shot," Steve said.

"Yeah, we are dating but she's not a lesbian," she said.

"I'm so confused," Steve said.

"In more ways than one," Robin said.

"Robin, we're going to be late for work," Steve said.

"Vickie is a bisexual," Robin said. "She likes more than one gender."

"Oh. . .oh, like David Bowie!" Steve exclaimed. "Right?!"

"Right," Robin said.

"Oh my god!" Steve said. "My Tom Cruise obsession suddenly makes sense - I didn't want to be him - "

"Not to mention, all those times you've stared openly at Eddie along with his posters of Eddie Van Halen and Kirt Hammel. . . "

"Kirk Hammett, Robin," Steve scoffed. "Eddie would rip you a new one for getting that one wrong."

"But you knew it because Eddie did," Robin said.

"I like him," Steve said with wide eyes.

"Yeah, buddy. Are you going to need a minute?" Robin said.

"Nah, I'm fine. I actually feel really good about it," Steve grinned.

"Not even a little freak out?" She asked.

"Nope!"

"Lucky bitch," Robin muttered.

"I'm sorry, the next time I have a realization about myself, I'll make sure to give you the freak out that you deserve," Steve said.

"That's all I'm asking," Robin said.

They spent the morning shift talking about Eddie and what he'd say to him once he got home. Steve debated on giving him flowers or not, or a stuff animal. He decided on a stuffed animal because that was more permanent, as Robin had pointed out. They were just about to take their break for lunch when Eddie strolled in.

"Hey," Steve said brightly. "I was just thinking about you."

"Yeah?" Eddie asked and leaned against the counter. "That's good to know."

Eddie leaned forward and planted a kiss on his lips. This time, Steve responded to it, cupping Eddie's face as he deepened the kiss. He could feel Eddie smile against his lips. Steve heard Robin scrambling to lock the front door and close the newly installed blinds. Eddie wrapped his arms around him, nearly climbing over the counter to do it. Finally, Robin coughed loudly and they broke apart.

"Hi," Steve said breathlessly.

"Hi," Eddie said. "I got something for you."

He climbed over the counter and sat down in front of him. He pulled out a rock and handed it to Steve.

"It looks like a guitar pick," Steve said with a grin.

"I thought you could use it for good luck," Eddie said.

"That's very sweet, thank you," Steve said, blushing. "I'm going to keep it forever."

"So, your boyfriend did good?" Eddie asked.

"Boyfriend?" Steve asked.

"Yeah, I know we're taking things slow, but I was hoping that you'd consider me being your boyfriend," Eddie said.

"Yeah, uh, it's just - it might be the concussions, but I don't remember asking you out or you asking me out," Steve said.

"Oh, you definitely asked me out," Eddie said.

"Oh, God, Robin. The doctor said if I started having memory problems - " Steve said with wide eyes. "I'd definitely remember asking you out."

"Honey! I'm sure it's fine!" Eddie exclaimed. "Robin was there, she'll tell you!"

"I was NOT!" Robin yelled, her eyes going wide. "Or was I? Oh, god, what if I hit my head and I don't remember?! I'd remember my best friend asking out a man!"

"Okay, don't panic, Robin, we'll call Hopper - " Steve started to say.

"You really don't remember?!" Eddie shrieked.

"No!" Robin and Steve yelled.

"Seriously, Robin, you were there, and you turned into a giant duck which, by the way, is rude because you know about my fear of ducks!" Eddie yelled.

"Oh, Eddie, goddamnit, was this a dream?" Steve asked.

"You know what? Now that I'm thinking about it, I think it might have been a dream," Eddie said.

"Okay, those looks you've been giving me make a lot more sense," Robin said. "Have you been living in fear of me randomly turning into a duck, like I'm some sort of. . .wereduck?"

"I don't know, your name's Robin, and we've all been through crazy shit. . .anything is possible," Eddie said.

"Aww, and you've hugged me even though you're scared of ducks," Robin cooed.

"Well, it's my fear, my responsibility. It's not your fault," Eddie said and then looked at her. "But you're not, though, right?"

"No, Eddie," she said softly and then affectionately, "You dingus."

"This whole time. . .," Eddie trailed off. "We haven't actually been dating. You never asked me out."

Eddie started to scramble off of the counter when Steve grabbed him and pulled him back.

"Let's fix that. . .Eddie Munson, do you want to be my boyfriend?" Steve asked.

"Fuck yeah, I do," Eddie grinned.

He grabbed the back of Steve’s head and crashed their lips together. Eddie sighed and leaned his forehead against Steve’s.

"No one better fucking wake me up," Eddie breathed and Steve laughed.

"Oh God! I think my nose is turning into a bill - quack, quack!"

"Robin!"

[husbandhoshi]

title: royally screwed [m]

pairing: joshua x f!reader

wc: 30.8k in total; part 1: 15.4k, part 2: 15.4k summary: between remembering last night’s party and pleasing your unrelenting family, you think being a princess is hard enough. then you’re thrust into an arranged marriage to royal darling joshua hong—straight-laced, infuriatingly obedient, and everything you’re not. pretending to be the perfect couple? impossible.   notes: romcom + smut (part 2), modern royalty!au in which yn is the princess of cotria/joshua the prince of acros (both fictional), enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, quarterlife crisis/coming of age, very very slow burn. lots of swearing, lots of alcohol, lots of feelings. very special thanks to @meiozis for all their help with worldbuilding and @wuahae for bearing with me through the endless drafts, scene changes, second guessing, horrible word choices, etc. you are the only reason this got done, and i love you to the moon and back <3 [read part 2 here!]

Here, in the dark, there is just you. 

The strobe lights press into your skin with all the brilliance of the sun, there's half a Modelo running down your leg, and you think you kissed the stranger behind you last week, but if you close your eyes, it's just you. No rules, no five second curtseys, no talk about the throne or whoever's ass happens to be keeping it warm at the moment. 

Here, you're nobody, and it's perfect. 

"I'm getting more champagne," Somi says, her voice careening over the music. "You sure Jihoon doesn't want any?" 

You glance back at him. He's flattened up against the back wall, holding your purse, like a raccoon caught going through the trash. This is one of the many trials he's forced to endure for your entertainment, but it's his job–not as your closest friend, but as your legally employed bodyguard. 

"No, he's on duty." 

"Right," she slurs. "Sometimes I forget you're a literal princess." 

If only it were that easy. Five drinks in and you think you can still feel your mother's vice grip on your arm and all the little white crescents of her french manicure. 

You love this song–at least, you think you do. You're too drunk to tell, but it doesn't matter. The dance floor is muggy, sardine-packed with one warm body after another, and it's heaven. The crowd moves, and you move with them. Shakira waits for no one. 

Somi must have secured another bottle of Cristal already. Soonyoung, your other partner-in-crime, hands you a flute and you take it, the glittery foam already bubbling over the lip. 

"Cheers." Out of his too-drunk mouth, it sounds like a new word altogether, but you bring your glass to his anyway. 

Tomorrow, you have a meeting with your parents. This, unlike all of your other involvements, is actually important, they said, and their voices had wound around you like a snare. 

When it gets late, Jihoon will sling your arm over his shoulders and haul you back to the palace, still tipsy and holding your stilettos to your chest like a shield. Tomorrow will come, and it's then when you'll have to try to be good. It's a useless, stupid affair, but you'll go through the motions anyway. 

But tonight, there is you and the music and the wonderful laughter of your friends, and you don't have to be anything at all. 

"Cheers," you tell Soonyoung, and you drink. 

--

There are four large topiaries in the palace garden: all lions. They stand tall in their planters, majestic and hairy with French lavender. Today you notice that the rightmost one's nose has been pruned off by accident, and he stands, snoutless, staring at his green brothers and sisters. 

You know this because this is the view from the study, and it has never changed. There is only one study in the east wing, and it is small and useless and the perfect room for your parents to sit you down and remind you that you do not, in fact, own a single thing about your own life. 

There is nothing new about this ritual. Even as a child, when you were more desperate to please, you could never be the right kind of daughter to your parents or princess to your country. Again and again, you landed yourself here, in trouble once more. 

So you stopped trying–you would find these four walls anyway, no matter what you did. Why not enjoy your Fridays instead?

By now, you’ve memorized the carvings on the armrest of the chair you’re in (a knobby column, then underneath, the whorl of a seashell). There are thirty-four terracotta stones on the way to the fountain, all spaced perfectly apart, sanded down to the millimeter. 

The scene remains unchanged. Your mother now stares down at you over the bridge of her nose, with that tight-lipped frown you've gotten so used to. Your father paces near the window, either wondering why you can't be softer, more pliable, like your older brother Jeonghan, or, alternatively, why one of the lions is missing a nose. Maybe both.

"Enjoy yourself yesterday?" your mother asks. 

"Yes," you reply, out of other answers.

"Wonderful. Then our early morning briefing with PR was good for something. You should be grateful last night's pictures won't make it out of the darkroom." 

Her voice, bitter and incisive, makes the hangover bubble up in your stomach. You and the tabloids weren't exactly on good terms, but it wasn't your fault so many people seemed to care about what you were wearing or who you were out with. 

"What did you want to meet about?" you ask, hoping to change the subject. 

You can't put your finger on it, but there's a cloying, heavy energy hanging on you. You feel as though you're on the precipice of something, although that could just be the consequences of all that Cristal ready to reintroduce themselves to your digestive system. 

Your mother clears her throat. 

"We have arranged for you to marry someone." 

And all at once, it seems as though all the air has been sucked out of the room. There's a sharp pain lodged somewhere between your chest, your stomach, and your unhappy liver. The larks sing emptily in the garden. 

"What?" Your voice sounds like it's unraveling somewhere in your throat. Quickly, frantically, you grasp at the faraway possibility that it can't possibly mean what you think it does. Marry? You can’t even remember the last time you thought of going on a second date with someone. Now you might actually throw up. 

"Prince Joshua, of the Hong family. The crown prince of–" 

"Acros. I know," you interrupt, the words jumping out of you in shock and anger. 

Of course you know who Joshua Hong is–Acros is a tiny, unremarkable country nestled into the border of your much bigger one, and Joshua their crown jewel. If you were the nation's problem, he was their darling. A bland thing to coo at when life got boring, the walking embodiment of a media training session. Smile and nod, smile and nod. He might as well be AI generated.

You wouldn't last a day with him. Not with your impatience, your opinions, or that loud mouth your parents always scold you for. Your mind swims with the mental image of the two of you on a gaudy parade float, doing that stupidly slow wave everyone seemed to insist on.

"Wonderful. So you'll pack a bag? The Hong family will be thrilled to meet you tomorrow," says your father.

"Why?" you ask. Your voice wobbles, treading over that childlike waver you never learned to control. "Is this to punish me?" 

"My dear, your brother will be ascending to the throne soon," your mother answers, looking you dead in the eyes. "It’s his face that needs to be on the front page, not you in another abomination of a swimsuit. The Hongs will keep enough of an eye on you.” 

She's right. She's always been right. Maybe not about the swimsuit, but you haven’t exactly been the PR princess your family needed you to be. If anything, you would think it made Jeonghan look better by comparison, but you know that your parents would prefer you to make appearances in something other than Deuxmoi’s Sunday Spotted. But the royal charade never fit you well either; it clings and sticks and bunches up at the seams like a cheap Halloween costume. 

"The Hongs thought their country would benefit from our money. It was an easy decision, really," your mother finishes, as if that makes you feel any less like a silly, bikini-clad pawn in a game of chess you never asked to play. 

"Does Jeonghan know?" 

"He sees its purpose,” your father says simply, like that was all that mattered. “You will too, in due time.”

He nods solemnly, which is how he closes every conversation–just another turn of the silent knife. As your parents turn to leave, their silken garbs trail behind them like ink in still water. Business as always, especially with you. 

"Your brother will be coming home from his press tour this week," your mother says on her way out. "You mustn't ruin this for him. The car leaves for Acros in the morning." 

There's a mean, barbed feeling in your heart. You don't know whether to scream or to cry, so you do what your mother taught you to do. You sit, stilled by a feeling of hopelessness, and let yourself be emptied. 

--

When you were thirteen, you learned how to ride a horse. 

Not the impractical, side-saddle way drilled into you when you were a little girl, with your skirt billowing over the fender and catching in the stirrups, but how to really ride a horse. 

It was on a night much like tonight–indigo and starless. Your brother had climbed up the marble trellis, his teenage, noodle body a perfect fit for scaling the lattice, and threw a stone at your window, just like you had seen in the movies. Jeonghan was still young, then, rebellious and unchanged by the throne. 

It was him who laced up your riding boots, hoisted you on your first horse, and pressed the reins into your palms. You remember the unforgiving hold of the leather saddle, not yet broken in. You were so sore the next day, you were bed-bound–truly a punishment worse than death, if not for another reminder that everything you do ends up hurting you a little. 

"It's great," Jeonghan had told you, breathless and haloed by the moonlight. "You can just ride. nowhere to go and no one to answer to." 

You had spent the summer this way. Every night, you learned the sound of the forest at twilight, chasing Jeonghan's mud-splattered palomino. In the mornings, breakfast consisted of rubbing the sleep out of your eyes and whispering about whatever misadventure you had found yourselves tangled in the night before. 

That was before he had come of age. Before your father gave him the Throne Talk, and before he was whisked away into endless meetings and etiquette lessons and parliaments. Your inside jokes became foul, overripe in his newly coached mouth. He even learned to play golf, and he hated golf. 

Past August, you don't think you ever got your brother back.

You slide the oaken doors of the stables open, feeling your arms squeeze underneath your riding shirt. Here, it’s always quiet after sundown.

It hasn't changed since the day you first snuck in with Jeonghan. You let the green scent of the hay fill your lungs, the sleep-stir of the horses like music to your ears. Dokyeom has left the tack room open by "accident" once more, likely to avoid catching you picking the lock with a bobby pin like he had a few months ago. 

"Hey, you," you whisper, coming to the stall of your own horse. Astrid, a bay thoroughbred, was Jeonghan's gift to you on your 18th birthday, a wistful reminder of a summer now past its prime. "No surprise here, but I had a really, really bad day." 

Astrid, oblivious, noses at your palm in search of a nonexistent sugar cube. Somehow, this brings the anxious chatter of your mind to a crescendo—would Astrid come with you to Acros? When would that happen? More importantly, when were you moving? You think of a too-warm summer morning, the ridiculous, oversized brim of one of your mother's sunhats, and a moving truck. That, and a country ready to delete you from its ranks. 

It's now, with the bridle in your fists, that you hear the wheedling groan of the stable door as it slides open. Without thinking, you quickly push out the first excuse you have. "I apologize, I was—" 

"It's me." 

Jihoon. 

You would tease him about his fear of ponies—perhaps it's because he is quite literally the same size as them—but you think hearing another person tell you off would officially push you over the edge. You don't want to be dramatic, but you don't even know if Acros even had horses. 

That, and somehow he's both the first and the last person you want to see. The guilt feels a bit heavier when you know his life is about to change too, in no small part due to your own failings.

"Jihoon, I…" you start. There’s an apology that’s been sitting on your tongue, one you haven’t quite learned to spit up yet. You don’t know who it’s for—yourself, or everyone else—but Jihoon interrupts you before you can finish your thought. 

"You forgot your jacket," Jihoon replies. 

For once, you can't read him. You wonder if he's thinking about if he'd get along with the other bodyguards, but, more likely, he's probably pitying you. You're the last person in the world that should be in an arranged marriage, and even someone who kills people for a living could tell. 

"I'll be in the foyer." 

You don't exchange any more words. Jihoon knows that there is nothing he can say that will erase what's about to happen, and like always, he is right.

After you saddle up, Astrid takes you to the forest like usual. Honestly, you've lost count of the times you've come out here to cry, usually about a boy you don’t even like, or, worse, Jeonghan declining your weekly Facetime session again. But now, you think you both know this time is very different. 

"Astrid," you groan. "Joshua looks like a Ken doll from hell. He probably pronounces tomato like tomahto and has a closet dedicated to his tweed collection. I can't marry him." 

Astrid is none the wiser. You wish she was human for a moment so you could show her the crater-sized hole that "prince joshua google images" left in your browser history. 

"Do you think he only listens to classical music? I think a Kim Petras song would kill him instantaneously." 

The mental image of Joshua Hong being struck down by the first ten seconds of Throat Goat makes you laugh, but you still don't feel far away enough from the truth.

You remember your 21st birthday, a balmy spring Friday. Jeonghan had been helping out at the local youth theater, and the opening night of their production was coincidentally the same day. Jeonghan had never been one for theater (last time, he had fallen asleep during Mamma Mia, of all musicals). You knew the press turnout was expected to be huge, but the whole thing felt like one big charade to you. 

So you had planned your big birthday bash—you only get one 21st, after all—that day. The paparazzi fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. Unsurprisingly, drunk, hot girls made for a better story than Greek theater. 

You remember the raw, stinging look Jeonghan had in his eyes the next morning. He didn't even have to say anything, but you knew. The memory carves out an abyss in your chest. You knew you should have done better for your brother, but he didn’t even feel like your brother anymore. 

Still, actions have consequences, and this was a hell of a consequence. Even out here, the inconvenient reality of it seems closer than ever. but you're out of time. The night fades fast, especially ones like these. 

So you press your heart to Astrid's mane, the pale moon high over the both of you, and you ride. 

--

Late spring is kind to Acros. 

The tulips push their bright heads out of the dirt, winking and blazing in the daylight, and the green fields stretch so far they look like water. 

You had spent the car ride with your nose pressed to the window, watching all the sun-bleached buildings zip by. You mustn't ruin this for Jeonghan. It spins around in your head like an old pair of shoes in a washing machine. 

Now you stand in the grand foyer, your parents on either side of you. Jihoon hovers behind, holding the overstuffed duffel bag you had rushed to pack this morning. 

A hushed arrival such as this was unbecoming of your family, but it was necessary. Your parents had stressed that the arranged part of the deal was not meant to be public knowledge because it was bad for optics. To you, the arrangement was actually the entire deal. That, and you and optics never exactly got along. 

Waiting for Joshua and his parents gives you a moment to observe what could be your new home, although you’re still waiting for the miraculous plot twist that will save you from your fate. 

That being said: you’ve set foot in plenty of nice places, but if HGTV ran segments for castles, this would certainly be the blueprint. It’s smaller than the palace in Cotria, but you like that—it’s cozier, less cold-seeming. 

The filigreed ceilings vault dizzyingly high, and the chandelier above the muraled walls is set afire with the noontime sun. The blushing azaleas cascade from their pots, and they line the hallways with joyous pops of white and pink. Breaking the spell is the distant staccato of several sets of footsteps on marble, and you straighten your back, as if by divine command. 

Three figures approach you: Joshua and his parents. Even from a distance, you can see the trained walk of royalty, their shoulders straight enough to hold water. You’ll give credit where credit is due—they look even less thrilled to meet you than you are to meet them.

Unfortunately, up close, Joshua is more handsome than the cameras would betray. He's taller than you had imagined, too. Without trying, it looks like he jumped out of a shitty Disney movie, one where the prince says two words and still gets the girl. More than that, you notice how his face is like glass—unwavering, cruelly still. One wrong move, and you'd break him. 

"Your highnesses," you say, lowering your head in a pronounced curtesy. 

Joshua bows in response, like clockwork. He reaches for your hand, then brings it to his lips to kiss the back of it. 

At once, you feel your hackles jump up, even though many a man has done far nastier to you. You can’t tell what pisses you off more: a, the fact that he smells like a hotel lobby, or b, that he managed to get his mouth on you in less than five seconds. 

"I'm elated we have the privilege of welcoming your daughter into our home," Joshua's mother says. Like him, she is staggeringly elegant and even harder to read. "She's beautiful." 

Fortunately, she has picked the one compliment that your parents can agree on without lying through their teeth. You watch them laugh and titter amongst themselves, and it's now that you notice Joshua has been looking at you this whole time.

You think look is too kind of a word, though. It's something colder than that, more clinical, and you really don't like it. Your stylist had spent upwards of two hours today in front of your vanity this morning, mostly in a losing battle with a pair of fake lashes, and you wonder if one of them is crooked. That, or Joshua is similarly wondering just how he will endure a life wedded to you. 

"Joshua, please," his mother chides, and you watch him almost immediately pivot towards her, like he’s on wheels. "Where are your manners? You should show the princess around. Get to know each other a bit before press tomorrow." 

Press. Of course. Your least favorite word. You vaguely remember your parents mentioning it in the car this morning, but it must have gotten lost among all the other terrible things they'd told you. 

Your head starts to hurt. Joshua keeps smiling at you, empty, doll-like.

"Yes, I'd love that," you say, feeling like a deflating balloon. You were hoping his company will be better than watching four grown adults fall all over each other, but you're starting to doubt that. 

Joshua offers you his arm, and you take it anyway. 

"We'll be off then," he chirps before bowing once more. His freakishly shiny shoe nudges yours to remind you to do the same. Begrudgingly, you listen, watching your shellacked, angry expression in the patina of his loafers. 

Not a good start, but what did you expect?

You tamp down your irritation and let him lead you into the Great Hall. It's a shiny, golden tunnel, studded with glossy oil paintings of his parents, his grandparents, then the next set of old people before them. Their eyes stare at you, pools of hazy paint in their moon faces. You briefly imagine your painting up there, with Joshua's hand hovering meekly over your waist, unused to being more than two feet away from a woman his age.

"It's nice to finally meet you," Joshua says. "I think I've only seen you in pictures." 

He's referencing the one of many “encounters” you've had with the paparazzi, a la yesterday night. They take trashy photos, overexposed and grainy from the camera flash, with your ass most likely in the frame. 

You choose to let it slide—you have no choice, really. At least you have an ass. 

"The pleasure is mine," you reply. "I believe you were at the cricket championships a few months ago, right?" 

"Correct. Do you watch? I don't believe I saw you." 

"No, but my brother was there." Your footsteps echo against the marbled walls. "Just trying to think of your last public appearance," you offer unhelpfully, since you and he both know those are few and far between. 

"That's right. He mentioned you were busy," Joshua replies. "Glastonbury was that weekend, was it not?" 

He's right. It was, but you don't like the insinuation he's making. You weren't at Glastonbury anyway—your parents wouldn't let you attend, and Jihoon was unwilling to come up with a cover story for you. Because you would rather watch paint dry than attend another cricket game, you instead spent it with takeout and reruns of Rupaul's Drag Race. 

"Can't recall," you answer. "Doesn't matter. I'm not one for cricket, anyway."

"Didn't know you had a choice."

You watch Joshua halfheartedly gesture to the Great Hall. The seemingly mile-long dinner table is empty now, save for a gratuitously piled fruit bowl. 

Your country frequently hosts guests, but the Hongs are notoriously insular. You imagine the four of you, crammed together at one end of the table, making horrendous small talk every morning over wilted danishes and raspberry preserves. Somehow, your mood worsens even more than you thought possible.

"Can I see the library?" you ask in an attempt to pivot. 

"Of course. Do you enjoy reading?" 

"A normal amount." You pass by another set of windows and take note of the rose garden outside, verdant with the May sunshine. Astrid has a bit of a penchant for eating roses, which would definitely complicate your plan to smuggle her in. No matter—you’ve done worse. "I studied political science at university, so I got a healthy dose of it." 

"Didn't we all?" Joshua chuckles.

He pushes the door open to the library, which is just as lavish as the rest of the palace. You wonder how well-worn it is, how many spines have creases in them, how many dedications were speckled with a funny annotation or two. But judging by first impressions, you wouldn't be surprised if all the books still had their dust jacket on. 

"I mean, I read an insane amount of Dan Brown," you reply. "Not many of us can say we've solved the Davinci code, you know." 

You hoped this would crack a laugh out of him, but his grin is thinner than an eyebrow from the 2000s. Truthfully, you would compare this conversation to a death by a thousand papercuts, but somehow that feels preferable to the guillotine of discussing the terms and conditions of your rapidly impending marriage. You feel as though that would be violating some rule you aren't yet aware of, and you're unwilling to endure the patent leather consequences of another faux pas. 

"I've heard of it," says Joshua after much thought. "My parents were shuttling me between meetings and private lessons, so, unlike some, I was quite busy during university." 

You're not about to explain that you were equally as busy as him. Something tells you that he'd be too prideful to believe you anyway. 

"How difficult. Surely you were able to have some fun," you say, your voice betraying your distaste. "Or were you too good for that?" 

Too far. 

"I did what my position allowed," is Joshua's terse reply, and you know you've crossed a line. Still, it dazes you that the man standing next to you may have never done anything for himself in his life. Even Jeonghan did, before your parents really tightened the reins. 

The air buzzes with a silence sharp enough to make you bleed. You wish literally anyone else was standing next to you, but you realize there are no more horses or emergency cabs or Jihoons to rescue you from this one. 

"How about I take you to our room? I hope you'll find it comfortable." 

You glance to your right to catch a glimpse of Joshua. He smiles, a dutiful press of the lips, and you watch it ripple.

--

"Jihoon, it is so much worse than I thought." 

You sit on the plush carpeting of your bedroom floor, amongst your small disaster of things. Jihoon examines you, one eyebrow raised, as he leans against the bedroom door. 

"He's not around, right?" 

Jihoon shakes his head.

"I don't get it," you sigh. "I go out. I get drunk. I have a little fun on the weekends. I don't see how any of this makes me a bad person." 

"You know how traditional your families are." Jihoon bends down to pick up a hair bow that jumped ship from the vanity. "It's just how it is." 

"He treats me like some high school delinquent. I tried, but he has no sense of humor. No joi de vivre. I think he would actually explode if he knew I went out two days ago." 

"Give it time," Jihoon supplies unhelpfully. "I don't know French, but he can't be that bad. You just met him." 

“Yeah. Usually that’s a good thing. I’ve fucked people i know less about.” 

Jihoon shakes his head and laughs, one of those little cackly ones he reserves for your company. 

"Well, you have been with worse," he tuts. "Definitely worse." 

"Jihoon, be serious. This is the rest of my life we're talking about." 

“I know." He draws his lips into a line, likely searching for the right thing to say. "This sucks. I wouldn't be good at this either." 

"You're talking to me. I don't think there's a single royal thing I can do right."

He's out of words, so he bends down to awkwardly pat you on the head, which, in all your years of knowing him, is the most affection he can muster. This is why you prefer horses to Jihoon for therapy, although you appreciate the effort. 

"I'd stay, but they want me to go to some meeting," he says, jerking his thumb towards the door. "I'll see you tomorrow." 

So he leaves you, desolate and linen-covered. Back to square one. 

The room seems to echo with how empty it feels. The bare walls are painted champagne, a rich, indifferent color. They soar to an arched ceiling lined with baroque crown moulding. There's a large window facing the garden, framed by deep green velvet. Atop the vanity cradled to the wall, the ivy of the wrought mirror curls at the edges, as if escaping. The chandelier hangs low, fat and pear-shaped, and its crystals douse the room in gauzy lamplight.

At least the canopy bed looks comfortable. It's the one thing keeping you from calling this place a veritable jail cell, which still seems like an understatement. For once, you miss your own bedroom. Granted, it didn’t look much different on the surface. but despite all the paneling and the heavy velvet, you still like to think it had some personality. You still keep your pillow pet on your bed (a horse named Robert). The back wall is chipped from a Gossip Girl poster your mom made you take down.  

Before you’re able to get too sentimental, the unwelcome sight of your future husband steals you from your thoughts. 

"Evening," Joshua says, stepping into the room. He's so quiet, it takes you aback. "Still unpacking?" 

"Sorry." You gesture around you. "I underestimated my ability to overpack."

"You should have told the staff," he says, surveying the damage. "Do you need help?" 

"No," you insist. Somehow the prospect of him getting on the ground to sort out all of your things upsets you, even more than him touching all of your unmentionables. "No. Please. Just ignore me."

"Alright." 

Joshua seems to take no issue with that, gratefully. He takes a seat on the chaise at the foot of the bed. He's got a copy of Anna Karenina under his arm, probably to weigh the pros and cons of cheating on you. You don't blame him—in fact, maybe it would make your doomed marriage exciting enough to be tolerable. 

"PR event tomorrow," you start, folding up a nightdress. "Bet you're excited for that." 

“As excited as one can be before announcing their arranged marriage," he replies dryly. "But surely you have enough experience with the press for the both of us." 

So that’s how he wanted to play. Fine. You wouldn’t let him walk all over you a second time. 

"Well, I'd hope all those classes you took would be good for something."

"That's rich, coming from the case study on bad media training." 

"Oh, please," you snap. "At least I know how to have a good time." 

"I was having a great time before I was informed this was happening." 

"Forgive me. I had no idea you were so invested in my personal life." You huff as you heave an oversized armful of clothes to the closet. “Think TMZ has any job openings?” 

"Very funny," he retorts. Joshua holds up a skimpy black dress that's fallen from your pile, one well acquainted with the midnight grease of one too many nightclubs. "You dropped this, by the way. I don't really think the nightlife here will be quite to your taste, though." 

"Oh right, because this is where happiness goes to die, huh?" You snatch it back from him, feeling the knot of anger in your gut flare. 

The room seems to pulse with an uncomfortable silence, red-hot with unsaid words. You recognize the all too familiar way Joshua sets his jaw back, and you're transported all the way to the study in the east wing, snoutless lion, terracotta steps, and all. He’s not any different from anyone else, so you’re not sure why you expected anything else. 

You do the only thing you can do—bite your tongue. 

"Look," you finally say, gathering the wherewithal to call for a truce. "I know that we didn't ask for this." 

Joshua laughs. Actually, it's the first time you've heard it since you've met, and it would be an otherwise tolerable, even nice, sound if it wasn't directed right at you.

"Right, because who doesn't want to have to babysit someone for the rest of their life?" 

You take a hard swallow.  You've both done enough damage for tonight, although you'd love to see his expression when you call him the live-action version of Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Maybe another time. 

Instead you think of Jeonghan, stuck in his meetings and sunk into this new, starched form of himself that you find difficult to recognize. Still, he's your brother, and you'd hate to see him suffer for it. 

"Stop. I'll be good," you say. "I promise. I know there's a lot at stake for the both of us." 

You can hear Joshua's long, drawn exhale. The furrow dug between his brows flattens out, and he seems to be reminded of everything they taught you both in Conflict Resolution 101. 

"I apologize. I got out of line," he says. You watch the cogs turn on that unfortunately pretty face of his. You hope he finally reveals that he has a much better, kinder personality that he was waiting to debut, but he doesn't. Instead he picks up yet another fallen item from your stash and hands it to you (this time, a much more presentable blouse). 

"I know we don't like each other—" You hold up a hand to interrupt him from lying to you. “—but we can do our best for the cameras. Because that matters. Hate me all you want in private." 

"Okay." He gives you a defeated look, which is all you suppose you'll get out of him today. "Deal." 

That night, there are no more backhanded compliments, quips, or mean-spirited attempts at sarcasm. 

You sink into your side of the bed, a damask-woven vat of quicksand, and watch the spears of light dance on the ceiling. If you had known your last outing was the one a few days ago, maybe you would have drank a little more, stayed out later. Maybe you wouldn't have even gone home. 

Joshua has been reading on the other side of the bed, which seems like oceans apart. The metronomic turn of his pages would have put you to sleep if it wasn't for this new fear, a black, trembling one, that's now taken residence in your chest. It feels like you are further from yourself than you've ever been, and you don't know how to get back. 

"Is it too bright for you?" Joshua's voice, now tempered by the stillness of the evening, pulls you out of your thoughts. "I can turn the lamp off." 

"It's ok," you groan. "Can't really sleep. Don't worry about it." 

He doesn't say anything. Instead you hear the oiled pull of the bedside nightstand before he places something on the bed beside you.

It's a book. Specifically, one of those trashy romances that they only sell at the airport because no one would be brave enough to read them anywhere else.

"It's no Dan Brown," he says. "Hopefully still to your liking." 

You sit up against the headboard and flip through the pages. The prince of Acros owning a book with the words "juicy", "mewling", and "best friend's brother" in the first fifty pages are enough to tide you over for the night. Probably the next week, to be honest.

"Yes, indeed, your highness. Of the raunchy summer fling." 

Joshua smiles, and this time, you think it's a real one. 

--

You hate mornings. 

You thought this one would be different, probably due to the fact that you would soon be standing in front of a few too many cameras to announce your tragic fate to the entire world. Unfortunately, it's like all your other mornings—rushed, nauseous, and now with all the added anxiety of a semi-non consensual public appearance. 

"Five minutes!" you holler as best you can, a hair pin wiggling in the corner of your mouth. Rule number one of a hard launch: don't be caught looking complacent. Even if the other half of the launch would rather be with anyone other than you. 

Joshua's in the attached bathroom doing his hair. Like everything else he does, it is painfully calculated. He might be the only person in the world who takes "pea-sized" seriously as a measurement tool. 

But even as he so carefully measures his pomade, pump by pump, you don't miss the way his eyes skim over your figure as you lean over the vanity chair to apply your lipstick. Maybe it's because your ass is practically vacuum sealed into your sundress, or maybe he's just looking for another fight to pick. Either way, there's a small part of you that takes pride in this, even if just a little. 

"Ready?" Joshua asks, switching off the bathroom light. You hate to admit it, but he looks good in a sports jacket. You remind yourself that you had to literally rock-paper-scissors this morning to use the vanity mirror because you fogged the bathroom up after your shower. "It's not a pageant." 

"Shush. You are so rude. Never interrupt a girl when she's getting ready." 

In the mirror, you watch Joshua huff behind you. Then he procures a little black box from his pocket, and a crazy sort of feeling washes over you before you remind yourself to be normal. Ten-year-old you would have cried and threatened arson if she knew this is how you would eventually be proposed to, but you have no choice. 

You're sure Joshua feels the same. He was probably hoping for something classic with all the works, and instead he's got a pissed-off Jihoon and you, internationally renowned harlot. Funny how things turn out.

"Any minute now," bitches Jihoon from the other side of the door. 

You close your compact and turn around to face Joshua, who's still fumbling with the box.

"I'm sure this is not what you anticipated," he says, finally cracking it open. “But—" 

"No speech. Just put it on." You stick your left hand out, still glittery from last week’s manicure. "Not like it means much anyway." 

"Yeah."

And just like that, it is done. You feel the shock of Joshua's huge hands over yours, then the unceremonious bite of the cold band. He doesn't linger. 

You hold your newly engaged hand in front of you. The ring must have looked better in the box—on you, it seems out of place, gaudy, yet another thing you can't quite fit into. It squeezes your finger a bit, but it'll do. 

"Ready?" he asks. 

"Let's get this over with."

If romance wasn’t already dead, then it died here, today, in your prison cell bedroom. 

You have no time to lament this, as Joshua’s already half out the door. Quickly, he seems to shed his foul, argumentative inside personality and slip into a second-skin, one that is more poised, gracious, and luminous.

Today's objective is supposed to be simple: friendly, premarital pictures to accompany a written statement to the public announcing your engagement. No paparazzi, no journalists. Still, you're starting to see why your parents decided it was a good idea to stick you with this guy. 

In the foyer, your families await you. It's as if their gaze can slow time—at least four people approved your outfit, and still, the weight of their eyes on you, ever appraising, is crushing. Immediately, your mother starts rearranging the strands of hair on the top of your head and fiddling with the sleeves of your dress, like you're some sort of doll. 

"Come, come," a member of the PR team urges. "Everything is set up. We'll be quick." 

There's a frenetic, tense energy over the palace. It's clear that this marriage is a gambit no one is happy with, and today would make it very, very real. 

Outside, there is a lone photographer. The sun, morning-ripe, reflects off his camera lens like a third eye. The lawn, freakishly green, sprawls out around you, and the blue spruce frames the scene, perfect by design. 

"I just need you to stand next to each other and smile," he says. "That's all, right?" He directs this towards your PR team, about seven too many for a task like this. One of them whispers something in his ear. Your parents watch from the shaded doorstep like wax figures in a museum. 

You and Joshua stand shoulder to shoulder, yearbook photo style. 

"Bit closer," the photographer calls out, and you smush yourself against his arm, close enough that you can appreciate he's got some muscle on him. "Alright. Hold still." 

Click. You've always hated the flash, but you root yourself obediently to the concrete. Your cheeks hurt from smiling. Click. 

Your mother interrupts her conversation with a staff member—likely haggling over the minutia of the statement—and says, "Look happier," as if you're in some dystopian advertisement for a new car. 

"She's talking to you," Joshua says through the grit of his fake, pink smile. 

"Right, because you're such a peach." 

You just want to go back inside and have breakfast. 

You place a tentative hand on Joshua's bicep and turn to him, beaming like you would at a hot bartender when there are five other people waiting for a drink. 

There's a glimmer of surprise in his expression before he matches you. You can see why people dote on him so much—his cheeks get round, and his eyes magically gain the sparkles that people pay for on Facetune. God really seems to have wasted a perfect face on him. 

"Move your hand up so we can see the ring." You obey, feeling the firm cord of his arm underneath you, and you wonder where the gym is in the palace. Joshua was certainly gatekeeping it from you. "Perfect." 

You stand there, living your America's Next Top Model nightmare, before the photographer hits you with, "A kiss for the camera, yeah?" 

All the blood drains from your face. You think you actually say Huh? aloud. Joshua opts to turn to his parents to intervene, which would be funny in literally any other scenario except this one. 

"You heard him," his father replies. "Act like you're actually engaged." 

Honestly, it was a fair request. No one wanted to take any chances. Plausible rumors of an arranged marriage would backfire spectacularly. Jeonghan wouldn't see the front cover of anything ever again, and the entirety of Acros would wonder just how deep in the shitter they were that Joshua was forced to marry you. 

Your parents were already so far into the conspiracy, you overheard them talking about using unpublished paparazzi pictures and rebranding them as times you snuck off to see your unfortunate lover. Point taken. 

"Okay, okay," you laugh nervously. "Of course." 

You face Joshua, steeling yourself, and lean in. The world seems to fall away, but not how you like—it feels as though you've been sucked out of your own body and dropped into a new one that doesn't know what a kiss is or how to do it. 

He's just like anyone else, you tell yourself. You're at the club. They're playing Everytime We Touch by Cascada. 

Soon all you know is the heat of your cheeks, the shaking flat of your palm over Joshua's shoulder, and the wet pressure of what feels like a pair of lips, soft but also very unwilling. 

Click. Click. Then it's over. Everyone huddles around the camera, like animals to a watering hole. Shame, hot and heavy, seems to drape itself over you. 

"Can we get one more?" the photographer asks.

Fuck. Your stomach drops. You can't even glare at Joshua. 

"Sure thing," Joshua says easily, unaware he was the reason it went so badly in the first place. 

You take a deep breath. You imagine a good Kylie Minogue song and a tall stranger with pecs that could fit into a bra, and your eyes flutter shut. 

You decide to go for it this time. Unfortunately, you and your inept partner are on entirely opposite pages again, and you almost miss each other by a mile. When you do get it right, it's messy, two teenagers fumbling in a closet with the lights off. 

Once everyone sees this massacre, it seems they resign themselves to the same conclusion you had long ago. Someone throws a thumbs up above their head, and everyone clears out so fast, it's like nothing ever happened. 

Soon, it's just you, Joshua, and your mother with a red pen and the manuscript. Your heart is still buzzing in your chest, even though you and Joshua are now standing at a distance that makes you believe in the cheese touch again. 

"Now that wasn’t so bad," she says, before escorting the two of you back inside. Perhaps lying cushions the blow of a bad decision, but you're already in too deep. The script, the cameras, even your mother's glossy words—your life is starting to feel like a permanent movie set, and you don't know how to clock out. 

The first thing you do is take off the ring. It's starting to look more and more like costume jewelry on your untrained, bumbling hand. Even still, you can still feel its ghost on your finger, see the glare of the camera flash in the laser-cut facets. 

Worse, you watch Joshua shrug off his sport jacket, likely wondering how exactly that went so wrong, and you can feel that same sensation, still warm, right over your lips.

--

"Save me, red wine, save me." 

Home, sweet home. You're back in Cotria for the rest of the week. This morning's stint was the only thing you had on the schedule, and you told Joshua you had some business to attend to at home. 

Said business was a Niçoise salad and half a bottle of wine, but no one had to know that part. Your struggle meals were your own business, and you think you will actually disintegrate on the spot if you have to sit through another conversation about World War II with Joshua's dad. The one you had at dinner last night was plenty. 

The restaurant you’re at is a familiar haunt, but not too familiar. The ass-kissers and the groupies have gotten good at keeping their heads on a swivel, and you’re not exactly planning on another encounter with a camera. But here, the crowd is quiet enough, the food good enough, the service fast enough. It’s enough, which you’ve come to prefer. 

That's the other thing about Cotria—there’s an overabundance of everything. Department stores, parlors, dog cafes, polished bars with overpriced cocktails. It’s almost a rarity to find a place like this, quiet enough to actually talk. 

"You must be in the fucking trenches," Somi says, shaking her head. "When's the press release getting published?"

"Next week," you groan. "The good news is that they want us to go to the derby afterward."

"Okay, miss horse girl," Somi says, clinking her wine glass against yours. "You betting this year?" 

"No, I shouldn't." You shovel another forkful of leaves into your mouth. "But I really hope I get to watch it instead of pretending to like a guy the whole time." 

"I didn't see you pretending in uni," Somi says, cocking an eyebrow up at you. "And those guys are ugly. This guy isn't." 

"Okay, wait," you protest. "Ugly cute. Don't get it twisted. And they don't act like sentient wet paint. This guy sucks." 

You're reminded of the moment before you left the palace this morning. Joshua saw that same black dress that he used against you make its way into your bag, and he gave you the dirtiest stink eye you'd ever seen. 

I'm not above tattling. They were the first words he'd said to you after The Incident. 

Good thing you won't have to, you replied. He didn't even see you out because no one was standing around to clap him on the back for being a good fake fiancé. 

"Whatever." Somi picks a tomato off your plate in exchange for some of her fries. "I wouldn't mind it, is what I'm saying." 

"You slept with the bouncer to get into Annabel’s." 

"Fuck off. He was actually really good. Club entry was just a bonus," she laughs. "That reminds me—you're coming to my birthday, right? Or do you have wifely duties now?" 

"Of course I'm coming!" you insist, feeling the word duty hit like an actual bullet to your chest. "I wouldn't miss it for the world." 

"Just making sure! You know I gotta have my people around." 

You had known Somi since you were in diapers. She's the cousin twice removed of a baron, or a count, or maybe even a viscount–you never were good at keeping track of those kinds of things. Even though you had seen her at countless brunches, coronations, and garden parties, you don't think you actually became friends until you ran into her at a college party in Mykonos. She sidled up to you, smelling like strawberries and the bleachy sting of hair dye, and handed you a cucumber margarita. 

The beer here sucks, she had whisper-shouted to you, right over the shell of your ear. Wanna dance? You were inseparable ever since. 

"It's going to be huge. There are, like, 200 people on the guest list right now. Soonyoung rented a villa, There's gonna be a champagne tower, and the music won't suck. Guaranteed." 

"That sounds perfect," you sigh. "Please tell me there's gonna be a pool. I need to show off my new swimsuit." 

"Duh." Somi rolls her eyes, glittery under her extensions. "The perfect opportunity to show the world that their hottest bachelorette is a bachelorette no longer. Also, we invited Pitbull.” 

“Shut the fuck up. Wait, is he actually coming?” 

”Dunno. Wouldn’t be very Mr. Worldwide of him to flake, though.” 

Pitbull or not, you think of the heat of the strobe lights, the electric trill of the too-loud speakers. You're dancing in a dress that looks like a chunk of the moon, with the little neon ties of your bikini top peeking out the sides. There's a peach highball in your hands and no one is telling you what to do, how to do it, or that you're doing it wrong. 

Then you think of Joshua. Maybe he'd loosen up after a few drinks. Maybe he'd dance with you, put those hands to use on your hips and kiss you like he should have earlier today. Maybe he'd even be good at it. The thought makes your cheeks sting.

“Should I invite Joshua?” Somi says, wrinkling her nose at how you immediately grimace. “What if he’s actually a blast?” 

"No! No. Absolutely not." 

“What if he’s—” Then she drops her singsong voice to a whisper. “Hung? Don’t tell me you haven’t seen those pictures of him in the Galapagos.” 

Unfortunately, you have. A lurid, glassy image of your soon-to-be-husband in a sleazy pair of swim trunks comes into vision. You push past the smile, the unfair pecs, and remind yourself of that horrible, self-righteous twist of the lips that he always has. 

Yes, that’s right. That’s the Joshua you know. 

You grab the wine from her and drink it right from the bottle. 

–

Of course it had to be the one time you’re not late to an event that you forget you had swapped everything in all your purses around. You double check your bag—empty. 

You’re already down by half of your worldly possessions (still at home, your real home), and you probably left the other half on Joshua’s bathroom counter. Yesterday, you got derailed mid-task by Joshua lighting the grossest candle ever. You never thought you’d ever fight over candles of all things, but you couldn’t let him walk away from that conversation thinking wet dirt was a normal, socially acceptable, scent for a bedroom. (—It said moss on the label! —So, dirt. —Moss is not dirt. Maybe you need to go back to school.) 

You fling open the bathroom door, still checking the pockets of your handbag, before you collide into a big, sopping wet wall. 

“What the—?” You look up. The wall is not a wall. No, in fact, it is your fiancé, bare fucking naked. 

Your heart jumps up to your throat. It feels like you walked right into a porno, and you can hear Somi’s self-satisfied, witch cackle right in your ear. His dark hair seems to fall into his eyes just right, a nice change from how he normally gels it up, and you watch the beads of water from the shower, torturously glittery, run down his jaw, the hollow of his neck, right onto his chest. 

Men should not be allowed to have bigger boobs than you, at least, not dowdy Joshua Hong, who normally has the sex appeal of an eraser. And God forbid your eyes travel downward and confirm Somi’s sick and twisted hypothesis, past the washboard abs, the v-line, the trail down his— 

“Sorry, did you need something?” You blink again and Joshua suddenly has a towel wrapped around his waist. And he’s eyeing you like you ate a million cloves of garlic and then proceeded to spit on him. “Or are you just going to stand here and ogle me?” 

“I wasn't—no!” You start snatching things off the counter, anything really, and throwing them into your bag. “I just needed to grab stuff for my… my thing. You’re in the way.” 

“Right, because you need four q-tips and my razor to read a children’s book,” Joshua replies, plucking the offending items out of your purse. “It's almost 12:30, by the way.” 

“Shit. Fuck,” you stammer. You can’t glare at him anymore because you know where your eyes will end up and it is not on his face. “Stop distracting me. Whatever.” 

“Have fun,” is the last thing Joshua tells you before you close the bathroom door, that portal to hell, right back up. 

What you can’t do is return the image of what you saw back to where it came from, the wicked, glistening form of Joshua and his B cup tits. He looked so good, it makes you angry. 

Later, on the walk to the library, you reach for your lip gloss. Instead, you pull out q-tip number five and get mad all over again. 

–

The car ride to the derby feels like your own personal Saw trap, if Jigsaw wore a ridiculous hat and was actually your mother. 

Your engagement was announced to the public just a few days ago. It came with no fanfare, no warning. You were sitting on your bed, making your way through the smut Joshua called a novel, when the news app on your phone kindly notified you that you were now a taken woman. 

To some degree, the media uproar fascinated you. The idea that people with actual journalism degrees were writing headcanons about your honeymoon when you hadn’t even seen Joshua since The Bathroom Incident was surely entertaining, to say the least. But, like everything, the unsaid pressure of being a perfect princess, now part of an even more perfect couple, hangs heavy over you. 

You remind yourself this is supposed to be fun. A real couple would be pawing at each other in the backseat, perhaps pregaming with champagne or fan-casting their pick for Spirit the horse. Instead, you’re stuck rehearsing your pitch to the reporters when they inevitably ask you about how the hell this happened. You wish you could tell them you’re not quite sure either. 

Silently, you look at Joshua. Joshua looks out the window. The world rumbles under you. 

[10:15 am, race 1]

The air seizes, swirls with clay-colored dust in the morning sun. The clubhouse is already heady with the low buzz of conversation—you watch the freckled sunhats and oily toupees bob up and down in the swell of the crowd, deep in the morning’s small talk. You wonder how many of them are talking about you, given how recently the news hit. You’re used to people ignoring your media appearances, not celebrating them. 

Someone, tipping their head down to greet you, hands you a program. Joshua elects to tuck his in his back pocket. People don’t come to the derby to watch the races. Instead, it’s an excuse to gossip, day drink, and gamble, which would ordinarily be a good time for you if you weren’t overly invested in the racing circuit. 

All the way from the entrance to your seats, you were met with a tidal wave of camera flashes, all hungry for a glimpse of your first public appearance as a couple. Alongside this, a decidedly worse flurry of congratulations paired with an overly familiar touch to the shoulder or a limp handshake. Joshua is quick to respond with either a smile or some trite platitude. Your least favorite: We couldn’t be happier. Now he’s just lying for sport. 

“We should find the reporters doing interviews,” Joshua says the second his ass touches the chair, unfazed by the onslaught of perhaps a million different people. “The Sun probably wants to talk to us.” 

You’re not listening—you can’t let on that this whole ordeal is mildly terrifying for you. He has enough reasons to dislike you, and stage fright wouldn’t exactly be a good addition to the list. 

The racehorses have lined up at the track, their manes catching the daylight like holy fire. You like the one on the end. He looks like Peanut, Jeonghan’s stubborn palomino. 

Joshua says your name insistently, curdled with the annoyance that you’ve now become acquainted with, and you catch a stray camera flash from the stands. You have an audience, and the audience demands a show, even if they’re second-rate journalists like the scum from The Sun.  

“Darling,” you reply flatly. “Relax. Let's enjoy the races.” 

The horses stretch their long legs, anxious for the thunderclap of the starter’s pistol. Joshua raises a tired eyebrow before the same realization dawns on him. 

“Absolutely.” He clears his throat. “Darling.” 

You wrap a hand around his arm—somehow he makes hand-holding seem like third base—and watch his shoulders sink with a sigh, like you just popped him. 

Likewise, your highness. Likewise. 

A shot crackles through the air, and you’re off to the races. 

[12:43 pm, race 2.]

"I just have to know—how did you guys meet?" 

You know the duchess of Pemarlia to be beautiful and unashamedly nosy, and she has yet to prove you wrong on either account. 

The last time you saw her was on the beach at Lake Como last year, where she spent the entirety of your conversation asking if Jeonghan was single (and peeking into your bag to see what brand of lipstick you were wearing). Like everyone, she always seems to have a look of appraisal on her face. What makes her different is that she never really bothers to hide it; instead, she wears it like an en-vogue accessory. 

She eyes you with an intensity, sizing up your dress, your tawdry sunhat, your ring. You wonder if she’d agree that marriage didn’t look good on you, but any shorter of a dress, your mother would call you a stripper. And God forbid you leave the house hat-less. 

Now she’s no minotaur. This shouldn’t be much of a problem, save for one very small issue: you actually hadn’t planned your answer to this. You had quibbled over it briefly in the car, but you were too focused on your interview pitch to worry about minor gossip. 

"Well," Joshua starts. Through his smile, you can hear the warning edge of his voice. “It was quite ordinary.” 

"Actually," you cut him off. Not only would his version of this story be boring, it would also be horribly out-of-character for you. You did not come this far for your cover to be blown by Joshua’s lack of imagination. "Josh's parents hosted a—" 

"Brunch," Joshua finishes. Whether his teeth are gritted because he's grinning or frustrated is none of your business. “It was Easter brunch, wasn’t it, sweet pea? Four years ago?” 

The pet name makes you want to puke. Now he’s just trying to piss you off, but you know this is his attempt to play along. He's annoying, not dumb. 

"Yes, we sat across from each other.” You playfully dig your elbow into Joshua’s rock-hard side. “He was giving me the eyes the whole time.” 

You watch your hapless victim giggle, her spidery lashes wide with intrigue. Joshua is a little less pleased. 

“If you could call it that,” he replies. “I think you had chocolate on your nose.”

“Which you so kindly wiped off for me, dear.” You try to peek around the flaxen billows of the duchess’s blowout to watch the horses behind her, but to no avail. “After a morning of staring, we had to do an Easter egg hunt, planned by Joshie himself. I had no idea he loved silly little games like that.” 

“It's because people like the princess get so competitive,” Joshua says, with his laser beam grin boring into your eye sockets. “I believe I found you rummaging through the trash for eggs, like some kind of animal.” 

“Oh my goodness,” the duchess laughs. “How...charming.”  

You feel your eyebrow twitch. Only you’re allowed to ruin your own reputation, but you suppose that’s just another thing your horrible fake fiance gets to take from you. 

“Not as embarrassing as seeing Joshua leer at me from behind the corner,” you retort. “He was so enamored that when I invited him to join me, he got right down on his knees to look through the trash together.” 

“Well, did you find anything?” 

“Yes—”

“No—”

“Well—”

Fuck. Luckily, the duchess is either stupid or wildly entertained by the clown show playing out before her. Maybe both. 

“Cute,” she coos. “You must have been too smitten to notice.” 

“Absolutely,” Joshua says, as if there is a gun held to his pretty head. “Among all the garbage and the girl next to me, I suppose nothing else really mattered.” 

“If that isn’t love, what is?” she asks blithely. 

If only she knew. 

[3:45 pm, race 3]

The sun descends on the stadium, swollen and yellow with the afternoon. 

Last year, you and your friends had a betting ring set up during the racing circuit. Obviously, you had won—not too hard when your competition included Soonyoung, who only bet on horses named after food (sadly, it was not Tater Tot’s year). Somi was no better, and your brother thought every horse deserved a participation award.

This time around, things aren’t so simple. But you’d hate to say that you spent a whole day at the track and didn’t bet on a single race. Life could afford you at least one win for today. 

Again, the horses take their positions at the starting line, wound up like a line of rubber bands. The air heaves with bated breath. 

“Joshua,” you say, folding your hands in your lap as you find your target. “I'd like to propose a bet.” 

“You must be a glutton for punishment.” 

You bite back a laugh as you watch your favorite horse, the palomino, ripple in place. Fans would call her a charity case, but you know better. 

“Pick a horse. Mine is number Three, in the blue.” 

“And if mine wins? What’s in it for me?” he asks. Still, he leans forward, corded forearms on his thighs. You watch him squint as he surveys the field with renewed interest. 

“You pick,” you reply. “Choose wisely. I personally cannot wait to call in a favor from you.” 

“The chestnut one. Number Nine.” So he is competitive. “And likewise. Perhaps I'll hold it over your head until the wedding.” 

Before you can reply, you hear the starting pistol rip clean into the air. The racehorses surge forward, as if a silken ribbon through air. 

“Nine makes sense for you,” you say, eyes fixed before you. “He's flashy, the crowd favorite. Spotless pedigree.” 

“I'm picking your punishment already.” 

“I didn't say he would win.” You feel the lilt of your voice rocking upward, the tremulous beat of your heart against your ribs. “You see, Three’s had a rough season. There she is, passing Four right now.” 

“Nine is still first, though.” 

“It’s not about that,” you reply. “She does this, she starts all the way out back and then flies up. No one suspects anything—it’s like she likes proving people wrong. The first couple races of the season, she was just stretching her legs; they were small, small fry. It’s this one that matters.” 

The saddles are just blurs on the track now. To the march of the hoofbeats, Three lunges past Five, Six. The crowd roars. 

“This will be her first win. I'm counting on it. She’s come really close before.” 

Joshua doesn’t reply. Out of the corner of your eye, you see his gaze has shifted. You feel it land somewhere near you, but you’re too engrossed in the race to investigate further. Perhaps he’s admitted defeat preemptively, wisely so. 

“You know your stuff,” he murmurs, the clamor of the audience almost burying him. 

“How can I not?” Three coasts past One and Ten like she’s flying, until it’s just her and unlucky number Nine. “Oh my god. Go, go, go!” 

You and Joshua rise to your feet, as if drawn by a string, now wholly invested in the race. 

“Still beating you, you know.” 

“Not for long! Come on!” 

You watch your darling number Three, against all odds, pull past Joshua’s number Nine, burning a trail past the inevitable finish line. 

From somewhere inside you emerges a joy that you hadn’t felt since this whole ordeal started. You turn to Joshua and clasp his hands between yours, somehow less wooden now, and so, so human. The crowd cheers; they come alive. 

[4:50 pm, races 4 and 5. mainly, the reporter from the sun.] 

The smaller races take place shortly after the headliner, for better or for worse. This forces you to finally face the music—the music being a dull-eyed, greasy journalist ready to sink his teeth into the public’s new favorite topic. 

Joshua is a good sport about it, or at least, he’s good at pretending to be one. 

“It was great,” is his answer to a question you didn’t hear. You’re busy going over the parts of the script that you remember. Your media team spent the better part of the morning repeating it back to you, which was helpful until it wasn’t. You weren’t sure how to tell them you’ve actually never been good at speaking to the press, since you had spent the better half of your life doing the exact opposite. 

“And what did the princess think? It’s not often we catch you for an interview, you know.” 

The eye of the camera seems to pierce through you. You can see your shellacked figure, long and distorted, in the reflection. 

“I—um,” you swallow hard. God. Pull it together. You can already hear the lecture you’re going to get on the way home today. “Yeah, big day today.”

“She’s had to really rein in her excitement, you know,” Joshua adds, chuckling. 

Briefly, you feel his hand brush against yours. Ordinarily, you’d pass it off as a fluke, but you feel the steady, insistent warmth of his palm again, first, to the inside of your wrist, then lower still. Before you’re able to really process what’s happening, he then takes your hand in his all at once, as if to say, I’ve got this. I’ve got you. 

You figure he’s cashing in his favor early–he’d much rather leave you out to dry, let you flounder a bit so you learn to read the PR memorandums the night before. I told you so, he’d say. That’s what everyone else would say, anyway. 

“The races are sure exciting, but I'm sure you’re even more excited about your upcoming wedding.” The reporter grins at you, as if he smells your fear. His hair looks like it’s glued to the top of his shiny head. “If I'm going to be honest, you were one of the last people we’d expect to tie the knot this year. We are all dying to hear more.” 

What? You force yourself to breathe, feel the air fill your lungs, to avoid making an expression you’ll regret. 

“Well, yeah, I'm sure it looks like it all happened quickly,” you answer, feeling your tongue trip over the words. Mostly because it did, in fact, happen quickly, but you can’t let them know that. “But Josh and I feel strongly about, uh, this whole thing, and—”

“Please, don’t spare us the details.” 

Telepathically, Joshua squeezes your hand. This, you understand. He’s telling you to lean on him, and you trust that. 

“Hold your horses,” he cuts in, almost too quickly, which makes the corners of your mouth twitch upward. He was definitely looking for an opening, but you, bizarrely, don’t mind at all. He turns to you and smiles. “What's the fun without a little mystery? It's been a wild ride, but I'm loving every second of it.” 

It’s this one, the lamest and most embarrassing dad joke of them all, that gets you. 

You laugh: a real one, big, loud, and unafraid. It's here, caught in the glare of the camera flash, where you find yourself hoping, even just a little, that this wasn’t just a favor, that this was a sign you could actually survive this arrangement. 

You’re not asking for love—just a little bit of like. and, right now, you think you like Joshua Hong. 

—

In the evening, you find yourself in the oaken parlor nestled away in the back halls of the Acrosian palace. 

There's a piano there, gathering dust. It's a Steinway, spindly and chestnut, almost identical to the one you have at the palace in Cotria. 

You and Jihoon had been unpacking your hodgepodge of things (unsorted, since the act of sorting would have forced you to stomach the fact that you were actually moving), when he had found your old lesson books. 

You should break in that piano, he had said. Either that, or wait for your fiance to find you. He seemed ok at the derby today. 

I guess. 

What Jihoon hadn’t seen was all the photographs you had to take after your interview with The Sun, where Joshua decided to remind you that you were supposed to hate him. By that, you mean that he managed to make every single one unbearable. (A tap of the foot: Stand up straight. A careful brush of the elbow: Let’s link arms. A discerning, tactful glance at your chest: Pull up your dress. That, or he was no better than the average man.) 

You and he hadn’t talked much after that. Hopefully, he’s fled to your cold, dark dungeon of a room to read, so he can finally leave you alone.

“Remember when your parents invited all their friends over and asked you to play?” Jihoon says, perched on the loveseat while he sorts through an old jewelry box. 

“Yeah, and I literally forgot everything?” you laugh. “Freaking Jeonghan had to check on me because I locked myself in my room for 24 hours straight. And then he had the nerve to laugh at me.” 

You thumb through the fattest book of the pile. The binding is soft; the pages now yellow and fuzzed over by time. 

On page 5, Chopin's Waltz in A-flat major. three four time or whatever, you had scrawled in defiant red ink. Page 37, a thick black line through Debussy's name on Arabesque No. 1. This is because you would always laugh at it during lessons, and you wanted to save yourself the trouble. 

“Do you want to keep this?” Jihoon holds up a choker that resembles a jock strap. “When did you even wear this? It looks like a cat toy.” 

You ignore him and start to play. You were never excellent—competent would be a better word. Still, it was enough for you. Soonyoung would ask you to play during drunk karaoke, and you could still keep up with Jeonghan when he played one of his overcomplicated duets. 

Your hands remember the velvet thud of the keys, the glide of the pedal. When you turn the page, there’s a scrawled in BITCH! next to a heavily circled allegro. Piano was one of the only things that your parents forced you to do that you actually liked. The kicker was that it didn’t even do you any good. You weren’t as talented as your parents would like you to be, meaning that, to them, you weren’t talented at all. 

It’s then that your fingers slip, and you miss a chord. In your defense, you have a fresh manicure. Always blame the nails. Your mom hated when you kept them long, even more than your hardass tutor.  

“The prince is helping with the theater production this year, right?” Jihoon holds a single earring up to the light. You think you lost the other one in Ibiza last year. “You gonna help out again?” 

“Maybe.” Another wrong note. You’re losing steam trying to read all the ledger lines and your smeared, illegible writing next to them. “I don't know. He probably won’t even want me to. I'm choosing a different piece, by the way. Bored of this one.” 

The truth about your 21st birthday was that you did actually intend to spend it at the youth theater. It was your idea before it was Jeonghan’s idea, but, at the time, you both still were a package deal.

You were on piano; Jeonghan was on whatever else he pleased. He'd always been indecisive like that. At the bench, you’d hoist the little ones on your knee and regale them with the classical version of the opening song from Paw Patrol. Jeonghan stole prop masks from the back, mostly to hide behind the curtains and scare people, you included. You’d both stay up late, paint spackled on your palms, trying to Michelangelo a backdrop with the combined artistic talent of a TI-84. 

The production became your thing, just you and him, no cameras, no press releases, no parents. But like everything else, neither you, Jeonghan, nor anyone else was able to keep those inevitable truths apart. The set pieces were repainted in Italy, the finger-painted fields turned luminescent with varnish; the pins and needles in the costumes swapped with mother-of-pearl; and, finally, you, replaced by a classically trained pianist from Juilliard. At least he was hot. 

Everyone knows the rest of the story—the red carpet, the empty seats, and the puffy pink balloons outside the mansion in Saint Tropez. 

“Oh please,” Jihoon wheedles. “You and I both know he wanted you there.” 

“Then maybe he should have fought harder.” You flip to a random page, this one marked up in pink gel pen. You remember it bled through all the pages behind it, making it a pain to read but awfully funny during lessons. “It doesn't matter. There’s probably wedding stuff I gotta deal with.” 

Jihoon lets you play this next piece uninterrupted. It’s not that it’s a sensitive subject for you—there were plenty of other things that filled the wedge between you and your brother—but it certainly didn’t help. 

You let your fingers wander over the stubborn keys. It feels good to play, even if you’re almost unforgivably rusty. You reach for the page, when you hear Jihoon again: “You know, you’re allowed to come in, your highness.” 

Immediately, your hands freeze. Like a scolded child, you become aware of how your fingers teeter over the keys, the stumbling, awkward clacking of your nails, the one or two missed quarter notes from the last measure. 

You turn to face the door, where Joshua stands, leaning against the frame like a sleazy model from an Abercrombie catalog. He probably came from the gym. Seeing him dressed down is still very weird, mostly because you can’t decide if it’s because he looks good or if it’s because it reminds of seeing your teacher at the grocery store. 

“Anyone teach you manners?” you ask, unsure if your hackles should be raised. 

“No, I was raised in a barn, just like those horses you like so much,” he laughs. “I didn’t want to interrupt. You’re not bad, you know.” 

“Thanks.” You eye him skeptically. “Thought you were gonna comment on the nails.” 

“Do you want me to?” 

“Preferably not, but it’s not like you‘d listen to me anyway.” You look for Jihoon’s reaction, but he seems to have conveniently disappeared. “Let’s play a duet. I’m cashing in my favor.” 

“Sure,” Joshua replies. “I'm no good, though. Might be more of a punishment for you.” 

You slide over on the bench, and he sidles up next to you. He smells like Le Labo and sweat, the sting citrusy and bright, close enough to linger. 

“No good?” You pick up another fat book from the stack atop the lid: The Joy of Duets. “Me neither.” 

“You have no idea,” he chuckles. “And trust me, I tried.”  

“I’ll do top?” you announce. 

Joshua snickers, and you kick him under the bench (really, just a tap of your foot). 

You spend the next two minutes tripping over a Schubert piece. Terribly, this is endearing to you. You make somewhat of a couple—you, with your horrible form, and Joshua, now squinting at the key signature like it’ll make it easier to read.

“Buddy,” you exclaim. “Left hand goes here.” Laughing, you reposition his hand mid-chord to an octave below. You feel it tense beneath you before yielding to proper technique. 

“Aw, what?” he whines. “See, I told you I was no good. Give me a second.” 

You watch him puzzle over the next few lines, pretty brow furrowed. You conclude that Pajama Joshua is decidedly better than Prince Joshua. He’s funnier, kinder, warmer. Even his hands feel softer. 

“Also, about earlier today,” you start. The words are starting to dry up on your tongue, but you figure Pajama Joshua is an easier target than usual. “I didn't know they trained you in stand-up comedy.” 

“We laugh in this country too, you know.” When Joshua says this, he grins, bumping into your shoulder like you’d been friends for a long time. For once, it feels easy, natural. 

“Well, thanks anyway.” 

“I couldn't leave my fiancée out to dry.” The word must sound ridiculous even to him, because he laughs just the same as he did when he unloaded his ridiculous puns onto the unassuming world. “No really. We’re in this together, unfortunately. It’s my duty.” 

Duty, both the knife and the wound. You can’t say you’re surprised he’s only nice to you out of obligation. So is everyone else, and you don’t know why you thought it’d be any different, especially coming from him. It’s not like you’re wearing your ring now either; you suppose you’re just as guilty. 

“You cross over here,” you tell him, changing the topic. You slide your hand over his, and it bends to you. “Thumb under. Sorry, I couldn't help but notice.” 

“It's ok,” Joshua replies. “I only learned piano because I had to. When I stopped going to lessons, I forgot everything. Now I feel like I put this piano to shame.” 

“Really? Not to stroke your ego, but you strike me as the type to be good at everything.” 

“No,” he chuckles. “Only when I have to be. I actually wanted to learn how to play guitar.” 

“No way.” 

“Yes way. I wanted to have one of those woven guitar straps, get a little pick collection going, be able to play any song from the Beatles discography. All the cliche stuff.” 

“Well, why can’t you?” you ask. “Minus the Beatles thing. Pick better music.” 

“Back then, it never occurred to me. We all learn piano.” 

“That's silly,” you blurt out. “Who cares?” 

“That's a little rich coming from you.” 

You frown, feeling all the usual unpleasantries bubble up through your skin. 

“That's not really fair.” You absentmindedly play a few keys, all disjointed. “Taking guitar lessons doesn’t make you a problem child.” 

“It's not about that, though,” Joshua says. He's avoiding your eyes. “It's everything, together. I couldn't just pick up a guitar and be someone else.” 

“Someone else? You mean you? The real you?” 

“Yes,” Joshua presses. “That's the point. I can't just do whatever I want. Sometimes the real you is more trouble than it’s worth.” 

“Someone’s dramatic. If you do everything the same, nothing will change. Maybe getting into a little trouble isn’t such a bad thing.” 

“Forgive me,” he says, mid-chuckle. “You wouldn’t call this trouble?” 

He’s got you there. Childishly, all your pride hardens to a lump in your throat, one you’ve never learned to swallow. 

“Your family needed our help too, remember?” 

“Yeah, and you think I don’t think about that every day? How, maybe, if I had done something different, then we wouldn’t be here?” 

You feel stung. You don’t know how to tell him that you’ve been trying to figure out the same thing your whole life. If you were a better daughter, you’d have spared everyone the trouble. Unfortunately, you’d gotten it wrong so many times, you stopped trying.

What's worse is that he doesn’t even sound mad—you watch his fingertips ghost over the keys of a C-scale, rhythmically, methodically. Piano scales, this marriage, everything: just things to do on his never-ending list. 

A hesitant knock at the door interrupts any possibility of you coming up with anywhere close to the right thing to say. 

“Prince Joshua, the king and queen need to speak to you.” It’s an aide, probably sweating bullets deciding when and how they should intrude on this wonderful conversation of yours.

“Right,” says Joshua, and when he gets up from the bench, he doesn’t look back. 

—

“You ready to get stuffed?” 

Good fucking morning to you—Somi’s voice, fluorescent through your phone speakers, seems to be enough of an alarm clock for you. Joshua, in the doorway dual wielding a coffee cup and the morning paper, raises a tired eyebrow.

After the events of last night, you’d wondered if he would somehow disappear at nighttime in an effort to avoid his eventual fate (you). Instead, you found him on his usual side of the bed, drinking his usual mug of chamomile tea, in his usual silence. 

You've heard that couples shouldn’t go to bed angry, but no one said anything about indifferent. Then again, you and Joshua are hardly a couple. 

“Ew,” you laugh. “No. Maybe? Should I be scared?” 

“Absolutely. You’re eating your weight in food today because I need your opinion on catering.” 

Smushing your phone between your cheek and your shoulder, you watch the mirror as your wavering reflection puts on a layer of mascara. 

“For your party?” 

“Yeah, although on second thought, maybe it’s a bad idea to bring the girl who’s gonna puke everything up anyway.” 

“My IBS is none of your business. Besides, the real food critic is Jihoon,” you reply. “Sometimes I feel like that’s the only reason he still works here.” 

“You’re coming in an hour, right?” 

You check the clock. No, you are not. You’re only halfway through a full beat and if you don’t get any caffeine inside you within the hour, you will commit a crime. 

“Nope.” You pop open your compact. “I have to change, and I desperately need to locate a coffee. I will suck a fucking bean off if i need to.” 

“I'm hanging up on you,” Somi whines. “It's too early for you to be gross and late.”  

“As if you weren’t talking about getting stuffed.” 

“Whatever.” Click.

At this point, you feel like Somi’s party is both the proverbial and literal light at the end of the tunnel. No expectations, no rules, and no semi-arguments between you and your doomed fiance. 

Then you notice that Joshua’s disappeared from the room—he probably couldn’t stand listening to your end of the conversation. Briefly, you wonder where he is. Off running an errand for his dear parents, perhaps, or maybe at the gym you still haven’t discovered yet. Even from the hefty distance he keeps you at, you can still appreciate a man who looks like he’s touched a dumbbell. 

It's only when you’re halfway out the door, almost an hour later, juggling your purse and your phone and the distinct absence of a caffeinated beverage, that you find him. 

“Come to ruin my day?” you ask, maybe three-fourths joking. 

“Don’t give me any ideas,” he replies. Under the bluebird sky of late morning, lips upturned and eyes bright, Joshua may be a sight you could get used to. Someday. “Brought you a coffee. I can’t have you sucking off a bean—the reporters would go crazy.” 

Jihoon, hovering by the car, chokes on his water. 

“Oh!” The surprise knocks the sound out of you. “Thank you. Really.” 

“Gladly,” he says, and he sounds like he means it.

He holds all your stuff as you clamber into the car, before handing it back to close the door for you. You’ll admit it’s nice, but as Jihoon starts to drive, you feel a familiar twist in your chest.

“Interesting,” he remarks. “Didn’t know you were on a coffee order basis.” 

“We’re not,” you answer. You pop the lid open. It's a cappuccino, made the classic way, milk foam bubbling out the top. Not your favorite, but it’ll do. 

More than that, it’s an olive branch. Yesterday did get weird, but you’re getting the impression that it’ll always get weird. Undoubtedly, there is someone out there who’ll get Joshua. His schedules, his straight-backed obligation, the polished photo ops and the cappuccinos made to a perfect one to one to one ratio. You know this because this is the world you came from, one that should be home to you. 

Instead, you circle each other in an unsure, clumsy dance. You can’t quite get it right. It's all the same now. The bite of a horse saddle not made for your body, the glow of your heirloom ring, now cheapened by your graceless hand, Joshua’s lonely, reaching palm as he disappears in the rearview mirror. 

—

On your arrival home in the evening, you return with two things: a few extra kilos and an absolutely horrendous copy of the Daily Mail, courtesy of Somi, who saw it at the grocery. 

"Great showing from the couple of the year," you say, shucking your copy at Joshua. "It looks like we're in Shark Tale." 

Even from a distance, the cheap ink-spackled cover shows more than enough. LIP LOCK FLOP!, it reads, although you wouldn’t really call it a lip lock. 

It was at the derby—Quick, they’re looking at us, you had said. Then what you would call a nun’s version of a kiss: you, already halfway out the door, and him, lips hesitant and pursed, as if he was asked to smooch his withering, dusty great-grandmother. 

"I'm not even going to ask what you mean by that," Joshua answers, voice level. "It's not that bad." 

He puts his book down to pick the magazine up, holding it at a distance like the image will jump out of the page and bite him. You see his expression flicker, and that's all you need to confirm your suspicions. 

"Ok, it's a little bad." He places it on the nightstand next to him face-down. "It'll be alright. It's not like the wedding will be called off over one bad picture." 

"You know that's not the issue." You sit on your side of the bed, about a full meter away from him. You kind of want to look again just to see how bad it is, but you're sure it'll be inescapable by the morning. 

"Since when did you care what the press thought of you?" 

"Since it mattered." You stare at your lap, eyes fixed on the too-new, wiggly hem of your pajamas instead of him. You can tell he's still looking at you, though–you think those big, watery eyes have some sort of flashlights in them, and you don't like it. "It seems wrong if our mistakes take up space." 

You hear him make a small noise of agreement. Joshua still won't admit that you're right, but you suppose you like that a little. At least he'll be stubborn about something, even if it's about clearly not liking you. 

"What do you suggest?" he asks, putting his book down. “We didn't choose each other, so I'm not surprised there's no attraction." 

"Ouch." He's right, but you'd rather be the one saying it. "I'm a good kisser. You aren't." 

"I'm just not good at kissing you," he retorts. 

"Evidently." You shimmy towards his side of the bed, where the sheets are cooler under your thighs, the pillows still neatly arranged on the headboard. "What I'm saying is that we should at least try to look more realistic. Like–" 

"Are you saying we should practice?" Joshua looks at you over the frames of his glasses, incredulous. 

"Yeah," you say, now too far in it to back out. "Like exposure therapy. For unwilling couples." 

The room gets quiet, as if it wasn't unbearably so before. You watch Joshua pick up his book again. He puts the bookmark in, two-thirds from the spine of the book so as to not ruin the binding, and places it over the doomed tabloid. 

"Okay." To your surprise, he turns to face you. The lamplight catches the lens of his glasses and makes his eyes look warmer than they truly are. "How should we do this?" 

The way Joshua's gaze settles on you makes you feel like you're being evaluated. An exam in Kissing 101, except the test would rather not have anything to do with you at all. For the first time in your life, you let your eyes wander to his lips, rosy and full, and you feel the pit of anxiety in your belly grow wider. Somehow he's managed to take all the fun out of one of your favorite activities, but you'll be damned if he walks away from this thinking it's you who's the problem. 

"Just...let me lead," you say quietly, now leaning closer to him. You have to ease yourself into it. You let your body respond, feel the skip of your heart, a heady flush wash over your cheeks. He smells like spearmint and clover. 

You've kissed a lot of people. None of this should feel new to you. His eyelashes skim against your cheek, and you can hear the breath he takes, quivering, gentle.

Despite all this, the first kiss is no better than any of the other ones. his lips meet yours, hesitant before they start moving. He's shy, and it would almost endear him to you if he wasn't so annoying. But then the charade is over. His nose clocks yours and it startles you both enough to draw away, ever so slightly. 

"Not my fault," you murmur. You're so close, you can see your reflection in his pupils, glassy and dark. 

"Thought this was practice," responds Joshua, unfazed. 

So you lean in again, giving it another go. Two is better—sweet and succinct. a first date type of kiss. You can taste the berry of your lip balm on him. 

Then again, except this time it's him who goes in, chases your lips. 

The scary thing is that you thought this would be much harder. You had stood in the bathroom, looked yourself in the mirror, and psyched yourself up to do the impossible. 

But the moment you meet him, now so close there's no room to breathe, you feel an impenetrable, unshakable desire crawling up your bones. Your palm finds the flat of his chest. Even under the silk of his ridiculous pajama top, you feel the heat of his skin, the restless quick of his heartbeat, and your stomach flips. 

Four, five. You're losing count. Joshua's hand trails up your arm to cup your cheek, and you'd be lying if you said you didn't feel your breath catch in your chest. 

He's warm, so warm. When your other hand finds the back of his neck, he makes a small sound in his throat and you like it.

It's at this point you realize there is no point in pretending. Maybe you don't want to kiss Joshua at any other moment during any other day, but you do now. You really do. 

When your tongue meets the seam of his lips, it feels all too natural. At first, predictably, he buffers a bit. For a split second, you envision him pulling away and saying you've gotten more than a lifetime's worth of practice in. 

But he doesn't. Instead, an arm winds around your waist and that's all it takes for your body to stop listening to you altogether. Lips still connected, you lift yourself to straddle his lap, right over the folded up covers, and his hands, devastatingly strong, find your hips to keep you rooted there. 

You're starting to think he isn't such a bad kisser after all—maybe he really was holding out on you, but there's something weirdly rewarding about him waiting until he liked you just a little more. Whatever that means. 

You learn that his hair is soft, really soft, at the base of his neck. You learn that he likes when you bite his lips and you learn that his spearmint mouthwash does, in fact, taste as good as it smells. 

You also learn that you, paradoxically, might not know how to love Joshua Hong, but you sure do know how to kiss him. 

--end of part 1--

[part 2 -> ]